Dine Out Vancouver Festival 2018
Dine Out Vancouver Festival is one of the largest food and drink festival in Canada that offers various culinary skills and cultural experiences(Dine Out Vancouver Festival 2018, 2018). This year, more than 300 restaurants are participating in the festival and the event lasts 17 days from January 19th to February 4th (Ip, S, 2018). Each restaurant offers a special prix-fix menu.
(Romer’s, 2018)
Romer’s Burger Bar
Romer’s Burger Bar is a restaurant located in Port Moody serving burgers and local craft beer under the slogan “Fresh, local, fun”(Romer’s, 2018). Their main goals are to serve good food, to be a part of the community where they belong to, to show the beauty of the province they live in(Romer’s, 2018). For reference, there are two more chains in Kitsilano and River district as well.
Our group searched through its social media pages such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Consequently, we noticed that they were actually communicating with their customers and reflecting their feedbacks. People can easily find information about the restaurant, menus, and vivid pictures of the food. Moreover, many people left good reviews mostly giving them 4 or 5 out of 5 stars. Popular events held by Romer’s are “yoga class + a glass” and “El Cinco”, which is like a local craft beer brewery competition. Ladies night looked tempting as well!
(Romer’s Instagram, 2018)
So…
Overall, this place has satisfied our two conditions which is close to school and has options for vegetarians,
so, we decided to make a reservation. The place didn’t offer a private parking lot, but street parking was available. The location was pretty near to inlet center station, which was convenient and accessible. We arrived at Romer’s near 7:30 pm, it was already quite busy for a Monday.
(Romer’s Facebook page, 2018)
Interior
The interior was stylish, vintage and uniform in industrial design concept. The restaurant has two floors and plenty of tables. The ambience was nice, it seemed the place would be suitable for people of different age groups.
Atmosphere and decoration
Excellently decorated, they created a friendly atmosphere. The volume of the music was perfect, customers could hear it but it didn’t interfere with conversations. The yellowish light was neither too light nor dark; you could read your menu and was easy on the eyes.
Menu
The menu for Dine out was simple, easy to understand. However, it took some time to make an order since there were very limited vegetarian options.
The regular drink menu was very tedious to look at it. If we turned one page, the booklet would close.
When it comes to regular menu, it was basically a la carte. There was no side for burgers. The menu was well designed and nicely organized but had too much information at once that looked kind of overwhelming. Vegetarian menu was not good on the regular menu either.
Food
Appetizers : Voodoo Meatballs, Cauliflower Wings
For appetizers, we chose voodoo meatballs and cauliflower wings for the vegan. Both were a perfect size for an appetizer. The voodoo meatballs were tender but still had a bit of bite and had a delicious unique sauce, they were nicely presented. As for the Cauliflower wings, they were a little spicy (although they did have hot sauce smothered on top) but had great temperature and flavor. It had great texture and well deep-fried. Plating was simple as they attempted to create a very full looking plate of the delicious appetizers by using a smaller rectangular shaped plate.
(While eating appetizer, we found a tissue in plain sight and decided to check when it would be cleaned up.)
Entrees : Fraser Valley Chicken Porcini, Harvest Power Bowl with grilled avocado
Our two entrees, Fraser Valley Chicken Porcini and Harvest Power Bowl with grilled avocado came out at reasonable time. Both dishes had a fancy presentation, for example the chicken was neatly stacked creating a bit of elevation and elegance. The sizes were great, but some thought there were too many vegetables in the power bowl, which felt a bit unbalanced. Risotto was good, it had a velvety texture but very salty. Overall, we were satisfied.
(The tissue was still on the floor.)
Dessert : R Famous Drunken Donuts
Ten small donuts served with caramel sauce. We received new plates for dessert as well. The donuts were freshly fried, had a nice temperature and were delicious. These were the best part of the meal, we would most definitely recommend.
(Fortunately, the tissue was finally gone at this moment)
Cleanliness
The restaurant was for the most part clean. Tableware’s and menus were clean; the server brought new appetizer plates for us after each course. We also checked the washroom and it was tidy, everything was stocked up. But it took too much time to clean up the floor. (We were actually kind of obsessed with the tissue).
Service
We had to wait a little bit to be greeted or even noticed when we first arrived. Our server was nice and friendly but the service was really slow. Each course came out fast, however, it took a long time to check on us after the food came out. The manager was on the floor but didn’t feel like servers were well organized or systematic.
They do something for birthdays! Sweet.
Integration of Modern Food and Beverage Trends
The restaurant from what we saw definitely integrates food and beverage trends into their menu. As you can see in the picture above, Romer’s menu carries cauliflower wings (which are moving up in the food trend world), as well as yam fries, garlic fries, and a ‘killer poutine’. As for the drinks, they have a wide selection ranging from many craft beers and wines to cocktails, fruity drinks, and their own signature drinks, the restaurant definitely gives you lots of options to quench your thirst.
Sustainability Concerns
Our reviews on sustainability were simple; only one thing popped out towards us and that was the napkin overload. Every dish that came to our table came with about fifteen napkins or so, by the end of the dinner, each of us had only used one napkin (totallinhowever, we were left with two enormous piles. A couple of us having previous restaurant experience knew that once they’ve been on a customers table, they must be thrown out which is a huge waste.
Members
Kay Yuu / Olga Yulina / Sydney Duhamel
References
Dine Out Vancouver Festival 2018. (n.d.). Retrieved February 18, 2018, from https://www.dineoutvancouver.com/
Ip, S. (2018, January 11). Dine Out Vancouver releases list of participating restaurants, opens for reservations. Vancouver Sun. Retrieved from http://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/dine-out-vancouver-releases-list-of-participating-restaurants-opens-for-reservations
Lee, T. (2018, January 18). DINE OUT VANCOUVER AT THE NEWLY LAUNCHED VICTOR AT PARQ VANCOUVER [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://www.insidevancouver.ca/2018/01/18/dine-out-vancouver-at-the-newly-launched-victor-at-parq-vancouver/
Romer’s. (n.d.). Retrieved February 18, 2018, from http://romersburgerbar.com/.
Romer’s. (n.d.). Retrieved February 18, 2018, from https://www.facebook.com/RomersBurger
Romer’s. (n.d.). Retrieved February 18, 2018, from http://instagram.com/RomersBurger