Is Time Out Market's Most Expensive Dish Worth the $46?

When we visited Time Out Market Vancouver, we came with a simple challenge.

Find the cheapest meal.

Find the most popular vendor.

And finally, find the most expensive dish that an average person might actually order.

That last part turned out to be a little more complicated than we expected.

The Long Search

At first, we thought the title might belong to PiDGiN’s famous foie gras rice bowl, which sits at $42 and had sparked plenty of discussion online.

Then we discovered Barnacle’s Highroller, a massive $155 seafood platter featuring oysters, clams, jumbo shrimp, albacore tuna crudo, and lobster tail.

But let’s be honest. That’s not exactly something most people are ordering for themselves on a casual Tuesday afternoon.

So we kept searching.

Eventually, we landed at Mee Bar’s Lobster Misou for $46: a half lobster served over crystal noodles with egg, chives, and crispy garlic.

And just like that, we found our most expensive meal at Time Out Market.

What Is Mee Bar?

Mee Bar is one of the more interesting concepts inside Time Out Market Vancouver.

The restaurant is created by Chef Chanthy Yen, a Vancouver chef and winner of Top Chef Canada 2024. The concept celebrates his Cambodian heritage while bringing traditional flavours into a more modern setting. Before opening Mee Bar, Chef Yen spent more than two decades working in respected restaurants across Canada and internationally.

With a chef of that calibre behind the kitchen and a price tag of $46, our expectations for the Lobster Misou were understandably very high.

Mee Bar Time Out Market Vancouver Location & Hours

📍 Address: 650 W 41st Ave, Vancouver, BC V5Z 2M9
📍 Located inside Time Out Market Vancouver at Oakridge Park

🕒 Hours:

Monday to Thursday: 11:00 AM – 10:00 PM
Friday to Saturday: 11:00 AM – 11:00 PM
Sunday: 11:00 AM – 10:00 PM

The Lobster Misou Review

Let’s start with the positives.

The lobster itself was excellent.

The meat was bouncy, juicy, and cooked properly. It slid out of the shell easily and had a nice natural sweetness. We also appreciated that the lobster wasn’t heavily seasoned, allowing the seafood flavour to remain the focus of the dish.

Which made the noodles a little more disappointing.

The crystal noodles had a great texture and did a good job soaking up the sauce, but for our personal taste, they were simply too salty.

And at a $46 price point, that’s where the criticism becomes a little harder to overlook.

For a dish positioned as one of the premium offerings in the entire market, we expected the seasoning to be more balanced.

Now, taste is obviously subjective. Some diners may actually enjoy a stronger, richer flavour profile. But for us, the saltiness overpowered the more delicate flavours of the lobster and made the dish feel less refined than we were hoping for.

Is Mee Bar Worth It?

This is where things become a little tricky.

Is the Lobster Misou a bad dish?

No.

The quality of the lobster was good, the presentation was impressive, and it certainly felt like a premium item.

But is it a dish we would personally spend $46 on again?

Probably not.

When you are spending that amount of money at Time Out Market Vancouver, there are a lot of other vendors competing for your attention. For us, the overall experience did not quite justify the price.

That said, we would still be interested in returning to Mee Bar to try some of their other dishes, especially since the concept is backed by a chef with such a strong culinary background.

Sometimes a single menu item simply isn’t representative of an entire restaurant.