While in Vancouver yesterday, we stopped for lunch at the English Bay location of the Boathouse restaurant. The are currently having their Lobsterfest, which we had noticed on their website a few weeks back; but the menu we were presented seemed to be an abbreviated lunch menu. We were sitting on the main floor, which has the atmosphere and decor of a pub; but this was the only option as the upstairs dining room was not open and so the main floor was where all lunch patrons were sitting; and, looks aside, it is technically a restaurant and so I do not expect a pub sized menu.
I should point out that neither Karin or I are big fish fans, but we both do love shellfish. Karin is on a restricted diet right now due to allergies, and so we were trying to find a place where she would be able to eat. The shortened menu was just too restrictive, however, as not even the salads seemed appetizing. We had chosen the Boathouse as we really enjoy their Fire Cracker Shrimp appetizer, but it was not being offered during Lobsterfest. In fact, a review now of their regular lunch menu on their website with what we were presented with shows that this was definitely an abbreviated version. I had decided that I would try the coconut shrimp, but Karin did find any meal that she wanted. I did not really blame here as my choice was the only one I had found… I had no back-up plan.
We therefore decided we would each just have a drink and split an appetizer. We choose their Lobster Cakes appetizer, one of the limited time items. It consisted of three cakes, very similar to crab cakes, and three sauces. What was unexpected is that each cake came already sitting in a sauce; which negated choosing to dip more of the cake in your favorite of the sauces. We started cutting each cake in half before I remembered to snap a picture.
The sauces from left to right were Grand Marnier, ginger and tartar. Not knowing what it was when I tried it, the Grand Marnier tasted like a habanero pepper jelly sauce, and was much too sweet. Dipping my fork into the sauce alone, it was a good sauce, but it overpowered the lobster cake. The ginger sauce had the chewy consistency of ginger root, but not really much of a ginger taste. The tartar sauce was a standard tartar sauce.
Overall, the sauces were all too overbearing. Lobster is a light tasting meat, which is why it is most commonly served with just butter; and these sauces masked the lobster flavour. Breading and frying the cakes was probably reaching the limits of the flavour, and if anything I would have liked to add very little sauce, but we were given no choice when the cakes came pre-dunked. Add on top that two of the three sauces were nothing special, and this is an appetizer that I had to try, but can now move on to other things.
Our server was friendly, but not quite attentive enough. As an example, when I was presented the bill, I reviewed it for 10 seconds and then inserted my credit card. We then waited almost 10 minutes for her to pick this up, despite the empty drinks in front of us and the fact we had told her we were done and ready to go. I did not raise a fuss as we were not in a hurry, but if I was not impressed with the food, then the service should impress me with the prices I was paying.
As I said in the title, this is a mini-review as we never ate anything other than this one appetizer. I probably would not have bothered blogging about it at all, but I really was disappointed to be presented the menu we received. I am used to promotions being add on items to the regular menu, and have seen upwards to 15 items as on promotional inserts in menus. Rather than an insert, the Boathouse’s approach is to remove regular items from the menu to insert the promotional items, and overall it seemed they removed more items than they added. Add to this the average service and high prices, and I would have to give the Boathouse English Bay a 5 out of 10 for this outing.
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