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I am at Raincity Grill, eating the seasonal tomato tasting menu. Or at least that's what I thought I ordered.

A harried busboy delivers the fourth course and hurriedly explains its contents: roasted chicken breast, stuffed leg, carrots, corn sauce, potato-corn hash and red pepper purée.

"Where are the tomatoes?" I ask, wondering if the kitchen has sent out the wrong dish, again.

"I dunno, maybe they're in there," he says, pointing to the red pepper purée.

The purée is in fact a creamy tomato fondue. And yes, I do realize that good help is hard to find these days.

But what I don't understand is why the tomatoes on this feature menu all taste bland. And why is the food so mushy? Why are the water glasses spotted with dried orange juice pulp? Why does the dust-caked bathroom smell musty? And why are they hollering so loudly in the kitchen?

What happened?

Raincity Grill, a West End institution since 1992, is supposed to be one of Vancouver's top restaurants. I've always admired the many creative ways it has promoted the bounty of British Columbia (think the 100-mile menu or land-based farmed salmon) without mucking up fresh flavours or fussing too much on the plate. And over the years, I've enjoyed heaps of great meals here under several different chefs.

So I am truly sad to discover that the restaurant has gone downhill. And that Peter Robertson, the new chef de cuisine who was promoted from C Restaurant last winter, isn't meeting the same high standards as his talented predecessors, such as Andrea Carlson (who left last winter to become executive chef at Bishop's restaurant) and Sean Cousins. Certainly not with this five-course tomato tasting menu ($70, or $98 with wine pairings), which treats these lovely local gems like uninspired afterthoughts.

The dinner starts off on a weak note with tomato "tea," a washed out consommé that tastes only faintly of tomato. A dollop of basil hazelnut purée adds a bright surge of flavour, but it quickly breaks up into sludgy green specks that cloud the bowl and makes the soup look like dirty dishwater.

Flipping through the rest of the menu, I notice that most of these tomato dishes are offered as regular-sized appetizers and entrées. This is nice. It gives people the option of ordering the seasonal specials without committing to all five courses.

But I also notice a few tomato-less versions of the tasting menu specials, which makes them, well, not so special. It would appear that the chef has simply taken some of his regular dishes and thrown in a tomato fondue here or substituted a tomato jam there.

This is not nice. This is lazy. And it certainly doesn't help showcase the tomatoes, which should be the star ingredients.

Take the Bayne sound scallop, for instance. It's big, meaty, lightly seared and well complemented by a rich red wine glaze and pearl onion ragout. Where's the tomato? It's crushed into yet another purée and stirred with Israeli couscous that sits, sweet yet subtle, in the shadow of the plate's bolder ingredients.

Roast chicken is moist, the stuffing nicely herbed. But the meat is awash in a mushy pablum sea of tomato fondue, potato-corn hash and creamed corn sauce.

Pork belly is the only dish that gets a fresh tomato. It's a bright red, juicy, lusciously ripe fruit from Sapo Bravo Farm that is cut into a triple-layered terrine - and served chilled. The tomato is actually so cold it feels as though it just came out of the refrigerator, which is probably where most of its garden-fresh tang evaporated. Tomatoes should never be put in the fridge. It kills the flavour.

Dessert is caramelized bread pudding with cherry sorbet, plated on a dark smear of tartly seeded tomato jam. I'm sure this dish is very good when served with milk jam, as it appears on the regular menu.

The cheese course is not available tonight "for some reason," says our waitress, who looks exasperated when she tells us. Beyond tomatoes, we also try crispy sablefish ($29). Now this is an excellent, simple dish, typical of what I've come to expect at Raincity. The fish is cooked to perfection, with velvety flesh and crunchy skin, served on a bright bed of green-pea-infused Israeli couscous.

Rare albacore tuna loin ($28) is not so good. The fish is sloppily cut into slabs that are shredding at the edges and slowly sinking into a milky bowl of pale green-pea risotto. It's soft, soupy and splashed with some sort of vinegar that clashes horribly with a side of sweet roasted carrots slicked in fireweed honey.

To make matters worse, the carrots are unpeeled and ringed with fine traces of dirt. The rim of the bowl is smeared with a brush of carrot purée that has dried out under the heat lamp. It all looks terrible and tastes worse.

Seared breast of Muscovy duck ($29) is served with yet another variation on mushiness - braised black lentils that are exceptionally salty. The meat is barely warm.

"It's not hot?" the waitress asks, lips pursed and looking very much like she's trying to stifle a scream. I feel sorry for her. She is an excellent waitress and has been trying exceptionally hard to keep things running smoothly, but every time she turns her back the kitchen sends out the wrong dish or the busboy mixes up an order.

With all the shouting and clanging coming from the open kitchen - at times so loud we can't hear each other across the table - it feels chaotic, as if the entire restaurant has been in the weeds all night. That might be because long-time general manager Brent Hayman is not here tonight.

On a positive note, Raincity Grill does still boast an excellent wine list focused on the Pacific Northwest (from British Columbia to California), with reasonable markups, about 50 selections by the glass and lots of local rarities in its reserve collection.

It's all impressively presented in a thick, leather-clad book, complete with maps. But I notice that some of the explanatory pages - the section on upcoming wines and points of interest in British Columbia, for instance - are about three years out of date.

It's a small quibble, sure. But it was the attention to small details that once set this restaurant apart.

When Raincity Grill opened, it was a pioneer in the regional food movement. These days, many restaurants serve fresh local foods in season.

Raincity Grill isn't so exceptional any more. And compared to some of its competitors, it's looking a little tired and rough around the edges.

Raincity Grill: 1193 Denman St.; 604-685-7337.