Whineo’s on Granville bills itself as a “Wine bar”, which should have been my tipoff that the food comes secondary to the drinks.
In the midst of a recession, and Granville street torn up due to Canada Line construction, Victoria and I thought we would check out one of Vancouver’s many patio-less restaurants on a sunny Monday evening – when independent places desperately need business.
To give Whinoes a try, we decided to sample a selection of their appetizers, mains, and desserts.
Appetizers
Wild mushroom risotto cakes
These arrived tepid, and were quite bland. It was probably my fault that I didn’t enjoy these, as I was expecting the battered and fried variety full of rich and creamy risotto. These were just sticky, bland risotto stuck into ring molds.
Maccaroni and Cheese
Once again, arrived cold. Was slightly underseasoned, but was a decent homestyle mac n’ cheese.
Entrees
NY Strip (If I recall…)
Steak ordered medium rare arrived half blue, half well done. The flavour was great, and it had a nice crust. Ordered with a ‘lobster tail’, which was fairly overcooked for what was basically a 2-4 count prawn. It just needed to kiss the grill to be done, but this one arrived charred, curled, and dry.
East Coast Lobster Dinner
It was billed as an ‘East Coast Lobster Dinner’ but it felt….lacking. A side salad, 3 somewhat split mini lobster tails (just as rubbery as Chris’) and a dinner roll. The menu didn’t lie at all though it does mention ‘paprika mayo’, which was as I recall minimal and what little was there sat under the shell of the lobster tails meaning if I had wanted to eat it, I would have needed to suck the shells….hmmm…pass.
The spinach salad was fine, nothing to write home about, but a decent salad, and the roll was, a room temp bought in white roll.
The thing that annoyed me most other than the fact that the lobster was overcooked, was that it was near impossible to eat. The shells weren’t split all the way and the knife I was given was quite dull, I can’t help think that if I had been able to pry the meat from the shell sufficiently, I wouldn’t have been so hungry at the end of the meal.
Desserts
Chocolate apple tart
Not even remotely worth the cheap price of $6.50. Bottled chocolate sauce on some phyllo pastry with a quarter of a diced apple and a scoop of ice cream. Seriously, they couldn’t even put more than a quarter of an apple on it? An apple costs 30 cents. This was a disappointment.
Deconstructed cheesecake
Acceptable, but flawed. Served with some small pieces of biscotti to dunk, you get a boat of cheesecake-like filling and berry compote. Too rich, not enough compote, and the few biscotti weren’t enough, or thin enough to be pleasant.
Would I go there again? Probably. It seems like their kitchen is very small, and its always possible that the cook was having an off day. It was a slow night for them, so there were no servers; only the bartender doing double duty, so I can forgive the cold food. If I do go back, I’ll be skipping dessert.
Victoria’s Update: Overall, I was pretty dissapointed too, but the 3.50 raspberry mojito drink special somewhat made up for it. The service could be forgiven for being somewhat slack as the only guy was busy, but there weren’t that many people eating, so there was no excuse for the food being so bad.
