Monday, January 20, 2014

New Restaurant Friday: Rain City Grill-Vancouver, BC

Happy Monday all!!! I am getting a late start today. This weekend the hubby and I were busy, busy on date nights and just spending time together and with the teenager so I wasn't on the computer too much...which honestly was fine I was feeling like I needed a technology hiatus!

Anyway...I wanted to give this review it's own post because as you all know we typically do "New Restaurant Friday" where we pick a new restaurant somewhere in town and see if we can have a new favourite! The past couple of weeks we have actually been going back to some favourites so we haven't been trying anything new. But, since I am doing the 21 Day Sugar Detox, I was looking for something a little more paleo friendly. This definitely was! Here is some info about it:

Rain City Grill is located in Vancouver, BC. It is about a 20 minutes walk from us. It is in what is called the "West End" neighbourhood, where as we live in the "Coal Harbour" neighbourhood. This place was much nicer than I had anticipated. We went at 5pm when they opened for dinner and were extremely casually dressed (jeans, t-shirts, nice shoes...decent, but had I known we probably would have dress up a bit more). Also, make sure to make a reservation. I was also a bit ticked that we weren't offered the "Dine Out" menu, I didn't realize it was available until after we had placed our order and heard the hostess ask someone if they also wanted the "Dine Out" menu. Since we had a child with us it would have been nice to get a prix fixe price.

Everything was very good and we even go to try something new-Cornish Hen! We were a bit disappointed thought because we checked out their menu online and they are listed as having a Wagyu Beef Burger, but apparently they hadn't had that since the summer. So I think I should take the time to mention their menu does change weekly as it is a "farm to table" restaurant so all the food is local.

So, here we go. We started off with some bread. It was quite delicious. They brought butter that was very soft (this is a pet peeve of my husband when we go to a restaurant and get cold butter that can't be spread so they got about a million points here in his book) and some sea salt.

I started with the butternut squash soup.


It said on the menu it came with a walnut and apple cookie. It was just crumbles of a cookie in the bowl so that was a bit disappointing as I was looking forward how that would taste! It also came with some apple panna cotta, which was amazing. It was all quite delicious and not terribly sweet like many places tend to make butternut squash soup. 

For my main I had the salmon. It was quite delicious and cooked very well. The mushrooms it came with were delicious, and it had a little sauce with kale underneath. The little squares on top are cauliflower puree hash-browns! I didn't realize it until my very picky husband said they tasted "vegetable-y" lol It was very delicious I still have half of it in the fridge to munch on for lunch.

This is the teenager's plate. I will say she was quite disappointed by the serving size. Being american and used to eating at such places as Chili's and Red Robin the fact this didn't take up even half her plate was a bit surprising to her. But, she ate most everything. She loved the Cornish Hen. She said it just tasted like chicken, but was tinier. It came with some tasty fingerling potatoes.

The husband had a rib eye. It wasn't overly expensive for a local steak. Places such as Coast & Black & Blue charge much, much more and theirs are not local to my knowledge. He got a delicious sauce over it and it came with fingerling potatoes. They were delicious. But, being picky he didn't care for them and instead opted for french fries. They came in a super cute tiny looking fry basket. I forgot to get a picture unfortunately.

We really enjoyed the restaurant. I can't say the wait staff was very friendly. They were helpful, but not very friendly. They also didn't seem to pay a whole lot of attention. I ordered a drink and then the husband and daughter ordered cokes and I asked the waiter to put Grenadine in their soda's and somehow my drink came with grenadine. I know they were going to be busy that evening and we didn't have a reservation but in that case they should have just said they couldn't seat us, where as it almost seemed like we were more of a bother. It was a bit frustrating. I do hope to go back and try their brunch or lunch menu and hopefully get a better feel of the place.

If you have been to Vancouver or live here and have a suggestion of a place we should try please fill me in!!!

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