Vancouver Restaurants - A View from Afar

A little while ago, while summer was transitioning into autumn, little did we unsuspecting Vancouverites realize that a spy was in our midst ... and a culinary spy from Chicago no less! Jessica Reaves, a frequent contributor to the Chicago Tribune, decided to grace our burgeoning town with her knowledgeable palate.

The result was published in the September 24th edition of the Windy City's big newspaper and the story was syndicated to many other papers across the U.S. too. Such stories have a major impact on what tourists think of us. You can read her well written and comprehensive story here.

As someone who takes great pride in writing a plethora of restaurant reviews, I thought her article was very fair and well balanced. In fact, she picked up a lot of insight into the city in a very short period of time. My only regret, on her behalf, was her first few choices. Tsunami Sushi and the Bellagio Cafe are simply not great examples of what Vancouver has to offer. There is much better sushi a few blocks west on Robson and if she had gone half a block further north she could have enjoyed a splendid breakfast at Griffins in the Hotel Vancouver.

I know I'll get in trouble for saying the following, but as someone who spent 1 ½ years in Montreal, Siegel's doesn't come close to providing what I would consider to be a decent bagel. But perhaps they're the best of the worst, since I've never found any good bagels in this part of the world.

Other than that, my mouth started watering at her descriptions of all the other delicious meals she tried here, some of which I haven't even been to myself. Though I plan to change that asap!

Side note: I was informed of Ms. Reaves' excellent article by my "sister", Kristi, who is infamous for being the Food Queen of Chicagoland. She's a fellow member of Virtual Tourist, the travel site I belong to, and has the #1 rated tips of Chicago for good reason!