Wooden Fish — Restaurant in West Vancouver

It's a nicer place for Vietnamese foods. They use good quality plates and utensils, napkins. However, sorry, I have to be honest for their foods and service.

No free hot tea - Wow. this is an essential for all Vietnamese restaurants I have visited in the city, but not here. Service - Zero table check. One of the dishes ordered was missing, so I went to the counter after 30-40 mins. 1-2 servers were kind. But the male with thick glasses forgot the orders and he was rude when I checked. Pho - 2/5 Zero garnish(No beansprout, no cilantro, no pepper) I understand it's their style. The broth was oily. That oil should have been skimmed off when making the soup. Noodle and beef amount was a kid's meal size. Trust me. I can finish two large bowls here without any problem. Seems the depth of the soup was okay, but couldn't drink much of those oily soup. Remember this tiny bowl (large size we ordered) was $19 Papaya salad 1/5 - Just don't order. Tiny amount of papaya and undercooked shrimps served. Only the sauce was okay. $16, you can get much better papaya salad(Aka. Som tam) with 2-3 times more papaya and other real vegi like tomato, green been in any other Thai restaurant, easily. Mixed skewers meal - 2/5, meats tasted okay. Again, the portion was super tiny for $23. My 12 years girl could finish two meals here. Grilled chicken - 2.5/5, Exactly same dish except the meats with 5. best value among what we ordered. However, they messed up with rice to noodle again,, but we just had it. 3? pieces of small thigh meats. The chicken tasted okay. $18 here. ** Side sauces - You can ask for it. They seemed homemade sauces. Red ones and garlic chips were extra spicy, so be careful. 4/5

The greens they served were plain lettuce, salad greens. Not the typical east Asian, flavorful greens.

1 male adult and 2 females adults who especially don't eat much and 1 12 years old and 1 4 years old(barely ate anything.) - We had our $90 meals here and went to the pizza place and ordered the whole pizza.

This place is only about the location right across the Ambleside beach. That's it. Even Any Pho franchise, I do mean any one, can beat this place with quantity and quality, of course prices. Any fancy Vietnamese such as Ahn, Linh have better portion and selections of the real Vietnamese foods than this place. Of course, I still tipped 12%. Bye,...

Not a pleasant experience.

I gave Wooden Fish a try as per excellent reviews in a Vietnamese food group in Vancouver. Things did not go well, accumulatedly:

When I was ordering, I told the waitress that I would like to have the grilled baby octopus first. She cut me off immediately, telling me that I should order everything at once. I explained to her that I would like to have it as an appertizer, meaning it must be served before main dishes. Some Vietnamese restaurants I’ve been to bring the appetizers after the second course. She told me that the kitchen would know that. Also, I was using Vietnamese and the waitress answered in English😂 Luckily , my English was ok enough to handle the situation. The grilled octopus served. Mediocre but no complaints. My main dish were brought out 20 mins later, it’s ok because they’re busy. However, my partner’s one served 12 mins after mine🥲 I found a spoiled piece of red lettuce in my vermicelli plate but set it aside and did not point out until I found another piece. I knew that it’s hard to spot the spoiled pieces, but I was looking for better preparation for a long period of waiting. We did not finish our food as it’s not what we expected for the price. We talked to the owner and she offered cancelling all the items off the bill but we stated to pay for what we ate.

To the owner: this is the whole story. I tried not being an impolite customer but being working for food industry for years, I anticipated a better customer service. The mistakes were minor but they built up and caused uncomfortableness. I hope your restaurant...

This is NOT Vietnamese Pho!

No bean sprouts No basils No lemon/lime No jalapeno/fresh chili

"Bun Bo Hue" has: no pig knuckles or pig knuckle fillet no meatballs or sliced meatballs of any kind no blood curds no herb taste almost no chili oil. Normal BBH soup is completely red!! it's not one bit spicy. They did not forget chili oil. There was only one or two drops of chili oil! IT ONLY HAS HOT POT/SHABU SHABU-LIKE BEEF SLICES AND NOODLES!! NOTHING ELSE!!

Wife complained of the greasy broth with her "Pho Bo". They did not care to skim the grease out of the broth before serving.

They do not mince words. $13 "Mini size" is really mini, exactly the size of a rice bowl. No exaggeration!

$19 for a "Regular". That's expensive. But considering this is West Vancouver, I accepted it.

$15 for 8 pieces of tiny "Cahn Ga Chien" or chicken Wings. MacDonald's in Canada has no McWings but if you have seen or tried it, it's that size. TINY!

debit/credit card terminal minimum tips is 18%.

table was wobbly and we requested to change table! Turned out most table legs are on a folded cardboard paper to prevent them from wobbling! Charging this much for food and you are too cheap to replace your dysfunctional tables! That is pathetic!

we gave it 2-star only because the broth for both the Bun Bo Hue and Pho Bo were pretty good. That's all the good thing we can say about this place!

I guess the affluents don't care for authenticity as long as it tastes good....