My own epicurial adventures in Vancouver

Friday, October 19, 2007

Coast Restaurant

Coast Restaurant
1257 Hamilton StreetVancouver, BC V6B5P9

So I’ve been going on and on about the Taste of Yaletown but have I actually been??? Well now the answer is yes! For my first foray in to the Taste of Yaletown menus, I went to Coast and in all, it was a pretty good experience.
To be honest, I was going to go to Goldfish with 5 of my friends for dinner. The plan was for us to go the Yaletown, looking all pretty and stuff, and dine out at a nice restaurant. However, after looking at the set menus offered, the menu at Goldfish just wasn’t up to snuff. So in a mad rush to find a place that can accommodate 6 of us at the last minute, Coast was chosen. But don’t get me wrong, it’s not like this was a “oh-shit-i-can’t-find-anything-better” type of deal. The menu offered for the taste of yaletown was sounded pretty good so we decided to give this place a go!
I did my reso online on OpenTable.com (you all should know how much of a fan I am of this site!) and the day before the reso, the restaurant called to confirm the booking. They told me that I need to be on time since the only hold tables for 15 minutes. It’s always a nice touch for a restaurant to call you to remind you of your booking and I thought the 15 minutes thing was fair. However, on the day of the booking, I was running super late and I was just scrambling to get another one of my friends there on time. Luckily, my non-tardy friends made it but when I got there, they informed me that the server told them that the table was booked for a party after us and that we were on a time limit. Now, Coast is a popular restaurnt but when I got there, it wasn’t like the place was packed! Fine, whatever! We knew what we wanted or order anyways and we got right to it. All of us got the set menu and the funny thing was while we all go the crab and halibut cake for an appie (you don’t make friends with salad!) the boys went with the surf and turf while the girls went with the baja scallops. The boys definatly got the better deal on that one. The surf and turf was quite delicious, with a 5-6 ounce piece of bacon wrapped beef tenderloin and 3 pieces of shrimp. The scallops was kinda disappointing, given that we basically got 5 small pieces of scallops on a bed of risotto. I wouldn’t even call that a scallop dish! It was more a risotto dish with scallops…but I’m not the chef there so whatever! The risotto was also a bit overdone but that’s understandable since they would probably make it in huge batches for the tasting menu. As for desert, instead of giving us 3 choices, the server told us that we’d actually be getting both the chocolate fondue and the german chocolate cake but in smaller sizes! Yay! Less decisions and more food. I quite enjoyed the desert but I did hear some people say that the cake was too sweet. I’m also pretty sure the fondue was made with milk chocolate so that added to the sweet factor.
All in all, Coast is a nice place and we had a good experience. Was it sensational? Not really. And to top it all off, remember how they said we were on a time limit? Well at the end of the meal, they didn’t even ask us to leave, which makes me wonder if they did have a second booking or if they were just trying to clear us out of there quick. Hm…….

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I tried out coast with the dine-out vancouver during Feb. Funny thing was none of us who went even bothered with the set menu. It's hard to resist all the good stuff they had on the main menu. I find it hard to judge a place when you're eating only from the set menu. Maybe it's because I don't eat out as much but I'd rather take a $70 hit for good food than $40 for the possibility of good food.

Alan

Barbara's Table said...

hahah! so true! it's the same at most restaurants...the set menus really just don't do them justice. I went to raincity grill for dinner for dineout and it was not good at all! But then I went there for brunch over the summer and it was great! Unfortunately, we can't all shell out $$$ for all the good eats! You're just too much of a baller Alan!