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Bistro The Home is an Asian fusion restaurant in Richmond. They accept cash only.
Had lunch here today with my wife. Their lunch special you get included with your pasta either a soup or a salad, as well as a drink. With the drink (pop, honey lemon, tea) you can upgrade for a dollar or two to some coffee drinks or a slush.
We both choose soup, which was cream of corn. It was fine, at best average. I found the portions lacking as well as looking a bit cheap, as the bowl was huge compared to the actual soup in it. We both ordered slushes for $2 more, I choose the mango slush, it was only 2/3rds full in the glass, but it tasted above average. My wife ordered a strawberry slush, it was filled to the top, but was very icy, you could hardly tell from drinking it that it was even strawberry.
So far the drink and soup was okay at best, but then we got the pasta. I had the seafood pasta with cream sauce and my wife had chicken and prawn pasta. The pasta itself was quite good, the pasta sauce I found quite good as well, it was far better than I thought it would be. My wif'e's dish had 4 prawns and a few small chunks of chicken, which I found to be a fair amount. My dish had a few pieces of clam, mussels, prawns and scallops. Although very good, I found the pasta portion a little small. My wife could finish her meal no problem and I was still slightly hungry afterwords.
The pasta dishes we ordered were around $10 each, plus $2 for each drink upgrade to slush. Value wise I found it fine, but I just wish there was more soup and more pasta. I found the amount of seafood fine, just not enough pasta.
Service wise, I found the service friendly but sparse. I got seated, after 5 minutes they took my order, then although the restaurant was 1/2 empty, it took at least 20 minutes before I got my drink and soup, then another 10 minutes to get my pasta. Since they mostly serve pasta (you don't get to choose what type), as well as have a limited number of sauce options (olive oil, cream sauce and tomato sauce), I expected my food a lot faster than 30 minutes. I then had to wave down the waitress to get my bill.
The restaurant itself was nice and clean, not too packed with tables. The worse part of it was the lack of heating. I'm uncertain if it was colder inside or outside. I kept my jacket on the entire time and was still cold. The food also cooled quite quickly.
If you come here, come for the pasta, its great! But bundle up for the lack of heating, and if you are a big eater, better order something else, but not the soup or strawberry slush!
Do you always have to pay top price for good pasta? I was a bit skeptical at first, but I thought sure, why not give it a try. Maybe Asian-style pasta would be nice for a change? I ordered the Mare seafood pasta with my choice of a sauce (olive oil, tomato, or white wine) for less than $10, and added a beverage for an additional $1. After waiting for a few minutes, we got our drinks and complimentary garlic bread in a basket. The iced lemon tea was ok, and the few pieces of garlic bread wasn't too bad (we were really here to try the pasta anyway). When the food arrived, I was quite impressed. The seafood spaghetti in tomato sauce was served with a good portion of mussels, scallops and shrimps. The pasta was cooked al dente and served hot, while the seafood was fresh and wasn't overcooked. The decor is modern and the establishment looks tidy and clean. Our server was attentive and was pretty quick to meet all of our requests. Overall, I thought they delivered excellent value so we'll be back again soon.
Went there for lunch with couple friends. Lunch had quite a good value where a soup or salad, and a drink comes included with your meal ranging around $9-15.
My friend ordered an Unagi pasta - not bad, it happens to go quite well with paste. It seems easy to make at home :)
My other friend ordered an Octupus inked seafood pasta - appearance could be better in my opinion. Everything was black. For some reason i was thinking the seafood would have been in their orginal colour and only the pasta would be in octupus ink. Flavour was great, it just the appearance that wasn't that appealing.
I ordered a Seafood pasta in cream sauce. Done quite well.
As for portion, I think for ladies it is the perfect size, but for mens, maybe just not enough.
Ambience is nice and comfy. Service is attentive.
I stepped in here in a quite Saturday afternoon. There was only one other customer since it was only around 11AM. The server was friendly and made some suggestions.
Lunch comes with complimentary soup or salad, and coffee or soft drink. I would suggest getting salad while making a separate order for the soup, since the complimentary soup was only about 1/4 of the bowl. They had cream and broccoli soup, which also features a rich garlic taste. Coffee wasn't too bad though.
Now comes the real deal: pastas. I went for the seafood pasta with cream sauce. The cream sauce had a rich taste in it, but very smooth. The plate was full of seafood just like the picture people submitted here. The portion was on the small side, but considering what you are paying for, there really should not be any complains.
Every restaurant has its "mines". Here it is, Tiramisu that was clearly out of the fridge, AND the cake part was wet and soggy. If you really want desserts, opt for other options.
Overall, this restaurant features great ambiance and service, while serving great pastas. Would return.
Relatively new still, this place serves great pasta dishes that are supposedly "asianized".
IMO most of the simpler dishes taste pretty authentic Italian. The asianized twist comes in other special dishes that feature eel/lobster/taiwanese sausage, etc.
The food suits my taste very well. The carbonara and white/red sauces are delicious. The garlic oil based sauce was too garlic-y. They also serve pizza/mains at very reasonable prices. Haven't yet tried them. They have a feature soup every day which is also very well made. Tastes like it was not mass produced, like in many restaurants (of the same level).
Service is excellent. A lot of times you get free soup, drinks, and dessert for free. Waitresses are polite and attentive.
Value is where this place really shines. The average pasta dish is $8.50. For lunch, you get a soup and drink for free. Your whole meal including tax is LESS than $10. I went to the Tim Hortons drive-thru the other day, and a meal cost me $10. What a joke. I say a dinner at night including appys, mains, drinks may cost you $30 a person. Comparable to places 2-3 times the price easily.
Ambiance is nice. Candlelit at night with dim lights. Nice soft jazzy music.
All in all, it's an awesome place and you've gotta try it!
LivingSocial first alerted me to this slightly hidden restaurant tucked into the back of 8460 Alexandra Road with it's $10 for $20 worth of food deal. Colleagues of mine who previously dined here alerted me to some not-so-pleasant experiences at this restaurant, solely being the serviceability of the food, and the capacity of the waiting staff and kitchen to efficiently accomplish servicing dishes (in the non-korean definition of the term). In addition, the ingredients on the potato pizza, a popular dish in Korea were sparse and improperly cooked, while several other items on the menu that were desired were unavailable, making the menu extremely limited. This was attributed by the service staff as due to having only recently started. Of course, these are reviews I cannot personally validate.
I dined at Bistro the Home on a Sunday evening. Two large parties were on their way out while one remained. As expected of a Korean-run establishment, the service-orientation was excellent from start to finish. However I was disappointed by the fact that no soups other than the creamy mushroom soup were available as I had wanted to order the honey squash soup. I opted to start with the caprese salad that was made to the order of what one would expect from a caprese salad, with excellent presentation and olive oil and balsamic reduction. The creamy mushroom soup was prepared in a way that may come close to offending one's aversion to canned soup, however this home made soup is a thick and balanced purée. Half-sliced whole morel mushrooms would have made a great addition especially if the water was retained for the soup after dehydration. However, to keep the same price point, Bistro the Home could forego the morel mushrooms and add a drop or a few of white truffle oil - something that requires an acquired taste for many but which would turn this otherwise common cream of mushroom soup into one that would go great with a red meat main dish, especially seared duck.
The kimchi and bacon pasta was a creative dish that was certainly a first. Pickled kale would also have been a great supplement to or replacement for the standard kimchi, and would keep to the fusion theme. The only real disappointment was the house red wine, which certainly does not reasonably stand as a pairing for any of the dishes and which would not have done well with meat. Best to save the house red for setting a fire, or more usefully as a base for tomato sauces, along with ingredient to compensate for the lack of flavour and staying power.
Bistro the Home has a cozy interior that would certainly be a great place for a lunch time and evening engagement, with its waiting staff adding to its charm. However a clarification of the limitations of the menu is in order as its tall list is unnecessarily overwhelming, especially when not all items are available at all times, or so it seems. With its fair pricing, Bistro the Home has the potential to stand as a hot spot for its unique dishes that combine the standard fare of pacific northwest and western cuisine with the culinary learnedness of its native Korean culinary team.
I would dine here again.
My friend took me to try out this place because of their buy 1 get 1 free promotion for pasta. Basically you get 2 dishes of pasta and you get charged for the one with the higher price. Since you get 2 dish for 1, the value is definitely worth it. We paid $17.50 for 2 dishes. We went there on Saturday and there weren't too much customers. I would guess it's because it is still a new restaurant, not much people know about it.
I have never tried any authentic Italian pasta before, so I can't really say if the food is authentic or not. I am commenting the food based on its taste and how it was displayed. I have the Vongole, which is pasta with clams, garlic shoots and olive oil sauce. The clams were really fresh and juicy, which is the thing I like this pasta the most! They also have tomato cubes on the pasta, which is the negative part since I don't really like tomato. The garlic shoots were quite large in my opinion. They also added some kind of spice (red pepper i think), this makes the pasta taste a bit spicy. The taste was not bad, aside from the fact that it's kinda spicy. I would say their pasta was a bit too watery because there were lots of sauce at the bottom of the dish.
I wasn't sure was it was because there were only 2 tables at the time we arrived, their service was very good. The waitress was very nice and friendly, making us feel very comfortable eating at their restaurant. One of my friends is a vegetarian and cannot eat any green onion, onion and garlic. She has to make special request to her order and the waitress helped her make sure her food did not contain any onion, which I thought was very caring of her.
The ambiance was great! Again, I don't know if this was because there weren't too much customers by the time we went, the restaurant was very spacious. I would say it's a good place for chatting with your friends since it wasn't noisy at all.
The only thing that's bad about this place is its location. You can see the restaurant on Alderbridge, but it's hardly noticeable if you are not looking out the window. Plus the entrance is located on Alexandra Road, so you would have to drive all the way around to find parking and get to this restaurant.
Overall, I would rate this restaurant a 4/5. =]
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