Dine Out Vancouver Part 2: The Boathouse

The Boathouse is a chain of chop/seafood restaurants located througout Vancouver. For DOV, we ate at the Richmond location due to convenience as we wanted to watch a movie right after.

The Boathouse offered a $28 and $38 menu. The $28 menu didn't include dessert, which is very dissapointing considering there are raved-about restaurants that offer a full 3 courses for $28. We chose the $38 though, because we wanted to try the steak with lobster and shrimp.


I started with the firecracker shrimp and my bf had the seafood chowder. The shrimp was juicy and the sauce reminded me so much of a Malaysian dish (the name of which still escapes me). The toasted bread that it came with was totally bland, but I think they probably meant for people to dip it in the sauce. I thought the dish would be spicy judging from the name, but it wasn't. The seafood chowder was creamy, but not too heavy and the pieces of salmon were a good addition. We both liked this chowder over the clam chowder at Joe Fortes.

For the main, we both had the 7 oz. sirloin with lobster thermidor. Personally, I though the steak was sub-par. We both ordered it medium rare and it was way too 'chewy' and there was nothing special about the taste at all. The mashed potatoes that it came with tasted very much like those bagged mashed potato mix that you can make at home. On the positive side, the lobster and the tiny bit of vegetables were good albeit a little salty.

Dessert wasn't much better either. I chose the molten chocolate brownie with vanilla gelato and my bf had the mocha mud pie. Only half the brownie was good. The other half, near the outer 'crust', was slightly hard and burnt. The strawberries were really sweet though. I also had a bite of the mocha mud pie (which is apparently ice cream cake and not actual cake) and it was good, but not too remarkable.

Overall, I probably won't be returning to The Boathouse anytime soon and especially not for DOV next year. The ambiance and customer service were typical of these types of chain restaurant (think Earls, The Keg, etc.) and our server was fairly attentive. However, for $38, there are so many more fine dining restaurants that we could have tried. Oh well, you win some you lose some right?