The Boathouse Restaurant — Restaurant in Port Moody

We just got back from celebrating the 21st birthday of the boyfriend of my daughter with a meal at The Boathouse Restaurant in Port Moody. I feel compelled to write this review because both the meal and the treatment by our waitress and the manager was one of the worst experiences of any restaurant we have been to. Indeed we have probably been to The Boathouse Restaurant ten times over the years, but we haven't been for at least six months, and boy, have things changed there.

So what went wrong?

They brought out the hot bread for us, like they do for all guests. But the bread was luke warm and tasted a little stale.

I ordered a cocktail which arrived in a surprisingly small glass.

My son had three little burgers and a blond hair was found in the middle of one. The waiter replaced the burger without apologizing, only offering the the hair wasn't intentional?!

My wife order a salad but she complained that it didn't really taste of anything.

Two people ordered medium steaks but they turned up at the table very rare and had to be taken back for further cooking.

I ordered another cocktail and the new cocktail was literally twice the size of the first cocktail. I asked the waitress what's up with that and she replied "it's the same amount of alcohol". The second cocktail tasted much better than the first.

Then we went through the dry period... nobody turned up at our table and my wife started drinking my drink because she had nothing to drink! We felt a little abandoned. Other people at the table also had nothing to drink.

They knew we were celebrating a birthday and they brought out a small piece of cake with a candle which was a nice gesture. But they brought out the cake with the dessert menu so we wouldn't all have dessert together. Seems strange.

Finally they brought the $350 bill. Before paying, we complained and the waitress simply asked us if we want to speak to the manager. The manager arrived and we listed all the stuff which went wrong. We asked him if the waitress was new and he said that she is not knew. He said it's good that we told him about the various mishaps and because then they can make things better. My wife said that we will never be returning. The manager said he hopes that we will return in the future and walked off.

Then we were left at the empty table for at least 10 minutes. Finally we realized nobody was going to visit the table to take our money. We walked across the large restaurant to the till where the manager happened to be. It was after 10 PM at this stage and there were very few guests. As my wife approached the manager he told our waitress was also there too and he said to her, "She still has to pay". Very impolite. We paid and left. Never to return unless there is new management... or something...

Update December 2018: The staff seemed nicer but... We watched as other tables got brought complimentary bread but not our table. My cocktail tasted somewhat watery. The yam fries were not hot. My tuna poke bowl tasted bland. The chef needs to try the similar bowl at Earl's or Cactus Club. My wife's soup came in the smallest soup bowl we've ever seen. The staff also admitted the soup is very bad value for money. Summary: Management has not got better in the last two years... :-( Quality and consistency is still lacking.

Update: April 2025: Had Sea Food Chowder for lunch. There was a small and a large size. I had the large, but it arrived and I was surprised how small it was, and how little seas food was inside. Another...

Very disappointing Valentine's dinner. Our clue when we walked in on Valentine's day with our reservation, was the restaurant was not even half full it was pretty dead considering the day. We used to be in the restaurant industry, it was ALWAYS the busiest night of the year, next to that is Mother's day.

I ordered the mixed seafood grill, big mistake. Hubby ordered the sirloin and lobster tail. My salmon was overcooked and the two prawns and one scallop on the skewer were extremely overcooked. Seafood restaurants should know how to cook seafood. Our server Zach, brought me another salmon fillet, it was better. The skewers should NOT be precooked as it only takes a few minutes to grill, but they were precooked as they were also ice cold, not acceptable at $80.

We received our appetizers, Ceasar salad and ahi tuna tacos, our dinners showed up a few minutes later so we rushed through our appetizers. I asked the person that brought our dinners, why the rush, she looked at me like she didn't speak English and didn't really care. Good servers observe to see if the appetizers are almost done to time the main course correctly.

I also ordered a red sangria with half ice, my drink was pretty much half ice and half drink when it arrived, not sure what I would have got if I didn't order it with half ice.

The best part of dinner was the salad, the dressing wasn't homemade and no hint of garlic whatsoever, it was presented nicely. I dont think I've ever had Ceasar salad without garlic, very odd.

We both had cheese cake for dessert. It was not fresh, the edges of the cheese cake was dry and starting to show age.

Dineout Vancouver $65 was a far better menu with allot more choices compared to their Valentine's menu at $80, very disappointing, especially everything on this menu was on Dineout for less and allot more to choose from. . This was our first time at this location, and probably our last. We live in Richmond, but our shop is in Port Moody and decided to try something different in Port Moody.

From the time we were seated and in our car, it was an hour. I don't think we've ever had a dinner so rushed, never coming back.

Why is there no option to post pictures? My pictures will show you the edges of our cheese cake was aged, probably sliced in the morning.

Your link takes you to Landry's Kitchen in Houston, Texas, not sure what they have to do with...

Waited over 5 minutes here to be greeted by the server. Finally he took our drink orders and was in such a rush to leave that we had to say "oh we're ready to order an appetizer too!". It took another 3 minutes for the drinks to be dropped off at our table. Then the calamari came which was very salty. Then a warm bread came to the table which was fine.

After being sat for more than 30 minutes the server finally took our food order. As a former food server I can appreciate that things can get busy during a shift especially in restaurant rush hour, so you ask for help if you think you can't manage all your tables or at least you give your table acknowledgement that you will be with them shortly. The sever was trying to be nice, so once he finally took our order he started joking about desert with me but by this point I was so mad for having to wait so long that I just wanted him to get to the POS machine and ring in our order, not wait around and joke with me!

The food arrived 30 minutes after our order placement. The server only came around to ask if we wanted ground pepper on our food. Did not check on us and the food quality even once.

The whiskey crab soup was okay. The mixed seafood platter with the wild rice was really good except that the wild rice almost knocked out our teeth (super hard substance). The grilled sockeye salmon was good but not exceptional.

No real vegan food options here either, understandable, this is a seafood restaurant. For the price here, the service fell really short and the food was just OKAY.

Now as I'm writing this review, we've been finished with our meal for nearly 20 minutes but the server has not come by to take our plates, ask about desert or the bill.

I'm beyond disappointed and will never return here! My score for this restaurant is a 1/5. As for my two companions, they're more forgiving than I am and are willing to give this place another try. They both gave the place a 4/5. Taking the average out of the 3 of our scores, a solid 3/5 for...