Kin Resto Bar is a fairly new restaurant on Robson St. With a menu heavily influenced by Taiwanese and Vietnamese flavours, This small eaterie has been pleasing palates in the West End since July 2011.

My favourite dining partner @yvrbcbro and I decided to purchase the VanEats.ca Kindle with Kin dining package. For $25 you can have a six-course menu tailored for two people. It features some of the restaurants best dishes. For Sean’s take on the experience, click here. Also Sean took all the pictures for this post.

We started our meal with the Prawn & Thai Basil Rice Paper Roll. It had cucumber, vermicelli, lettuce, crispy shallots and of course, prawns. I love pretty food, and this dish’s presentation was beautiful. One thing that I loved about the roll was the crispy noodle center. Bitting into it, with the texture of the vermicelli noodles and the prawns, the crispy noodle gave this dish a new dimension of texture, and a nice crunch. Great way to start our meal.

Moving on to our next course: The Beef La Lot – grilled minced beef, star anise, black pepper, roasted peanuts & jicama. Oh. my. god. Theses little guys were fantastic, so packed full of flavour. The meat was so tasty and it simply melted in your mouth. The La Lot leaves used to wrap these rolls are quite common in Vietnamese dishes.

Beef Short Ribs, marinated and barbequed in 17-spices. These ribs were tender and just melted in your mouth. Fantastic appetizer! My only regret is that there weren’t more of them.

Moving on, we had the Seafood Salad, with radishes, prawns, basa, asparagus, mango, grape tomato, in a rau ram sauce, all in a bed of field greens. The salad was of a very good size for two people. Originally the salad was to have scallops on it, but we were served a different type of fish, it was delicious nevertheless and we really enjoyed it. I love the tangy sauce with the sweetness of the mango. What a great combination. The greens were fresh and crunchy and the asparagus were well cooked, with plenty of crisp left in them.

By then, our tummies were singing, and we were ready for our next course: Chicken Chay Curry, mildly spicy yellow curry and coconut milk, vegetables & tofu and of course, chicken. With a mild hint of lemongrass, this curry was delicious. There were plenty of veggies in this dish: broccoli, cauliflower and carrots.

After our curry we had a lovely Lemongrass Ginger Creme Brulee that came with pineapple chutney. This is my only beef: If you’re gonna make such a fantastic dessert, and make two people share it, make sure that you make extra. I had to restrain myself from licking the bowl! It was great. The creme brulee had hints of coconut, which made it very unique. The sugar coating was also harder and thicker than usual creme brulee, but in this particular case, it complimented the dessert quite well, as the pineapple chutney on top had plenty of moisture that otherwise would’ve enter the inner layer of the dessert. A real winner in my books.

Did I mention we got all this for $25? The Vaneats.ca packages are a great way to experience new restaurants and cuisines without breaking the bank. I highly recommend them, not only because the folks at Vaneats.ca are good people, but they also give you an excellent value for your money.

Check out Kin Resto Bar. Totally worth it.

Sean and I paid for our meal. My endorsement of Kin Resto Bar and Vaneats.ca is based on the experience of a happy, satisfied, paying customer.