GOLD FISH KITCHEN

So on Thursday night I went to Gold Fish Pacific Kitchen, located in the 'famous' Yaletown restaurant district(1118 Mainland St at Helmcken), with my girlfriend. After hearing a lot of good things about Gold Fish we decided that it was finally time to give the place a visit and with high expectations we were not disappointed.

Making reservations at Gold Fish was relatively easy due to the opentable.com reservation system, which simply allows you to place your reservation online. Although, due to it being my first time using the opentable website, I was a little worried that it would mess up my reservation and ultimately mess up my night. However, when I arrived at the restaurant the hostess pulled up my name from the system and took us to our seats.

The first impression I got when I stepped into Gold Fish was that it had a very lively ambiance. There were couples wining and dining, large groups of people just having drinks, and there were even a few people just lounging with their laptops(most notably a lady with a custom mac book). Even with the variety of people and the lively ambiance, Gold Fish is well laid out so that you don't have to yell over everyone else to have a conversation, even with the occasional loud drunk trying to get friendly with the waitresses.

Once seated, we were greeted by a waitress and asked if we would like anything to drink. Something that really surprised me about Gold Fish was the level of service and the attitude the servers carried. None of the servers carried a snooty attitude and offered assistance at any turn, while at the same time not seeming like they were just sucking up for a bigger tip.

Now I guess its on to the important part of this post...the food.

When you look at the menu you can understand why they label their restaurant as 'west coast cooking, pacific rim flavours.' A lot of the dishes are 'west coast cooking' but when you look at the ingredients you can see the pacific rim influence, such as ginger, coconut, taro, and thai basil.

My girlfriend and I decided that we wanted to try both their meat and seafood dishes, so we decided to share a lot of our dishes. What we ordered that night was:

salad:
ROMAINE creamy garlic vinaigrette, asian bacon
side:
OVEN ROASTED CAULIFLOWER & BROCCOLI thai basil
main:
RIBEYE STEAK mushroom risotto spring roll, brandy peppercorn sauce
HALIBUT sake thyme, tomato green onion, ginger relish
dessert:
WARM BANANA SPRING ROLLS cashew butter, caramel sauce, lychee mint salad
wine:
balthasar ress 2006 Rheingau, Germany

We started off the night by ordering a bottle of wine, which the choice of the night was a riesling. The riesling wasn't exactly amazing, but wasn't disappointing either. It was tasty enough to be drank without food and as most rieslings go, good enough to be enjoyed with most foods. Another positive note about the service was that our wine glasses were constantly being refilled.

The salad came out immediately after and is brought out as whole romaine lettuce leaves. You are given the option to serve it yourself or have the server divide it evenly amongst your party and remove the plate to save room. The salad overall was very tasty and the dressing was just right. The amount of vinegar in the vinaigrette was just enough so that you could enjoy the taste and not have to cringe every time you took a bite. The asian bacon was a nice addition to the salad and was a nice change of pace from the usual bacon bits that restaurants use.

Then came the side and the main dishes. The oven roasted cauliflower and broccoli with thai basil was extremely tasty, but I guess I am a little biased because I just like cauliflower and broccoli. However, biased or not, both veggies were full of flavour and I will definitely have them again. Both main dishes came out at the same time but we decided to start with the halibut, which I regret to say was just average. While the fish was cooked perfectly, I did not really enjoy the sauce that came with the fish. However, that might just be a personal preference and others may enjoy it. The ribeye on the other hand was tasty and cooked just enough to show a little red in the meat. The brandy peppercorn sauce was also very pleasant and went well with the steak.The mushroom risotto spring roll that came with the ribeye was a nice little touch, as well as the string beans drizzled in peppercorn sauce.

For dessert we had warm banana spring rolls, lychee mint salad with cashew butter and caramel dipping sauce. I was pleasantly surprised with this dish because when I was told that the bananas were wrapped in spring rolls I was a little put off. However, the spring rolls were rolled in cinnamon sugar and accompanied with dipping sauce, which made it very tasty.

A thing to note about Gold Fish are the prices. While the prices are fairly reasonable, they aren't exactly that cheap either. So if i were to place Gold Fish in a price range I would put it in a mid price range. Another thing to note is Gold Fish does not take debit, but they do have an ATM machine near the bathrooms.

Overall, I really enjoyed my experience at Gold Fish Pacific Kitchen and would absolutely recommend it. Out of 5, I would rate Gold Fish to be a 4 - 4.5.

+For more information and a detailed look at the menu you can visit the restaurants website

http://www.goldfishkitchen.com/