Hello hello! We went to Harold’s Bistro & Bar for our annual Christmas dinner and were able to try a few of their appetizers, entrees and desserts. Harold’s Bistro & Bar is located inside the Sheraton Hotel in Richmond and is more spacious on the inside than it looks! The entrance is narrow but as you walk into the restaurant you can see that the dining area opens up and has a buffet style dining area at the back.
To start our meal we had a variety of appetizers to choose from. They were in a separate area so we could go up and choose what we wanted to try.
Wings
These came in a variety of flavours including honey garlic, bbq, and salt and pepper. It came with celery and ranch on the side. The sauce on the wings were coated nicely and not sticky. You know when you get wings that are super sticky and you end up with a mess all over your fingers and your face? Luckily, this was not the case with these.
Seasoned Calamari
Tortilla chips and dip
This dip was made with spinach, artichoke, cream cheese, and parmesan cheese dip. The dip was super creamy but a bit confusing because of all the flavours since we weren’t sure if it was a spinach dip or artichoke dip. It was also super creamy and smooth so it reminded us of nachos!
Honey roasted squash and sweet potato soup
This was a strange squash soup because we though it had a really strong tomato taste to it. However, it didn’t mention having tomatoes in the base on the menu which was odd. It was very smooth and the creme fraiche added richness. Overall, we weren’t too fond of the soup because of the strange flavour profile.
Pacific salmon
This salmon was grilled and then topped with a lemon cream sauce. It also came with mashed potatoes, green beans and a tomato. The salmon was on the drier side because it was cooked more than I would have liked. The lemon cream sauce saved it by adding moisture. The green beans were blanched nicely so they still had a crunch to it. The mashed potatoes were so creamy you could probably sleep in a pile of it. I thought that it could have used a bit more flavour even if it just had garlic to spice it up a little.
New york steak
You can choose how well you want your steak to be cooked. Old bean ordered his medium rare and for the most part it was but on the ends it was a little closer to medium. He liked how the peppercorn jus added warmth and even more richness to the dish and the crispy onions on top added crunch.He had the same mashed potato as I did.
Fraser Chicken
This was a pan-seared chicken with light chicken jus. It was chicken breast so it was a bit on the dry side but hurray for chicken jus! It came with broccolini, mashed potato and honey glazed carrots. Lil’ bun didn’t end up finishing the plate because there was too much chicken so Old Bean helped her out.
Harold’s Bistro & Bar Desserts
The fruit plate came with watermelon, honey dew, cantaloupe, grapes, raspberries and pineapples. The melons weren’t very ripe so they weren’t too tasty but the pineapple had the perfect amount of sweetness.
Next to the fruit plate was an assortment of desserts that they decided to serve to us on the house because we had such a big party dining with them. There were assorted mousse cakes, chocolate cakes, and cookies to choose from!
They had three types of mousse cakes, a lime one, a lemon one and a green one which we later found out was pistachio. Honestly, we felt that all three mousse cakes pretty much tasted the same and it was hard to differentiate between the three. The layers of mousse were airy and pudding like. It had a layer of sponge cake in the middle that only added to the lightness of the cake. We didn’t think these were very sweet either which was nice.
We only tried the sugar cookies, shortbread and gingerbread cookies but they were all pretty good. What we found interesting was how the gingerbread cookies were actually soft cookies instead of hard ones so we missed the signature crunch of gingerbread. The shortbread and sugar cookies on the other hand were exactly as you would expect. Overall, we had a good visit and enjoyed everything Harold’s had to offer
