looking for recommendations for Vancouver, B.C.

[jjf]

we will be vacationing in vancouver, b.c. and i thought i would try to get some restaurant/general recommendations for the city. we like everything - all types of food - so i'd love to hear from you guys. thanks!

jen

[Jen]

Hi Jen! I'm glad you will be visiting our beautiful city (I hope it doesn't rain too much for you...when are you coming?) We Vancouverites tend to be very defensive about our weather!! Poor David Duchovny got slammed pretty bad in our media when he said it rains too much here..even though it kinda does.

Anyway, we don't eat out too much at "fancy places" but I can give you some general pointers about where the most famous/popular spots are. For upscale, fine dining, you might want to try Bishop's (West Coast dining), Lumiere (French - has won Vancouver Magazine's restaurant of the year for five years!), Il Giardino (Italian - one of several restaurants owned by Umberto Menghi) or Bacchus (in the Wedgewood Hotel - my parents had their anniversary dinner here last year and loved it - very romantic and classy). For seafood, try C or the Fish House at Stanley Park. Vancouver is also well known for ethnic food - I haven't eaten a lot of Japanese, but I think it was Tojo's that Emeril recently visited and loved. There's also Phnom Penh (Cambodian/Vietnamese), Montri's (Thai), The Banana Leaf (Malaysian), and many other Southeast Asian restaurants. If you're looking for a casual place for lunch or dinner, we really like Earl's, Milestone's, or the Cactus Club.

As for other things to do...there are lots of "outdoorsy" things, depending on what time of year you are coming. You have to be sure and visit Stanley Park and the seawall, and there is lots of shopping (and occasional star-spotting) on Robson Street. We also have great skiing, within 30 min of Vancouver and also at Whistler/Blackcomb (about a 2 hour drive). If you give me some ideas about what kind of things you like to do, I can probably come up with more suggestions. (Also, my husband and I have a whole Vancouver section on our website, plus some photos - the address is on my profile if you're interested).

Hope this is helpful,
(Another) Jen

[jjf]

wow! thanks jen - what great information. i will definitely print this out to take with us. we will be there june 22nd-30th - how is the weather that time of year?
as for things we like to do - we are very active, outdoorsy people - we also enjoy shopping (clothing as well as things for our home).
thanks again and i would love anymore info you (or anyone else) might think could be useful. if there are any nice drives/cute little towns you would suggest visiting - we are thinking of taking a day trip somewhere outside of the city. maybe seattle if it is close enough.

jen

[lesliem]

Oh don't get me started!!!

There are lots of great things to do- For a day trip I would recommend a drive up to Whistler- the drive up can be quite spectacular (on a sunny day)and Whistler village is a fun place to stroll/shop to- and there are tons of great restaurants. If you are golfers there are a number of courses there too. As for other stuff it depends on how much time you want to spend touring around or if you'd rather spend the time closer to Van. For other trips, Seattle is only about a 3 hr drive or else you could take a ferry to Victoria or one of the Gulf Islands and go whale watching or sea kayaking. Around town there is Granville Island market and shops, I second the suggestion on the sea wall and Stanley Park- maybe rent bikes or rollerblades. There are great hikes on the North Shore mountains and you can take the gondola up Grouse Mountain for a great view of the city (and dinner or a casual snack). A personal favorite is Spanish Banks beach for either an early morning latte and scone or a picnic dinner for sunset. As for restaurants, Jen mentioned alot of good ones- if you have any specific tastes I might have more ideas.

Leslie

[A R Price]

Hi Jen,

We had good meals in Vancouver when we were there for a meeting but for the life of me I can't remember any of the names of the places we ate.

However, if you like such things, we found the Museum of Anthropolgy at the University of British Columbia to have THE BEST collection of native American (1st citizens, I think is the preferred term in B.C.) artifacts we have ever seen. Things are beautifully displayed in the main show area but what impressed us even more was that what appears to be the entirity (sp?) of the collection, including the tiniest bits, are available for viewing in glass cases...sort of like open stacks in the library. We spent three hours there and felt we had hardly scratched the surface. If you are even remotely interested in such things please make the time to see it...you won't be sorry. It is a much better way to learn about the native culture than the galleries downtown. Their phone number is in the book under Univ of B.C.

Anne

[Natasha]

Lucky oh lucky you!

I don t have anything to add to the extensive suggestions - just wanted to wish you a pleasant trip. I love Granville Island - the market and the rest of the island - , UBC, Stanley Park, Robson St., etc., etc. Basically, you can t go wrong whatever you do.

[debg]

My recommendation is to AVOID Victoria Island. VERY CROWDED AND COMMERCIAL. My hubby and I prefer more out of the way places. We took the ferry to Victoria one day and ended up in a coffee shop for most of the day.

Also had a wonderful dinner - can't remember the name of the restaurant - but it is in the heart of downtown and sits high atop a building and slowly rotates for a terrific view of the entire city! Fabulous food, wonderful wine and GREAT VIEW! It was our anniversary so we walked there from our hotel so we could drink all we wanted! I'm sure you can find the name of it.

We wish we would have taken an extra day to drive to Whistler.

[jjf]

thanks to everyone for your posts. i have already printed this thread and will use it when we go and during my planning over the next few months.
thanks again - you guys are great!

jen

[aka]

Hi,
I'm a brand new member as of today and this is my first post.

My husband and I have only been living in Vancouver since September, so I'm getting a lot of use out of these posts myself. I do have some recommendations to add too (if it's not too late).

For a breakfast treat try DeDutch Pannekoek House. It's not rizty, but I love their pancakes (probably because my parents are Dutch and eating there brings back childhood memories of my mom's Dutch pancakes--more like a crepe than a pancake) They are all over Vancouver or look them up at www.dutchpannekoekhouse.com. (http://www.dutchpannekoekhouse.com.) If you go, get a fruit filled pancake....I think they're better than the savory ones.

If you want to splurge for a nice dinner and evening out, try taking the Starlight Express Dinner Train. My husband took me for my birthday and we quite enjoyed it. A nice meal is served as you ride a window-filled train through the mountains. It stops for about 45 minutes in the mountains and a band is waiting for you and you can do some dancing. On the way back to the station, enjoy dessert and specialty coffees. If this interests you, check out http://www.bcrail.com/starlight/ to see the menu and make reservations.

Hope this helps.
Lilia

[LGBurns]

While I agree with debg that Victoria the city seemed overrated to me when I visited, I have to strongly disagree with the advise to avoid Vancouver Island (on which Victoria is situated). My husband and I stayed on Vancouver Island for our honeymoon (not in Victoria, but in Sooke), and I have never been to a more romantic, diverse, beautiful place in my life (and I grew up in the wine country of California). If you do have time to make a trip to Vancouver Island and are looking for a a spectacular dinner, I highly recommend driving to Sooke Harbour House. It was rated one of the top restaurants in Canada and for good reason. They specialize in locally grown, organic food and have their own kitchen garden from which they harvest edible flowers and other salad greens for their salads. They have a great selection of BC wines. It's expensive but totally worth it. Sooke is about 40 minutes west of Victoria (which is a ferry ride away from Vancouver, although I'm not sure how long the ferry ride is). Actually, the weather on Vancouver Island is better than in Vancouver the city -- less rain. As you can see, I am very partial to Vancouver Island. In fact, when my husband and I returned we started to look into Canadian immigration law to see what it would take for us to move there. We were very smitten.
I just had to add that if you want to stay overnight on Vancouver Island, we stayed at a great, out-of-the-way but convenient cottage in Sooke called the Waterside Cottage. The couple that run it are very friendly and hospitable, and the cottage is lovely (not fancy but very comfy) and looks over the harbor. I recommend checking out the following web sites for more info on both the island and Vancouver the city: http://victoriabc.com/ http://www.vancouver-bc.com/

[This message has been edited by LGBurns (edited 01-08-2001).]

[debg]

LG,

I guess I never realized there was more to Vancouver Island than Victoria! I wish I had heard this info BEFORE my hubby and I spent our honeymoon there. I had been to Victoria years before and remembered it as being quaint and nice. We would have loved an alternative to staying in Victoria all day! Wish we would have known we could have travelled the rest of the island!

[sk8grl]

jjf-

Lucky you! My husband and I went to Vancouver for our honeymoon 1.5 years ago. We absolutely loved it and the food was one of the best parts!! I will second Jen's recommendation of the Fish House. The name sounds so bland but the food, service, and ambiance are all wonderful. The desserts were outstanding.

One other restaurant I'd highly recommend if you're up for a romantic, candle-lit dinner is an Italian restaurant in Yaletown called Villa del Lupo. Here's a quick description I found:

"A glow suffuses the elegant dining room. The "House of the Wolf" in Yaletown, a warehouse district being carefully gentrified, offers classic Italian food in a elegantly simple dining room. Look for beautifully presented, visually striking dishes such as pumpkin gnocchi with walnuts and basil oil, various veal preparations and a huge manifestation of osso buco. Villa del Lupo doesn't win Vancouver magazine's best-Italian-restaurant award every year, but it has won five times, a remarkable achievement given its many worthy rivals."

Also--if you haven't booked hotel accommodations yet, we stayed at the elegant-but-affordable Georgian Hotel (whose downstairs restaurant is very well known also--I forget the name but we had a wonderful breakfast there). We also spent a few days at a shoreline B&B in Kits Point that was really neat, too.

Hope you enjoy Vancouver as much as we did!

Libby

[ashley]

I visited Vancouver last summer and had a great meal at The Beach House at Dundarave Pier. There is a nice patio overlooking the water and the food was great. It's in West Vancouver (if memory serves you have to drive through Stanley Park and cross a bridge into West Vancouver). It's worth seeking out!

[kima]

I was doing some browsing on past threads and came upon this one. I was curious to know if you have made your trip up this way and if so what your impressions were, where you ate etc. I grew up in Vancouvewr and now live in Victoria but Vancouver changes and grows so quickly we can't keep up!
I was sorry a few people were not too impressed with Victoria. In the summer there are lots of tourist downtown but the REAL Victoria is delightful and a short 10 mins. drive out of tourist areas is well worth it.
Hope you had a great vacation here http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/smile.gif

[McSix]

I live in the Seattle area, so yearly trips to both Vancouver and Victoria are favorites of ours. We love both cities for different reasons. Our most romantic (and expensive) dinner ever was at Five Sails in Vancouver. I still dream about the salad I had there! However, my all time favorite thing to do in Vancouver is the walk around the seawall in Stanley Park. It takes about an hour to an hour and a half, but is worth every minute of it. We are also huge fans of the market at Granville Island. Victoria is full of flowers, fun, and a wonderful museum. We love to hit the Bengal Lounge in the Empress in the early evening when they do a curry bar of sorts. The smells are incredible. I think I'm ready for another visit north!

[tobykitty]

I have to agree that the Victoria is rather touristy but we had a very nice time. But I agree that the rest of Vancouver Island has so much to offer and I really love Buchart Gardens. Yes, I realize that it has become touristy but I think it is beautiful. Of course, the best part of the trip was the whale watching cruise. One of the best things I've ever done.

Just for informational purposes to help you plan your trip - there are ferries from Victoria to Seattle and to Port Angeles, WA. So, if you wanted to go to Vancouver Island and Seattle you wouldn't have to go back to the mainland.

[kima]

Just thought I'd bump this up for anyone planning a trip to Vancouver.Vancouver has wonderful restaurants and with the exchange rate as it is what is expensive to us Canucks could be very reasonable for youu-you can pretty well half the price to get the US equivalent. There are defiantely deals to be had for you all!!

[goldilocks]

kima...your timing is perfect! I just posted a thread asking about Vancouver and was referred to this very thread. Thanks!