Red Door Pan Asian Grill

This was one of the best places for pan asian cuisine in Vancouver. Very fun to have a bunch of people to share with. The beef was exceptional.
btw, this place is closed now. How does Unilocal update? The new place is pub food and might be run by the same management. Had a great burger.

Now CLOSED. See my review re: Luke’s.
Unfortunately, I could not rate this place any higher, due to the $$$ for food that was just average.
Same owners as Red Door meaning they also own the Kingston.

Good stop for lunch during shopping on Granville. Street parking can be hard to find.
When I entered, the open modern lounge décor while warm & inviting, didn’t remind me of an Asian restaurant. Almost none of the visible staff & customers were Asian, so I began to doubt how good the Asian cuisine would be. However, since the friend who recommended it to me, & lunch companion is Asian from Hong Kong I thought it would be fine.
We were promptly greeted & seated. Throughout our lunch service was excellent.
We had Singapore Bread, Green Papaya Salad, a Veggie Curry over Rice, Snap Peas, & Pad Thai. All were very mildly flavored, but still good. Especially the Pad Thai. The Snap Peas were fresh & crunchy. The Veggie Curry left just a taste of spicy hotness.
If asked to choose, I prefer Tropika on Cambie, but Red Door is good as well. I would return.

Seeking true Asian food, do not go here. Head to Sala Thai or Tropika on Cambie.
However, seeking mildy flavoured, passable Asian in a trying to be hip faux Asian setting, this is THE place for you!
I am not saying Red Door is bad, it is not, just don’t go in fooling yourself it is Asian and come out grumbling. Go in eyes wide open, unlike Tom Cruise, and realize you will get some mildy flavoured Asian food (that your parents or gparents who have never been to Asia will love).
I have been here 3 – 4 times when I have not been able to go anywhere else and i know not to go too creative or get caught up with the very flowery persuasive menu (kudos to whoever wrote it, it has fooled me a few times).
The basics are good. Fried rice, Malaysian roti, Hokkien noodles, anything fancy tastes good but you will not find anything in Asia named that or tasting anything like it. Seriously, shaking beef? Lettuce wraps with fried shrimp? FYI, there are no lettuce wraps in Thailand.
I am bored of this review and bored of Red Door. As a last resort, it’s OK. You won’t hate it but you won’t remember it.

The Red Door is about 8 minutes from my new place, so we opted to go and check it out for Saturday dinner. One very convenient thing about the place is that it is open until 1 AM — it will remain a late dinner option, I suppose.
The place is decorated in typical contempo, lounge-​y style. It might be a good place to take a date, albeit one that doesn’t care too much about the food.
Let me go out of my way to say that the service was excellent.
We tried the Chicken Satays, Ginger Beef, Mongolian Beef, Pineapple Rice and Pad Thai. All of them were passable, and all of them could be easily surpassed at any of the specialized, mom & pop restaurants that abound in Van. Prices were reasonable for a classy joint like this one, but still around twice as much as you would pay at the aforementioned places.
In the end, pan-​asian or pan-​anything in a restaurant equates to red flashing warning signs. Cooking in one style, let alone 5, is hard enough.
Give this place a pass unless it is very convenient.

This place isn’t horrible but i really don’t know what it’s trying to be. I think because it’s the old owner of Milestones they probably thought an modern asian restaurant would take off. Not so. The food was mediocre and it’s really not hard to make asian cuisine.
We only had 2 vegetarian dishes and shared them. I had lots of left overs but i didn’t even feel like eating them. It’s really to bad.

Was looking forward to going here for a long time. Finally made it out during dineout.
Tried the Chilli Chicken, Chicken Satays, Ginger Beef, and Vegetable Spring Rolls. Nothing special about any of it. Chicken Satays were very plain, with the accompanying peanut sauce barely adding any flavour. Chilli Chicken was dry and overcooked, Ginger Beefs wasn’t anything special, and wasn’t a fan of the spring rolls either.
Best thing about the meal might have been the wine tasters (3 small glasses for $ 8.50) and the orange mango sorbet for desert.

Do not go here if you are claustrophobic! (But then, I’m not sure how you would survive in Vancouver with claustrophobia…) The space is large enough to feel like you’re not being crushed, but if you’re there during a rush, you will notice a lack of walking ability… or even ability to stand up.
The food is good. I sampled a wide variety and found the best of them to be the Sweet Chili Chicken. The mushrooms & snap peas was also very tasty, if you’re looking for something vegetarian.
Choices on the menu included notations for gluten-​free and vegetarian items.
The bar was a full bar usually. or so I’m told. I went on bellini night and the bellini machine was broken. I was offered a mango mojito instead at $ 2 more each. Not impressed.
The service was a bit sub par. Some of our food came late and we had to ask after it.
The food is delicious though, so at least once, you should try it. They also have a meal for 2 combination plan. You get an appie, 2 main dishes, a side dish, and 2 desserts with it. Not a bad deal. ;)

Well three word could describe my dinning experience: loud, bland and greasy.
Sure some asian food tend to be sauteed or fried in oil but it is only the «McDonalds» of chinese food who serve that kind of food. This on the other hand was apparently suppose to be good. The flavors were… well not even present. Kung Po is suppose to be spicy the menu said 2 pepper well I couldn’t taste the spice. When I asked them to re-​make it they just handed me hot sauce… The restaurant was also so loud you couldn’t even talk to the person sitting in front of you. All together a fail!
Would not recommend this restaurant unless you like bland and greasy food in a loud atmosphere.

I came here by chance because I was walking around looking for a place to eat. As we walked in, we were greeted by a friendly host and seated right away. The décor of the place is really nice. The food was so-​so depending on what you ordered, but the food came out quickly. I ordered pineapple fried rice and it was sort of bland. It needed more seasoning, but the presentation of it was pretty nice though. Everyone else in my group liked their food.
I have to say the service was awesome! I haven’t had good service like this in a long time. Our server (which I think was the bartender because I saw him making drinks) was very attentive and friendly.

After narrowly escaping a body cavity search in the customs area of Vancouver International, Jamie W. and I were running late to get to our hotel downtown. It was close to 10PM, and I was still shaking since I was envisioning a «Midnight Express”-type situation where I have a 350-​pound cellmate named Bubba who knows the words to «Send in the Clowns». Luckily, the security officer saw I had no criminal record, and all was right again with US-​Canada relations.
Driving up Granville Street, we decided to stop at the first inviting place we could see from the fog-​covered windows of our rented Volvo. Red Door was not a bad luck of the draw all things considered. It has a predictable black lacquer motif that looks like an overstock sale at Cost Plus. The downer from an ambiance standpoint is that the bar is completely open to the restaurant, which makes the rambunctious hipsters that much noisier to the delicate ears of a post-​traumatic customs victim.
The food, on the other hand, pleasantly surprises even if it doesn’t make Bubba’s palate bend over. The C$ 10.50 Panko-​Crusted Chicken Strips were deliciously tender, definitely a cut above a McNugget, especially with the soy sauce and lime juice dipping options (see photo). The C$ 10 Yang Chow Fried Rice is a can’t-miss dish with plenty of shrimp and pork slices — a bit greasy but in a hit-​the-​spot kind of way (see photo).
The one miss came in the C$ 4.50 Vegetable Spring Rolls, two piping-​hot, crispy-​crunchy rolls that never came together with the filling, even with the tantalizing cucumber sauce. The service was on the spotty side since they were entertaining the bar crowd as well, no small feat given the amount of alcohol being poured. All in all, it wasn’t terribly memorable, but for a random roadside selection, it was pretty darn good eats south of downtown.
FOOD — 3 stars… two good dishes, one skippable… reasonable Vegas odds if you ask me
AMBIANCE — 2.5 stars… Cost Plus was apparently having a big sale… and there’s the real loud bar
SERVICE — 3 stars… when we got attention, it was fine
TOTAL — 3 stars… fair fusion fare

I can’t help really sincerely wanting to like the place… the people are nice, very attentive and fast. The location is fantastic. But the truth is, the food is just awful.
I came for dinner when they first opened and didn’t like the food. Feeling generous (and facing humongous line ups for Vij with a starving friend), I decided to give it another try.
We ordered two appetizers, the fried squid (basically calamari dressed in asian dipping sauce) and beef short ribs. The fried squid literally dripped with oil, it splashed out a little when I used a chopstick to pick one up. The beef short ribs were so salty and saucy I actually tried to scrape them against my knife.
For entrée, we had a chicken (The red door chili chicken) and beef (shaking beef) dish… Neither one were particularly good. The portions were small, but we couldn’t bear to finish the meal. The rest of the menu was overpriced: sorry, $ 12 for lettuce wrap appies?!
To sum it up, the food felt like a high end Panda Express: Too dry, too saucy, too floury, or too oily. Nothing at all like most asian cuisine. I would rather send someone to an authentic chinese restaurant in the city (plenty of that in vancouver) and even if the menu isn’t in english… just by sheer random selection, one is still bound to get a better value and a better meal.

Food: *
Service: *****
Atmosphere: ****
Price: **
In Vancouver where good service can be hard to find, Red Door is a bit of an oddity as its service is far superior to its food.
We sampled a number of dishes — ginger beef, singapore street noodles, miso halibut, spring rolls, pineapple fried rice — and found that the dishes either had too much soy (ginger beef), very little taste (street noodles), were too salty (halibut) or did not have enough pineapple (fried rice). All respect to the chef and all, but in my humble opinion, if he’s going to serve classic dishes like ginger beef he might consider learning the proper taste from some of the more successful chinese restaurants first.
With this in mind, the pricing did not match the quantity or quality of the food.
The service, however, was spot-​on. We had a very attentitive waitress who was polite and very knowledgeable about the food. Our bartender was great and was happy to make adjustments to our drinks when we were not completely satisfied with them. As well, the decoration was quite cool; and contrary to the food, it was a successful fusion of asia.
Would love to come back some time, but only if Red Door makes some serious changes its food.

Worst fusion…
I usually give places 2 – 3 times before I am convinced whether they are good or bad. In this case, I was so happy to try something fusion and usually you can’t go wrong. How bad it can it be? About 90% of the restaurants are fusion, such as the large chain restaurants.
First, I ordered a stir fried dish with veggies and I have no idea what sauce they used, but it was awful and ate only 2 spponfuls and left the rest behind. That NEVER happens to me, I am a pig and eat it, eventhough it is ok. But in this case, the flavour was so potent and ‘saucy’ that it was drenched!
Another time, we cam in a larger group of 5 and I can’t remember what everybody orderd, but NONE of us were happy with our dish and vowed never to return or recommend it to anyone.
Again, why can’t they just invest in a good chef. White spot even makes better fusion than this. It was so disgusting and don’t be fool by the cool exterior, which makes you think you’ve stepped into some joint in Hong Kong.
Stay away-​try one of the falafel places nearby, you will be much happier. That’s what we did, we couldn’t finish our food and some are really not picky eaters. It was just seasoned with the wrong spices that was essentially too much. Fusion on acid is what I would call it.

Loved it.
Our whole experience here was amazing. I’ve been meaning to write a review for the Red Door since the minute that we left.
Due to a slight mixup on my part (I had tickets to a play at the theatre on Granville Island — not the theatre on Granville St. :/​) we had only about an hour from the time that we sat down until the time that we had to leave. Our server was amazing and made it happen. Everything was friendly, quick and efficient. Not just the server though. Bartender, server, hostess and manager. This would be a five star review even if we hated the food. The staff were that great.
The food and drinks did not disappoint though. I love the fun sharing style of food they sell. And everything was delicious. Seriously. Delicious. And the portions were huge. We ordered three or four things and loved everything we were served.
And the price was reasonable (gasp!). When we were at the Boathouse a few weeks prior to our dinner we paid around $ 100 for a few appetizers and some wine. At Red Door we had more food than we could handle, two glasses of wine and a few martinis and came in under $ 100. Amazing (have I said that yet?)
Oh and as we were paying our bill the manager looking guy came over and served us some sort of Japanese apple wine. I don’t know exactly what it is but I want more. It tasted so good that I died a little inside when I realized that I didn’t have any more. And for free? Can’t beat that.
And as a little extra to our whole experience I realized the next day that I had a voicemail from the restaurant asking if we were coming in for any sort of occasion and if they could do anything special for us. Really?!? I have never had a restaurant do this and I loved it. It guaranteed that I will tell anybody that will listen that they should eat at the Red Door.
So yeah. Eat there. Five stars. I’ve pretty much gushed for four paragraphs. There isn’t much more that I can say.

Not horrible but not great, the Red Door is a good spot for hanging with friends over some reasonably priced, non-​offensive, non-​memorable food.
The patio is fun to be on during a summer evening amid the lanterns and the chatty crowd. It tends to be fairly crowded so get there early if you want a good spot. Would be fun for drinks before going out but not a destination location.
The food is serviceable, if humdrum. If you’re out with a group that aren’t fond of exotic flavour combinations or spicy foods but are tired of burger and pizza joints, the Red Door might offer just enough of a change to fit the bill.
I had the Pad Thai and I don’t remember it. Enough said.

Stopped by the Red Door last night for a short dinner. Generally liked the friendliness of the staff and ambiance, most of our dishes were tasty, and the menu had helpful ratings on how spicy certain dishes were.
Disappointed, though, by the «Seven Flavours of Tofu» dish, which we expected to be different kinds of tofu each with a different flavour. Instead, what arrived was a pile of cubed, lukewarm tofu with all seven flavours just mixed together. Like any old dish would be. Would I call my coffee three-​flavour coffee just because I added cream and sugar? I would not.
Both drinks we had were less than what we’d expected. Their «Ginger Lemonade» at $ 3.75 just tasted like regular lemonade — couldn’t detect even a hint of ginger. And their «Iron Maiden of Mercy» tea was about as strong as the hot-​water you get for free at Chinese restaurants. Entire leaves and stems were in the teapot.
The service, as I mentioned, was friendly, but a bit on the slow side, especially considering the place was half-​empty when we went there on a Tuesday night about 7:00 p.m.
Would we go again — sure, if we were in the neighbourhood and hungry. But it’s not some place we’d recommend as one of Vancouver’s finest.

I absolutely love the red door. I’ve dined here over half a dozen times and always have a great time.
The red door is great for dates, groups, or take out. There’s nothing better than sitting on their patio on a nice summer evening enjoying some dragonfire chicken and sangria.

I recently had dinner with my mom here and was pleasantly surprised. First off I am extremely allergic to nuts/​peanuts and am always hesitant to try Asian restaurants — but I love Asian food so I sometimes risk it.
When I approached the front door a wonderful server answered all my questions about peanut dishes and if I was ‘safe’ to eat there. Our serve was attentive and explained how the menu worked and made sure to point me in the right direction of foods I should not try.
Overall, my mom and I enjoyed our meal and I took a few things home for leftovers. Now my mom is not the most adventurous eater but this was right up her alley.
I will definitely go back at some point.

We stumbled into this place after driving into this city on our first night. It’s located on this busy street in the day time, but pretty much a complete ghost town at night. Maybe it was because it was a Thursday, and I guess Thursday isn’t the new Friday for Canada. We were seated promptly in a booth that fits a pretty big party, and away from the door so we wouldn’t catch any draft that may come in if and when the door opens, very nice of the staff. They weren’t too busy neither, maybe because it was about an hour before they were about to close? Not sure… Our server was very nice, attentive, and helpful.
We ordered the Shaking Beef, Mr. Lee’s Pineapple Fried Rice, Roti Prata. All very delicious. The roti prata was a little softer and more doughy than what I’ve tasted, but it was tasty nonetheless. The fried rice is best effin’ fried rice i think I’ve ever tasted. with a slight coconut taste, not overpowering, lotsa shrimps to go around, served on a half pineapple shell. mmm… and the beef was good! not addicting, but good! it goes really well with the black pepper lime sauce… Also a must to have if you’re thirsty is their Granville Ale… I’m assuming it’s a Canadian beer, but wherever it’s from, it’s deelish.