huhuVancouverSince March 29, 200912 Reviews
(2.9)- Food
(3.1) - Service (2.8)
- Value (3)
- Ambiance (2.8)
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(2.9) (3.1) (2.8) (3) (2.8)Actually I should say the "only" sushi in the neighbourhood, but I digress. The point is that this little restaurant is a thousand times better than its previous incarnations as a take-out Chinese restaurant and a cheap, cheap, cheap sushi joint. The interior has been completely renovated as to make it unrecognizable. When we walked in, there were 2 sushi chefs and a waitress who greeted us, that's a 200% increase in staffing levels. I'm probably exaggerating a little bit but I'm just glad that the place now serves edible food, because I was sometimes forced to eat at the old awful restaurants more times than I care to remember due to its convenient location close to where my family lives.
Rant over; the food in this new place would hold up to competition against restaurants that are priced 20-30% higher. The fact that as of this review the restaurant has been open only a few months with chipper staff/owners probably helps. The "Sushiholic Roll" is tasty and recommended. Also recommended is the "Volcano Roll," which is a deep fried roll (that includes cream cheese) that is the most expensive but also largest in quantity. It was a bit overdone to my tastes but the presentation was pleasing. The yaki-soba and udon had very soft noodles and were not too salty/oily like I've found in many other places. The sushi/sashimi itself was passable, better than your general take-out sushi but doesn't hold up to the higher end stuff. The tempura was so-so as well.
The restaurant filled up to about 2/3 capacity while we were eating lunch, with many groups coming in for take-out. I hope the quality doesn't suffer in the future, but for now I'm very excited about this new place in the neighbourhood.
Phoenix is a burger and Greek fast food joint, run by Asians; a rather eclectic mix but common for Granville Island and works well. I usually order burgers only, so I can't offer much feedback on their Greek food, other than the fact that the ingredients look fresh and everything is prepared right in front of you.
As for the burgers, you have a choice of a regular hamburger, a cheeseburger, a mushroom-cheeseburger, or a bacon-mushroom-cheeseburger; the prices scale upwards as you add items. You can also double your meat and cheese at extra cost. I would recommend the mushroom-cheeseburger even though it's a little more pricey, over $6 after tax (a regular hamburger will be just under $6 including tax). Adding a side of fries will bump the cost to around $9; not worth it in my opinion, though the portions are good. I've always found the burgers to be quite juicy and flavourful, especially with mushrooms, and it's prepared within 5 minutes.
The other selctions on their menu include pitas, calamari, "spinach pie" (spanakopita?), etc. The prices are generally a little more expensive than your usual Greek fast-food place, but that is due to the location. The staff all speak English and are friendly, although they won't chat with you during lunch rush.
As for the location and ambiance, it is on Granville Island, and on a sunny day you can sit outside on the docks and gaze at False Creek, Downtown, and Burrard Bridge. Unless you are attacked by a seagull, it is a grade-A location for lunch or dinner (in the summer). Throw in a good music busker or magic show and nothing beats it.
I've come to this restaurant at least 4 times in the past few years and I noticed they changed the menu before my last visit. Nevertheless, the food is still good quality and the addition of live music is quite a nice touch. The choices on the menu are more or less the same but it seems prices have gone up a bit (although it could just be perception).
Bread rolls are no longer complimentary and need to be ordered, but we got them anyways. The food was still quite good and how I remembered it more or less from my previous visit. Our old favourite, a generous "appetizer" of ribs and potatoes, has been changed into an entree for $18; a pity as it was such good value, but we still ordered it. We also ordered a rotini entree that was very tasty and a nice fajita platter that was not unique but solidly done. Our main entree was a large seafood paella that was split between everyone. The amount of seafood contained within was fairly generous, although it was slightly overdone to my tastes. Nevertheless, it was fair value and I would recommend it if you needed a dish that would be easy to share.
A pleasant addition was the appearance of a live performer midway through our meal. We arrived fairly early, so by then it was about 7:00PM. The music was suitably Latin and very laid back, a solo singer/guitarist accompanied by a friend on bongos. Other than that, the decor and ambiance hasn't changed much, which is fine. By the time we left, the restaurant was full and bustling with diners. I'd say Latin Quarter is worth checking out if you're in the neighbourhood.
We went to this Mexican restaurant at around 1:30PM and it was completely deserted; the dim lighting and lone server contributed to my assumption that the place was closed. However, the server promptly got us a table so we stayed. Though the food was decent, the portions were small; I'm not sure if it was because it was the lunch menu.
We received a basket of tortilla chips and salsa which were of good quality. Our order consisted of beef tacos, shrimp enchilada, and chile rellenos. Each entree comes with a side of Mexican rice (pilaf) and refried beans. The beef taco was quite small, the flavour was satisfactory but nothing special. The enchilada was also small (approximately the size of an iPhone), though I enjoyed it, I only wished it would be filling. The chile rellenos were smothered under a layer of sauce and cheese so it was difficult to make out that it was a stuffed pepper, nevertheless, it was decent in flavour. The sides of rice and beans were actually quite good, though perhaps they were enhanced by the fact that we were still hungry after finishing our meal. I could have probably eaten 2 or 3 of the main entrees before feeling full; the portions were definitely disappointing.
The restaurant itself is smartly decorated in dark tones and dimly lit for a more romantic feel. The server was very polite and served us promptly, though we happened to be the only table. The prices for the lunch menu seemed quite affordable, nothing costing over $13.50 for a plate of food. Unfortunately, the plates were too small to be satisfying and not worth the money.
I've been to this little restaurant twice, once for lunch and once for dinner. In general the food is quite good and fresh, the sashimi/sushi is always good quality, but certain dishes are a little too salty for my tastes. The menu is in Japanese and English and the servers usually speak good English as well as Japanese.
I've tried the assorted sashimi and assorted tempura and they were both good quality each time I came here. The tuna is not mushy and the tako (octopus) doesn't taste like rubber, always a plus. If you come in a group, you can mix and match the sashimi/tempura/maki/etc. platters which cost $5-$11 depending on the amount and type. Or there are also combination meals that go for $8-$13 and usually come with the main dish (ie. teriyaki beef/chicken or BBQ fish), some bean sprouts and vegetables, rice (or califonia rolls with the $11 "special beef teriyaki combo), 5 pcs tempura (sometimes agedashi tofu), and miso soup. The teriyaki combos come with a lot of food, while the fish combos have significantly less. On the wall, there will be a chalk board that lists the daily specials (pork and ginger don for $8.75 when I went). There's also a selection of udon/soba and rice bowls.
The food generally was good, but anything with soup was too salty. The miso soup (usually quite a salty soup already) had more salt than I expected and the nabeyaki udon was also too salty. I ended up not using soy sauce for my rolls and tempura to counterbalance it. Other than that, there wasn't too much to complain about with the food.
The major drawback to this restaurant is the drab decor, the walls are bare and the carpet is really old. The music was on a loop of Japanese pop or 90's Western pop. Nevertheless, the place is clean and tidy if a bit cramped. The service is quick and courteous, although you have to wave them down if if it's busy. Overall, I'd say it would be worth checking out if you want decent priced simple Japanese food and don't care much for ambiance. 4 people came out to $53 before tax and tip.
Ningtu is a Shanghainese restaurant but it also serves southern dishes you find at Cantonese restaurants. The service was extremely quick and the place was completely packed for mother's day, there were still people waiting when we left at around 8:30PM. One of our servers spoke English but I'm not sure about the other ones. We ordered the 6-dish set meal for $75.00 which arrived almost all at once within 15 minutes (making for a crowded table).
The set meal also comes with rice, stir-fried prawns, and soup. We ordered hot & sour soup which was decent except that it was a little heavy on the sour side which I generally dislike but other people at my table were amenable to (they usually drizzle red vinegar on their soup anyways). The prawns were not bad. We also ordered honey garlic spareribs which were surprisingly not oily, sticky, or dense, like it usually is at other restaurants. A nice change unless you LIKE them sticky, oily, and dense. The most interesting dish available at Ningtu in my opinion is the crispy rice ("guoba"), served with a clear sauce/broth containing bamboo shoots, ham, peas, and shiitake mushrooms. I don't recommend having the server pour the broth over the crispy rice pieces at the beginning since that will make them soggy, mix it in your own bowl. Other dishes we ordered were beef with bamboo shoots, a fish and bean curd dish, pork with celery and cashews, and bean curd with green beans; the order listed here being my order of preference.
The restaurant itself is quite bare but clean and bright; the exception as always at Chinese restaurants being the washrooms. In general the food was quite good and the 6-dish set menu meant we spent less than $15 a person.
Pearl castle is a drinks establishment, the food is there only if you are really starving and need nourishment badly. Maybe it would taste good if you haven't eaten in three days, doubtful.
Out of a party of 6, we ordered 4 entrees and a couple drinks. Do not order entrees, go after you have had a proper meal elsewhere. The Taiwanese meat sauce and noodles I ordered were incredibly bland and lacking in any flavour; it tasted like leftover shredded pork microwaved with some instant noodles. Two of our party ordered hot pot sets, one seafood miso and one lamb I believe. Both lacked the variety of meat that you would expect from a rather expensive set meal; the seafood hot pot seemed to be half made up of fish cake, while the lamb hot pot was mostly soggy vegetables. The worst was the breaded chicken on fried rice entree my friend ordered. The fried rice was dry and the breaded chicken was more "bread" than chicken, and overall it was also very dry and salty. The kicker is my friend went home to a night of stomach issues.
The two people who only ordered drinks were the lucky ones. Pearl castle has decent pearl tea and smoothie drinks, although slightly more expensive than elsewhere. The service was the usual curt and impersonal but efficient service you'd expect from such places, and the ambiance is similar to a White Spot full of Chinese people. Again, if you stick to the drinks menu you should be fine.
Toshi's doesn't take reservations and is only open from 5 to 10PM, we had to wait for around 45 minutes to get a seat on a Thursday. In my opinion, it was worth the wait.
We were seated at a small table for 2 people and could barely squeeze between our table and the one next to us. Things could have been worse however, we could have been sharing tables with strangers. The restaurant can be noisy and the service is curt, so if those things are very important to you, you're probably at the wrong place. Try paying an extra $10-$20 at one of the more expensive sushi joints in the city.
The food itself is excellent and justifies the frequent line-ups that form outside this restaurant. We ordered a sashimi bowl, a tofu dish, and several of their rolls, including their chef's special that night. All of it was delicious, especially the sashimi. Good salmon is easy to come by in Vancouver, but good tuna is not. The tuna at Toshi's is excellent and on par with what I tried in Japan (though Japan is cheaper believe it or not). If you don't know what to order, look at what other people are eating and pick what interests you (it's so tightly packed so you should be able to get a good look at the people seated next to you).
Having been to many sushi restaurants around Vancouver, I would say Toshi has some of the best sushi at its price; around $20 a person if you don't order drinks. The waits are long and the tables are cramped, but it is what it is.
We checked this place out since we had an Entertainment coupon and wanted to try a new Thai place. The decor is cute but unfortunately the food left us underwhelmed.
This restaurant's menu has a lot of chili peppers on nearly every selection, but most of the food was definitely not hot at all. There was a person from Singapore in our group and he had to put a LOT of hot sauce into his food to feel any heat. Even I thought the chicken curry dish, which had 4 chili peppers next to it on the menu, was lacking in heat (and I usually don't like my food too spicy). The rest of our order consisted of a seafood curry dish, phad Thai noodles, mussels in a coconut sauce, and a spinach dish stir-fried and topped with chicken in a peanut sauce. The spinach dish was probably the best, everything else was mediocre or bland, and the phad Thai tasted more like a Chinese fried noodle dish.
In general, the food lacked the fragrance and strong aromas usually associated with Thai food. Note however, that they do live up to their name and put Thai basil in every dish.
The final cost of our bill was $75 for 5 people after using a $15 coupon. Not bad but it didn't really make up for the food.
Based on other reviews and what we later found out from friends, this place has changed ownership. We were still able to use the Entertainment Book when we went for a weekday lunch however (not sure if there are other restrictions).
The main issue for us was that our server tried to sell us "upgrades" to our meal while using misleading language. For example, he would say: "Would you like your mushrooms sauteed?" as if it was the same as asking how you would like your meat done, or if you would like your potatoes mashed or baked (actually it's a $5 charge). He also had a rather condescending attitude when we asked why he didn't clarify that there would be a charge. Essentially he politely implied that we hadn't been to enough restaurants... (then he walked away)
The food itself was above-average, the complimentary bread was probably the best course, pan-fried and served with a nice red-pepper sauce. My main entree was veal medallions that was overcooked (I asked for medium-rare, but it was closer to well-done), I didn't make a big fuss since we were using an Entertainment coupon. The lamb came rather dry though it had decent flavour. We ordered a shrimp appetizer that was also not bad.
In the end, the food at this restaurant was okay but not spectacular. The real turnoff for us was the service that left a bad impression.
Chong's has been in the neighbourhood for a while and mostly serves the Chinese Senior's crowd during Dim Sum lunch hours. The food is usually decent and cheap, at $2.30 per Dim Sum dish (it used to be $2.00); certain dishes are even cheaper if you know what to order. The service and ambiance are not great, but you get what you pay for.
The restaurant is quite small and always packed during lunch hour. You could end up sharing a table with strangers if you aren't lucky or don't have a large enough group to take large table to yourselves. It's definitely a cramped eating space, so don't expect to be able to recline into the aisle. Dim Sum dishes are carried out on platters by the waitresses and called out by name in Cantonese. The servers are polite but curt, they won't be good on conversation but they are usually responsive to requests. It helps if you go with someone who's been there before, and also note that most waitresses don't speak much English, only Cantonese and some Mandarin. If you know what you want, ask the waitress directly (in Chinese) to get it faster. Although certain common dishes like Ha Gow (shrimp dumpling), Siu Mai (pork and mushroom dumpling), Cha Siu Bao (BBQ pork bun), etc. come around with some regularity, others may not. It's definitely recommended to order directly if you come near the end of lunch.
The food itself is usually decent and served hot (don't touch the steamer basket). It's a little oily for my tastes but I've certainly seen worse; the salt content is also okay in my opinion. No dish in particular stands out, except the prices. You can get a large bowl of Duck Egg and Pork Congee (Pi Dan Sou Rou Zhou) and a plate of their "famous" Hawaiian Fried Rice (Xia Wei Yi Chao Fan; composed of diced vegetables, pork, and scrambled eggs) for $2.30 each; "White Cloud Phoenix Talons" (Bai Yun Fung Zhua; actually non-marinated chicken feet) are just $1.00 a plate, ridiculous! These dishes have to be ordered directly from the waitress for sure, and they may also take a while to serve them as they build up a good number of orders to serve at the same time.
If you have leftovers after you are done eating, ask the waitress for take out cartons (styrofoam containers) and a plastic bag to carry everything. You'll have to pack it yourself, they don't do it for you. In the past, I have ordered extra dishes on purpose to pack for dinner or the next day. Ask the waitress for the bill, she may calculate it right in front of you and ask you to pay her directly on the spot to save time. Note that they charge tax and expect a reasonable tip. You can easily eat a Dim Sum lunch for under $10 a person depending on what you order. After you've paid, someone will probably begin to clear the table within a few minutes whether you've left or not (ie. it's time to go). Also note that the way they clear the table may be surprising for the initiates of fine Dim Sum dining; the "table cloth" is a soft plastic sheet and the waitress simply bundles everything up (cups, plates, utensils, everything) in the plastic table cloth and carries it away.
Chong's is a noisy and cramped restaurant full of loud mouthed Chinese people. The washroom is what's to be expected of Chinese eateries: terrible. It's definitely not your "mainstream" kind of place, although I suppose that depends on your definition of "mainstream." The food is bland, the service brusque, the prices are cheap. I wouldn't have it any other way.
This is a good, family run Korean restaurant. The food is great and for a very reasonable price. The service isn't so great, but I'll get to that later. The decor is okay, nothing special. The only reason I keep going back is the food, which is as good or better than more expensive establishments for a lower price.
The half dozen or more times I've come here, there was always only the one lady running the tables and taking orders. She doesn't speak much English, although it has improved over the last couple of years. She works hard and somehow takes everyone's orders, cleans tables, and delivers the food in a reasonable amount of time no matter how busy it is. Just don't expect her to chat you up. If you don't know what to order, you can look at what other people are eating, or ask try to ask her what is good. The seafood pancake and Jahp Chae (stir-fried Korean yam noodles) are solid choices; the big pork hot pot is great if you have a big party, but remember to ask for "less spicy" unless you are in to that sort of thing (you can always ask for Korean hot pepper powder/sauce on the side). Anyways there are pictures in the menu and plastered on the walls.
The decor and ambiance are bland but it's not like you are paying for it in the price. In general, this is the Korean restaurant of choice for me when I'm with my family or looking for a quiet dinner with friends. If you want a noisier, more youthful ambiance, try something downtown; but Seoul Dookbaegi is a solid choice if all you want is good food.
