angeleyes

do not go here for food.  it's expensive and the quality is no good!  they managed to overcook EVERYTHING!  the prawn cocktail consisted of gigantic prawns, which is a good thing, BUT the prawns were grossly overcooked.  the meat of the shrimp was tough.

then i had the sablefish from the fresh sheet, which came recommended by our server.  sablefish (aka black cod) is practically impossible to do poorly.  the flavours were good, but usually the meat breaks into oily chunks and melt in your mouth.  nope, this sablefish was actually over cooked.  the texture not its usual slippery self. not to mention the portions were tiny for a nearly $30 entree! the piece of fish was the size of a small dog biscuit!

my date had the steak and prawns.  the steak was WAY overcooked. our server didn't even ask how he wanted his steak done come to think of it.  he just brought i super well done.

then to add insult to injury, our server was not particularly friendly.  he kept disappearing and we had to wait forever for him to come take our payment. not to mention he did not smile for the entire night.

super disappointed. i've come here for drinks and the view is great especially on the patio upstairs. i've had great service before, so i'll just assume it was an off night for our guy. but i know now NEVER to eat here again.

was here for a wedding banquet last week and was quite looking forward to the food. kirin is always a treat and definitely is known to be one of the tastier classier more expensive "jau lau's" (chinese restaurant/banquet facility?). we had a 12 course meal and the food was for the most part decent.

our opening dish of cold appy's had the usual roasted suckling pig, jelly fish, vegetarian goose and beef shank, but had the added twist of thickly sliced smoked salmon. i thought that was a nice touch. haven't seen that before.

the lobster was a bit of a disappointment. the meat was rather dry and just plain salty without any other flavours. same with the crab claw... (the deep fried crab claw with crab meat in a ball) too salty and dry.

everything else was pretty standard, the shark's fin soup was pretty normal, steamed fish was done well. the e-fu noodles at the end were kinda plain, but the fried rice was wrapped in lotus leaf which was a nice variation, makes the rice nice and fragrant.

all in all i enjoyed the food, but the service could really use some work.  they rushed us through the entire meal.  they divvy'd up our food into individual portions, which was nice.  but then they just kept taking away the food before we were finished, to get us to the next dish.  i had my plate taken away from me twice before i was done with the contents on it.  and then i managed to catch our server in time another 2 times to tell him to give me back my plate.  servers all looked awfully grumpy and were less than willing to respond to requests. 

maybe it was just a bad day for them, but the dining experience was a bit disappointing as i'm sure the bride and groom paid a fortune for the meal.

I've been meaning to check out Stella's for a while now.  Have heard good things about their food and they have by far the craziest selection of belgian beers ever.  they have the usual belgian tower (hooegarden, stella, etc) but then they have a "beer fresh sheet" which is a doublesided legal size sheet of beer listings and their descriptions.  i felt like i was reading a novel.  but very cool if you're a beer lover.  i had the gulden draak (golden dragon), which was pretty tasty and 10.5% alcohol!!

aside from the beer selection, i was greatly disappointed with their food.  it's not that things didn't taste good, but all our food was cold.  we had the halibut tempura, which was basically fancy hi-liner fishsticks.  yummy, but the fries on the side were cold.  then we had steak tacos, which i thought were good, my date thought the pickles on it too stron tasting, but the deep fried onions were COLD.  bet you they would have tasted great if they were fresh.

the food came SO FAST, that it seemed everything was premade sitting in bins and then spooned onto plates as ordered.  with all the great restaurants along commercial drive, i don't think i'll be going back here for food again any time soon.  very sadly disappointing.

Fritz poutine has to be the BEST late night snack I have ever had.  I cannot believe that I only JUST discovered this place (now that I'm exiting the clubbing-on-Granville phase of my life!).  Classic poutine, great gravy, lotsa cheese.  They have all these crazy dips (must be like 20 different kinds at least) like garlic parmesan, cilantro, etc.  They'll plop it on top of your poutine and voila... french fry heaven.  I've been craving Fritz ever since.

Fritz is definitely up there with Hell's Kitchen poutine... though Fritz's poutine is more classic (less innovative) than Hell's, they are open later and their dips are a great touch.  (see my review on Hell's poutine)

finally went to check this place out... actually twice now. really liked it.  the seating is done with diner style bright red booths.  The room is aglow in reds and oranges.  Comfy, warm, yet hip and trendy.... like a casual diner crossed with a lounge out of the 70's.

the menu is a minimal one page unfortunately, but everything that i've tried on it is quite amazing.  I also tried the duck ragu, duck shredded into a tomato-ey stew. the duck was very tender and very tasty. 

I agree with taro below... the curry lamb shepherd's pie is to die for!  loved it.  i thought Feenie's did a good gourmet rendition of shepherd's pie, but Habit lounge tops it.  the dish is exactly as it's named.  the lamb has great flavour.  the curry had just the right amount of spice and texture.  not too watery.  great with the mashed potatoes.

i tried their moroccan spiced chicken wings as well, and those kicked ass.  arguably some of the best chicken wings i've ever had. deep fried to perfection with no batter. tossed in a orange chilli sauce.  it's tangy sweet, without being sticky, and just a hint of spice.  i really liked the morrocan spice (at least that's what i think it is).  there are little seed-like things in the sauce.  my dining companion didn't like them much, but i loved them.  strong, slightly bitter aromatic spice. yum yum.... and best part... they give you finger bowls so that after i lick my fingers i can wash my hands.

the service was impeccable.  our server, jacques, was very sweet. i had him both times i went.  the prices are good too.  a decent wine list.  great for a casual impromptu gathering.  maybe not for dinner, since the menu isn't that big. but great for drinks and one or two dishes to munch on. 

only thing i really had to complain about, is that their food comes STRAIGHT out of kitchen off the stove.  SUPER HOT.  i've burnt my tongue on both occasions that i've eaten there.  so please remember to let your food cool before you eat here.  but i would take too hot over too cold any day.

let me start by saying... two of my all-time favourite dishes to order are dry ribs and prime rib. To my exasperating delight, Wilson does both most amazingly! I think i'm in love!

for appy's we had the Scallops with Bacon and the Dry Ribs (of course). The scallops were of a good size and very yummy and juicy.  The neatest thing was they put a small slice of water chestnut in each one, giving a crunchy refreshing feeling in your mouth after each bite. It’s almost like clearing your palette after every bite. Subtle and very flavourful.  Now for the Dry Ribs... deep fried to perfection... the meat was super juicy and just the right amount of coarse salt.  the meat was very light.  hard to explain.  Often dry ribs are over fried, and too dry.  the meat is dense, and impossible to tear off the bone.  Not here.  i couldn't get enough of them. Just the right balance of tender and chewy.

For the main course, we both had the Prime Rib. I had the 9 oz, and my friend the 12 oz.  The minute I took my first bite, I wished I had ordered the 12 oz!!  I always like the rarest cut of the roast and considering that we were eating at 8:30/9ish… which is rather late...  the rarest cut was still rare enough for my liking!  the prime rib was tender and to die for and the portions generous.  I usually go to the Keg for primerib… the Keg is still good, but for $19.99, I think I’ll be going to Wilson’s much more often now… Garlic mashed potatoes were delicious, and loved the Yorkshire pudding.  Needless to say... i pretty much cleaned my plate off.

I'm really looking forward to dining there again and  checking out a Canucks game while stuffing my face with meat like the carnivore that i am!

onto the 7th of 10 dine out dinners planned this year... overall, the restaurant is a good looking space, lots of wood detailing, fireplace, comfortable, intimate dining... though the tables seemed a ltitle squished where we were sitting, the walkway a little narrow.  stellar view of the water and the city. when they say "panoramic", it really is panoramic. gorgeous.  now for the food...

once again, we were surprised with the dine out menu. they only posted their $25 menu online, but there was a $35 menu available too... and that's just what we went with.

For appys, we had prociutto wrapped scallops and fettucine in tomato sauce with short ribs.  the scallops were pretty good, it's hard to mess up scallops, but not so easy to do them well either. i love prosciutto, but the scallops were a little overdone. the proscuitto too crispy, that it bordered on tough to chew and dry.  couldn't really taste the prosciutto.  for better scallops check out Hart House.  no comparison.  The fettucine was complete false advertising.  i ONLY ordered it because i love short ribs.  Well let me tell you, there were no short ribs to be seen... 4 of us at the table ordered it and ALL of us had to dig and pry and search to find ribs... there were morsels of meat if you looked REALLY carefully... i'm assuming those were the short ribs?  so i think that there may have been ONE rib used to make 4 appys.  disappointing. the fettucine seemed to be freshly made though. the tomato sauce nice and light... but definitely nothing out of the ordinary.

for main course, we tried the sirloin and the ahi tuna. the sirloin was a touch overcooked for "rare", but better than LK dining lounge.  flavour was good. served with nicely whipped mashed potatoes... yumm... the ahi tuna was overcooked as well. it was crusted with too much stuff, that made it much to salty.  so salty and dry fish... really not my thing.  it was served on fresh crab risotto, of course more risotto than crab (though more visible than the short ribs in the appys).  the flavour wasn't too bad, but much too much too heavy, couldn't have more than 2-3 small bites.

for desserts, we had a poached pear in a cinnamon mousse-like froth and a chocolate mousse..  This was amazing.  Poached pear was soft without being mushy and paired with the sauce... stellar. i only wish there was more! the chocolate mousse was uneventful. tasted good, but nothing extraordinary.

to be honest, i hadn't expected the food to be anything amazing.  i took one look at the gorgeous view and i knew, the food would just be average.  I still maintain anywhere with nice scenery doesn't need to have good food.  people keep coming back. 

the best part about the whole experience was the little pier/ walkway out to the water's edge right outside the restaurant.  vancouver is such a beautiful city. you can see from the lights of downtown all the way to the edge of UBC. a most romantic place to walk off a meal.  so i'll likely go back again... even though the food was just okay,

a downside... we were a party of 8... and they automatically charged us a 17% gratuity. i was a bit shocked because they usually let you know in advance.  and 17%!!!  the service was great, but for mandatory gratuity, i rarely see more than 15%.. if it wasn't so high, i would have probably paid 20%, but just out of principle... i gave them exactly what they asked me for and not much more... not a fan of being forced to pay tips. at least not above what is generally "expected".

Neat little place tucked away in Kits. It's upstairs, has a great balcony patio that opens right into the restaurant as if it's a part of it. The patio has lots of foliage so you're secluded from the traffic on W. 4th.  Atmosphere is classy and warm, yet cozy. Great place for drinks and  they have a lot of parties up there... needless to say, i had a "memorable" birthday there   I remember the food being pretty good, but no specific dish jumps out at me that is worth mentioning...  I go there for drinks usually. they have a good martini list.

This is a great place for live music.  I mean, you can't go wrong with live jazz. 

BUT, go for drinks... I'd be hesitant on the food... expensive and only sub par.  For the prices charged, I'd expect much better quality. 

I only go to Capone's because there is limited selection of known places in Vancouver for live jazz.   Anyone know of any other places to suggest?