Vancouver polkies...

polkatese

any recommendations for good to great restaurants in downtown area? I tried a Thai restaurant on Burrard, pretty good, but skimpy portion.

Thanks in advance.

janmike

What type of food and how long are you there for?

polkatese

Michael, I was there a couple days this week, next tue will head back there again for another couple days, stayin at the wall centre area, so any good rests within 3-4 blocks would be nice. My preference would be chinese seafood, thai, indian would be good too. Btw, Yellowknife is already in the -2 C range, brrrr...and it was 7 C in Vancouver on tue night when I got in. Thanks.

janmike

I will ask some people at work for some suggestions. A few people will probably know the Van area quite well. Where exactly are you staying? I will get back to you on this.

The Arctic air mass moves down very quickly in the North when winter approaches. Today is -17 with nice blue skies and Monday's forecast is at -23. We are ok until it surpasses the -40 range. Then it becomes COLD!

YK Weather

polkatese

thanks, Michael! I am staying at the Sheraton Wall Centre on Burrard. Btw, I have to say Vancouver Int. Airport is one of the best that I've been too, comparable to Singapore Changi, coming back to LAX is like getting back to a ghetto.

phoneisbusy

Did you have to walk up a flight of stairs to get to the Thai restaurant? If so, I think that might have been the Thai house.

In the downtown core:

Gothams - Good steakhouse. They have a porterhouse that good for two people or one very hungry person.

There use to be a pretty nice Chinese restaurant at under the Hyatt. It's also been a while so the chef may not necessarily be there. I think it was the Victoria Seafood restaurant or something like that. Let me see if I can get recommendations from some the coporate folks downtown.

There's a vocational school VVI which trains cooks. They have a training restaurant call JJ's which is open Mon-Thru. Continental style, pretty good and inexpensive.

There's a crepe stand in Sinclair centre that makes really good crepes.

Outside the downtown core:
If you don't mind a mediumish cab ride, the Pear Tree is really good. The owner/chef will be representing Canada at the next culinary olympics. They have a signature salmon dish. Reservations recommended.

There's the Cannery which has a nice view and good food and service.

There's the Kirin Resaurant on Cambie near Broadway. We went to a Chinese wedding there. Very good.

Granville Island has a cooking school that's very good too. Cheap.
There's the Cat's Meow restaurant on Granville Island too. The food (pub) is okay, but the er... scenery is *cough* interesting. It's a bit embarassing because I went there with my wife and didn't catch on to why all these single men were raving about the place.

I'll try and see if I can remember any others.

regards

Dave

polkatese

thanks, Dave. Cat's is the one inside Granville hotel?

phoneisbusy

Nope. The Cat's Meow is a separate building. Granville Island is pretty small. Shouldn't be too hard to find it.

Thought of a couple of other places:

Downtown:

Wild Rice - chinese fusion. Haven't been there. My sister has and she liked it. My parents would probably be appalled.

Sala Thai - Burrard - This might be the one you went to actually.

I think the Four Seasons Hotel serves samosas made by a friend. The spinach and cheese is quite tasty.

Out of downtown core:
Spicy Court

Landmark Hot Pot - Should go with someone who speaks Chinese. Better service. Best hot pot place we've been to so far.

Sawasdee Thai Restaurant - as good or better then sala thai.

Green Lettuce - Indian/Chinese. We had a very good meal here. spicy btw.

The local phone book is available here. There's links to maps for directions.

http://www.mytelus.com/phonebook/index.do

I unfortunately don't know of too many good Indian restaurants. I'll email a friend and see if he has suggestions. There may be one in Gastown. Hopefully, my friend will know more about it.

Enjoy your visit

Dave

polkatese

Cool deal! thanks again, these are more restaurants than I expect. Cheers.

polkatese

Dave,
thanks again for the recap of the restaurants in Vancouver area. We ended up at Rubina Indian on the corner of Kingsley and Victoria (I think). Quite a cab ride from downtown. It was ok, it came highly recommended from cabdriver, but at the end, it was more of a 6 on a 10 point scale. If all goes as plan, I might be in the vicinity again next week.