Rasputin45Kitsilano, VancouverSince July 27, 200593 Reviews
(3.2)- Food
(3.2) - Service
(3.5) - Value (3.2)
- Ambiance (3.3)
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(3.2) (3.2) (3.5) (3.2) (3.3)OK so we do love pizza, and since we have been following all the new Neapolitan places and trying them all out, we had to try this place. I am surprised to be the first reviewing it since it was so busy in there! Service only OK, we waited for a LOOONG time for a server to come and talk to us, and were about to walk out when someone finally came. The pizza is quite good and a larger portion for the price than Nicli or Bibo, the pasta only OK in our opinion (but not bad), the burrata mozzarella and potato appetizers are awesome. The meatballs are so good!!! I was sort of on the fence about this place but the meatballs really won me over.
The location here is fantastic, watching the sunset with full view of kits beach and English Bay is awesome. Definitely a spectacular place to bring a date. Went here last night for drinks and ended up ordering food, first off there were 3 different menus and it was hard to sort out which food was available, we found out the "appy hour" menu is from 3-6 and after 9, the football menu is only during football games, and then there's a bar menu and a regular menu which you can order off of all the time. Geesh! Also false advertising is a pet peeve of mine, one of the menus advertised the Boathouse as the "home of the buck a shuck oyster" but they actually cost 1.29 and then only during appy hour. Overall, the prices are a bit higher than a typical upscale pub, but I think worth it because of the great location. Unfortunately, the food was not great, my fish and chips was a huge portion but I think the oil used to fry was not hot enough because the fish was soggy and not crisp, sort of ruining the whole thing. The dipping sauces for the yam fries and the tartar sauce were not to my liking either. The specials and "appy hour" seem to be a very good value though, might come back and give those a shot.
We were in Tofino and wanted to check out this restaurant because it is in the Wickannish Inn which is basically one of the most well-known Inns in the area. The restaurant has a fantastic setting right on the edge of the water, it is seriously to die for. I wish I could say the same of the food! We had brunch here, I ordered the duck confit eggs benedict which was cooked well but just a totally wrong mishmash of flavours -- goat cheese, onion confit, duck confit, eggs and hollandaise sauce. The goat cheese and onion confit totally overwhelmed any other flavors of egg, duck, or sauce in the dish. My friends were all fairly unhappy with their foods, except one of the four of us who ordered the mushroom omelette, she said that was good. The price was very expensive as well, it turned out to be about $35 a head with orange juice and some cheese as an appetizer.
I am surprised I haven't reviewed this place yet. We come here often, and the food is usually excellent. I love the fried chicken and the risotto, among other things. I like that this place has a different kind of menu than your typical Vancouver restaurant in this category. The food here is down-to-earth dishes that feature delicious ingredients, done right. The staff is excellent and they have always exceeded our expectations. My veggie husband finds things he loves on the menu too, and he loves the drink menu!
The only weird part is about 10% of the time I get something that tastes "off" - and it is usually really off. Like today one of my chicken pieces tasted bad. Why? I don't know. The other two were great. And one other time I had a steak that just tasted wrong. Anyway we get truly excellent food most of the time, the service is phenominal, and we will keep coming back regardless.
A group of 4 of us came here the other night for dinner. The good? We liked the queso fundido, and the azteca soup wa good too. The chile relleno was OK. The bad? Basically everything else. The veggie burrito, guacamole, my beef main (something ropa) was bad. My beef tasted more like celery than anythign else -- certainly not good. The margaritas were horrible and from a mix. Service was OK, atmosphere was not that great except for the front of the restaurant (we did not sit there). At $180 for the four of us, not a cheap dinner either! We will not return.
I was very excited to find myself working next to this hyped-up sandwich shop, so in the last 2 weeks I have been there twice and eaten the Porchetta sandwich both times. It is an awesome sandwich guys! One of the best I've ever had -- but it is quite fatty! If you love stuff like pork belly you will love this sandwich. Yes it is smallish and expensive, but it is so rich that I find it is is PLENTY for me for lunch. The second time I think I had the porchetta from the end and it was a TOO fatty, I was a bit hungover and it was difficult eating some bites. There is always a long line but it moves fast, you get your sandwich within 10 minutes!
We are pizza lovers and had to check out this place. They told us they have a real pizza chef from Naples. Guess what -- the pizza is great! Better than Nicli, in our opinion. We also had the eggplant melanzine and it was great as well. Prices rather high for everything EXCEPT pizza margherita -- that's $12, and well worth it. Service wasn't bad for us, but not great either, fine. The only downside to this place in my personal opinion is it is trying so hard to be trendy with the house music and the projecting of old movies on the wall and the funky modern chairs it makes my eyes bleed. Argh, it had that loungey vibe that is so DONE TO DEATH around here, but I guess worth putting up with for great pizza. We will definitely be back, with our trendy clothes on next time I guess.
We went here for a late brunch and beers after the Sun Run. I have never had worse eggs benedict in my life. The eggs were overcooked, and the sauce was NOT hollandaise sauce -- it was some kind of a yellowy mayo with a gross orangy SKIN on it. EWWW. The hash browns were good though, also my dining companion liked his sandwich, and the beer was cold so would give it another shot. But that sauce will seriously give me nightmares in years to come.
Real Neapolitan pizza in Vancouver? PSHAW. That's what I thought when I heard about this place. BUT it was absolutely packed on a recent weekday, so we waited for our turn to try this pizza. The pizza was truly delicious, certainly the best I've had in Vancouver, on par with many high-end pizzas we've had in cities like Seattle and Los Angeles, but not the best ever. We had the Margarita pizza and the mushroom pizza, I think they were $12, and $14, which is on par with prices at this type of place in other cities. The Margarita was better I think. We had a salad to start that was just perfect, with roasted garlic. The only thing that I don't like, which is not really their fault, is how busy this place is. I don't really like waiting, even for great pizza, I think I will go in the off hours next time and see if there is a wait then. Also we didn't try any drinks so can't comment on those, just the food.
Based on 1) the good reviews here 2) the fact that it is in our neighborhood, 3) the new 3-course $25 menu and 4) Dine out for Life which was March 24, we were very eager to try Q4 for the first time. I had the 3-course $25 menu, DH ordered off the regular menu. We were looking forward to the "authentic italian" pastas (described on dinehere) and "the best ceasar salad in the city" (as advertised by our waiter). I have never been to Italy, but neither of us were big fans of our pasta, I had the beef one and DH had a vegetarian one, they were both slathered in an insipid tomato sauce that drowned out most other flavors. The ceasar salad was good, but not great, and certainly not the best in the city, with slightly wilted lettuce and an overly-anchovy dressing. The "house dessert" was crunchy but not in a good way. I definitely would not recommend this place based on full menu prices, but during the dinner I kept wondering if the $25 3-course menu was worth it. I debated on this quite a bit but ended up deciding that it wasn't. Even for that price point (about $30 a dinner) there are so many better places to eat in this city. We are sorry it didn't work out with this place. We wanted it to be good so bad we will probably try it again sometime to make sure we just didn't come on an off night or what.
Wow! What a place -- we checked it out for the first time and are so glad we tried it. For appetizers the scallop carpaccio was excellent, the mozarella salad was excellent as well. My rib steak was very very good, and a huge portion with delicious crispy potatoes and a salad for $19. DH's vegetarian ravioli was the only item that was not that great, the sauce was on the sweet side and although well prepared, just not to our liking all that much. Dessert was good as well, with a very nice wine list and great service. We frequently dine at restaurants in this price range, and from our one visit I feel like Cafeteria definitely comes out on top. Will be back for sure!
On Sundays they have 50% all appies (except fish tacos and nachos) -- so DH and I decided to give this place another shot. We are glad we did, although the food wasn't all that great, it was OK, the standouts we ordered were the heart of palm salad and the french fries, and at 50% off we ate everythign we wanted, each had a drink, and the total came to $33.00 minus tax and tip! We will be back (on Sunday nights).
For my DH's birthday dinner we decided to dine at Lupo, as Villa Del Lupo it had been recommended very highly by friends. The dining rooms were rooms of a heritage house that had been refurbished, I like this kind of dining but it can be a bit noisy at times. The service was excellent, only one small serving snafu which was quickly remedied.
NOW for the food -- this is the toughest to quantify. We started with a special beet salad with fresh mozzarella. The mozzarella was OUTSTANDING, maybe the best I've ever had, but I felt it did not go with the beet salad below it at all. In fact, the beets were a bit bitter and swimming in slightly bitter oil, I thought it might be grapeseed oil?
Then came the appetizers, I had a rabbit paparedelle, which again was great, except the paparedelle was a hair underdone, even for al dente. This put a small damper on what would have otherwise been an outsdanding dish. My DH had the pomodoro, which was very good but a bit salty. For the main I was highly recommended the special steak by the server, it was good, but paired with 1) super truffley mushrooms and 2) slow cooked onions with balsamic vinegar. These sides were good, but masked the flavor of the steak, and they didn't taste good with each other. My DH had a good mushroom pasta.
Our dessert was a lucia cake that was soaked with some kind of strong almond flavor syrup. This syrup drowned out any other flavors the cake might have presented, and was way too strong for me. I wished for some whip cream or something to cut the flavor.
Overall, we did have a great night out, we enjoyed our evening, and although things didn't always come together food-wise we enjoyed our meal. Because of the good aspects of the food we would definitely give this place another shot. But the consistent missteps of the chef will cause me to be a bit more wary the next time around...
I have been to Le Crocodile twice now, and my DH has been there a lot in the past for business. This is a high-end place where I expect a high-end experience, and in my first visit to the restaurant I was rewarded with one, great food and service overall. Our second visit, the service level was just not up to par. Our server gave good recommendations when we ordered, but he did not check in with us enough, our dishes did not come out at the same time so one member of our party was left hanging for a LONG time, and, worst of all, when we pointed out to our server that 2 extra drinks had mistakenly been added on to our bill, he got very defensive and said "Well I didn't add them on!" -- no matter who added them on, it is his responsibility to check the bill, especially in a high-end restaurant. Our first time the service was much better, and my DH has always had good experiences here, so I can only assume it was THIS server.
Now to the food: Very good, everything was cooked well, I had the Prime Rib steak and it was very marbled, cooked perfectly, and delicious! One of the best I've ever had, certainly the best steak I've had in Vancouver. I also had the foie gras terrine appetizer, a very large portion and so good! Would be better to have shared it with someone because of its size. I give the restaurant a four because although my dining companions did not complain, they were clearly not wowed by their food. One person found a hair in his food which was sort of gross for such a high-end place.Not sure how to sum this place up, maybe Saturday was a bad night for them? Despite all this, I would still go back, and avoid the slightly rotund french server next time if at all possible.
In the super-busy area of "mid kits" there are many great restaurants to choose from of all price points. Even though we live close to this restaurant, due to a bad group experience I had had here a while back, and the fact that the place was always empty, my DH and I had never eaten here. Today we tried it out. Well, overall, it was just not that great. For appetizers, my DH loved his soup, I ordered the beet and arugula salad with manchego, to even compare it to the ubiquitous beet and goat cheese salads which deliciously abound in Vancouver is laughable. It had about 1 shaving of Manchego and no sauce. Poor. We also ordered the flatbread which was quite good. My DH ordered the pizza as a main and was so disgusted he couldn't eat much of it. It had a funny flavor like something was off. My special pork schnitzel was quite good, I loved that they had pasta as a side instead of potatoes or rice. So overall very mixed food, I feel the value was poor. Our service was pretty good though, they comped the pizza after we complained about it. We won't go back. My DH is now eating food at home as I write this.
I started coming here when I worked in the area and still come back just to eat at this restaurant from time to time. I usually order the Pho which is excellent, but the other stuff is good here as well, I have brought many people here and everyone likes it. Good vegetarian and vegan selections, inexpensive, good service, this is definitely a place I will keep coming back to.
I am reviewing this restaurant based on our expectations of a fine-dining experience. The place was rather empty when we walked in, I was surprised because I had heard this place was great from more than one person. We were seated and then ordered each a 3-course menu for $48. I liked how they let me order 2 appetizers and a main because I am not a big dessert fan. The food was VERY VERY GOOD bordering on excellent, my pork belly appetizer was good and the duck 3 ways was SO GOOD, I would give it a 9.5 out of 10 and I am pretty stingy with my ratings. My main dish, the lamb, was only OK in comparison, it came with a tortellini that was sort of crusty on top because it had either not been cooked through or had been sitting around too long -- inexcusable in my opinion. My husband is vegetarian, he loved his roasted vegetable appetizer, but his main, an orzo risotto, was not great. It had a yucky raisin puree that sort of ruined the dish (especially for me since I hate raisins, but he likes raisins and also didn't care for it much). He loved his toronne dessert, though. The service was friendly but frankly sub-par, the wine took forever to come, food was a long time in between courses, at one point the server took our bread away promising to bring more and never returned with more bread. BUT I did sort of love the hostess, she really cared about our experience and how we enjoyed the food, I wish she had been our server!
It was a Friday night. We were at Delilah's. We had never been there before, and were sort of surprised to find ourselves in a somewhat shabby, Febreze-smelling empty restaurant. It was hard to believe they would choose this place for a TV show! But we had a Groupon to use up, so we sat down.
The waitress was nice, immediately bringing over the flight of Martinis. Now, these are SUPPOSED to be full-size martinis, but it was hard to believe these half-full sugar-water drinks (3 martinis valued at $27) were the same thing we would have gotten if we had ordered off the menu. If they were, they are the worst deal in town. Based on the quality of the martinis we got, we definitely did not want to order more so I don't know if that was the regular size or not.
Then came the food. I ordered the lamb burger, which looked ridiculously small (especially for $16!!) but turned out to be quite delicious. Still, not quite worth the price, but much better than a typical burger. The fries were good as well, but I swear the aioli with them was literally lemon juice stirred into jarred mayo.
Overall, we found the martinis to be horrible, the food to be good, and both to be extremely overpriced, even with a Groupon that basically gave us half off. Delilah's 15 minutes of fame are over, we will not be back.
Our first visit here we were exhausted and I think both we and the restaurant was having a bad day. Our visit tonight was much different. We enjoyed many small appetizers, the Feenie fries were delicious today, the pear and beet salad was great, and the onion tart was very good. The grilled sourdough was pretty good except for the unnatural green color painted on the bread, which I did not like. The dessert, a caramel napoleon with maple ice cream, was much better than we had bargained for and we greedily ate it up. I like that this place is open late and offers many $25 3-course meal options during the week as well. Wish they had a bit more vegetarian food, then we would go back more often.
I'm not sure what to make of this place. We were torn between the much busier Smoking Dog across the street, and this place. We should have gone to Smoking Dog. I really enjoyed the friendly staff who were working there, but the food was just not good. The pizza, advertised as "european thin crust" was really more like tortilla-crust than the typical thin-but-stiff European-style pizzas I have had before. But the taste was OK, dh and I rated it a 6 out of a possible 10. The meatball was very good and very big for the price, but when I asked them to make me a spaghetti with bolognese sauce to go with it they refused. The pasta I ended up ordering (carbonara) was not good at all, oily and bland, and worst of all it had been sitting around for a long time and was crusty on the edges (yuk!). The special, an eggplant parmesan, was extremely mediocre. We will not be back, too bad because we really enjoyed the waitstaff there.
