Goldfish Pacific Kitchen

A Posh and Seductive RestaurantGoldfish Pacific Kitchen is the third restaurant in our Taste of Yaletown adventure.  We have chosen this restaurant for its Asian fusion food.  The table setting even comes with chopsticks!  I brought my parents and Andy for this excursion.  For $35, we were pretty pleased with our food, but it did not impressed my father's refined palette.  He felt that Trattoria was the best Western restaurant in Vancouver (before they change chef).  The poor guy missed their Beef Capriccio.  Anyway, I believe my family will never go back to Goldfish ever again, and the search for a better restaurant to bring my parents continues.

Crab TempuraFood: 3/5
We ordered everything on the tasting menu and a couple more.  The appetizers were all above average, satisfying, delicious, but left you wanting more.  Dennis quite enjoyed his beautifully plated King Crab Tempura.  High quality seafood and tempura better taste so differently from the cheap common version, but there was only one piece.  The Tuna Poke was a plate of fresh premium seafood with subtle flavours. My father polish the entire plate before I had a chance to snap a photo.  He nodded his head and say "not bad": (which means pretty good).  Green Papaya Salad was also okay but came with undercooked rice noodles, yuck!

Braised Short RibOn the regular menu, the braised short rib was moist, soft, and full of flavours.  It was possibly the best short rib I have had in Vancouver.  My father explained that this style of short rib is distinctively Taiwanese ????.  Of course, they had better in Taiwan, but for Vancouver standard, it was damn good.

Bison Flat SteakNow the main courses, all the fish was perfectly cooked.  Salmon came with a delicious cream sauce.  The Bison Flat Iron was well cooked but the dressing and the sauce were pretty ordinary.  Dennis was unimpressed with his prawn pasta.  The prawn was rubbery and the pasta was plain.  The worst part was Andy's Lemon Grass Chicken. The chicken was fine, but the rice underneath was dry and tough.  Never serve bad rice to a Chinese...  More on this later.

The desserts were super disappointing.  The creme brulé lacked flavour, and the cheesecake tasted like toothpaste.  The best was the lava cake, but it wasn't anything special.

Lemon Grass ChickenService: 3.5/5
Service was good and consistent throughout the dinner. Food was served quickly and arrived all at the same time.  Glass was filled up consistently. It was everything you would expect out of a dinner service.

Ambience: 4/5
It was posh, sexy, with seductive music.  A place I would like to come back with my girlfriends in cocktail dresses and high heels.  This place is meant for gorgeously posh people come to meet other equally gorgeous posh people.  Although my family was underdressed, in sweat pants and T-shirts, it's private booth hid us comfortably while we people watch.

Overall Experience: 2.5/5
They had Tantalus in glasses!  The wine list was not extensive, but it was well chosen with something for each dish and more.  So why the low mark?  When Dennis mentioned the tough dried rice on Andy's plate, the server acknowledged it and showed her concerns.  However, that was it though.  No replacement rice or further follow up.  Pretty fail right there.

Total: 13/20.  It's always a shame when a restuarant looks better than it tasted.  We enjoyed the food at $35 dollar, but we definitely won't be going back to pay the full price.