Hidden on Robson Street.

Hidden was first of the few restaurant we went for Dine Out Vancouver this year. We picked this place because it was only $18 dollars and the menu was interesting. Hidden is located on Robson street, in side The Westin Grand hotel. The 3 of us tried every single item on the menu, from appetizers to desserts. I will start with the appetizers.

If you are not a vegetarian, go for the Pacific Poutine with Halibut Cheeks. This was a pretty creative dish, there is no gravy. The gravy part is replaced by lemon hollandaise sauce. The sauce itself, was very buttery, with a very slight hint of lemon. All together with the fries and the halibut cheeks, it was delicious.

The Beets Salad I only had a small bite of it, because the blue cheese was too strong for me.

As for the entrées, the Chicken and Waffles was a really popular choice there, second by the Smoked and Seared Albacore Tuna, our table was the only table that had the Crispy Seared Tomato and Eggplant. Which one was the best? It was hard to say.

Crispy Seared Tomato and Eggplant – The eggplants didn’t have a lot of taste by itself. I suggest eating it with a lot of the tasty garlic aioili that was layered on the bottom. Pretty good dish all together with all the salad and the green vegetables at the bottom.

Seared Albacore Tuna – I found the crust of the seared tuna to be too crusty and hard. There was a little too much contrast in the texture of the crust and the raw tuna inside. The stuffed tatertots reminded me of gnocchi. I didn’t dislike it, but it wasn’t great either.

Now the Chicken and Waffles, was the dish that I was excited about. First of all, I only had a few bites of it, because I took one for the team and got the eggplants instead. The dish looked great, but mind you, very small. It had a quarter of a waffle, with one piece of fried chicken. My first bite of the waffle, it was cold. Something I didn’t expect, and something completely turned me off from this dish. I was disappointed.

Onto the desserts, there was a Beavertail, and a Root beer, hazlenut and Maple ice cream Parfait. The surprise of the parfait was that the Root beer isn’t in liquid form. They were little root beer cube jellos. The overall dessert was good, but it would’ve been better if the strawberries and the blueberries at the bottom of the parfait weren’t frozen.

The Beavertail was also delicious. It was more doughy than regular bevertails, the lemon ice cream on top was a good flavor to go along with the cinnamon and sugar. Eat fast, the ice cream melts fast on the warm beavertail.

I enjoyed my dinner here.The service was great. The food were creative, and they came out pretty fast. One thing I noticed was that I found most of the dishes were cold. I kept getting the feeling that all the food were already cooked before hand, and they were just waiting to be assembled together.   Maybe they were meant to be served cold, but it’d be nice if they were a little warmer. The warmest food there I had was the beavertail.

This place was quite busy, it seemed like a popular spot for dine outs. It was a good place to start out Dine Out 2010.

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Hidden
433 Robson St. Vancouver, BC
Vancouver, BC V6B
(604) 647-2521
http://www.hiddenvancouver.ca