601 West Cordova Street, Vancouver (Downtown) - Waterfront Station | 604-678-8000

 

The Good:

• From the sample size we had, the food was above-average

• Place has a good vibe and décor

• Diverse menu

 

The Bad:

• Service was mostly attentive (especially the drink refills) but there were long gaps where we couldn't find our server

• Portion size varied from dish-to-dish (naturally, the ones with more expensive ingredients were smaller)

 

 

Sherman Chan

Special to The Post

 

I suggested a visit to Rogue at Waterfront Station recently.

Despite being hopping for a Friday night, my friends and I were able to score a table quickly. In order to get a good idea of their menu, I decided to share some things.

However, I had the Fries X3 all to myself. It included 3 types of fresh cut kennebec fries: poutine, truffle oil & parmesan and gorgonzola cream & bacon.

First or all, the fries were pretty good on their own being crispy and having that "fresh cut" quality. The cheese curds in the poutine were squeaky while the gravy was thick and mild. My favourite of the 3 had to be the truffle oil and & parm because the fries maintained their crisp texture. Moreover, the right amount of truffle "mustiness" and salty parm made them quite tasty.

The gorgonzola cream was creamy and rich. It wasn't as sharp as I would've liked as it was quite mild.

Onto the shared items. We had the Seafood Linguine with prawns, scallops, salmon, halibut, lemon, herbs, red and yellow peppers. This was a fairly generous portion with al dente pasta and a considerable amount of lemon flavour (with lots of garlic and herby taste as well). For me, that was really appealing because more often than not, seafood pasta can be pretty bland. I was a bit indifferent with the large amount of crunchy veggies though. On one hand it offered up a textural contrast, yet on the other, it "got in the way" of the pasta. If the seafood wasn't overcooked, this would've been really good.

Our second item was the Spicy Tiger Prawn Pesto Pizza (prawns, red onion, pesto, mozza, feta, grana padano Parmesan) which was actually quite spicy. It was just spicy enough to add a kick without overwhelming the rest of the ingredients. The prawns had a nice snap and were naturally sweet.

The crust was mostly crispy on the outer edge while being soft in the middle. We thought the pizza was more than acceptable.

The Lobster Mac n' Cheese consists of four cheeses, mac and lobster: this has been one of the better versions I've had lately. I like that they use a variety of lobster meat rather than just from the claw (since is kind of spongy).

My other friends shared 2 dishes beginning with the Baha Fish Tacos. It was Cajun-spiced with avocado cream, mango salsa, house coleslaw wrapped in white flour tortillas.

When it arrived, it looked to be rather small in size, but then again, there was a good amount of fish and mango. Despite being $14.00, they thought it was well-worth it since the fish was moist and flavourful while the abundance of mango really amped the flavour quotient.

All in all pretty good for late night eats. Actually, we agreed that practically everything was either decent or above-average.

Of course nothing would win any culinary awards, but Rogue is pretty good for this class of restaurant.