WildFin American Grill - Vancouver — Restaurant in Vancouver

Once again I feel obligated to leave a review of a place I wish I didn't have to. We went on a weeknight, and upon walking in we found that the restaurant was not busy at all. We were immediately seated with our backs to the giant wall of windows on the opposite side of the restaurant from the river. We had a nice view of a chalk mural. Once our waiter arrived we let him know that we had a coupon for a free appetizer. I ordered my drink, a tall bourbon and Coke, and we ordered the clams for our appetizer. One of our favorite dishes in any seafood restaurant. My drink came, and I began sipping on it while enjoying the company of my lovely wife. 25%, 50%, 75% of my cocktail gets consumed, no clams. Our waiter comes, takes our dinner order, states that the clams are just about to be delivered. A few minutes later he comes back and says nobody told him, but they're out of clams. 30 minutes after we actually had ordered them. We then pivoted and ordered the calamari, but stated that we would like the calamari delivered before our entrees, which we had already ordered a few minutes earlier. 10 minutes later our calamari arrived. The calamari was decent. It's not what you would expect fried calamari to be like, but an upscale variation. Depending on the price, I would eat it again. Less than 5 minutes after our calamari arrived, our main courses arrived. Definitely not what we wanted. Waiting around for almost 45 minutes for our appetizer only to have our entree arrive practically at the same time. I had the pink snapper and my wife had the rock fish salsa. Both dishes were absolutely drenched in oil. I feel like the chefs watch too much Food Network and see Michelin star chefs drizzling the world's best olive oil over their dishes and think they can do the same with a ladle of the fry oil. The result is not appetizing. My pink snapper was completely devoid of flavor. It was a large portion, and it was seated on top of roasted baby potatoes. Both completely lacked flavor and salt, and shared the exact same texture. According to my wife, the rockfish salsa was a four or five out of 10. I tried a bite and, while edible, was overwhelmed by the oil that it was swimming in. Our waiter was nice, but seemed completely out of his element. My wife ordered the rotating cider, which we were told was a cinnamon roll cider. What came was definitely not a cinnamon roll cider. Upon politely inquiring with our waiter he then stated that the rotating tap had changed and he didn't know because he hadn't worked in a couple of days. When you're paying as much as patrons at this restaurant, you would expect your wait staff to be educated at the beginning of every shift what the offerings are, including rotating taps, daily specials, and catches of the day. It only added to the pile of disappointments that we were served tonight. Upon receiving the check, not only was the cider left on there, even though the waiter said he would take it off because it was not the correct drink, but my bourbon and coke was $14. $14! For a well cocktail. I did not request any specific variety of bourbon, just a bourbon and coke. We left a $20 tip, although it was definitely not earned. And we will definitely not be returning. The best part of the night was the seasonal side salad. Isn't that pathetic? You go to a nice upscale restaurant and the best thing you are served is a tossed side salad. You also go to a nice upscale restaurant to eat things that you can't eat at home, but anything that we have the ability to make at home is far superior to what that kitchen is putting out, and at an absolute fraction of the price. If you made it this far into the review, I...

This is my third time to eat here we have really enjoyed the past experiences, but I had to give it two stars on food because they have something on the menu that shouldn’t be there. It is absolutely different from everything else. It’s so bad that I can’t possibly understand why it’s even on the menu. I came there for my dad’s 81st birthday. He loved the snapper he ordered and it was absolutely amazing. My mom ordered the salad and she was constantly saying how good it was. My boys had chicken nuggets and fries and my oldest ordered fish and chips. Everything else was good, but never in my wild imaginations what I think a dish of that restaurants Caliber would be so bad. It was the shrimp and grits. It was appalling a total disaster from the get-go and when me and My Wife saw it arrive we knew that we had just ordered a nightmare. I have to admit that I didn’t really look at the menu completely. I thought it was a traditional shrimp and grits, which would have the shrimp cooked and mixed in with some sausage and the grits would be a whitish yellow and a nice southern taste, but this was something else altogether. It was smothered in overpowering tomato sauce that basically drowned out everything else and you couldn’t taste anything. Only the tomato sauce. The sausage was overpowered. The shrimp was totally annihilated by the tomato sauce and the grits were crushed with the taste of tomato sauce. absolutely one of the worst dishes I have ever eaten and because it was my dad‘s birthday I did not want to ruin it so my wife and I punished ourselves and pushed through it in order to make my dad‘s birthday enjoyable. I even tipped quite well because I knew it wasn’t the servers fault because they were excellent at service ! I recommend this restaurant but never order the shrimp and grits. It doesn’t even belong on the menu and I’m not sure who approved it, but maybe that person needs to go or he needs to understand that you cannot have seafood so overpowered that you...

I have to amend this review after a couple more visits. We live only 3 blocks away so went again and sat at the bar. Definitely less noisy. Nice bartender, friendly and talkative. Fondue always amazes. We were still hungry so tried the happy hour fish and chips. It was amazing. Light, perfectly cooked, light batter, great fries. Very impressive. Then, visit #2 last night. Happy hour and couldn’t wait to order fish and chips again. Disappointing before even tasting it. Two tiny pieces of fish no bigger than frozen fish sticks. Much smaller portion this time. Overcooked and tough. Fries limp and soggy. I asked for coleslaw and got a few shreds of plain cabbage! Nothing at all on it. No dressing, no flavor just raw cabbage. I’ve never had “coleslaw” like this. Overall extremely disappointing and sadly have to add Wildfin to the “hit and miss” category. Why can’t a kitchen be consistent? It needs to be great EVERYTIME. It’s not worth the risk to drop $50 taking a chance it “might” be good.

So close to awesome but Noise, noise, noise. Food is good. Fondue excellent and highly recommended. Service good. Our waitperson awesome. Don’t expect a quiet romantic table. It is extremely loud, packed or not. Decided to give it a second try after the first ear splitting experience. Walked in and only one table was occupied. Group of 8 businessmen. So loud we couldn’t hear ourselves talk. Must be the acoustics. Moved outside and had a beautiful happy hour watching the boats on a perfect late summer day. For that it can’t be beat. Might bring some earplugs next time. Adding this after several months. We’ve been back a couple of times. It seemed a bit inconsistent. Some bad experiences. Then last time we went we had the most amazing meal. Get the street tacos. We had the fish one and the pork belly. Absolutely delicious. Your mouth will thank you. Hopefully they are trying to get all the kinks worked out and go...