Bow & Stern Chilliwack — Restaurant in Chilliwack

Long review warning ⚠️

My gf and I came in late last week and asked to be sat on the patio, which we adored! It's beautifully laid out, feels intimate yet spacious, and the patio lights brought great ambiance!

Our server was so kind, polite, tentative, and knowledgeable about many menu items, both food and drink.

My gf ordered a ceaser, which came out quite chunky on the bottom and was not quite satisfied as she was not a fan of said chunks. Before she could say anything to our server, she noticed it was not being drank, zipped right over, and asked if something was wrong and what she could do. She offered to have it re-made, to which my gf said please, and within 5 minutes, she had a chunkless ceaser arrive at the table. I had the white sangria, and it was so good it was dangerous. (I believe the sangria was $13)

We defiently ordered more than we could eat, but everything looked so good, we had to try some options amongst us.

We started off with the 6 freshly shucked oysters, which were just as delicious as we were hoping for! Served with fresh horse radish, a homemade tasting cocktail sauce, a lovely vinegarette, lemon wedges, and the cutest individual bottle of tobasco we ever did see. ($24 for 6)

Next came the calamari, which we are both still RAVING about. It had the perfect level of crisp to it, was still hot when it hit our table, topped with fresh purple onion and the most amazing tatziki like dipping sauce. 🤤 ($19, I believe)

For our mains, my GF ordered the Arctic Char, which she said the fish was cooked perfectly but didn't have a lot of flavor. (I'm not a fan of fish itself, so I didn't try the char itself to have any kind of opinion on it.) The risotto was very, very cheesy (parmesean) and quite peppery. We can both agree that the brocolini was cooked perfectly as well. She said the risotto was very rich and not necessarily her thing, so we opted to swap plates towards the end. ($31)

I had the heartiest serving of clams & mussels I've ever seen plated for one person. I am still dreaming about the white wine cream broth they came in. When ordering, I asked our wonderful server if she would recommend the white cream sauce or the Spanish tomato chorizo sauce. She didn't even skip a beat when recommending the white wine cream sauce and was not wrong when she said, "It's so good. You could seriously drink the cream sauce." Clams where a new experience for me, and something I will definitely be ordering again in the future. The white wine sauce was creamy, garlic-y, and I really couldn't put my finger on what it was, but it was delicious and give this specific dish a 20/10 all day long. Big props to the chef and kitchen staff on that one!! 🤤 (If it didn't feel so fancy in there, I would've  100% tried to drink the sauce.) ($28)

My gf also was in love with my choosing and was more then satisfied she got to swap me as both Mussels and Clams were a new experience for her, to which she really really enjoyed and also raved about the sauce. Both of us ate ourselves into discomfort, so we had no room for dessert but planned to be back in the near future for dessert, happy hour, and another round of trying new dishes.

*outdoor patio is wheel chair accessible, side walk accessible (gate), dog friendly, and the resteraunt is overall family friendly. There is a main floor seating area as well as an upstairs seating area. The downstairs bathroom was clean, well kept, and well stocked.

*patio was clean, garbage free, dust free, and beautifully kept with no tears in the umbrellas, burnt out bulbs, or dead flowers.

*we lucked out on parking and snagged sidewalk parking right infront of the doors more aless but I can see where this would be slightly challenging with bus stops and many successful small businesses being operated on that strip now. There is a small parking lot on the same side of the street as Bow and Stern, less than a 5 minute walk down the way, heading AWAY from 5 corners, towards 711.

We really lacked the photos this go around as we just couldn't wait...

Going by the reviews, my husband and I booked Saturday night dinner here. Expecting to be wowed. Mentioned our anniversary in the reservation, but it was never brought up to us. (Missed opportunity) seating was a bit of a struggle. Didn't want an unadjustable booth for size reasons and had a real moment trying to explain if the chair moves then the seating will be fine. 3 front of house folk to finally get seated somewhere on the mainfloor.

Ordered the ceaser with prawn add on. It was a very small prawn for 2 dollar 50.

Got calamari to start. It was 80%breading and the actual squid was ....ethereal for lack of better phrase. Barely noticeable, flavourful was bread crumb. Disappointing.

Husband paid 34 for 2 pieces of halibut and chips. Needed salt, but that's sort of a personal thing. Barely any chips but they were crisp and good. The fish portion was so small. Hopefully it's a sustainable fish source at least?

I ordered the scallop carbonara. Mistakes were made. I didn't read that they use pancetta instead of guanchale (pancetta is much saltier) I just saw scallop and carbonara and ordered with my stomach instead of my brain.

Dinner came out FAST. Which made it ever stranger when I found the scallops you be criminally over cooked. Not slightly but epically. Dry, hard, you could see the shreds of meat as it was splitting around the curves. I tried one to give it the benefit of the doubt and it was like the dried scallops you get in lotus rice or congee. Fired and refired maybe? Not sure.

I could barely see the pasta because it was caked in huge flakes of parm (couldn't be parm reg. No crystals. Mid quality) but veerrrry salt. Paired with the tangles of pancetta it made for a mound of very salty pasta that had NO taste of black pepper. They only had preground.

My husband could read my disappointment and kindly asked the kitchen to take another stab at it. And the second time around was league's better but still lacked in fresh black pepper and had way way too much parm showered over the top.

While grateful the second shot at my dinner was improved I think the flow of the night was dampened by that point and normally we would have stayed for another drink and dessert we made a quick exit.

Staff was friendly and handled the ask for a do over with grace and professionalism

(For the record: No comps and we tipped. I don't often take the time to write a...

Disappointing, no, very disappointing I made a reservation several days in advance and asked for a table that was away from a lot of foot traffic. We were seated at a make shift table at the back of the house right next to the servers station and such that I could see the restroom door from my seat. We had servers rushing past us, we listened to servers laughing and making comments about customers. My chair was bumped once by a server when two of them passed each other in different directions. The lighting at the back was so dim I needed to use my phone flashlight to see the menu better. Horrible table. We had calamari to start. It was tasty but undercooked and slightly soggy. Entrees ordered were *Scallop Carbonara - enjoyed, six small scallops adorned the perimeter of the plate with a pile of pasta in the centre. Seafood pasta - enjoyed, a decent variety of shellfish. B&S burger (house ground beef) - very plain and not juicy, not unlike an A&W burger, Fish and chips - small pieces of fish but tender with good flavour, Braised Beef - dry, barely warm, did not have gravy or jus. The braised beef came with garlic mashed potatoes which were cold and bland, the vegetables (mushrooms and carrots) were burned to black on one side (which conveniently was on the bottom side as if they had been turned over to be not noticed). When I mentioned it to the server she said "Oh?!" and offered to bring me replacement vegetables. When they arrived there was five pieces of mushrooms and a few thin slices of small carrot in a bowl. The mushrooms were dry, the carrots tasted like they were old, as in they were found at the back of the fridge and needed to be used up. So now, I had a plate of dry beef, cold flavourless potatoes, burned vegetables and a side bowl of dry vegetables for $36. So not a good experience. And, so not worth the $220 we paid for our meal. You failed Bow and Stern. Two stars only because the pasta dishes were good I wonder if I'll get any contact back from the establishment? UPDATE: Aug 29. One week since posting. No contact from the anyone associated to this business....