Glowbal Group’s Trattoria in Burnaby 

During the spring break I attended a Meetup at the Glowbal Group’s Trattoria in Burnaby on the corner of Kingsway and Willingdon.  As I often do, I get right to the bottomline – overall, I found enough I liked about Trattoria to make me want to return to sample more of the menu items.

That being said, the few menu items that we did sample at the Meetup were specially prepared for our group and are not available on their menu exactly as we had them. That is part of why I will definitely be returning – to anonymously sample the menu and level of service I receive when I am “just a customer”.

To start  our table shared an appetizer platter – I apologize that the I do not recall the names of each of the appetizers on the platter but I can say that they were all quite attractive.

I particularly enjoyed the meat balls – what they call Signature Meatballs. They had a pleasing texture; not as dense and “meaty” as too many meatballs tend to be. I suppose it is kind of a strange to appreciate a meatball that is not too meaty! At any rate, the meatballs were the highlight of the appetizer platter for me.

I only had a small tasting of the green salad and I found the vinaigrette  dressing to be perfectly light and full of flavour.

The portion size of the appetizer platter was a little bit disappointing – three big meatballs to be shared at a table of ten people. Of course I did attend the event with the idea of sampling the food offerings and not to get stuffed so the relatively small sample size was somewhat expected.

Like the appetizer platter, we were presented with a share platter for our mains.

My favourite on this platter was the truffled spaghetti with herbed ricotta. The spaghetti, while not made fresh in-house, was cooked perfectly. This is not surprising seeing as Trattoria is a restaurant that focuses on Italian food.

There was enough truffle oil on the spaghetti to give it a deep and sort or earthy of flavour and scent. It is a funny thing to describe.

The herbed ricotta melted into the spaghetti beautifully and added a very rich and creamy “topping” to the spaghetti. If I were to return I would definitely have a full order of this dish to myself.

There was also some grilled veal on the platter – again, ten people at a table, small sampler of veal – I had a tiny taste. Which was nice tasting but not nearly enough.

As well as the truffled spaghetti and grilled veal, the Penne Arrabiata was another flavour hit for me. The white creamy looking stuff on top of it was their burrata – a soft, mozzarella-like cheese that has an unusually creamy texture.

The thick tomato sauce had a pretty significant spice kick to it. I enjoyed this part of the platter but I don’t think I would order it again. Good stuff, just not great.

I apologize for the out of focus photo above.

The desserts were even more difficult to manage than the dinner platters. One piece of Tiramisu to somehow be cut up and shared between ten people proved to be completely unrealistic.

There was another dessert plate that came with the Tiramisu but it did not make it to my end of the table before being destroyed so I did not have an opportunity to try it.

And now that we are back to the bottom line – yes I will return to Trattoria in Burnaby. I want to see what the food is like when I go in and order on my own. As well, they have some interesting and appealing promotions –

• Sundays are $10 pizzas – Yep. That works for me!
• Mondays kids under 8 eat free. That appeals to me!
• Tuesdays they put pastas on for $12. Yep. I will be returning on a Tuesday!!

There are other features with wine and cocktail specials to bring people in to visit Trattoria but the Sunday – Tuesday features are the ones that will bring me back in to the restaurant.

I will be sure to let you know how my next visit to Trattoria in Burnaby goes. Until then…