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New Yaletown Restaurant: Elements Diner

Elements Diner is a new Yaletown restaurant at 910 Beatty Street serving Asian fusion cuisine.   Their menu is East meets West featuring dishes of an international range.  As the Georgia Straight has aptly summarized it, you’ll find dishes from the Philippines (Crispy Pata, Sizzling Pork Sisig), Taiwan (Honey Toast Box, Bubble Tea), France (Croque Monsieur, Croque Madame), Italy (Fungus Wild Mushroom Risotto), and China (Fried Rice with Chinese Sausage, Scallions, and Pork Floss).  Last month, I decided to try out Elements Diner with an Axka deal they had for a dinner for 2.

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Modern & Minimalist

The interior of Elements Diner is modern but quite minimalist.  When my husband and I walked through the entrance, we were greeted by one large empty space.  There were some sofas near the front, counter seating near the windows, a few dining tables at the back.  The middle of the restaurant had an ordering counter.  The layout of the restaurant just seemed a bit confusing because it seemed more like a takeout place rather than a full-service sit down restaurant.  As we approached the counter, a server greeted us and directed us to one of the tables.

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What We Tried

The Axka deal was a dinner for two (1 appetizer, 2 mains and 2 drinks) and valued at $28.  We ordered the following:

  • Drinks
    • Classic Milk Tea ($4)
    • Taro Milk Tea ($4)
  • Appetizer
    • Edamame Waldorf Salad ($7.75)
  • Mains
    • Crispy Pata ($14.95)
    • Drunken Chicken-roll Risotto ($11.95)
    • Pork Sisig – replacement dish ($11.50)

The bubble tea drinks were okay in terms of flavour, ice levels and sweetness levels.  The tapioca pearls could be improved because I thought they were a bit too hard.

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The Edamame Waldorf Salad was a twist on the classic Waldorf Salad by having crispy edamame.  It was a bit fruity and sweet from the apples, creamy from the mayonnaise, and nutty from the candied walnut.

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The Crispy Pata is a Filipino-inspired dish with deep-fried pork knuckle with spiced soy vinaigrette.  If you have a cholesterol problem, you certainly will want to avoid this dish.  The exterior was nicely crispy and the meat was tender and succulent.  The vinaigrette dip is needed to cut the grease.

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When we tried the Italian-inspired Drunken Chicken-Roll Risotto, we immediately found it too salty.  So salty that it was pretty much inedible and we had to return it to the kitchen.  The owner a few times and she later determined that salt was mistakenly added to the chicken stock.

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Mistakes in the kitchen happens sometimes but the texture of the rice was still all wrong.  The rice was hard not creamy and silky in a proper risotto, so even if the chicken stock had not been salted, I’m not sure if it the dish overall would have tasted good.  I will give credit to the owner who handled the situation really well and she offered to provide us with a substitute dish.

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We chose the Sizzling Pork Sisig with fried egg and garlic rice as the replacement dish and got it as takeout since our parking was running out.  I tried it when we got home and didn’t find the dish that appetizing.

New Yaletown Restaurant

Overall Impression

I wanted to like Elements Diner but the experience was entirely lackluster.  There wasn’t one dish I tried that I truly enjoyed.  In general, I think Elements offers too many dishes of varying types of cuisine.  For our dinner, we had four styles  – American, Filipino, Italian and Chinese dishes – and the flavours just didn’t go well together.   Unfortunately, I wouldn’t recommend Elements nor would I return.  Rating: 2/5

Facebook: @elementsdinervan

Elements Diner Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

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Elements Diner

Tuesday 6th of September 2016

Dear Areta,

Thank you for your comments and feedback. We apologize for your unfortunate experience at our restaurant, we are improving everyday.

Since you have been here we have improved on couple of things. The tapioca we no longer soak in syrup instead we add dark brown sugar which makes the pearls very tasty and soft. Our sincere apologies for the risotto you have tasted. There is no excuse for making such a mistake. We were more than happy to replace the dish with anything on the menu.

Just to clarify : the dish was called “Drunken Chicken-roll Risotto” not Wild Mushroom Fungus Risotto that you mentioned. • The replacement dish served was ‘Pork Sisig’ instead of “Fried Rice”. * *(The dish we served was completely different from the dish you mentioned in the review.) The main ingredients in Pork Sisig at our restaurant is pork belly, onion, garlic, Chinese leek and fried shallot. There are many variations of sisig nowadays, we pride ourselves in making our menu unique with a hint of classic. However, like the original recipe, our sisig does not contain any Chinese sausage, pig floss or scallions. Therefore the dish has soft and succulent texture.

We appreciate your feedback and would like to thank you for coming in. The Elements Diner team would like to invite you to stop by our restaurant for another meal as our team is continuously working on improving the standard of our dishes. Hope to see you soon.

Regards, Elements Diner

foodgressing

Wednesday 7th of September 2016

Thank you for the response. I have made the appropriate changes to my post based on your comments.