StoneGrill at the Met - Burnaby

The food was good. It was fresh and the place was clean. The service was good. Connected to the mall it was convenient.

It was a pick for a meal based entirely on convenience. I was able to taste poutine for the first time, have some wine, and take a to-go order of the smoked salmon pasta salad. The gal who waited on me was friendly and helpful and allowed me to sit as long as I wanted without appearing to be ready for me to vacate the table. Although I have nothing to compare it to, the poutine wsa tasty with crisp home fries with some kind of soft cheese and covered by a reddish gravy. House chardonnay was crisp and not bitter at all (like some house wines can be). My favorite dish, though, was the salmon pasta salad. It was al dente bowtie pasta, liberally mixed with thin-sliced smoked salmon and diced tomato and green pepper and some kind of vinaigrette that I was too busy eating to identify. This restaurant is inside of the giant Metropolis shopping mall, but is accessible from the exterior as well as from inside the mall.

I tried the garlic pasta and wine at this restaurant. The food was high quality and the service was excellent. It's a nice place located in the shopping mall. The prices were reasonable, except for the stone grills.

The overall dining experience was unpleasant, except for the friendly waitperson. We ordered a 2-slice clubhouse sandwich but received a 3-slice version after the waitperson thought the bread was too small. The Caesar salad with 'home made' dressing lacked taste, with no parmesan, minimal bacon, and lacking key ingredients like garlic, anchovies, and mustard. The seafood and wonton soups were greasy, with minimal seafood and a thick, tasteless broth. The coffee was old and bitter, despite efforts to sweeten it. Service was slow and we had to ask for everything, as the table was not properly set when we arrived.

This restaurant's specialty is food that you grill on a super heated lava stone at your seat. Unfortunately that was not what we were having but all those who did at other tables seemed to love it. Our experience was kind of lackluster, the service was so-so and the food also so-so. For the service, the servers seemed to have little enthusiasm for the type of food they serve or for their customers - it was not stellar service by any means and given that their specialty is $30.00 individual meals you'd expect a little more (the pother menu items were more decently priced). My wife and I both had the Baked Beef Spaghetti Bolognaise, there was nothing wrong with it, but there was nothing to write home about either. We both agreed that a pound of ground beef, a jar of store bought spaghetti sauce and noodles thrown together on short notice at home had more flavor.The other two in our party had the chicken strips (pretty sure they were of the frozen box variety) and the smoked pulled pork sandwich, of the 4 dinners the pulled pork was the best, but not by much. If we ever go back again it would be to try their specialty stone grill meals, however at an easy 120-$130 for the stone grill stuff plus taxes and tips, I am not sure it will be too soon.