Long Live the Snack Bar! Good Thief and Meo Celebrate the Art of Drinking and Eating and Drinking Some More

The days of single-plate dinners—the ones where you order the chicken and your partner orders the fish—seem to belong to a bygone era hallmarked by white tablecloth birthday celebrations and sport coat-required dining rooms. In their stead are an abundance of new eateries focused on shared plates, good cocktails and, well, vibes. When a menu highlights communal eating, it also highlights the social aspect of dining, so please don’t call small-plate restaurants just a trend—this is a new approach to eating that’s actively bringing us closer together. On this fresh list of such innovative Vancouver restaurants are Good Thief and Meo: two newcomers that have debuted as the fun younger siblings of beloved staples Anh and Chi and Michelin-starred Kissa Tanto.

Mount Pleasant’s Good Thief (descri-bed by co-founder Amelie Nguyen as “Anh and Chi’s rebellious little brother”) opened earlier this year to immediate praise. The lush, emerald room and funky tunes create a hip and youthful ambiance, but the ambitious, bites-focused menu and expansive cocktail offerings solidify the space as a hot spot for adventurous diners.

The cocktail program is, in my humble opinion, the most important piece of any snack-style menu. Good Thief’s program takes you on a journey through Southeast Asia, celebrating different ingredients throughout the region. There’s the Hoi An Nights ($18), a lemongrass gin-based cocktail delicately flavoured with chili, salt, ube, jasmine and lychee and arriving in a stunningly purple hue. Or consider the Heist ($20), my favourite drink of the night and an effervescent take on rum punch that’s made with the restaurant’s own calamansi “super juice” (the bar staff combines the zest of the tiny tropical fruit with citric acid and juice to make a concentrated, shelf-stable ingredient).

While the flavours of the food portion of the menu are similar to those you’ll find next door at Anh and Chi, the presentation draws more strongly on French influences. Take the escargot ($16), described as a “banh pate so”; the dish arrives looking identical to a vol-au-vent rather than the closed-top Vietnamese pastry. With a pitch-perfect brandy sauce and bouncy snails, this snack would be just as at home on the table of a top Parisian restaurant—except for the chili oil, which takes it on a playfully delicious departure from the norm.

The frog legs ($15) are a standout within the “Bites” portion of the menu. Doused in a more-ish fish sauce glaze, they somehow maintain a crackling-level crisp—and, thanks to the chicken-like preparation, they offer an easy entry into the delicacy. So easy, in fact, that taking the last one without asking may trigger a fight with your spouse (don’t ask me how I know this). As we debate what to order next, our server advises us to try the pommes frites ($14)—thick bistro-style fries topped with fried curry leaves and accompanied by a bright-yet-spicy green curry aioli. The fries are even more excellent when dipped into the sauce that accompanies the oxtail ($32)—the latter a dish that’s one of the larger plates on the menu. Here, Good Thief elevates this humble cut of beef with a concentrated, lacquered pho demi. The braised meat, wrapped in caul fat and shaped into a rectangle, has a distinct richness that’s lifted by expertly confited daikon and a smoky carrot puree. (I could eat a whole bowl of that puree on its own.)

If Good Thief is the rascal kid brother to Anh and Chi, then Meo is definitely the sassy little sister of the famed Kissa Tanto. When we first enter the stunningly pink, ’70s-inspired room, it feels like a tucked-away secret, a speakeasy of yesteryear. But, as I settle in, I realize just how big the space really is—1,600 square feet, in fact. The sense of intimacy never dissipates, though; if anything, it’s immediately highlighted by the “did we just become best friends” style of service we are about to experience.

After being informed of the restaurant’s new “cinq à sept” menu (a Quebecois term similar to happy hour), we quickly put in our food order—which includes a unique take on the caesar salad: the croqueta ($14). Roasted chicken held together with a luscious bechamel is breadcrumbed and deep-fried into a delicate fritter, served on a piece of gem lettuce and topped with a mountain of parm and miso caesar dressing. It tastes like everything I’ve ever wanted my go-to salad to be.

Next up is the “patata brava” ($14), a luxuriously smooth potato puree that’s combined with olive oil choux pastry before being deep fried and topped with aioli and a take on Spanish bravas sauce that reminds me of my favourite hot sauce: El Yucateco. That is to say: it’s spicy, tastes like chipotle and, when placed on the crisp exterior of the potato, is true perfection.

After weeks of listening to my food-loving friends and fellow editors effuse about Meo’s infamous oysters ($30), I know they have to be our next course. And, for the first time in my restaurant-going history, a dish lives up to every word of the hype. This bivalve swimming in a stunningly green sauce tastes like a summer-fresh aguachile—herbaceous, salty and with just the right texture thanks to a micro pico de gallo.

We pair our revolving door of snacks with an array of each-better-than-the-last cocktails. From the just-bitter-enough Turkish sbagliato ($18) made with rosewater to a Melon Milk spicy marg ($18) that reminds me of the best popsicle on earth (the Melona bar, duh) to the dirty lychee martini ($22) that’s both briny and round on the palate, the drinks here are out-of-this-world good.

I’d go back to both snack bars for the cocktails alone, but when I’m having a drink I might as well have a snack (I have based my life on the When You Give a Mouse a Cookie series). And, once you’re having that snack, why eat one thing when you can eat five? Variety is the spice of life, after all. It’s about time snacking became the main course.