booju

This is my first post but I've been reading these boards for many years now.

I want to thank Lamukeno for creating this thread and bringing this restaurant to my attention. Despite his bad review, I gave Negative Space a try last night and was glad that I did. One thing that I've learned from experience is to take reviews, good or bad, with a grain of salt. This might seem hypocritical because I write restaurant reviews online (www.dinehere.ca; username: booju), but ask yourself this question: How many great movies would you have passed on if you were to follow every word of advice from the critics? You won't know whether a movie is good or bad until you've watched it for yourself; the same logic applies here.

Here's my take on the restaurant:

Negative Space is located at the corner of Pacific Plaza, a mall that also houses the renown Sushi Hachi. The restaurant itself is not hard to find (yellowpages.ca have them listed), but you would be hard pressed to find somebody who knew Negative Space even existed. Even Google only came up with 1 relevant hit, but I am guessing they just recently opened and have yet to advertise.

Ambiance - 4/5 - The restaurant is small but nicely decorated. The black and white theme is quite apparent in its decor, and you can tell everything is brand new. Overall, the restaurant had a delightful ambiance.

Food - 4/5 - The food here is definitely worth trying, and in my case, coming back for. The waitress recommended the shrimp grenade, which she explained was shrimp meat covered by toast with cheese inside. I laughed a little inside when I heard the funky name, but it turns out to be extremely appropriate because, well, they looked just like grenades! Now, one would never eat an actual grenade, but these were wonderfully delicious. The crunchy outer layer matched well with the mushy shrimp meat and cheese sauce inside, and at a little less than $2 per piece, I think they are well worth it. Full marks for creativity and uniqueness on this one. Next we tried the spicy crab which we all thought was very tasty but probably a notch too spicy. The crab meat was cooked perfectly and as a garlic lover, I love the fact that the whole dish was pretty much covered in garlic. After that, we enjoyed a few different skewers like the chicken gizzard and asparagus wrapped in pork meat, which were all very good. We also tried their "Soup of the Day", which was a Chinese-style homemade soup (the kind our mums make). At first I was reluctant about ordering it because $5 seemed a little pricey for Chinese soup but the size definitely justifies its price. One bowl was enough to feed the four of us, but it came in one big bowl, and we had to share the bowl around. We didn't get to try too many dishes but we were satisfied with what we had.

Service - 4/5 - Service was fairly good throughout the dining experience. Really nothing to complain about in this department.

Overall, the experience is a good one. Even though it's located in Richmond, it felt like we were dining at a new and posh restaurant in downtown, without the hassle of downtown parking and commute. I would characterize the food as Chinese-styled tapas, packed with flavor and great with alcoholic beverages. It's similar to "Beer Houses" in Taiwan or "Sake Bars" in Japan, in the sense that people go there to relax and have a good time. I think they're open for lunch too.

Recommended, especially for folks in Richmond.