Wild Rice

Like the traditional Chinese concept of yin and yang, the décor brings together opposites and contradicting elements in harmony. Eastern flavours in Western décor. Traditional concepts served up with modern cuisine.
The restaurant was very dark, I was hardly able to take note of the narrow space, lined with simple chairs and tables. Or see the wooden frame work separating geometric wall art. We choose a seat close to the door, in order to shed some light on our meal. I like seeing my food as I eat it.
Would I go back? — No. The food was just ok, I expected much more because of its steeper price. Yes I understand my money goes towards the better ingredients and the skills of my chef; but the food at «Wild Rice» takes away the best part of Chinese cuisine, its low price. When you think of Chinese food, you think fast and cheap. And laugh at the North American jokes: that if you eat a whole plate of Chinese food, you will only to be hungry an hour later. This is how I view Chinese food, and I cannot get over these identifiers to enjoy «fancy» Chinese cuisine. To me it just doesn’t exist. This breaks the mold in a way that doesn’t add value to the Chinese food lover.
Would I recommend it? — No. Majority of the Chinese restaurants in Richmond are better and more authentic than «Wild Rice». And you can get three times the food for the price I had to pay this night.

I’m a bit on the fence with Wild Rice.
On one hand, I really like the share plate concept that’s popping up more and more. And I appreciate that they do even numbers of tidbits with their share plates. Nothing drives me nuts more then an appetizer that comes with uneven portions. No one wants to battle over that last tidbit.
And there were a few really nice touches to the meal. The king oyster mushrooms were super tender and tasty. The chocolate springrolls were genius. Chocolate and deep frying — you really can’t go wrong with those two things. But overall, the meal seemed a little one dimensional.
The Deets:
Wonton Soup: I started with the soup and I found the broth a bit bland. However, A+ on how much seaweed they stuff into this soup. It was a happy addition to see some extra greenery in what’s usually a very sparse dish. But I would pass next time around.
King Oyster Mushrooms: Mushrooms = very tasty. Polenta fries = crispy and hot but totally underwhelming if you’ve had the fried polenta at Pidgin. Cashew ricotta = didn’t seem to fit at all with the exception of providing a nice touch of color.
Seared Albacore Tuna = Nothing exciting about it. Pretty standard dish but seared nicely.
Chinatown Sweep = chow mein with bbq’ed beef. This was hands down our favourite which we both found surprising. It was the most flavorful of the meal. And although, we didn’t dislike any of the dishes prior persay, we found that they all sort of blended in to eachother with tastes. Very heavy on the salt and a lot of fried bits to every meal. This dish however stood out for having a burst of vegetables, a hearty hand of protein and a sauce that stood out. Would recommend.
Chocolate Springrolls — This is just a smart invention. Dark chocolate rolled and deep fried? How can that not be awesome? These were good. I’d partake again.
The wine list is decent — they have the Joie blend on the menu and that’s always a good sign. And their tea selection is lovely when you’re not quite finished chatting. But overall, it didn’t stand out from a crowd. I would pop back for the chowmein as a lunch option and maybe sneak in a little dessert action down the road. Worth another try but borderline for now.
Beautiful room though.

LOVE IT. I had been here years ago and it was great, so I was curious if it would still be the same? Wow, it was even better than I remember. Especially amazing compared to my ridiculous experience at their New West location. The 2 locations have complete opposite vibes. Where this one is cozy and inviting, the NW location is cold and unwelcoming.
Anyhow, we arrived here and I have to say I love the dining room. Intimate and cozy, while modern and sleek. Our server was attentive and wonderful from the moment we sat down.
Food: Shared 3 dishes and loved them all! We got the Turnip Cakes with smoked tofu and shiitake mushrooms, the Mapo Doufu (my favorite) which consists of eggplant, water chesnuts, tofu, rice and chilli jam, and last but not least, the Spicy Kung Po. Oh so good.
Can’t wait to go back!

I have been meaning to come back to Wild Rice for a loooong ass time. I suggest it all the time but for some reason it never happens! Anywho, a coworker made a reservation for a group of us to try the dineout menu on Friday. Exciting!
The hot and sour soup was DELICIOUS (and Vegan!). The broth was so flavourful and vinegar-​y. I loved it! I wish I could just drink that all the time.
I decided to go with the Spicy Kung Po Tofu bowl for my main, and it was pretty great! The coconut milk gave it a great aroma, and the crunchy peanuts were my favourite part. There was a good amount of broccoli and tofu as well. I didn’t really think it was spicy at all though. but it was so good that I kind of forgot about that part until after I finished. This dish was vegan too.
For dessert I went with the chocolate pudding and cookies (also Vegan?!) and I am so glad I did! I tried a few of the other desserts and nothing really compared. The cookies were soft and chocolatey and I mushed them into the pudding. Great flavour in all of it.

This Dine Out Vancouver monster is not winning me over. Normally, I like Wild Rice. Personally I prefer less fancy Chinese food, but Wild Rice usually offered something unique and with a touch of class. However, I was never disappointed as much as I was after trying the 2013 Dine Out menu.
It had been a while since I was here. Two friends joined in and since there were three items in each of the starter, entrée and dessert categories, we decided to try the entire menu.
Starters:
Wonton soup. Bland. Watery broth, and unflavourful wontons.
Seafood chowder. Sparse on seafood. I took one spoon with chunks in it, and my other guests complained that I took all the seafood.
Hot and sour soup. Yama hama. This one is hard to get through. If you like drinking a cup of vinegar, this is for you. Not spicy at all. Just sour.
If these all regularly $ 7 as the menu says, then I’d definitely advise against spending that much on such small and awkward soups.
Entrees:
Mushroom macaroni. I’m not sure what was missing here. It was a good comfort food dish, and is mostly elbow macaroni. The other ingredients took a distant second stage. I’m not sure if I remember tasting truffle oil.
Beef noodles. I like udon noodles a lot, and was glad it was used here. The whole dish was ok, but now pow of flavour, know what I mean? Sometimes you just want a literal translation of the menu description in your mouth, and this didn’t do it.
Kung Po tofu. This was not bad at all. But then again, it’s probably because it met expectation. The peanuts were good. This was my favourite of the entrees. Lots of rice though, and not enough sauce. I don’t know what this would normally cost, but if it was anything over $ 12, I’d be disappointed.
Desserts.
Sponge cake roll. DRY. (like stale dry) We all had the same comment amongst each other.
Brownie. Tasty, but if you’d had another brownie, this would be the same as any other. Why is it described as Szechuan? I have NO idea. Maybe it’s supposed to have a spicy bite to it, but this did not. Not at all. I think it would have been dramatically better if it were warm at least.
Coconut pudding. My favourite of the three, but the cookies were dry in the crumbly sort of way.
Service: It feels as though this server was new to this. We weren’t offered a drink at any point in our dinner. When we suggested we have a drink before dinner, she wasn’t prepared for it, and said «I’ll give you a minute» and walked away while we were deciding and asking her opinion. I had the Buddha’s Caesar, which tasted watery, and very little spice to it. As if ice had melted well into it. The horseradish infusion was very weak. It was far below par of even the most basic restaurant caesar. We finished our drinks before the food arrived, and our empty glasses sat there the entire duration of our stay. We went elsewhere for another drink, and forgot all about our dinner at Wild Rice.

I’m amazed… that this place is still open.
Vancouver may not have Michelin stars (yet! It’s all very political) restaurants, but there is one thing we do have, which is Asian restaurants. In fact, if you venture out towards the suburbs you could hardly throw a rock and not accidentally hit one. Vietnamese, Cantonese, Korean, Japanese, Taiwanese, the list goes on; for lack of a better phrase, Asian cuisine is Vancouver’s bread and butter. It doesn

Nope, sorry.
I’ve been past this place countless times on the bus as I head to work, it always struck me as an odd place for a restaurant. Apparently Wild Rice had some glory days, as I have heard good things, but for my first trip last night, it was awful.
We had some kind of smoked tofu (overcooked, dry, tastes like smoke and nothing else), sweet and sour soup (incredibly oily), a seared tuna (tiny pieces of tasteless tuna with thick sauce), and kung pao tofu (congealed noodles, pre-​flavoured peanuts, tiny pieces of rubbery tofu).
On top of this, the first two things we ordered (spring rolls and potstickers) on the menu weren’t available — and this was at 5:00 pm on a Monday. We were told that Sunday night had been busy, so they were all out. Does this mean they don’t do any prep on a Monday morning? How fresh is this food anyway?
The place is stylish, yes. The location is unique, yes. But at least on the day that I visited, the food was awful. I won’t be going back.

My friends and I came here during Christmas after we realized it would be impossible to get a table at Guu.
This is a nice little Chinese fusion place, the most entertaining aspect was trying to remember the super long names of the dishes on the menu and trying to recite it right back to the waiter.
The dishes tasted great and they had a nice presentation. I really enjoyed the cauliflower purée of the truffle salt tofu cauliflower purée, fresh pea, mushroom vinaigrette dish.
We were a bit let down with the restaurant as many of the dishes that we wanted, like the duck and cod were not available because they were out and we had to improvise on what else we could get.
There were some drawbacks to the restaurant, we were a party of 5 and they seated us at a table that was not quite large enough, especially when we ordered several plates and we were constantly reorganizing to try to fit everything. At times it was also hard to get the attention of the servers when we wanted to make an order or in my case, get another glass of tea. They had served my tea in a broken glass and it was leaking all over the table.

Been back recently for some late night eats and drinks.
Tried out their Fraser Valley lamb potstickers with a truffle pea purée. These were soo good. Perfect amount of filling to wrapper ratio, lightly pan fried. The filling was also tender and juicy, and flavourful. The pea purée added the addtional flavouring. I could have had another plate of these!
Also got the BC seafood duo with taro ribbons: salmon tartare, and a small dish of sablefish coconut lime ceviche. Really liked the salmon tartare-​fresh fish, and a sweet soy complemented it well. The sablefish coconut lime ceviche was a little disappointing. The texture was there, but there was minimal coconut flavour, and parts of it were very salty.
Of course I had to get dessert. Ordered the pumpkin tart with the coconut foam. Pumpkin tart was good, and the coconut foam was really something.
Service was great, and the food decent. Will be a spot that I will visit to grab some pieces of late night dim sum!