Vancouver Restaurant Suggestions

[Stevepcb64]

We will be exploring downtown Vancouver via one of the HOHO buses the 1st Sunday in June. Looking for Brunch, lunch and dinner restaurants that would be along the routes that these buses take. What we like: Not really looking for fancy restaurants as we will be dressed casual for exploring. We love favorite local type places, mom & pops, diners and such. Not really looking for chain places that we can eat at anywhere. Places with a great atmosphere, water front or great views are a bonus. Not opposed to grabbing an Uber for dinner after the buses stop running either.

[martincath]

Well, the good news is @Stevepcb64 Steve, that given how compact downtown is most of our restos are conveniently close to a HOHO stop - the bad news is that means it doesn't narrow down your options much! Fortunately you gave some other criteria too, which does help!

 

Personally I still think that the best downtown brunch option remains Medina - and while it sounds fancy on paper, the dress code is Shirt & Shoes (literally everywhere in Vancouver, even super high-falutin' joints, lack any kind of formal dress code - besuited finance bros sit at tables next to people in hiking boots just about anywhere that isn't a private club). Pricing is frankly comparable, sometimes even cheaper than vastly inferior chain restos - there really isn't anything much decent downtown that sits in the gap between fastfood and $20+ a plate for anything eggy. The only downside is popularity - on a Sunday, brunch for even a two top you can easily wait an hour if you don't make a reso and if you need 4+ seats it only gets worse. A charitable donation of $10pp though secures a reso!

 

Water views for something more in the lunch/dinner vein you have several options - Tap & Barrel is a local-only minichain, loads of local beers and wines, and pub grub that considering how good their patios are could easily have the price increased at least 25% and people would still happily pay it (it's almost certainly your cheapest HOHO convenient waterside dining). Multiple locations - the huge one at the convention centre and Bridges on Granville Island are probably the busiest because lots of tourists stumble across both easily, but even the more-for-locals Athletes Village and Shipyards locations still get packed outdoors with mostly-locals (however, if you don't mind sitting inside you can usually get a seat immediately!)

 

A bit fancier - consider Cactus Club, who have 2 Seawall locations. A very late dinner in June needed for sunset views, but possible! Both English Bay and Convention Centre look over the water, one each side of downtown core, but note that HOHO no longer visits English Bay at all, so you'd have to walk down Denman from stop 4 (which is a really good street to eat on, packed with one-off restos mostly casual to midrange pricing - just avoid anything Mexican or BBQ, even though Buckstop on Denman is one of our least-bad Southern BBQ joints it still sucks compared to Sonny's, let alone your favourite local pitmaster!)

 

From stop 4 you could also walk up to the Seawall, where Lift is my pick for fancy local one-off right-on-the-water resto (excellent local wines by the glass list). Very different - zero views, a dank basement basically, but for downtown probably the best atmosphere of any pub - would be Moose's Down Under, an Aussie expat bar, just along the street from Stop 2 on W Pender. They do sell various kangaroo options, but the best thing on the menu are the Parms (if you've ever eaten veal or chicken parmigiano at an Italian place, for some reason the Aussies - and the northeast of England - just really rolled with the 'breadcrumbed pounded white meat layered with cheese, sauce etc.' concept, and now you can try a dozen different kinds!)

 

On Granville Island, a multitude of food options abound - a lot of very casual options in the food court (if you eat outdoors to be entertained by buskers, watch out for the gulls - they will literally swoop down on your table and snag food from right in front of you) but also several pubs & restos. On the cheaper, local, casual front, Tony's is good for a big pile of fried stuff; my family really enjoys the Fish Company (they have dockside outdoor seating, from which you can sometimes see the local seal family who enjoy a lazy life feasting on fish guts from the small fleet of vessels that dock nearby) and weirdly enough this branch of The Keg (a Canadian steakhouse chain) is among the easiest to get a good dinner time reso in - it's booked a lot by folks going to the theatres, so they tend to get a lot of tables freed up by 7pm!) At lunc, there's also great value at the student-run cafe/bistro you'll walk right past from the bus stop onto GI.

 

Stop 13 is in Chinatown - and while it's much less Chinese these days, there are still some great dinner options. Phnom Penh would be my suggestion (Viet-Cambodian) as the most unique option, with stellar beef and chicken wings - dinner only, service is brusque, tables are big and plastic covered and shared unless you have a large group, but there are still queues outside every day even after almost 40 years! Chinatown BBQ is my go-to lunch spot - hella cheap, deliberately discounted so the local Chinese seniors can still afford it, and if you're a brisket guy do not hesitate to try their curry brisket... very different from barky southern style, but delish.

 

Not on HOHO, but otherwise though very much in line with your asks, is Salmon'n'Bannock - short cab ride (or a mile and a bit uphill walk) from Granville Island, definitely better known than it used to be thanks to Tripadvisor, but still the only way to taste local First Nations cuisine other than as a snacky food truck item. Some of the best value game meat and nice fish in town, still owned by the same lady although they've hired more professional staff these days from outside the family but still indigenous folks (even an actual maitre d'/somm who can give solid wine pairing info as well as a rundown on native culture). Might be open at lunch over summer, but early June prob still dinner only - cheap transit bus ride back downtown after, maybe $15-20 by cabuber depending where you're staying.

 

There's a ridiculously large list of possible options, hopefully some other locals and past visitors will contribute some further suggestions Steve.