Joe Fortes Seafood & Chop House

Finishing up some shopping, I really wanted to try the new barbecue joint downtown, Buckstop. However, somehow on the way there we decided to try Joe Fortes. Steak at 4:00pm? Meh, why not. Joe Fortes is conveniently located downtown in the prime area for shopping. Also, JF is considered as a "place to be seen" or for their patio imo. When we arrived, the hostess asked if we are here for happy hours or dinner. Happy hour diners are seated at the bar or high tables and the restaurant offers 50% off selected appetizers. We asked for the dinner menu since booth seats or half, are more appealing and comfortable for us me.

However, apparently the restaurant needs to fill the corner of the first floor before seating diners elsewhere since this was our table. I hate small tables, I mean… come on. There is only enough room for one appetizer in the middle and two personal appetizers (salad or soup). Of course I took my purse off the table but can you imagine fitting two to three appetizers to share (plus side plates and table bread)? This was a disappointment since we wanted to order a few appetizers but had to stick with a bowl of chowder each to prevent table issues. Side note, I have a problem distinguishing whether a restaurant is fine dining or not, since most of the time, the food or service may not be fine dining quality. According to Urbanspoon's "$$$$", Joe Fortes is considered fine dining due to the higher prices, so, I would not expect a dirty menu, but there was.

The Keg Steakhouse & Bar : Burnaby location

I assume that most peoples' first steakhouse is always The Keg, because it was certainly mine! The Keg is a casual chain steakhouse serving good food at an affordable price. And despite knowing a few people that do not like The Keg, their prices are obviously very reasonable compared to high end steakhouses such as Gotham and Hy's. So what do I come here for? The filet or prime rib.

The restaurant's interior is dimly lit, but every table has decent lightning in the area. The seating arrangements are usually booth seats and the restaurant can easily accommodate large parties as well.

Hy's Encore

Hy's steaks are cut in-house from specially selected Canadian Prime beef, aged a minimum of 28 days and charcoal broiled to order.

I tried visiting Hy's Encore around two weeks ago and never managed to, but I was able to make the visit tonight! Arriving after the long weekend and hoping Hy's would be slow on a Tuesday evening, I was wrong. Hy's was packed! Although the restaurant is fairly small with less than twenty tables in the main dining room, Hy's had more diners compared to Gotham on a weeknight. 

The dining room is dimly lit and the seating arrangements are a bit tight. Since the dining room was pretty much full and being seated in the middle was quite loud, we asked if it was possible to move to the other room. After our server confirmed with the hostess, we made our way to the other dining room. I felt a lot more comfortable being the only diners in the room, since I could take photos with flash without bother anyone.

Meh, just because I took a photo of Gotham's napkin. The font and color is the same too, it is probably from the same supplier.

Dockside Restaurant

The night before we ate at Sandbar, we ate here at Dockside. After our dinner, we both regretted not going to Sandbar but after having eaten there, we both agree that Dockside is better. Dockside is known for their gorgeous patio and the 50 foot aquarium by the open kitchen which BF and I totally missed! That is why in my photo frame I chose the outdoor fire, silly me.

HOUSE SMOKED SOCKEYE CHOWDER, CRAB CAKE, 6OZ GRILLED BEEF TENDERLOIN AND THE 10OZ SLOW ROASTED PRIME RIB.

HOUSE SMOKED SOCKEYE CHOWDER ($8.00). The chowder has a thick, creamy texture and a good amount of ingredients but is served warm (could have been hotter) and lacks flavour. The chowder is meh, something you want to quickly finish and get out of the way. The chowder is not memorable and I only liked the corn niblets. BFs didn't have any corn so maybe they needed to mix the pot before serving?

CRAB CAKE ($15.00). The crab cake is very heavy on the mayonnaise and does not very taste good. I like the presentation, but it didn't taste good. I would prefer the Keg's crab cake more.

MY 6oz GRILLED BEEF TENDERLOIN WITH IRISH DUBLINER CAPPELLETTI, GRILLED ASPARAGUS AND CHARRED TOMATO, SMOKED BLACK BERRY PORT AND NATURAL JUICES ($32.00). I wish I paid attention to the menu instead of thinking grilled beef tenderloin, I want! because when I got the entree I thought huh? pasta? with my steak? macaroni?. The pasta is a minute undercooked, very hard and ehh... I couldn't eat it. The tenderloin is medium rare but not juicy or tasty and tastes bland. I feel like the au jus was overly strong, heavy and too rib sauce like for me. I guess the steak is bland and you should use the au jus... but every steak should have a good natural taste without sauce. Shouldn't sauce only be available to enhance the flavour?

HIS 10oz SLOW ROASTED PRIME RIB WITH CREAMY BAKED GARLIC POTATOES, ASPARAGUS, FOREST MUSHROOMS WITH VEAL JUS AND BUTTER, AND DUCK FAT FRIED YORKSHIRE PUDDING ($32.00). The yorkshire pudding tastes overly hard and not very good, I want to say it's stale but I don't think it is. The veal jus tasted very heavy, strong, not very good and kind of ruined the prime rib. He managed to scrap as much sauce off the steak as he could and try to enjoy it. The prime rib is not as tender as it could have been and is a bit chewy, but medium rare.

Overall I can say maybe it is our fault for ordering steak instead of fish.. but the sauces are too over whelming and pretty much ruined the steaks. The chowders as well as the crab cake was not very good either. We pretty much did not enjoy any of the dishes here which is disappointing because we wanted to try a new restaurant.

I will mention that the service is pretty perfect though. The restaurant was empty when we came and our server was attentive, friendly and knowledgeable. When we sat down there was dirty cutlery, she noticed me looking at it and quickly changed it for me. Yes, I like little things but these are the little things that get you a 20% tip.

I would recommend coming here once for their patio (you could enjoy the food right?) but do not order the chowders or steaks. I would most likely come back next year and try it again but not any time soon. Honestly, if it was not for our server I would have been mad at the restaurant just because the food was horrible.

Food: 1/5
Service: 5/5

The Boathouse Restaurant : White Rock location

After dim sum, BF and I spent the whole day looking for Seadoo floating devices from Broadway and Cambie, Canadian Tire, to Granville Island and we left empty handed. To make myself feel better I wanted gelato at Bella Gelateria (the best) but the line up was really long, out the door two blocks. Being disappointed again, we decided to go to the Boathouse in White Rock. It is my first time coming here and BF says it is his favourite Boathouse location.

When we arrived, I wanted a seat on the deck since it was such a nice evening but because we did not make reservations, there was thirty minute wait. The hostess was friendly, genuine and apologetic for our wait which she did not need to be since we did not make any reservations. I feel like it is hard to come by hostesses and servers (in my opinion) who act like they care or even fake it (I honestly do not mind if they fake it because it is their job, any acknowledgment is nice).

<- THE VIEW FROM OUR TABLE

The Keg Steakhouse & Bar : Coquitlam location

The Keg in Burnaby is a regular restaurant of mine, but I wanted to try something different. Plus, I was visiting a friend in Coquitlam and I did not mind trying the Keg there hehe. 

The Sandbar Seafood Restaurant

THIS IS MORE OF A STORY/VENT and is a post of course.

This is the story of Sandbar for BF and I. The night before, we went for dinner at Dockside in Granville Island, the food was not that great but the service was perfection. We had regret not coming to Sandbar because we thought Dockside would be better and since I had nothing better to do, I spent the next day looking through dishes from Sandbar on Instagram. All the dishes looked really good and the reviews were really high (except I am silly and did not actually read any). So... we came here the night after Dockside and it was the most horrible experience ever. Well, actually Bao Bei is still the worst experience ever, but this comes in second.

I was so annoyed and mad with Sandbar that I actually sent them an e-mail and wrote my first "post" on Urbanspoon, Trip Advisor, and some other random ones. I received an e-mail response asking to leave my phone number, so I left BFs. BF told me the general manager called, apologized and said he was speechless. Well.. anyone can be speechless if the food sucks or if the food is amazing. It was kind of like "huh?", since he did not answer my questions or respond to any of my comments. Meh, an apology whether it is sincere or not is better than nothing since he acknowledged my experience (unlike Bao Bei.)

So what happened was we went on a Thursday night and it was slow. There was probably hmm 6-8 empty booths seats? We asked to sit at a booth and they cramped us against this corner (at least there was a window) with a tiny table because apparently all the booths were "reserved." Okay, so why is it after an hour or so.. no one showed up? It turns out our server meant those tables are reserved for tables of four. I understand if this is a weekend or super busy of course, but this is on a Thursday night and really slow. What made me mad later was when I thought at the beginning before we were seated, the hostess told us a table would be free in 30 minutes, or we can go upstairs and warned us it was loud. What would have happened if you made us wait 30 minutes to sit at a tiny table when there were 6-8 booths available? I would have been furious.

Anyways, BF and I tend to order a lot, because we like to eat a lot. We can easily order the same or more than a table of 3 or 4 people. When our server finally came, we ordered two HOUSE MADE CLAM CHOWDER BOWLS, FISH TACOS, SPOT PRAWNS, HALIBUT and the 16oz "BONE IN" STEAK. Firstly, our server who was very rude, rolled her eyes at me when I asked her (honestly, I was very polite) to change my cutlery since it was dirty and the napkin had dirt on it. Secondly, when we ordered the CHOWDERS, FISH TACOS, and SPOT PRAWNS, she was leaving. BF had to literally say, "for our entrees..." for her to stay. Thirdly, she did not write anything down (which is fine if you are good at memorizing) and got our order wrong. She thought we wanted two chowder cups instead of bowls. Fourthly, we wanted to order more but felt restricted because she was already trying to rush off so I felt like we should hurry. Also, since it is our first time here, we were not sure if they brought their appetizers all at once or one by one (some places bring all the appetizers out at once and our table could only fit one). And lastly, at the end of dinner we had to get up to and give our bill to someone else standing by the kitchen because she disappeared numerous times talking to other employees. Honestly if this sounds unprofessional.. it is just how I feel, if an employee was done their job, made sure their customers were happy and did not need anything else, they should be able to talk to other co-workers as long as it is not too loud for customers to overhear. 

With that out of the way... on to the food. I deleted the individual photos because I made a photo frame and did not think I would be posting any photos.

HOUSE MADE CLAM CHOWDER ($8.00). The chowder tastes thin, bland and flavourless. It makes Campbell's Chunky Chowder soup taste like a luxury. I wish we did not correct our server and got the cup sizes instead of bowls. The chowder has no seafood taste but at least there is a good amount of corn niblets and diced carrots?

SPOT PRAWNS ($29.00). For the price you pay, it is not worth it. The dish comes with 2 "regular size" spot prawns and 2 "baby size" spot prawns. What happens if you have a table of 4? Who gets the smaller ones or larger ones? For the same price I could have had 1lb of "full size" spot prawns at a Chinese restaurant (fine, that is not fair to compare) or 4 "full size" spot prawns at another seafood restaurant. 

FISH TACOS ($12.00). The tacos are surprisingly not bad. The fish is not over deep fried or dry, but could have been battered a bit less. The fish tacos taste average and has been better than our other appetizers. I guess Sandbar is more of a restaurant to grab a small bite and watch the view?

MY HALIBUT FISH OFF THE FRESH SHEET ($26.00). The is halibut is cooked perfectly with no complaints.

HIS 16 oz "BONE IN" STEAK ($35.00). Well... there is no bone, therefore it is not a "bone in" steak. The steak tastes chewy, tough and flavourless but is medium rare. We packed it for the dogs (I have the photo on Instagram under MissVancouverPiggy, it is so cute).

In the end, the general manager did contact and acknowledge us which is nice and also gave us a $25.00 gift card. But to be honest even with the gift card, we will not be coming back. There are so many good restaurants and Sandbar is just a joke. It is a place to be "seen" or for the view. I rather walk Granville Island, eat somewhere else after, or go to Bridges or Dockside instead. I will take the blame for the steak just because it is a seafood restaurant right? I will justify that steaks can be below average. But what about the "bone in" that is written on the menu? That is kind of silly of them. Oh yeah, we never got any bread or butter and my friends have always gotten them (just saying).

What were my comments and questions I asked? I asked about the spot prawns regarding their uneven sizes (I saw other photos on IG that looked the same, so they intentionally give 2 small and 2 regular size ones), and if there is a bone in the "bone-in" steak. My comments were that I understand if employees are trained to memorize orders but it does not make them look bad if they are writing it down, which they should if they cannot be accurate. As well as some attitude adjustments if customers complain about something that has nothing to do with the servers themselves (my cutlery and napkin was dirty and no ones fault so why the eyeroll?), and their policy should be changed regarding the "booths are reserved for tables of 4 only," because I strongly believe there are people like me who will come and leave just because you try to give them a small table, especially when it is slow. 

Please do not think I am a horrible person, of course if it was a weekend or super busy I am totally understanding. I should also mention that the general manager did say he can gaurantee for our next visit, things will be different. How would that work? So there will be a bone in my steak as well as 4 regular sized spot prawns? No.. it should not work like that because going through many photos, the food presentation from my photos matches the photos of others. 

Note: To be honest, if the server did not roll her eyes at me, asked the manager if she could give us a larger table and did not rush off when we were in the middle of ordering, I do not think I would have been mad. I think it is everything that built up. Btw the table given was practically like a side table or a coffee table.

Food: 1/5 (fine 2/5 because the halibut is perfectly cooked.)

Service: .05/5