Wild Rice is located downtown, right by the Tinseltown movie theatre. They claim to offer modern Chinese cuisine while being socially responsible; taking part in the Ocean Wise program and Green Table network. Having received an honourable mention in the Best Other Asian category of the 2009 Vancouver Magazine Restaurant Awards, you’d assume that would have some pretty darn tasty food. Sadly, I was quite disappointed when I went there for my first time in mid December 2009.
My companion and I decided to start with the Hot & sour soup, with tofu substitution ($7). When the soup came, I was a bit surprised by the look of it; not exactly what I was expecting. I decided to put the looks aside and give it a try. I was quite surprised by how bland this soup was. It tasted like the chef had made a mistake in making it and forgot to add something very key; salt perhaps? The soup was neither hot nor sour. I call false advertising!
One of our entrees was the Spicy Kung Po Chicken with Twice Cooked Peanuts ($18); we had this with tofu substituted in place of the chicken. I must say that the very best part of this dish was the peanuts; I love nuts! While the dish wasn’t very spicy in my books, my companion found it to be quite spicy. To me this dish seemed to be lacking something in the flavor department. Without the peanuts it would have been a total loss for me. Go double-roasting!
Our second entrée was the Bhudda’s Noodles ($16). These were some of the most bland noodles I’ve ever had. I had to play the “Find the snowpea” game; I only found one in the entire dish. This is an extremely simple dish with an extremely bland taste. I can’t imagine finishing a whole bowl by itself; it desperately needs flavour.
Wild Rice does a better job when it comes to quality of tableware than they do with the taste of their food. The chop sticks that they provide are of good quality and feel smooth to the touch. The knives and forks felt like they were of decent quality as well and had a good weight to them. Their napkin was nice and thick. I’m trying to think of things I liked about this place, it’s not easy, can you tell?
The service was passable. The waitresses were attentive enough, though they did seem to want to mingle amongst themselves more than they wanted to tend to tables.
If I had to describe the food in this restaurant with one word, it would without a doubt be “bland”. I won’t ever return to this location and am quite surprised that they’re still in business. Most everybody that I spoke with about this restaurant after my experience said that they’d once been there and wouldn’t return either.
The full Wild Rice menu with descriptions and pricing can be found on their website.
Wild Rice
117 West Pender Street
Vancouver, BC V6B 1S4
CANADA
Tel: 604-642-2882
Fax: 604-642-6778
http://www.wildricevancouver.com/
2 Comments on "Wild Rice; bland and supposedly modern Chinese cuisine"
Sorry to hear you had such a bad experience. It is unfortunate that this was the flavour profile of your food, since this is not a usual complaint in the restaurant. It would have been nice to have the opportunity to correct the dishes at the time you were dining, if there was an error in execution. We take our customer feedback very seriously and use every opportunity to improve the overall experience for our guests. As you can imagine, it is hard to do this after the fact. Give me a call because I’d like to find out as much as possible. Perhaps I could invite you in again as my guest. We can have a bite and talk about cooking.
“Wild Rice does a better job when it comes to quality of tableware than they do with the taste of their food”
All atmosphere and little substance. Next.