stewart woo
Google
Have come here a few times for dinner and most recent to celebrate a few birthdays together as a group.
This restaurant is excellent, and worth the occasional longer drive to get to. Food is very high quality and the presentation top notch. The service is excellent from the moment we walked in. Very attentive and nicely paced. We never felt rushed or that we were waiting too long between dishes. Nice touch to see a happy birthday card from Wildlight at our table. Our main server, Jessie, answered all our questions, accommodated a few requests (small bowl of pasta and bowl of fresh steamed veggies for the 2 small kids), and provided some good suggestions for a couple bottles of local wine.
We all chose the prix fixe menu, there were a lot of good options including full vegan choices. We all chose something different but collectively we covered most of the prix fixe menu.
We ordered the pescatarian board to start. Good selection of seafood prepared in various ways and very tasty. Good contrast of textures and flavours. The little baby octopus was new to the board and was good.
Salad was fresh and the dressing was amazing (some wanted to ask if we could bottle some home!). The Hamachi crudo had a nice Asian influence in the dressing, nicely citrusy and savoury. The fish was very fresh and firm. The "star" of the appies was the chowder. It's a huge bowl (and could probably be a main with a few slices of bread). Very flavourful, creamy, came out piping hot, and loaded with seafood and veggies.
Scallop dish had loads of scallops sitting on a generous portion of lobster risotto, both well done. The duck was nicely seared, with good sauces. The accompaniments were nicely done, especially the potatoes. They looked like large tear drops of mashed potatoes deep fried, crispy on outside and moist on inside (with apologies to Wildlight as I'm misrepresenting this delicious side). The steak was simple and seared to perfection. Comes with a side of salad in a bowl and amazing fries. A small nit, the extra $19 upcharge for this dish seemed a bit steep and not sure it was necessary.
The desserts are very well done and are a nice end to the meal (by this time we were all stuffed). The dishes with fruit were refreshing with nice flavours, and the one chocolate dish (Hide & Seek) was very decadent.
The parking lot is underneath the restaurant/Urban Fare. You do not have to pay as Wildlight will comp you 3 hours free parking, just have to register your vehicle at the front desk. If you are bumping up against that time, just go up and ask for a free extension.
Groups with more than 6 people, I believe, have an auto 20% gratuity.