Dine Out Vancouver 2008 – The Boathouse Port Moody

The Boathouse Port Moody opened up just at the end of last year and has quickly become a popular dining destination in the area. Perched at the boat launch near Rocky Point Park, the brand new restaurant overlooks pictureque Burrard Inlet. Although I’ve actually sampled this restaurant before during their soft launch period last year, I wanted to see how they’ve come along. Since other restaurants have used the Dine Out Vancouver Promotion as an excuse for dropping the ball, I was eager to see how The NEWEST Boathouse would take advantage of this highly popular promotional period.

The Dine Out Vancouver menu for The Boathouse was split into a $25 and a second $35 menu. Although they were distinctly different, the only thing similar about them was the dessert selection which was a choice between a key lime pie and cheesecake. What I was most impressed with was the fact that there was more than one genuine choice for each course and there was no cheesy upsell like “C” Restaurant tried to pull last year, who, by the way, got downgraded to “D” grade in 2007 by Vancouver Magazine. However, they did make an effort this year to revamp their offering for 2008 and I wish them luck with it.

For the first course, Kelly, fresh off her Olympic Weightlifting Victory, selected the Spring Salad with fresh strawberries and goat cheese while I got the Lobster Bisque. The salad was good, but the bisque was a little too salty for my taste, but I guess you could argue that the saltiness reflected the sea 😛 However, it did contain a good chunk of real lobster. Usually you only see a few micro fragments swimming around.

For the main course, Kelly chose the Miso Crusted Halibut while I chose the Steak & Dungeness Crab Stuffed Jumbo Prawns. The Halibut was nice and tender on the inside and super crispy on the outside so pretty much perfect. I asked for my steak to be done Chicago Style and medium rare on the inside. Guess what? It was done Chicago Style and medium rare on the inside. The prawns were also surprisingly good.

For dessert, Kelly had the Key Lime pie while I pigged out on the Cheesecake. I also finished off the rest of her Key Lime pie and that wasn’t bad either. You could tell that neither dessert was made in house, but they did take the time to finish them off with a little bit of dressing up.

The Bottom Line…

Despite the extra traffic from the Dine Out Vancouver promotion and the fact that they are still a relatively new arm of The Boathouse, the Port Moody staff did exceptionally well in rising to the occasion. The service was very good despite the “full boat load” of customers and no one tried to push coffee on us like they did at Horizon’s Restaurant. Furthermore, my wine was “Cork Free” and my food was definitely the right temperature. Since both Horizon’s and The Boathouse are so close in proximity, Horizon’s better step up their game. Otherwise, they’ll end up lke another local restaurant formerly known as Sultri, that sat just a few blocks away from The Boathouse and went under pretty quickly after their arrival.

This will be my only dine out experience this year because in the next couple weeks I’ll be attending Big Night Vancouver where winning restaurants from Vancouver magazine’s 18th Annual Restaurant Awards prepare dishes to be paired with award-winning wines from the 2008 Vancouver Magazine International Wine Competition. I’ll be tasting, sipping and mingling with local celebrity chefs, media and more. Way to kill a flock of birds with one stone 😉