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With 130 seats on two levels, plus a 12-seat bar, eastern opulence will reign with sexy Arabic accents, richly upholstered beds, hand crafted Egyptian amber urns and harem style draperies. Sanafir, Arabic for meeting place, is part of the Glowbal Restaurant Group. Menu includes tapas in trios prepared with the flavours of Asia, India and the Mediterranean. Sanafir stocks a wide-ranging cellar with New and Old World wines to complement the tapas menu.
I went here a few months ago and I was disappointed. We left hungry even though we finished everything! The curry and butter chicken were quite sour and not curry-like at all. It felt like we were drinking soup. The dessert consisted of timbits and a piece of chocolate. Enough said.
I have been to this restaurant a few times and feel that it is reasonably priced with interesting and different food. The menu variety is good, so I think everyone can find something they like. Wine list is also fair. I enjoy the ambiance in general - some corners may be a little dark.
I say you probably pay for the great service and amazing atmosphere.
I'm not putting down the food, which was great as well, but you are paying quite a bit.
The upstairs part is fantastic! Very cozy and romantic. The one place in Vancouver that I've been that has beds you can eat on. Everything is thought out at the restaurant. Even the music was just right. I will go back, but I will wait for a good reason because of the price.
If you are willing to pay for fine dining and are after the entire dining experience then this is the best place to go. If you just want good food and don't care about anything else, you won't like the price.
Sanafir had been on our radar for some time so a Saturday night dinner for 4 people seemed like a good idea. Reservation was for 8.45 and we waited and waited until 10.00PM to eat. The hostess and staff were very apologetic and kept popping by to see if we were OK.standing at a table in the middle of the restaurant. They gave us a free round of drinks and some appetizers before we sat down to eat, chose the platter dinner and was not disappointed. A good variety of dishes with the calamari being the best. The only complaint was the loud techno music throbbing away, when they played some Middle-Eastern music it was so much better. My wife had a problem with the generic washroom but that doesn't bother us guys too much. An enjoyable evening.
I've been to Sanafir twice now, the first experience was memorable but the second one not so much. For the first time, I sat at the bar on a busy Tuesday night and received excellent service nonetheless from our attentive bartenders. They have 50% off their food menu on Tuesdays apparently which is a huge bonus for value considering much of their food is tapas. I've tried about 8 items off their menu and for the most part they have been solid but I would not consider it above average or outstanding. Standouts for me include the fried squid in blackpepper/lime and balgarbi ribs, and disappointments include the duck prosciutto and the lamb koftas. I decided to go with a friend again to Sanafir this week and the experience was not so good thanks to our grouchy server Shannon, she was blunt and rude, she made zero effort to connect with us and in fact barely made eye contact or said a please or thank you. My friend was wanting dessert but we opted to leave and go somewhere else for that so we wouldn't have to deal with our server any longer! Ambiance for this place is great though, love the high ceilings and warm moody feel of the place. Seats are a bit uncomfortable as most are stools do not have backs to lean on. I would love to return again for their Tuesday night deals, maybe just not in her section!
For something a little different, we tried Sanafir after hearing so much about it.
Food: We tried the hummus dip with olives and pita and calamari to start. This was the best dish by far. So flavorful and unique and pairs perfectly with cocktails. Next, the calamari was really salty for our tastes, but would be fairly nice if they just went easy on the salt. Unfortunately the main dishes were not as impressive. The chicken mango wrap was good, but nothing as exciting. My pad thai was not really authentic at all, and doused with a thick, overpowering sauce that tasted only of ginger and lime.
Ambiance: Quite unique and done very well. From gorgeous hanging lamps to beds to eat on, this restaurant is chic, gorgeous and ready for a party even after several years (very well maintained). I hear they are renovating again soon - hopefully they will still keep the same flavor of style.
The prices are fairly reasonable for something in the downtown area. Will be back for cocktails and tapas.
We went on DOV night and I gotta say, the ambiance is excellent and everything is downhill from there.
Seating: Very uncomfortable for it is really tight, but I got to give credit to the server who is willing to move us to a booth seating for 4 since we arrived really early and theres not very many customer. She did advise us that we have to be finished by 6pm for theres a group of 4 for the booth we were sitting on. Unfortunately, we stayed past 6pm for we had to wait 15 minutes for the bill and payment.
Food: My memory of the dish are a little vague..
Appetizer: I ordered the prawn with salad, the 2 prawns were overcooked so it was really rubbery, but the salad was great especially the dressing. My husband ordered the chrizo, he thought it was ok, but unfortunately, I didn't like it.
Main Dish: I ordered the vegetable Korma, the first bite was great, but after 2-3 spoons... ahhh.. realize its cloying sweet. My husband ordered the salmon, and again, they overcooked the salmon.. it is really rubbery.
Dessert: Chocolate Cake, its good but not blown away.
Service: There wasn't much service needed for we ordered everything from the beginning so dishes were coming out at good timing. The only issue i have was once we were done with our main dish, she came over to take our plates away without saying anything or asked if we wanted coffee with our dessert. So when she finally put our dessert on the table i had to ask her for coffee. To add to that, the coffee was terrible, it was so watered down that it just smelled like coffee but taste like water. I was unhappy throughout the meal but couldn't hold it in anymore when she served me bad coffee so I told her the coffee was really bad. She sort of explained to me that "well, its Americano, not coffee". I was really unhappy about that, for I have drunk Americano and i know it doesn't taste like water. She did agree to take it off the bill.
Definitely not go back to try the menu after this experience. Its too bad, we really like to be able to find good restaurants who really cares what they put on the plate and not just the appearence. I don't like to complain, I just want to have good food if I'm paying for it. I like to be able to enjoy myself.
For my inaugural Dine Out 2010 experience, I chose Sanafir for a couple of reasons. Number one, because I'd eaten there before and knew the food to be quite good, and two - because they were on the list of restaurants with an $18 menu. I was quite surprised to see that, so I had to secure a reservation before they sold out. I booked the day the menus were posted online, but was still only able to get a 5pm reservation. Not too problematic since I work downtown - I just had to leave the office 10 minutes early.
Upon arrival, we were greeted at the door in typical Glowbal Group fashion. Very friendly, smiling and polite people who showed us to the table. Our server was equally as friendly as he brought menus and water and then gave us a few minutes to look over the menus. The restaurant is very dark with high-vaulted ceilings - nice ambiance, but there was a feeling that something was missing. Maybe the drab weather outside just made the inside feel dreary, but it was just very dim and not necessarily in a good way.
We decided to share the land and sea trios for the mains and we both had the mushroom salad to start and baclava to finish. We chose a red wine based on what we wanted to drink - not to pair with the food. At $26 for a half-litre, I felt it was much too high considering it wasn't adding much to our dining experience. Could have gone with water and the meal wouldn't have been affected, but for some reason wine seems to elevate the mood when dining out.
When the mushroom salad arrived, I was surprised first by the generous portion and then by the taste. If they had served that salad for all three courses, I would have been very happy. It was divine. Full of sake marinated woodland mushrooms, this salad was so different from the typical boring greens usually served on menus at this price point. It doesn't take much to bring things up a notch with salad these days, and Sanafir has most definitely set the bar high. I can only hope that other restaurants will follow suit.
For the mains, we had goat cheese stuffed lamb kibbeh (a sort of meatball), oxtail ravioli with truffle cream and punjabi style butter chicken on the land trio. On the sea trio we had miso-bourbon glazed sablefish, Kanafa wrapped tiger prawns and spicy salt & pepper calamari. Without a doubt, the two dishes that stood out were the ravioli and the calamari. Delicious.
The baclava was decent with sugared orange rinds and strawberries as a garnish - not the best I've had by far, but pretty good. The portion seemed small, but after finishing, it was actually just the right amount so that I was full without feeling stuffed. After all that, I was still thinking about the mushroom salad! Yum.
It was a good start to Dine Out and I'm looking forward to going back to Sanafir for their Tapas Tuesdays. The value is only 3 stars because the wine is so over-priced.
Love the ambiance. Love the service. Love the drinks. Love the place overall.
The food is very funky - offering three different takes on each meat you order, you get to try it indian, middle eastern and japanese. Such a unique twist.
A fun place to bring friends and hang out, but nothing super special about the taste of the food. I liked it, but it didn't wow me over.
Sanafir is smooth but it's not a complete smooth sailing. I'd go back for drinks tho. =)
Five of us went to Sanafir for DOV last night, and it was one of the best dineout experiences I've had.
First, don't think of this restaurant as your traditional fine dining place. It's located on the Granville strip where all the clubs are, so the diners and vibe reflect that. The decor is beautiful - arabian influenced, with very high ceilings. When we first entered, it was packed and very loud downstairs, and we got a little worried. Luckily for us we got one of the beds upstairs. What a great concept! These are large leather beds with cushions strewn about. Diners sit or lie on them while eating off of a large platter in the center. Each bed is surrounded by see-through chiffon curtains. The whole thing was just gorgeous, and we were overwhelmed before even ordering our food!
We came knowing that Sanafir was a tapas place, so we didn't expect much in the way of portions. The food far exceeded our expectations. We ordered the mushroom salad and the tuna mango spring rolls (a third appetizer option not on their published DOV menu). The spring rolls were fantastic (and I don't even like tuna that much), and the salad was reported to be very good as well. For main we had the sea trio and land trio. The lamb kibbeh, oxtail ravioli, and the calamari were the highlights, but to be honest, every dish had a amazing harmony of flavors and was received well. The miso bourbon sablefish was served cold, which threw me off a bit, but it was still flavorful and delicious.
For dessert we had the baclava and the bread pudding. I wasn't crazy about the baclava.. it had too much nuts and that's all I could really taste. The bread pudding was yummy if you don't mind the taste of ginger or chai. I loved the firm (but not too chewy) texture.
Our server was very attentative and pleasant, and we had a great time. It's hard to believe all of this comes down to $18 pp.
Went there on a Sat night and the place looks very nice. Modern looking with a very sleek interior. Was seated upstairs and this area is even better than the downstairs. Some tables and some beds to sit/lie. Food was generally very good. You get each protien served 3 ways when you order. Calamari, chicken, lamb all were tried and all very good. Had the flat bread as well with humous, very good. Atmoshphere upstairs is a plus and service was very good. Price is a bit high with overall value as average. Would go back.
Finally tried Sanafir last night with 7 other people. I can honestly say, it wasn't as expensive as I thought it would be - $14/trio. Yes, the portions are not full-belly friendly, but what do you expect for tapas? Sharing 3 trios per couple was recommended.
4 of us were there before the rest of the party and we split 2 orders of naan and hommus (great deal btw), and the asian green bean dish which was nice and spicy. My boyfriend and I shared the chicken trio and the salmon trio. Both had good flavor except for the chicken liver pate which I can only describe as "meat toothpaste" - not much flavor, just texture. At our table, we ordered 3 chicken trios and nobody could stomach the pate. It was the only dish left somewhat untouched. The rest of the meal was delicious.
The service was top notch. Our server, Mao, was excellent! He's the perfect example of the perfect server!
What really won us over was at the end of the meal, I asked if they would serve us the cake I brought in at the beginning. He had to ask management (they don't serve outside food), but came back with cake slices neatly presented on clean plates and blueberries. Best of all, they didn't charge a penny for "cake serving" like most restaurants!
Ambiance is without a doubt, gorgeous. I will definitely be a returning customer!
My expectations are too high for these tapas restaurants. The ambience, decor is amazing, it feels like you are dining in a different city, the location is not the greatest as they needed bouncers, yes BOUNCERS for a restaurant as the venue is close to pubs and clubs where the bridge and tunnelers congregate so security is needed. The food was unique but lacked in taste. Fusion to a point of bland I thought. They need to kick up the spices a tad. Nothing stood out for me unfortunately. I also found the tables for 4 really cramped. I'd go again, but will definitely eat something before I go as the tiny portions did not suffice. I'd go again for a snack and martini but for a good dinner I'd go to its sister restaurant Glowbal or Coast instead.
A friend told me about this place so I decided to check it out.
Atmosphere: It definitely has some "sexy Arabic" feel to it, plus the romantic high ceilings.
Food: All the foods were tapas and it has some neat concept to it. If you order, for example, tuna, it will give you 3 small dishes of tuna, each are from North Africa, Asia and Middle East. The dishes were flavorful. I'm not used to some of spices so I might need time to appreciate it. Overall, the food was tasty and recommended. It's a little on a pricey side at $14/each. You'll probably need to order 3-4 sets of them to feed 2 adults.
Service: The service was acceptable, not outstanding. Our server seemed to be super busy even though only 3-5 tables were occupied. Some orders took a long time and he kinda forgot some orders.
Our bill inc/ 2 drinks and dessert was approx $100 (exc/tip). In the end, we were still hungry.
I think this is a good time one experience.
Looking for a drink with a light meal late night. Stopped by Prima Taste, closed. Sonomama, closed. Was heading towards Bin 941 when I saw the beautiful room. I must have walked by this place a thousand times but never noticed it. A small sign says Sanafir and I remember hearing great things about its drinks. So we stepped in.
We settled into a cozy booth, and looked at the menu. Sadly, neither the martinis nor cocktails interested me. So I settled for a BC red. Food-wise, we chose the tuna, lamb and crab risotto.
The crab risotto was bland and we only enojyed 2 of the 6 tapas. However, at $14/trios, it is very reasonably priced. We looked at the dessert menu and decided to skip it. I settled for my usual scotch instead.
It was a slow night, yet we had a problem getting the server's attention. Other than that, she's pretty ok.
Ambiance: Probably the only saving grace. Beautiful room. The kind of place I want to be in at the end of a day with my scotch.
Return? Unlikely. Perhaps I'm cheap. The scotch costs 40% more than my usual haunts (Bin 941, Prima) and the food is just decent. But the room is really beautiful.
Tried out Sanafir Restaurant last night with another couple for Dine Out 2011. The menu was amazing! I started with the 'Roast Root Vegetable and Quinoa Salad balsamic and dijon vinaigrette', which was delicious, I'm a big fan of quinoa. My boyfriend had the 'Grilled Tandoori Prawn Skewer chickpea and pea shoot salad, roast garlic and lemon vinaigrette' as his starter which was amazing. My entree was the Vegetable Korma which consisted of peas, spinach, carrots, potato and onions in an aromic curry sauce with a warm touch of cinnamon, I think. My boyfriend had the 'Seared Coho Salmon fingerling potato, braised greens, coconut yellow curry'. The fish was a little under cooked but the sauce and kale on the plate were a delight.
The atmosphere is amazing in this restaurant. High ceilings, modern morrocan decor, a very warm and sexy atmosphere. The service was great, the hostesses were very friendly and welcoming, our waitress very attentive. If you go to Sanafir you must also try their cocktails, they are amazing. I recommend the lavander cocktail! I'd recommend this restaurant to either a couple or a group of people that want to try something different, their regular menu looks amazing as well.
Good atmosphere to hang out if you don't get out much. We were seated by the front window, a great spot for people watching but the bench table was ridiculous! Seriously poor design for the bench table - it had this awkward gap in the middle that was not wide enough to be functional such as fitting a bottle of wine or a wine glass but wide enough to wreak havoc e.g. wine glasses toppling over if you weren't paying attenton or your share plate to go bouncing.
The food is awful for the price! The share plates were terrible value and not at all creative. With the exception of lobster risotto, everything was cold...imagine cold lamb curry...blech! The prawn salad roll (vietnamese style) had been sitting out way too long so that the rice wrapper was dry and chewy.
The service was decent but a bit off...I'm not a big fan of having the server place my napkin on my lap when I haven't even looked at the menu! It's almost like they're trying to be something that they clearly are not.
So yeah, great place if you like to spend a lot of money for nothing much, being in a pretentious climate and being treated poorly!
You must provide a credit card to secure your reservation, risk incurring a charge on your credit card if you are late or if you cancel your reservation within 4 days of arrival, be charged an automatic gratuity of 20% and be rushed out by a certain time. Another gem from the Glowbal Group!
To keep it short and sweet, we dined here in the early evening on a Friday night. There were only a few people in the restaurant.
The decor and atmosphere was very nice; I liked it. Comforting, warm.
The man who was hosting was great too and, although we only saw our server a couple times, he filled in for her quite smoothly.
The wine was decent.
The food was mediocre at best. Honestly it was lousy. Short of the time I got food poisoning, it was my worst food experience dining out. There is next to no seasoning. We ordered after a few minutes of being seated but waited 40 minutes for our appetizers - tuna confit which turned out to be an open-face tuna sandwich. We tried very hard to keep from laughing at it.
We had the ling cod and could barely tall the difference between the fish and the onions, there was so much batter. I've never been to a restaurant before that could destroy a potato, but they managed. It was boiled in plain water, not seasoned, put under the salamander and heavily burnt while sitting in a pool of unseasoned tinny liquid tomato.
Seriously, I have never seen anything like it. It was quite remarkable in how terrible it was, so much so that we were laughing. When in doubt there was a pile of pea shoots on or under something and they must have taken the "Frank's Red Hot" commercials too seriously because, I kid you not, they put that sh*t on everything! Frank's was poured on top of several of the dishes we had.
Good grief, it was a lousy dinner. We will never go back there again, but at least we'll have something that makes us laugh when we walk by it.
I came here with my bf for dinner tonight after hearing about this resto for a very long time. When we arrived to the entrance, we thought that the place was closed cuz it was super dark from outside but we decided to push the door to try, luckily it was open. It took us less than a minute to get seated. The atmosphere was awesome, very high ceiling with lots of candles incorporated into the holes of the walls, precious stones on the high ceiling walls, unique tables and menu sheets, and very authentic hanging lamps. The downside to it is that it's too dark, it's even too dark to both of us who are actually used to dark restaurants. The menu was very interesting, we just need to choose the type of protein and it'll come in 3 ways.
So, we tried the lamb in 3 ways:
1. lamb curry with rice was not bad, it also came with crackers
2. lamb meatball was alright, the seasoning was pretty strong so I give credit for the distinction from other meatballs. The beans to accompany the meatball was not bad.
3. seared lamb loin is like marinated lamb tataki so it's seared on the outside and rare inside. The meat was tasty, a little salty to me, but bf thought it was fine. It's the best dish of the dinner although it was a little salty.
We also ordered Dungeness Crab Risotto. The rice was overly cooked, no bite to it whatsoever. The taste was also bland.
We also ordered 3 of the chef's selections:
1. prawn gyoza that taste totally awful. The skin was hard, it was like the gyoza had been cooked like weeks ago but just staying in the fridge or freezer for customers to order. It was tasteless too.
2. Oxtail capelletti was also not good. The skin of the pasta is like the gyoza as it was very hard and felt it had been premade long ago, just reheated b4 serving. The good thing about this is that the sauce was pretty good.
3. Korean BBQ Baby Back Ribs was not good. It wasn't served hot, it was only warm, I think it's also premade yet they can't even seem to reheat it right. It was braised and totally not bbq style, so the menu was misleading.
Finally we ordered a Coffee Pot de Creme which came in a small espresso cup with 4 little yam balls. The coffe pot de creme was very creamy, only a third of the cup was filled with coffee creme the rest was whipping cream.
It was very difficult for us to share the dishes during dinner cuz it was too dark and we couldn't even see what we're eating. We even needed to carry the table candles over our food to take a closer look at what we're eating. The presentation of the food was excellent, I just hope that the food could b better. l would definitely not come back here w my bf again, but I might bring my friends over to enjoy the ambiance and have some drinks and try a little of other foods.
My husband and I were given a gift certificate to this restaurant a while ago and finally had a chance to use it this Saturday night before a concert. And what a treat!
From the warm greeting at our entrance, to the excellent service by our very knowledgeable and friendly server, to the fabulous food (I would highly recommend the prawn tapas), we were most impressed. And the price was so reasonable!
We don`t `go downtown` much but will definitely be visiting this gem again the next time we do.
| 1. | Numero Uno Pizza (14 m) |  |
| 2. | Crave India (22 m) | |
| 3. | Factory, The (26 m) |  |
| 4. | Falafel Town (34 m) |  |
| 5. | Dougiedog Hot Dog Joint (38 m) | |
| 6. | Megabite Pizza (43 m) | |
| 7. | Loose Moose Tapas Bar & Grill (50 m) | |
| 8. | Blenz Coffee (50 m) | |
| 9. | Doolin's Irish Pub (61 m) | |
| 10. | Pita Pit, The (65 m) | |
