Ancora Waterfront Dining and Patio: Dine Out Vancouver 2023
It’s that time of year again! Dine Out Vancouver is a food festival where participating restaurants offer 3-course menus at a set price. This year it is running from January 20 – February 5 and is designed to help boost restaurant visits during a traditionally slower time of the year (after the holidays and before Valentine’s Day).
I am a big fan of Dine Out and try to go to 3-4 a year with different friends and family. I will say, however, that the prices have been increasing every year. Back in 2019, the most expensive menus were priced at $45 but now I see menus going up to $60+, which is kind of disappointing because the whole reason Dine Out Vancouver is fun is because you get to try these $$$$ restaurants at a reduced price. But at a price point of $60-70, I feel like I can just come on a regular day and spend around the same, so it kind of defeats the purpose. Guess that’s Vancouver inflation for us… yay…
Anyways, our first Dine Out this year was at Ancora Waterfront Dining and Patio. They have 2 locations – one in False Creek and one in West Vancouver with 2 different menus. We went to the False Creek location and their menu this year was priced at $54 per person.
Interior
The restaurant is located right along the sea wall so the entrance may be a little bit hidden, but there is an awning with “Ancora” on it, and you take a small flight of stairs down. Our table of 4 was seated on the downstairs level so I’m not sure what the upstairs level looked like.
The downstairs was still quite nice, had the white tablecloths, round tables and sparkly lights. We had a view of the water which was cool too. Our table was right beside the bar but it wasn’t very loud, granted we did have a later reservation time for 8:30 pm. My only comment is that I found our table to be really large for 4 people so we felt kind of far away from the other couple, and we were seated kind of in a half circle.
Dine Out Vancouver menu – $54 per person
This is everything we tried from the Dine Out Vancouver menu. Please note that my fiance and I are not vegetarian so we mostly try for the non-vegetarian options, but they always have a vegetarian option during Dine Out Vancouver.
Oysters ($4-5)
Kelvin ordered some oysters al le carte, which were around $3.50-4.50 per oyster. To me, this is pretty damn expensive but I’m not going to stop him from ordering what he wants at a restaurant so I ordered one for myself too lol. I believe they were kusshi oysters – the oysters were quite large and tasted really fresh and sweet! But I mean they’re like $4 so they better be good.
Free bread
I love me some free bread! There was enough here for all of us and I thought the hummus-like spread was quite interesting because I was expecting olive oil and some balsamic vinegar. Pretty nice bread, although thin! They were both soft, not hard.
Appetizers: Wild mushroom soup
Full disclosure, I was pretty hungover the night I went to Ancora, so this mushroom soup was looking very enticing to me. The soup has queso fresco crema, brussels sprouts and you can add truffles for whatever the market price is.
The soup had a thick consistency, which I like in my western soups and had a strong mushroom flavour even without the addition of truffle. There were also a few large pieces of mushroom in there although I didn’t see any brussel sprouts so maybe it’s just cooked in there in a liquid form. Overall, a pretty decent soup and quite a large serving.
Appetizers: Salmon causa
I googled “causa” before ordering and it looked to be like one of those salmon, rice and avocado cakes, but the presentation of this looked more elegant so I was pleasantly surprised. This salmon appetizer uses ora king salmon, which I am a total sucker for. There are small drops of avocado mousse, wonton crisps and a rocoto emulsion. I was very curious as to what the yellow block was because it wasn’t really listed on the menu, but it’s like a block of potato and there is also some ikura on top of the salmon as well!
Overall, a very pretty dish and I liked the mix of ora king salmon, ikura and avocado mousse. I thought the wonton was too salty though.
Entrees: Seafood pasta
Kelvin orders the seafood pasta, which comes with clams, mussels, prawns, aji ajariilo and peruvian corn. You can add lingcod for +$19. Upon first arrival, the pasta serving didn’t look that large but it was as you started to eat it.
There is a decent amount of seafood in here and everything is cooked well. I really like the sauce as it coated the spaghetti nicely.
Entrees: Duck breast
I ordered the duck breast, which is the only red meat choice on the Dine Out Vancouver menu. The duck breast is served on a bed of quinotto, saltado sauce, pear chalaca and some broccolini.
I’ve never tried quinotto before, but it’s kind of like quinoi or couscous. It was very saucy and tasted quite good and healthy so I liked it. The duck breast was cooked fine but I think the star of the show was actually the broccolini because it had tons of flavour. Overall, it is kind of a small plate of food – enough for me, but if I was some big buff guy who goes to the gym and wants to drink protein, this would not be enough for me.
Desserts: Pastel de choclo
For my dessert, I chose the pastel de choclo. I thought it would be like some sort of chocolate cake but it is more like a sandwich with caramelized milk in the middle? There is cream cheese ice cream on top and the menu says candied pecans but I didn’t see any on my plate unless it’s in the cake mixture somehow.
Cream cheese ice cream – delicious! The cake itself was a little more dense than what I expected. It was just an ok dessert for me. Presentation-wise is also underwhelming.
Desserts: Picarones
Again, we googled “Picarones” and they looked like donuts of some sort. What was on our plate were more like those Timbit donut holes, served with pecans, a spiced syrup and lucuma ice-cream and crumble. Presentation was prettier and the picarones were nice and warm/fluffy like a donut. I liked the ice cream with crumble – a classic. I am not a fan of spiced things like gingerbread or cinnamon, so I didn’t like the syrup too much but that’s just my preference. If you like cinnamon you will like the sauce.
Final thoughts
Loewe’s rating: โญโญโญโญ
After tax and tip and our oyster additions, we spent around $145 for 2 people, which I think is a reasonable price for Ancora since they are listed as 4$$$$ on Google. We generally liked the food and have heard a lot of good things about Ancora from our friends.
The only disappointing round was the dessert round for me in this Dine Out menu, but I really liked all the other dishes we tried because they were all quite unique. I would say the seafood choices seemed to have a bit more finesse than the other options. Ancora is supposed to be Peruvian and Japanese inspired so I feel like we should come back to try their regular menu and focus more on the seafood dishes they have.
We are off to a good start in Dine Out! The other 3 restaurants we are checking out this year are Cuchillo, Pepino’s Spaghetti House and Torafuku so stay tuned for my next posts.
Sincerely, Loewe