Dine Out Vancouver 2012 $18 Menu Recommendations

With so many choices for Dine Out 2012, it's a bit overwhelming to know which restaurant to go to. There's no "shuffle" button to let you randomly choose a restaurant if you don't know or simply don't want to go back and forth bantering, "you decide", "I don't care, I'm okay with anything", "okay then you just pick one". 

Meanwhile deep in our minds, our opportunity cost is another better restaurant. If you're having trouble deciding, let me give you my top 3 picks in each price range category (Dinner Only).

$18 (52 restaurants available)

1. Dunn's Famous Montreal Smoked Meat Restaurant
Menu: here
Location: 827 Seymour Street
Phone Number: (604) 682-8938
UrbanSpoon Rating: 91%

2. Suika Snackbar
Menu: here
Location: 1626 West Broadway
Phone Number: (604) 730-1678
UrbanSpoon Rating: 88%

3. Bistro 101
Menu: here
Location: 1505 2nd Ave West
Phone Number: (604) 734-0101
UrbanSpoon Rating: 96%

Bonus
For $18 Menu's you can't go wrong with an extra restaurant

Urban Thai Bistro
Menu: here
Location: 1119 Hamilton St
Phone Number: (604) 408-7788
UrbanSpoon Rating: 82%

Remember Dine Out Vancouver Ends February 5, 2012!

True Confections (Broadway)

Ambiance: Romantic-ish, seats too close together for any intimate conversation.

Seating/Wait time: Not that big, available seating varies depending on the time of day you come. When people get a seat they don't leave immediately, there is a long waiting when people settle down because they just sit and chat.

Dress Code: Casual

Crowd: Everybody

Meal:

Chocolate Hazelnut Cake

$8.75

This was actually more sweet than I can handle, I can handle a lot of sweet. I take like 2 splenda's in my coffee and eat a lot of candy, I'm the only Asian that doesn't ask for "less sweet" in my drinks when eating out. Every time my mom see's me she asks if diabetes found me yet. This was so sweet that we couldn't even finish it.

Strawberry Cheesecake

$6.75

The strawberry cheesecake was a lot better. I don't like the fact that it doesn't have a breadcrumb crust. The strawberry tasted more like jelly (made from concentrate) than jam (made from real strawberry's). Texture wise, it could have been mixed longer. It wasn't clumpy and it wasn't as smooth as it should be for a cheesecake.

Size wise and quality wise, this is more like a $4.00 cheesecake and I think store bought ones do a better job.

Coffee

$2.45

Compare with Starbucks Tall House Coffee - $1.75.

Personal Remarks:

Granted the size Height x Width is as big as the plates themselves, but the lack of Depth was disappointing. The great thing about True Confections is the display of cakes, everything in there looks so delicious.

I wish it was gelato restaurant style and they gave you a spoon to sample the cakes before choosing one.

This is one of the most expensive desert shops I've been to and they just under delivered in terms of quality. If they increased the volume then this would be a great place to go. Then this place would actually give value even thought their quality is sub-par. However, just because this restaurant is on the west side of Vancouver it doesn't mean their quality is good.

This would not be a good place to bring a date for an after dinner chat. This place does not impress anyone. Their coffee is bad and you're way better off finding a Starbucks.

Value: 2/5 Overall: 3/5

Ding Hao Noodle House 頂好牛肉麵

Ambiance: Clean and simple, looks a lot like the other Taiwanese BBT places around town.

Seating/Wait time: Plenty of seats

Dress Code: Casual

Crowd: Everybody

Meal:

A13 Crispy Chicken w/ Noodle Soup

TW popcorn chicken, green & fried onion, clear broth

$7.95

They gave a good amount of noodles for a small. The portion was not obscenely small in size and obviously not as generous as a large. I weigh 135lbs and it was enough for me.

The chicken was not burned and each piece was not small. The oil they used was decent, if the chicken came out too dark that means they overuse their oil too much and are too cheap to use new oil. I didn't get any pieces that was just batter which is a good thing. Overall, the popcorn chicken is a 3/5. Not really bad, not really great.

Personal Remarks:

Initial Expectations: My friends and I were supposed to go to the sushi restaurant in the same complex, but they were very busy and we didn't want to wait for a seat there. They've been here before and this was my first time here.

I appreciate that the bowls are clean, but I prefer not to taste bleach when eating. Before devouring the noodles, I like to take a spoonful of the soup and taste it. The broth wasn't special (water+oil), but the after taste of bleach was bothersome. It's great that this lets the customers know their food is being served in a clean bowl. But no one wants to taste bleach in their food.

The bleach taste could have been on the spoon and not the bowl. Regardless, this is not a big deal, but there are alternatives out there, and restaurants should use them.

Other than the bleach thing, the price and portion size is good enough to keep me coming back.

Value: 3/5 Overall: 3/5