Noshwellmenu

[rating:3]

No, it isn’t that Hell’s Kitchen. If you’re expecting an especially angry Gordon Ramsay to jump out of the kitchen and start berating you, you’ll be sorely disappointed. What you will find though, is a quaint little restaurant on West 4th with an open patio. As we walk in, the atmosphere feels more like a pub. It’s a casual joint, but despite the super sunny weather, it’s pretty dark — with a musty scent wafting through the air. The nice hostess seats us outside the patio in a slightly cramped but cozy little area.

The menu consists of many tasty looking dishes: Banana french toast, crab benny and the b.e.a.t.c.h just to name a few. I order the crab benny and Tre of course orders the b.e.a.t.c.h. It’s pronounced exactly as it looks. Tre was hesitant ordering the dish out loud but I thought the name was hilarious.

As we waited for our order, we sipped our coffee. It was pretty watered down. Tre tries to add cream and sugar in the hopes the taste will improve. But nope, it just makes it worse. Bad coffee is always a bad sign and we’re beginning to think we’ve made a bad choice.

The food arrives and it looks good. We both begin eyeing each other’s dishes so we end up splitting the meal. My benny has shredded fresh crab and avocado with roasted red peppers. Sadly, there isn’t anything fresh about my benny. My roasted red peppers were noticeably absent. The crab was a bit dry and a little too fishy for my liking. I’m a crab lover, but I’m not loving this. The hash browns aren’t bad, lightly crisp and seasoned, but they still needed a kick from a bit of salt and pepper.

Tre’s b.e.a.t.c.h is a sandwich made with basil, eggs, avocado, tomato, capicolla, hot sriracha with cheese and tarragon dijon aioli. It was pretty decent. The eggs were fried on top of capicolla, a spicy italian ham with all the of fixings served on multi grained bread. We weren’t sure how the sriracha would turn out. It’s a Vietnamese hot sauce normally found in Pho joints. Strangely enough, it worked well with the sandwich.

Overall, the brunch was a bit disappointing — less disastrous, more lacklustre. We’ve had worse, but I don’t think we’ll be returning for brunch anytime soon. Their pizza’s, however, look tempting. Apparently, this place is known for their pizza’s, so we’ll come back to give that a try. We are hopeful that we won’t be disappointed again.

The Details

2958 West 4th, Vancouver
www.hells-kitchen.ca
604.736.4355

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