Goldfish Pacific Kitchen

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Restaurant: Goldfish Pacific Kitchen
Cuisine: West Coast/Pacific Rim/Fusion
Last visited: December 8, 09
Location: Vancouver, BC (Yaletown/Downtown)
Address: 1118 Mainland Street
Price Range: $20-30

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

Food: 3
Service: 3
Ambiance: 5.5
Overall: 3
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 seafood
• Sophisticated and creative food
• Extensive Wine Bar
• Contemporary, trendy, posh
• 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

For more details on the restaurant, ambiance and overall experience, please see my post for the Goldfish’s Happy Hour menu here. This post focuses on their lunch menu. I came for a late lunch at 3pm and it was almost empty. Therefore I think the food I had was actually probably better because they could take the time to prepare it and do it well. It’s not always the case, but just my thoughts…

On the table:
Flash Seared Ahi Tuna Sandwich – 2.5/6

• Sweet onion marmalade, mustard greens $14

• I love ahi tuna and when I see it on the menu I’m likely to order it.
• There was nothing really wrong with this one, but I expected more from it.
• It was slices of ahi tuna instead of a whole fillet or steak of it.
• I felt like they used their tuna tataki appetizer and made it into a sandwich by serving it on toasted white bread.
•  There wasn’t that many pieces of tuna, but just enough slices to cover the bottom layer of bread. It was seared quickly and nice and rare which was great though.
•  I think it could have used more ponzu sauce. It was more sweet than tangy because of the marmalade.

• The sweet onion marmalade was basically a red onion relish. Iit was tangy, sweet and savoury and went well with the tuna, however there was a little too much of it and not enough tuna. It almost overpowered the tuna.
• I’m pretty sure they used the sweet Asian egg bread for the sandwich bread.
• I think they used a combo of butter and garlic aioli before toasting it. It was nice and crispy, but the sandwich was a bit boring and simple at the same time.
• It came with hand cut fries which were quite starchy and fairly crispy and well seasoned and served with ketchup and garlic ginger aioli.
• The aioli is made in house and you can really taste the ginger and it’s quite aromatic.

**Shiitake Mushroom Meatloaf – 4/6

• Tomato Hoisin jam, confit of whole shallots, roasted garlic jus $10
• This is their Tuesday Gold Plate – basically the Goldfish lunch special of the day for $10
• It was a bit small, but that was somewhat expected. It was only $10 anyways.
• It didn’t look good and the presentation was iffy, but again, it’s $10.

• The meatloaf was actually really good.
• It was made of pork, shiitake, white pieces of bread (not crumbs), onions, garlic, Hoisin sauce, and some other spices.
• It was really tender, soft and moist and it was almost like bread pudding, but in a good way.
• There was a decent amount of pork pieces, almost chunks and I was surprised they didn’t use ground pork. This made it more gourmet and I appreciated that.
• I loved the addition of shiitake mushrooms and they absorbed so many juices that they were all plump and juicy and gave the meatloaf a whole other level of sweetness and moistness.

• The meatloaf was baked and maybe even pan-fried to the point where the glaze became charred with a sweet crispy bark, which was great.
• I was scared it was going to be dry, but it wasn’t.
• It had a crispy crust and was very well marinated and coated with a deep and rich tomato Hoisin jam.
• The Hoisin jam tasted like it was made with a cranberry jam. It was sweet, tangy, savoury and tart.
• I would have appreciated more roasted garlic jus though. There wasn’t enough sauce for both the meat and the rice.

I didn’t like the rice, which was really dry and needed sauce. The whole shallots were amazing though. They were really soft and caramelized and basically melted in your mouth.

**Trio of West Coast Sushi Pizza – 3.5/6

• Hokkaido scallop, salmon, albacore tuna, wasabi tobiko $10
• This is their Thursday Gold Plate. I actually tried it on September 10 ,when I went for happy hour – but I’m including it in this post because it’s offered as an official main now.
• I tried it when it was still a special and you could select from three types of sushi pizzas being offered. Now they offer it as a trio sampler platter of all three pizzas. The salmon and the albacore tuna pizza were the two recommended ones.
• The “pizza crust” was a sushi rice patty which was pan-fried until crispy and topped with chopped sashimi.
• I liked the salmon better than the tuna, but both were good.
• The sashimi “toppings” weren’t marinated though and a little ponzu would have been nice for some added flavour because it was a bit simple in flavour and it’s not like the tuna was premium quality.
• It’s a very simple, but a creative concept.
• It’s not too greasy and the patty is nice and thin so you really taste a nice ratio of ingredients.
• They fry the rice up very nicely to the point where it’s a bit charred so it’s all nutty and crispy on the outside, but still soft and moist on the inside.
• They drizzled a teriyaki citrus glaze or reduction before serving it. It could have used a drizzle of wasabi mayo too.
• The wasabi tobiko tastes like regular tobiko to me – I missed that spiciness.
• I liked it better than the sushi pizza I had at Sushi Sky. I liked the rice patty here better, but I liked the addition of avocado at Sushi Sky.

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