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.

Technorati Tags: food, Vancouver, restaurant, review, Amateur Geek

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Photo credit Robin Kearney on Flickr

After Karin’s appointment yesterday, we ended up at Metrotown as there was no point in joining the rush hour crawl. We needed to eat, but didn’t want to spend too much, as we’ve had a number of these unavoidable dining out experiences as of late. As we’ve watching what we eat, we also didn’t want to eat in the food court. We therefore headed straight for a mall directory, but unfortunately Lush was located between the escalator we came up and the closest directory.

After a detour, we consulted the directory. Metropolis at Metrotown, which is what the name of the mall actually is, now has over 470 stores since the merger of the two malls into one, and so we expected that the list of restaurants to be impressive. In reality, there was not much interesting, and Karin suggested T.G.I. Friday’s. This left me in much the same dilemma as when we had gone to the Cactus Club Coquitlam, as my previous experiences with Friday’s have not been memorable.

When Friday’s first came to Robson Street, it was known as a very trendy restaurant and, like many, I looked forward to trying it. I remember my impression being that the menu was unexciting and the food was bland. It was year’s later before I tried it again, when Karin and I took her youngest son Colby to the Metrotown location during a day of shopping at Christmas 2003. Once again, I left with the same impression. However, as Cactus Club’s improvements had been a pleasant surprise on our last outing, I did agree to try Friday’s.

We were lead into the back of the restaurant, which is much larger than I thought. I was pleased to find that pints of Canadian were on sale, but upon consulting the drinks menu I realized that the sale price was barely below the regular price. I therefore ordered a pint of Kokanee, only to be told that they no longer carry it in favour of MGD, though in the next sentence the server called it MGD; so I was unsure if he was speaking of Labatt Genuine Draft or Miller Genuine Draft. Either way, it was not an impressive start to have out of date menus. Karin had some wine, and I went with a pint of Canadian.

The food menu, once again, did little to excite me. Similar to the Cactus Club, the list of appetizers contained nothing special; and so like before, we went with the spinach dip. This was partially because Karin had been on a two week diet of no starches, and wanted some now that her appointment had marked the end of diet. The choice of a main course took me longer than Karin, which is a rarity; largely because there was little on the menu that I could eat and feel I had stayed healthy. In the end, Karin ordered chicken strips and fries, and I ordered battered shrimp. Neither was a very healthy meal, but we were working with a menu that limited such choices.

The dip was accompanied with a large helping of fresh tortillas chips, but they were simply store bought chips. The dip itself was OK, but nothing special; not very impressive for what sounded like the best item on the appie menu.

Our meals arrived, and mine turned out to be butterfly shrimp battered in bread-crumbs; which did not really match the description from the menu of “lightly battered” shrimp. Again, they were OK, but nothing special. Karin’s chicken strips were battered much like beer battered fish, and she gave me the first one to try. It was average tasting, and so was her first one; but then the rest seemed too doughy to her. We ended up tearing the last two apart; attempting to find where the battered ended and the chicken began, but we were not able to identify such a point. Most of her meal had turned out to be chicken fritters rather than strips.

The final bill was a savings over what we would have paid at the Cactus Club or Sammy J. Peppers, both of which we could see across Kingsway from our table. However, even if you subtracted the drinks, it still was more than we would have paid at the food court, and yet it was not any healthier or tastier. The only plus over the food court was the availability of alcoholic drinks, and they had already disappointed me there with the inaccurate menu. Overall, I give T.G.I. Friday’s a 5 out of 10.

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I had promised restaurant reviews when we go out, as it seems hard to find info on the net for such things. So far I’ve reviewed the Cactus Club Coquitlam and I am working on reviews of our two outings during Dine Out Vancouver. Karin and I will be going into New Westminster this afternoon for an appointment, and rush hour will trap us out there for the dinner hour, so I will post a review if we go somewhere worthwhile. Right now, however, we’re discussing the likelihood of the food fair at Metrotown.

In the meantime, during my surfing I have come across several reviews of note:

• C Restaurant by John Chow - Outside our budget, but maybe not your’s
• Stonegrill by Michael Kwan - we wanted to try this during Dine Out, but could not get reservations
• The Cannery by John Chow
• Hamilton Street Grill by Jeffery Simpson - this helped us make a dining decision

There was also an excellent review of Sip Resto-lounge, a place that we tried twice unsuccessfully to get reservations for during Dine Out Vancouver. The review I read reconfirmed that this is a place we need to try, but I’ll have to search some more for the link.

Heading into New Westminster yesterday for a doctor’s appointment, we had not preselected a restaurant. We did know that we would likely be in Coquitlam afterward as we needed to get some stuff at IKEA, so we would likely end up eating in one of those two places. While at the doctor, Karin suddenly realized that she was extremely hungry. As it was rush hour when we got out of the doctor’s office, we briefly entertained eating in New West, but the choices there tend to be little mom and pop places that can often disappoint if you don’t have a local’s advice. By taking Columbia Street under the freeway, we were quickly into Coquitlam. As we had not tried it in a while, Karin suggested the Cactus Club.

My past experiences with the chain made me unsure of this choice. I believe I first noticed them on Robson Street, where I would often stop and look at the menu displayed outside for tourists. It always failed to impress me or my companions, as it was usually pretty basic fare and a bit higher priced; sort of a slightly upscale Hooter’s, and there there are many other restaurants within a block or two that had a much more desirable menu. For that reason I had never tried it, nor had I tried a couple of other locations elsewhere in the city for basically the same reason. When I worked in North Vancouver, two colleagues and I that worked Saturdays would go out for lunch, and Cactus Club was just down the road. The food was good, but again the menu selection was limited, and so we three ended up ordering the same food each weekend. Karin and I had been to the Coquitlam Cactus Club once before about a year or two ago, but I cannot remember anything about the food; which means I did not hate it, but it was also not worth remembering.

We drove into the parking lot and parked at what should be the front of the restaurant, but is in fact the back. We then walked along the large patio, which could have alternatively been set up as the front, but of course it is not. Halfway down the third side of the building, we finally reached the grand front entrance with giant statues flanking a staircase down to the street; a street that no one ever walks on. I remember we found this to be a poor set-up last time also, as if the architect never actually visited the site and got a feeling for the area.

The interior is nice, with leather booths and seats around dark wood tables, all surrounded by stone half walls. The ceilings are high, and yet they have avoided the cavernous, non-cozy feeling that I get in all the more recently built Earl’s with their high ceilings. Sorry, no pictures, we discovered after we were on the road that the lens had a fingerprint in the middle, and the cleaning supplies were at home.

The hostess sat us in a booth along the lounge wall, and our server was quickly at our table to take our drink orders. When my wife was unsure of a wine choice and I expressed that I was unsure of whether I would enjoy their Hefeweizen (I’m usually 50-50 on different versions); our waitress suggested samples to help our choices. I did find their Hefeweizen to be good and went with it, but Karin decided on a Bellini to start, as it was the drink special and the wines seemed high priced.

The menu was a pleasant surprise. It still was not as extensive as many, but had undergone a serious upgrading. The appetizers were the standard ones offered in local eateries, with the most attractive sounding being the crab dip. When it came, we were pleasantly surprised to find that rather than the usual sharp, cream cheese taste of most crab/artichoke heart/spinach dips; this dip had much more crab/pollock than normal and the addition of tomato sauce to the cream cheese base with fresh salsa sprinkled on top. The result was less sharp and more creamy, and it was a pleasant change to one of our favorite appies.

We both choose to have filets, as filet mignon was the featured special. Each of the steaks on their regular menu comes in 3 sizes plus a sirloin option. Prices vary depending on the toppings, such as charbroiled with Montreal steak spice, peppercorn sauce, blackened creole or the ultimate mushroom demiglace. Once we ordered the filet specials, our waitress did say that we could get it any way we wanted, and so we both took the most expensive option, the mushroom demiglace. It had been expressed as if it would be an acceptable substitution, but when the bill came we were paying regular prices.

We both enjoyed our meals. They were healthy portions, and I ended up eating half of Karin’s mushrooms. The steaks were tender and quite tasty, though I would not say they would rank among the top ones I have had. The garlic mashed potatoes were satisfying, and I was pleased that the veggie was one I enjoyed; asparagus.

As we were leaving, a large screen had been rolled down to accompany the three huge LCD TVs over the bar as the Canucks game was about to start. I suspect this would have been an enjoyable place to watch the game.

Overall, I’m impressed with the changes that have been made over the years, and will now have less of a reluctance when Catcus Club is proposed. The menu is still does not have as large a selection of choices as I would like to see, and many of the options did not excite us; but the improvements left me enough options and leave me hope that they will be even better in the years to come. The decor and ambiance were nice, and I would likely go often if it this was my neighbourhood. The prices did seem slightly high, but it was nice that samples were offered and the portions were large. However, they were actually too large for us, and so I don’t know how often I would pay the extra. This area is lacking in decent restaurants that we have been able to find, and so it is nice to know that there is an alternative to our other preferred choice in the area, Sammy J Peppers. Overall I will give the Cactus Club Coquitlam a 7 out of 10.