Wild about Wild Rice: Mini-Review

Back from "vacation," which was more like "attempt to play referee between feuding family members and fail"-cation, along with "let's ride in pathogen tubes 30,000 feet in the air for 4 straight days!"-cation, with a dash of, "sure, another drink sounds like a SWELL idea"-cation. Not much foodie deliciousness was enjoyed during said trip to South Carolina and to Vancouver, with a notable exception:

Wild Rice in Vancouver is a pretty amazing place. Atmosphere, modern-casual. Service, friendly, cute, and knowledgeable. It's family-style Chinese tapas (I know! Yay for confusing cultural trends!). My dining buddy and I decided to order fancy drinks; he had a "Buddha's Caesar" drink, a deeply spicy concoction of horseradish infused vodka, clamato, cilantro, lemon and a dash of soy (which somehow I can't see the Buddha enjoying, but we took advantage of our non-enlightened status and slurped it up), while I indulged in an Orchid, which consisted of appleton rum, ginger beer, ginger ale, fresh lime and bitters. Delicious. But the real delight came when the wonton soup arrived - a revelation of complex miso flavour, hand-made dumpings with locally raised pork, and crisp spring onions. It will change your opinion about what wonton soup should taste like. The spring rolls (vegetarian, with a sweet grapefruit/chili dip) and the Beef Shanghai were both really good - but the soup topped it all. Our total bill, with frou-frou drinks, the soup and two mains, was $53.53 (Canadian). Slightly pricier than we'd intended, but I don't begrudge them a cent.

If you're visiting Vancouver, venture to Wild Rice. It's worth it.