The Main Street eatery is filled with people seeking good-deal meals at antiquated prices
Mia Stainsby
Sun
The Hoy family enjoys a dinner out at Windjammer Restaurant. The boys, Jacob (left) and Lucas, have the kid’s penne while their parents, Danny and Stella, enjoy cod and chips. Photograph by : Stuart Davis, Vancouver Sun
It’s like a Greyhound bus station crowd — a mix of pensioners, dads with little kids, young couples, middle-aged couples, a few hipsters. At dinner time, especially on weekends, the Windjammer restaurant has a full house.
The common denominator is people looking for a good-deal meal at rather antiquated prices, as in $7.95 for seafood agnolotti with tomato cream sauce; $6.50 for meat lasagne; $10 for lamb shank with three vegetables. A scan of tables shows fish and chips to be the kids’ and seniors’ favourite, and it’s good fish and chips to be sure.
“Three beers!” the dad of two little girls ordered. When they looked wide-eyed at him, he changed that to a beer and two pops.
“I’m going to eat Caesar salads all my life,” one cutie declared, munching through a plate of it with her sister. “Could we have some mo-wah?” she said at when every leaf was munched.
You could say the reason for the popularity is two of the owners have worked at Umberto Menghi’s Il Giardino as worker-be line cooks. You can’t help but pick up good cooking habits in a high-end kitchen catering to demanding palates.
So you’ll find the clam linguine is perfectly done with a light olive oil and clam juice sauce and fresh clams in shells. The dirt-cheap seafood agnolotti missed the mark, though, by sticking together. They should slip and slide over each other. A meat lasagne wasn’t thrilling but it was light and tasty.
The fish and chips are the stars of the show. A golden, crisp batter, fresh fish (cod, halibut or salmon), tidy fries, deep-fried at the right temperature in clean oil.
Entrees, though very economical ($10 for lamb shanks), are unexciting. Vegetables (usually three kinds on a plate) are lightly boiled or steamed. And you’d probably do best with the good-deal micro-brew pints at $4 or $13 a pitcher as the wine list isn’t enthralling.
My impatience bubbled over upon deciding on a take-out. “It’ll take 15 minutes,” we were told, but 30 minutes, 40 minutes, then 50 minutes crawled by before we got the food with no mention of the long waiting time. Luckily, the flat screen TV kept us occupied with a hockey game.
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WINDJAMMER RESTAURANT
3079 Main St., 604-876-6446. Open for lunch and dinner.
© The Vancouver Sun 2007
