Oru Restaurant

$28 Pan Asian

The word of the night: delicate (and dainty). Nestled in the Fairmont Pan Pacific (not to be mixed up with Fairmont Waterfront just a few blocks away), Oru is a fairly new restaurant whose dine out menu can be quite light and not too filling (depending what you order), which might make it a perfect experience if you're doing 2 dineouts in a night. While I wouldn't go back any time soon for a full meal, it was definitely a good experience.




Starter:
While there were 3 choices as per the norm, we all picked the Sake Kasu Sablefish. Despite the small portion, it was soft and juicy, everything fish should be, dressed with a sweet miso.  The gingerered tomatoes were also quite delicious, with a good balance between ginger flavor and tomato.  


Mains:
The slow cooked lamb shank vindaloo is the one to go with if you're looking for more of a meal, coupled with squash risotto, this should fill you up.


The lamb was my first choice, but I was curious, and hence ended up ordering the Roasted Qualicum Bay Scallops and Atlantic Lobster Dumpling.  This is where the delicate and dainty theme continued.  Not exactly a huge portion, but well presented and tasty.  The scallops oozed flavor, while the lobster dumpling was interesting.  The sweet potato puree was nice, but the pleasant surprise really is the salad you see in the middle of the dish with bits of lobster tossed in.


Dessert: The creme de la creme
We sampled all three pictured here. I can only personally vouch for the Vietnamese Coffee Pannacotta. It was so light and delicious, even the avocado puree on the side wasn't weird.  This is the first pannacotta I've tried so I will definitely be ordering them more.  The only thing that bugged me about dessert was the portion size.  As a girl with a sweet tooth, the perfect dessert serving is where we are left wanting "just one more bite".  Sadly I wanted many more bites, but of course, any bigger portion would render this menu tasting no longer delicate and dainty.

 
Food: very good (lost some points based on portion size)
Service: very good
Recommendation: yes - because you have to try it once