Dining in Vancouver at Chop Steakhouse in Richmond, B.C.

River Rock Casino
After three nights in a row of Meetup events we were invited to a Christmas Dinner Party on Thursday night. The dinner was in Richmond and anything outside the boundaries of our ‘little downtown walking world’ is a trek for us so we decided to break the trip into two parts. The Vancouver Canucks were playing at 4:30 and dinner was a 7:00 so we decided to take the Canada Line to the River Rock Casino in Richmond to watch the game and spend some money. We arrived at the River Rock just in time for the start of the game and won some money while the game was on but had to catch a cab with 10 minutes left in the 3rd period with the score 3 – 2 for Montreal. The River Rock is a good place to watch a game with two projector size screens in the main lounge with bar stools and table top games facing them. Jeff watched the game get tied and the and shootout on the app on his phone and was anti-social for the first 10 minutes of dinner.

Chop Steakhouse

Chop is located in the Signature Sandman hotel in Richmond. It was a 5 minute taxi ride from the River Rock Casino. The decor is typical of a steakhouse with dark leather and wood, large booths and little light but we like this so thought it was fairly nice. And the restrooms are quite something. There is a fountain in the center of both the men’s and ladies rooms, bench seating in front of a TV, lots of sinks and and lots of stalls.

Menu, Food and Service

The menu has alot of steaks (as expected) but also ribs, chops, pasta, fish and salads worked in. Our server was good letting us catch up with people we had not seen for a while and not hovering to take orders. We decided to share a few appetizers and enjoyed more than one bottle of Nk’Mip Qwam Qwmt Merlot.

For appetizers we tried a Lobster, Scallop and Gorgonzola Dip and an order of Cheese Toast. It seems like an odd choice but we always have to compare a restaurant’s cheese toast to our favorite Hy’s. This version was actually quite good made with some aged cheeses and grilled to slightly crispy. If comparing to other steakhouses, it was better than the Keg but not as good as Hy’s. The Dip presentation was not the greatest, looking a bit unappetizing, almost creamed, but the flavors were good with chunks of seafood throughout.

For mains Jeff ordered a Filet Mignon and I had the fish special which was a Red Snapper. The steak was cooked correctly, tender and flavourful. It is hard to miss with a Filet. The snapper was lightly breaded and topped with capers. The fish itself was not overly flavourful nor was the coating but the sauce was really good. Both were served with uninspiring vegetables (a piece of broccoli and a piece of squash). We shared an side order of Mac & Cheese with aged white cheddar again to compare to the Gorgonzola Mac at Hy’s. For $5 and a decent portion with lots of flavor the Chop version was good value and really tasty.