Happy hour menus have been making a comeback with the weakening economy. Planta’s menu is one of the most extensive and offers great value to boot. While beer and wine ring in at $6 and $9, respectively, it’s the $10 cocktails that wet my whistle. You can’t go wrong with the lych please, a gin cocktail lightly sweetened with lychee, lemon, and pineapple with a hibiscus sugar rim that delights.

Planta also provides a huge food offering that doesn’t skimp on portions. With the lettuce wraps ($12) being half off their regular menu price ($23), I expected a shrunken helping the equivalent to two or three wraps. So, when the full plate arrived with enough of the gochujang covered crispy fried tofu and roasted Brussels sprouts to make seven wraps we were flabbergasted. Oh no, we ordered way too much food!

The menu offers no description with the chick’n fried mushrooms ($7) but they turn out to be lightly battered oyster mushrooms that’s dusted with salt and pepper served with a thinned sweet chili sauce. They’re dangerously addictive and so tasty that I could swap these for a chicken nugget any day.

In a similar vein, the crust of the cauliflower wings ($8) was so crispy despite not being overly battered. Drizzles of unagi sauce and sweet chili mayo covered the vegetables giving each bite a burst of flavour.

For a lighter nibble, the summer rolls ($6) are an option. It’s just filled with a lot of carrot and rice noodles and needed more of the other ingredients (papaya, tofu, and herbs) to stand out.

The crispy rice ($9) would work better left intact, so the starch doesn’t become cold and dry. At least they put plenty of the spicy ahi watermelon and guacamole on top to balance out the tasteless rice ball.

I preferred the spicy crab hand roll ($5 each), which was stuffed to the gills with shredded hearts of palm tossed with ponzu and spicy mayo. It’s more of a taco than handroll so it isn’t the easiest to eat but does mean there’s little rice and tons of filling.

The sole dish that threw us both off was the spinach and artichoke dip ($11). How can you mess up a creamy dip? By adding so much coconut oil into the recipe that coconut was all we could taste.  It felt like I was eating a savoury coconut cream pie with chunks of vegetables. Its only saving grace was they don’t skimp on the tortilla chips… too bad we didn’t need more than a few each.

Luckily, we had ordered so much food that we didn’t need the dip. Even without the dish, we left stuffed and with enough leftovers for another meal. Washed down with two cocktails each, our bill came to about $70 a person including gratuities and taxes. Welcome back happy hour dinners.