Vin Room West — Restaurant in Calgary

We made a reservation through Open Table for 8:30 pm. As we were pulling up at 8:28 pm I got a phone call asking if we knew the restaurant closes at 9 pm (I did not) and was informed we would need to order as soon as we sat down. It was a bit weird but I understand. We sat down and saw several tables still eating so it’s not like it was slow and staff was wanting to leave. We ordered drinks, and were ready to order food immediately but still the order wasn’t taken for 10 more minutes. We ordered oysters to start and then Duck for my main, Buda bowl for hubby and chicken strips for the kids. We waited 20 min and the chicken strips arrived, oysters came in 25min They were fine, server did not tell us where they were from, minuet was meh, and the horseradish was obviously from a store bought bottle. Kids did enjoy the chicken strips. Oysters were finished quickly and we watched the kids eat. Then the kids finished and we continued to sit there and watched other tables sit and wait, as the staff chatted together at the bar, took vape breaks outside in front of us looking out the window, among other things. It took over 30 min for the main to come. My husbands rice bowel was fairly generic and my duck was very under done and cold. It had so much fennel in it, it was all I could taste. I tried a piece of grapefruit that came with it and even that tasted of fennel.

Overall I left the restaurant starving even though I ate the cold under cooked duck. It was 118$ and not even close to worth it. Very disappointing, we will...

Entering the restaurant was a bit awkward after going through two sets of doors there’s about 3 feet of space and you’re met with a towering IKEA style wardrobe thing which takes way from your first impression of the place. That monstrosity must go as it’s taking away from what is otherwise a beautiful dining room. We were greeted immediately and since it was very quiet we were give the opportunity to lead the way and choose our own seat.

Service was really nice. Now we didn’t have any wine but you can clearly see that they have a massive selection. We took the sangrias (one white and one red) instead which weren’t all that good but sufficed.

The eggplant chips were perfect. Absolutely recommend. Burger also - and nicely put-together too. Fries were nice - McD style! The chicken in the Caesar salad was dry. Definitely not cooked and sliced at that moment as the cross-sections (the sliced part) were dried out which indicates this was pre-prepped chicken. Certainly not worth $24 for that salad.

I’d give the place a second chance maybe on a busier day when there is more turnover on the food. A little on the pricey side - an appie, a burger, a salad and two drinks ended up running us $104 with tip. Also: tip option on the machine starts...

Came for the Sunday Supper and they had already sold out by 6:30. I had stated that’s what we wanted on my reservation too. The chef offered the starter as a comp which was nice, but overall running out of the menu items was disappointing as I specifically picked this night to go after seeing the Sunday Super menu for Aug 3. The food was fine, somewhat underwhelming, definitely better places to go. The steak bites were unappealing as they were more slivers of steak and so many mushrooms. I did get a side of mashed potatoes (again something I was really looking forward to from the Sunday menu and they did still have those, and those were also comped, so that was appreciated). I felt bad for our waitress who already had unhappy guests she said, she was a bit forgetful because of being frazzled I think, but she was sweet enough. I drove 30 mins from the deep south, and won’t again, although the dog patio does seem like a fun idea. Was kind of a bummer after...