SING SING || The Hangout Spot in Vancouver for a Refreshing Beer and Summer Weekend Vibes
Asian comfort fare and refreshing beer? Count us in!
We stopped by Sing SIng located on Main Street this past Friday, and the spot was bustling with activity. You could hear the lively chatter across the street as we parked our car. We had heard good things about the restaurant and that there’s a great selection of beer on the menu, so we were excited to enjoy our meal on a Friday night.
We would recommend arriving early if you don’t want to wait. Although we were already pretty early at 6:30PM, we waited around 30 minutes for a table under the canopy on the patio. The open space is roomy with lots of communal tables at the centre of the space. More intimate tables line the wall for groups of 2 to 4. The patio spills out onto the sidewalk and to a few car park spaces on the other side of the sidewalk.
Grab a spot on the breezy patio.
Anyone down for a beer?
We could see people enjoying their beers at each table, and of course since we are contrarians we ordered cocktails from the menu. After settling in with the first sips of our drinks, we reviewed the menu to discover that Mike Robbins of AnnaLena was doing a menu takeover, with some delicious featured dishes. Of course, we had to try as many of them as we could. This is how we ended up with four main plates and a dessert shared between two people.
Cured Tuna Tartar was the clear winner of the evening.
From the featured collaborative dishes we selected the Cured Tuna Tartar with crunchy rice croutons, sriracha spiced tuna, and marinated cucumbers, the Five Spice Bolognese with grana padano and thai basil, and Grilled Broccolini with lemon, chilies and parmesan. From the classics, we got the Kimchi Grilled Cheese Sandwich, because it’s got two of my favourites things in there — kimchi and grilled cheese!
We have to say that out of the savoury dishes we had, our favourite was the Cured Tuna Tartar. The rectangle block of rice is fried to be nice and crispy on the outside, but once you get to the sushi rice inside, it’s the slightly sticky and chewy texture one would expect, which makes every bite really satisfying when mixed in with the tuna tartar’s medley of flavours.
Kimchi Grilled Cheese Sandwich.
The Kimchi Grilled Cheese sandwich was less oily than we expected compared to other grilled cheese sandwiches, and this may be because of the kimchi balancing out the heaviness of the cheese. The kimchi adds a slightly sweet and spicy flavour to the sandwich, and you’ll feel your mouth water as it craves a gulp of refreshing beer to tone down the spiciness.
The spicy flavours continue with the grilled broccolini as you’ll find chillies mixed in with the sauce. We find that the dishes are designed to go with a cold beer on a hot summer day, which is ideal for the summer weather we’ve been enjoying over the past two weeks.
We saved the carbs for last, and the Five Spice Bolognese has crunchy bits and shaved grana padano on top. This dish was nicely flavoured, with the meat and cheese sauce being on the drier side, which is great because sometimes we find that spaghetti dishes have too much oil.
Five Spice Spaghetti Bolognese.
Seeing as to how ambitious we were with the rest of the menu, the waitress had held off on our dessert order in anticipation of us surrendering after the fourth course. If it was any other dessert I would have given up because I was already really full from the savoury dishes; but this was no regular dessert, this was a Sticky Toffee Pudding with crunchy pretzel bits on top. The only other sticky toffee pudding that I love is at Tavola, and so I was intent on trying the one at Sing Sing.
Let me tell you: you need to have a sweet tooth to enjoy this one. The sticky toffee pudding is super sweet but so delicious when you scoop up one bite with cold ice cream. Would I have it again? Yes! Without a doubt. I think I may have found a potential substitute to my favourite sticky toffee pudding.
Sticky Toffee Pudding that we quite frankly can’t live without.
Perfect spot for a warm summer day to enjoy spicy food with a cold beer in hand.
When our bill came, we were pleasantly surprised that it only came to one hundred dollars including our drinks. Both of us were already carrying our stomachs and declared our dedication to walking home to burn off some calories, so imagine our surprise when the bill came to just barely half of what we had expected to spend on a Friday night dinner.
Sing Sing should be on your bucket list of restaurants to try if you’re looking for a supremely lively spot to experience summer weekend vibes in Vancouver. I would likely pick a quieter weekday evening the next time I stop by to minimize the wait and be able to spend more time trying out their beer menu, but if you love a lively crowd, then this is the place to be!
You can hear the lively chatter from across the street.
