Joey Burnaby - Finger Food

We were impressed with the food that we had at Joey Broadway recently so we decided to try out their Burnaby location.  Of course, the hardest part was trying to find where they are… we had a general idea that they were in the same large complex that houses the Save-on-Foods on Lougheed Hwy but we didn’t see any signs when we drove into the underground parkade off of Rosser.

When we finally found our way to the restaurant, I was a little put off that the hostess generally ignored us while she was speaking to someone on the telephone.  It sounded like she was trying to take a reservation for someone but it took a couple of minutes and we were left to stare at the high ceiling in the foyer while we waited.  A simple acknowledgement from the hostess (like making eye contact or saying “I’ll be with you in a minute”) would have been appreciated.

We started off our lunch with a bowl of their Wild Chantrelle Mushroom Soup.  The piping hot soup came with a dollop of crème fraiche and had a creamy yet earthy-flavour to it.  I love mushroom soup in the fall and this was pretty good.

The soup wound up being one of the only dishes that we didn’t eat with our bare hands.  We didn’t mean to do that on purpose… it just happened that way.  When we were at Joey Broadway, we saw some tables having the Sushi Cones so we decided to try them out this time.

These are different than the standard sushi cones that you would get at a Japanese sushi joint.  Instead of being wrapped in nori (seaweed), they use a soy bean wrapper which, admittedly, is easier to bite through than nori.  Inside the Sushi Cone comes packed with rice, a tempura-battered prawn, avocado slice, cucumber, tobiko, toasted sesame seeds, and daikon radish sprouts.  These were tasty but I would have liked to have had a few different varieties of sushi cones available.

Our next “finger food” dish was the Baja Fish Tacos which came conveniently presented in a metal taco holder (don’t you hate it when your taco falls apart before you even pick it up?).  While these are called “fish tacos”, they actually have both fish and shrimp in the soft corn tortillas along with guacamole, cilantro, and a chunky tomato salsa.  A fairly spicy Mexican hot sauce is served on the side along with a wedge of lime.  Wonderfully light and fresh, these weren’t as messy as I thought they would be.

The Chinatown Lettuce Wraps comes in your choice of chicken or shrimp which gets tossed together with toasted peanuts, noodles, and cilantro and peppers.  While tasty, I think they used too much of the crispy noodles in this dish.  The Asian Lettuce Wraps at The Sandbar Seafood Restaurant or the Korean-style BBQ Pork Lettuce Wraps at Cactus Club Cafe are a bit messier to eat but I think are a bit tastier.

We wound up trying the Molten Lava Chocolate Souffle which was paired nicely with the scoop of vanilla ice cream and the raspberry coulis.

The deliciously decadent chocolate lava came pouring out of the souffle as soon as we dug in.

When we left the restaurant, we had the same problem with lack of signage.  After exiting the elevator to the parkade, we searched around only to finally realize that the non-descript, plain, black door was the exit to the parkade (I initially dismissed it as a door to a maintenance room).  It would have less confusing if they had a simple sign on the door saying “exit” or “parkade” on it.

Food:  4 / 5
Service:  4 / 5

1899 Rosser Ave S
Burnaby, BC

www.joeyrestaurants.com

About these ads