Goldfish Pacific Kitchen – Happy Hour Review

Restaurant: Goldfish Pacific Kitchen – Happy Hour Review
Cuisine: West Coast/Pacific Rim/Fusion
Last dined: December 8, 09

Area: Vancouver (Yaletown/Downtown)
1118 Mainland Street
Price Range: $20-30

1: Poor 2: OK 3: Good 4: Very good 5: Excellent 6: Tres Excellent!!

Food: 4 (Based on happy hour)
Service: 3
Ambiance: 5
Overall: 3.5
Additional comments:

• Located in Yaletown
• Mostly Asian chefs/cooks – Chef William Tse (previous sous chef of Joe Fortes and Chop House)
• Asian fusion/Asian inspired menu
• Focus on sea-food
• Sophisticated and creative food
• Extensive Wine Bar
• Contemporary, trendy & “Yaletown” atmosphere & décor
• Quite a large dinner menu
• Dining Room/Lounge/Patio
• Covered sun room with lounge couches
• Great for appies/drinks/late night
• M-F 11am-4pm “$10 Gold Plates”
• M-F 4pm-6pm Happy Hour – appies and drinks

**Recommendation: Chicken satays, tuna tartare, short rib sliders, bacon fried rice (very popular but I haven’t tried), Trio of West Coast Sushi Pizza, Shiitake mushroom meatloaf

I’ve came here on a few occasions before I started blogging so I’m going to summarize my visits. This review focuses on my happy hour visit. I tried everything on their happy hour menu besides their house made potato chips and toast & jam, which sounds a bit boring. I can’t be as detailed in this review because it was a visit from September 10, 09. So I’m writing on recollection. The positive to this is that I can tell you what was truly memorable about the dishes I ordered. Overall their happy hour is worth it and I must give credit to their dips and sauces which were all really good. I actually think the food during happy hour is better becuase they have more time to prepare it. I will post my lunch visit tomorrow. (For my lunch review)

The restaurant isn’t as busy as it should be and I’m not sure why. The food is not bad and the atmosphere is fantastic. It’s very trendy, contemporary and spacious. They have a lot of room to occupy so I think they would do better with a smaller space. I’ve sat in covered patio in the back, the lounge, and the dining room. I liked the patio the best. The patio has blankets, heat lamps and comfy lounge sofas. It’s not great for lunch or dinner, but it’s great for drinks, appies, and after work/late night socials. I would prefer the patio in the back over the lounge in the front.

A while back they were closed for lunch, but they decided to re-open for lunch recently.

The food is very East meets West – very Asian inspired. It’s probably because the owners and chefs are Asian, so they reinvent a lot of Asian classics by putting an “American” or West Coast twist to it.

On the table:

• Beef Satays 2/6
• Madras curry, cucumber ginger yogurt $3.75
• The beef was a little dry and over cooked a bit all the times I’ve ordered it. The pieces are nice and lean though.
• The sauce is like a raita sauce (that cucumber yogurt condiment they give you an Indian restaurants). It’s refreshing, aromatic and bit spicy from the fresh ginger. I’m used to having these with peanut sauce from Malaysian restaurants and I prefer that version.
• Chicken Satays 4/6
• Thai red curry sauce $3
• The menu now says “Thai red curry sauce” – when I ordered it it was a Thai yellow curry sauce, which was really good! It was like a curry peanut ginger and garlic sauce. I’ll have to re-order this to see if they’ve changed it. I hope they only changed the curry paste and not the recipe beucase it was so good already…well maybe it’s better now? I’ll have to see. The chicken itself is nice and seasoned with a dry rub. These ones weren’t dry.
• Short Rib Sliders 5/6
• Spicy Hoisin mayo, crispy onions $3
• These were memorable. It was very tender falling apart beef short ribs. They were nice and saucy and tasted like an Asian barbeque sauce – which is the Hoisin sauce. It wasn’t spicy for me though. More sweet and tangy. The crispy onions were a nice touch. I think they’re using the mini dinner rolls from superstore rather than actual slider buns. It’s more like a hot dog bun. It didn’t bother me though because it was nicely grilled and crispy yet soft. You got a lot of meat and it’s nice and tender – that was the most important part. It was nice to have it not pre-shredded as well. It shred away easily just by me biting into it and th at’s how tender short ribs should be.

  

• Mini Crab Cakes 2/6
• Thai basil yogurt $4
• To be honest I don’t really remember these. I know they weren’t bad, but that also can’t mean they were really good. They were forgettable. I know they were a nice size, crispy, hot and not overcooked though. I usually take a picture of the inside of the crab cake so you can see the ingredients. I’ll have to order these again next time to give a better review.
• Freshly shucked Oysters
• Freshly shucked oysters grated horseradish $2.75
• I can’t remember which type of oysters they gave us. They weren’t Fanny Bay’s which was surprising, since these are most available being in Vancouver. I do appreciate the grated horseradish, that was a nice touch. I think they should use freshly grated wasabi though – it suits their Asian-inspired theme better.
• Tuna Tartare 3/6
  
• Crisp butter lettuce $4
• These served these with deep fried taro chips which was a great idea because I was expecting regular chips or crostini. Well from the menu I was expecting just butter lettuce.
• I like tuna tartare so that’s why I recommended it, and for the price you're paying it's worth it. The colour of the tuna doesn't look great, but it doesn't taste bad either. It has some avocado, green onions and I think some red peppers it it. They make it better at Japanese places, but this one was decent.
• Chilled Tiger Prawns
• Mango lime aïoli $4.75
• The prawns were nice and big and I don’t really remember the dip. I will have to reorder this to give a better review. I’m sure it was good though because we didn’t have one bad dip. They do a good job with all of them.