Hurricane Grill Blows

December 15th, 2008 · 14 Comments

Hurricane Grill

999 Marine Drive, North Vancouver, V7P 1S4

604-983-9444

1137 Marinaside Crescent, Vancouver, V6Z 2Y3

604-488-0555 

A quick post on a weekend birthday celebration that led to the Hurricane Grill in Yaletown on Marinaside Crescent. A tony address set on the water amidst Yaletown’s luxury skyscrapers. It was a cold evening and the Canucks were playing – a harsh shutout loss to Edmonton 3-0 for you fans in the readership – and the Hurricane Grill was an inviting upscale pub atmosphere with plenty of bigscreen tvs to feed the sportsfans amongst the birthday goers, which was most of us. Unfortunately the food was as brutal as the loss to the Oilers.

The menu is huge and tries to cover every possible base from grilled steaks to nachos, fajitas, pizzas, pasta, ribs, salads, and burgers. Our server suggested my partner and I start with their signature steamed mussels. To our dismay, we did. Firstly and typically, as any basic seafood cook knows, you steam mussels in the shell and those that open are good to go and those that don’t you toss as they have expired. These mussels were served with the other half of the shell already removed giving us no clue as to the health of the contents. The steaming “broth” was a horridly salty unidentifiable dark green liquid and the large rubbery mussels tasted of nothing leading me to believe they were cooked at another time and introduced to this nasty liquid later. My partner refused to eat more than one.  I was starving and ate about half before piling the shells plate on top of the main dish.

Since this was a sportspub-type evening I decided to go with a peppercorn cheeseburger as a main to compliment the lager. I was drinking I was hoping the mussels were a one off problem and the peppercorn sauce, I was told was delicious.  My partner chose one of her perennial favorite dishes – baby back ribs.

Sadly, burger was, overcooked, dry, bland and had an unpleasant texture. Three strikes. The peppercorn “sauce” was wiped on the bottom bun and not lightly brushed on to the burger during and after cooking as I had expected. I was able to work through about half of the burger before I couldn’t stomach it any further.

My partner’s ribs  – a half rack – were overcooked and dry. Clearly a theme for meats at The Hurricane. For both of us, sadly, the only “highlight” were the fries. And believe me this isn’t saying much.

In retrospect we absolutely should have sent our food back and complained but you know how it is when you are at a celebratory event that is hosted by the celebrator and you don’t want to insult the host and make a scene. We still should have. 

There were about 20 people at the birthday dinner and a quick poll around revealed a consensus of lackluster meals. To be fair, there was a report that the cheese pizza was “pretty good”. A corn chowder was remarked upon as “really good” but the wrap it accompanied was “boring and tasteless” and the diner wished she’d had only ordered the soup. A steak covered salad looked good and was said to be “nice”. 

The atmosphere and service, and pricepoint are all quite good. Too bad the food doesn’t measure up. 

Tags: Burgers · Pub fare

14 responses so far ↓

  • 1 Dan Fishman // Dec 17, 2008 at 2:25 am

    Love the headline, keepin’ the spirit of EatVan alive!

  • 2 Doran // Dec 18, 2008 at 3:52 pm

    Thanks Dan! Gotta keep my predecessor proud!

  • 3 Me // Dec 29, 2008 at 4:45 am

    I have to agree. The only good thing about this place is the patio. Food sucks and the service is unprofesssional,.

  • 4 I Love Food Blog // Jan 12, 2009 at 6:33 am

    I have been here once and had the nachos….big portion, but nothing special.

  • 5 Aquarius // Jan 16, 2009 at 12:37 am

    I used to go there when they just opened. Their food quality is getting a bit embarrasing. I won’t go again.

  • 6 jimmyjo // Jan 29, 2009 at 4:07 pm

    Not gonna lie, it’s next door to me and unless my taste buds are 100% different, i go there because i consistantly get great food. the ultimate burger is amazing. the tuna steak is the exact same one i got at provence which i paid twice as much for. seafood linguini was pretty good. 2 nights ago the bartender conviced me to have a blue cheese burger because i told him i liked blue cheese, and again i was impressed. since i started going which is about 2 month now they seem to be getting busier, so they do something right. And seeing the manager or owner (i’m sure he is one of the two) there all the time tells me they are dedicated. if anyone reads all these, take my word and try it atleast once and judge for yourself because clearly we are spoiled with restaurants in yaletown and we’re becoming too picky.
    cheers

  • 7 Doran // Jan 30, 2009 at 1:31 pm

    Don’t know about your tastebuds but I do know about mine and our experience was as above. The food was not good and around the table inconsistent. This wasn’t a case of being “picky” but simply one of reporting the facts.

    Glad to hear your experience has been different but given the contrary range of comments here and our experience this says to me that this place remains inconsistent or more consistently bad than good.

  • 8 Chan // Jan 31, 2009 at 6:17 pm

    What kind of food do you expect at a sports bar? Ive eaten at the North Van and downtown hurricane and i agree with jimmyjo. The food is great and flavourful. There is also a new menu that came out in the past few months. Try the burgers, try the wings, try the steak salad. its all good. I agree that too many of us yaletown folks are becoming harder and harder to please. They only downfall I see is Hurriance recently raised their prices.

  • 9 Doran // Feb 1, 2009 at 12:45 am

    I don’t think it was unreasonable of me to expect good food regardless of the style of establishment and definitely not unreasonable to expect a good burger. I didn’t get one. See the review.

  • 10 Not from Yaletown // Mar 6, 2009 at 4:03 pm

    Will all you yaletowners get your heads out of your asses!! What makes you so hard to please? You’re no better than anyones else. Not professional? It’s a fucking sports bar!!! It’s not gonna be fine dining. If you’re bitching about the pepercorn rub being put on before and after…look at what you’re eating…it’s a fucking burger!! And they taste great. Go make your own food and go there for a beer. I’m sure you’ll still all have something to bitch about. (Clean the pipes, beer is flat, glass is dirty….fuck off and live a little) All my experiences at hurricane have been good. The only reason you may not like the service is cause the staff are friendly and take the time to connect with guests. Sorry they’re not grovelling at you feet. Nowhere else do you engage in a real conversation with the people. Go to Cactus or earls YTBP, all they want is for you to get out and pay them, and you tip them on the sight of their asses walking away.
    Yaletown…on the most part, you’re a bunch of pompous pricks with nothing better to do than critique everything. If you’re so perfect, go and start up your own restaurant. Props to Hurricane for taking on the challenge of openning a store in such a hard to plaese neighbourhood and making it this far. From a small little “cursed” location in North Van, to to take on you fucks. Congrats Ash and the team.
    Go in again and try enjoy yourselves. Drink a beers, watch the game, laugh a little and get your Fucking heads out of your asses.

  • 11 Roari // Apr 13, 2009 at 2:40 pm

    Totally agree with “Not from Yaletown”.
    Although I live upstairs from the Grill, most of the Yaletowners I see are a bunch of trendy douche bags.
    The Hurricane is the only place in Yaletown providing a relaxed sports bar atmosphere with friendly servers and a variety of good food and drink… where you DON’T have to don Lulu Lemon or Prada to get in the door.
    All my experiences at the Grill have been great. The service has been good, the food is tasty, and the beer is cold. Not only that, their brunch rocks and is a great place to go on a Sunday afternoon to catch a game.
    As with “Not from Yaletown”… Props to Hurricane. They’ve got a great concept in a tough neighbourhood. Congrats guys, don’t listen to these critiquing Yaletown dumb-asses.

  • 12 Missy // Jul 7, 2009 at 4:29 pm

    umm its a restaurant not a bar – the food is supposed to be palatable no?

  • 13 Reginald // Aug 18, 2009 at 11:05 am

    I don’t live anywhere near that nuthouse you call Vancouver, but did buy a car in N. Van. When servicing, a shuttle takes us to The Mall, and we usually manage to hit the Hurricane for lunch, while waiting for the car service completion. We have been many times. Not one complaint. The cold beer may be a bit expensive, but the food is great. Yesterday, I had a Beef Dip, great. Wife had a Chicken Wrap, Great. Daughter had pasta, Great. In fact, wife and daughter took what they couldn’t eat home in a funky little Seinfeld style take out box.
    Those of you that are bitching, should lay back a bit. If you go into a bar/rest/sports bar with a shitty attitude, looking to critisize, it will happen and you WILL get heartburn, due to your shitty disposition.

  • 14 dangerous // Dec 20, 2009 at 1:37 am

    Just left the Hurrican Grill in NorthVancouver to dine with girls from work. I ordered a spritzer and upon the third or fourth sip felts something sharp in my mouth. It turned out to be a small piece of glass. Concerned I let the server know, the manager came over very apologetic and ordered my another spritzer and said I would not have to pay for the drink. They as well had a special for tuna salad for 10.00, thinking that it was Auhi tuna I ordered it and it came as canned tuna in a ball on top of lettuce, horrible. I sent it back, and ordered the flaming prawns. They were adequate, but upon the manager asking me if he could provide another type of salad, I agreed and order the steak salad. It was ok. I will never go back to that restaurant or recommend it again. I had to pay for my meal after all that

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