annetti

We are considering Vancouver for a home exchange for this Summer for 4-5 weeks. Using American dollars (even with a one to one exchange) will we find it expensive coming from Southern California? How do restaurants, public transport, shopping compare? Will we find it a strain on our budget to eat out at a mid priced restaurant daily? If we do an excursion to Victoria, will hotels be pricey? Thanks for your help. Annetti

WillTravel

I think that you will find groceries a little more expensive.
Restaurants - there are numerous great bargains, or you can spend a lot. It depends on what you want. Name an example and I'll give it a try.

Public transport - it's going up in January. I pay $69 for a monthly one-zone transit pass right now. If you buy the FareSavers (probably more useful in your case), then expect each trip to cost about $2.

You can check the prices of hotels in Victoria. Generally in summer they are expensive. But if you are willing to stay at perfectly okay but lesser-starred places, it's not bad at all. (Travellers Inns and Paul's Motor Inn are in this category.)

annetti

WillTravel: Thanks for your quick answer. Having only been once to Vancouver over 30 yrs ago, I have no idea what restaurants to ask about, but would love some suggestions of medium priced lunch or dinner places. We love Italian and Asian places, and would also welcome some vegetarian suggestions.If there is a medium priced French place, I would be pleased to hear about it. My idea of a medium priced place is $30-50 without wine for two people. Prhaps, with one dessert shared. Cheaper of course, is always welcomed. We will be using public transport and not have a car. Thanks again for your help. And if there is a popular place that is more expensive and really worth it, I guess, we would like to know about that, too, though in recent years I have tired of overly upscale and often pretentious places.

LJ

I have a hunch that if you consider medium priced meals to be between $30 and $50 for two, all in including tax and tip, even without wine, you are going to consider Vancouver to be expensive. I would consider that am amazing bargain for lunch, let along dinner. When I visit our office in Van and go out with the girls from the office for lunch to our local vegetarian casual place (no tablecloths, no wine) the meal comes to $20 per person.

annetti

If you are correct, that is discouraging. Here in Southern California, we can get a very nice meal for two at lunch often including wine for less than $50.

WillTravel

Here's one example where you'd be hardpressed to spend $15 per person, but the food is very good. This is probably the cheapest in my list.
Congee Noodle House:
http://www.dinehere.ca/restaurant.asp?r=210

Some others:
Afghan Horsemen
I haven't been here for ages, but I really liked it:
http://www.dinehere.ca/restaurant.asp?r=286

Cafe Kathmandu, Nepali
Another good, reasonably priced place:
http://www.dinehere.ca/restaurant.asp?r=1429

I like the following also, but why be repetitive:

Bo Kong, Chinese Buddhist vegetarian: http://www.dinehere.ca/restaurant.asp?r=287

Adega, Portuguese:
http://www.dinehere.ca/restaurant.asp?r=959

Stepho's, Gree:
http://www.dinehere.ca/restaurant.asp?r=155

Maybe tending upwards a bit in price, but still very possible to get a reasonable meal. Bouzyos, Greek:
http://www.dinehere.ca/restaurant.asp?r=961

Those are a few places, but there are a lot more.

For Italian, most will be more expensive than the above, although there are some good deals to be had in Burnaby (Google for those).

WillTravel

And my favorite deli/bakery:
Solly's Bagels (with several locations)

Sam_Salmon

If the '<i>home</i>' is a house in the suburbs then dining options will be limited as will transportation although after 18:30 hrs a single zone fare applies everywhere.

http://www.translink.bc.ca

Choose carefullly and don't get stuck in the boonies somewhere.

Food isn't a little more expensive here it's <u>a lot</u> more expensive, booze as well.

It is possible to live well here but dining out every night isn't how most people live-a quick cheap lunch is all is all most can afford daily.

That being said the City of Vancouver is jam packed with restaurants catering to all sectors of a thriving multi ethnic society, most with prices we consider affordable.

One large difference you'll notice is the complete lack of anything that approximates decent Mexican cuisine-present in name only the few places on offer are generally underwhelming.

annetti

Thanks very much WillTravel. You certainly went to a lot of trouble providing lots of information. I appreciated it.

Sam: The &quot;home&quot; is in V6N1y6. Does that provide a clue to you whether we would be conveniently or inconveniently located?

One of the pleasures of traveling is eating out frequently and trying out restaurants and although we will have a full kitchen, it is much nicer to try the local restaurants than do much cooking, especially when it sounds like Vancouver has so many great places to choose from.
From the comments above, I am getting the sense that we may need to limit our dining out and do some sandwiches for lunch.

By the way, I have not found good Mexican restaurants outside of SW US or Mexico and have learned to wait until we return home from a vacation for our Mexican food. It is amazing when you travel, what oftne passes for a Mexican restaurant. They put some sombreros on the wall and put some cactii on the table and a Mexican restaurant is born.

annetti

P.S. I forgot to ask. What are the smoking regulations like in Vancouver? We are non-smokers and really appreciate eating in a place without cigarette smoke. Thanks again.

traveller69

You won't have a problem re smoking in Vancouver - restaurants are all non smoking. In regard to LJ and the $20 lunch. I have never paid more than $10 for lunch and many time less than that. There are a lot of moderately priced restaurants in town. Actually we have found that the good restaurants in Southern California and certainly San Francisco are as expensive if not moreso than Vancouver. The costs add up if you are having wine and cocktails but entrees are very similar.
You can always use Priceline for Victoria but it depends on what you are calling pricey. We spend half of our life in the States and unless we use Motel 6 we pay as much for a hotel/motel as Victoria.

WillTravel

I haven't been here yet, but I've been told that &quot;Me &amp; Julio&quot;, a new restaurant, provides very good Mexican food.

Sam_Salmon

<u>V6N1Y6</u> excellent west side location right where you want to be.=D&gt;

The Broadway (<i>9th ave</i corridor-where I just ate-has all kinds of options as does nearby 4th Ave.

As mentioned http://www.dinehere.ca is the best reference for area restaurants-comprehensive and often hilarious.

http://www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/engs...ing/routes.htm for Vancouver bike routes you can rent bikes anywhere and explore the city easily.

WillTravel

You can easily have very nice lunches for somewhat less than $10 each by frequenting delis. Capers, Choices, Nesters, and Urban Fare are grocery store chains that typically have very good delis. Sort of like Whole Foods, although I have to admit Whole Foods beats them in terms of sheer variety.

As Sam indicated, where you stay will make a huge difference in terms of what food options are readily available. I agree that V6N 1Y6 is a truly lovely area, but I wouldn't see it as the center of readily available, highly varied cheap foodstuffs.

annetti

Wow! You people are really helpful and very thoughtful. Thanks very much, especially Sam and Willtravel.We are still in the talking stage of a home exchange, so there are still a couple things to be worked out, but now if it falls through, I will be very disappointed. You all have provided so much useful information. Thanks again.

icithecat

For eating in Victoria, check out this place as a sample menu for prices. Most lunch entees are under $15. My office is heading there for our xmas lunch.

http://www.ilterrazzo.com/menu.php

ps the sauce on the stuffed squid was pretty garlicy when I tried it.

annetti

Iseethecat: This is the kind of restaurant I was expecting to see for a reasonable lunch. And Italian, too! My favorite food group of the moment! Thanks very much. Hopefully, we will make it to Victoria this summer so we can try it out. Thanks very much.

traveller69

If you want just basic pasta dishes at a very reasonable price try The Old Spaghetti Factory in Gastown and they also have one in Victoria. The Gastown location is the original and have an old streetcar inside. The food is fine not gourmet my any means but I would stick to the pastas. Old spaghetti and meatballs etc. It is family oriented so if you have kids they will love it.

annetti

Thank you, Traveller69. Suggestions are appreciated.

annetti

I posted this query in October. We just returned from 4 plus weeks in Vancouver. So here's my take on my question. Vancouver is very, very expensive if you intend to buy real estate, however for the casual visitor (like ourseves), there are tons of great places to eat inexpensively. It really is no more expensive than Southern California and often it a much higher quality. Sushi for example is probably half the price in Vancouver that you would expect to pay in LA and twice as good. If you avoid the high end restaurants which seem to dominate tourist guides and often this forum, too, you can find plenty of places to eat where the food is good and the ambience pleasant. We frequently ate lunch for under $30 for the two of us and if we had Suushi, it was often less than $20 or even $15. Our prices do not include wine.

Public transit was convenient and easy to use and relatively inexpensive. We bought a monthly pass for $73(it saves digging for change) or used a book of ten tickets. Most places we traveled were in one zone. We are not big shoppers, but we were able to find the usual take home gifts like postcards, t-shirts,maple candy, maple cookies (the latter,inexpensively at the markets). Since we did a home exchange, we are no help on hotel prices, but hotels are always outrageous, though we did check on the Sylvia Hotel which seemed reasonable and in an excellent location. I hope this helps someone considering Vancouver for a holiday. It is a wonderful town and we loved our holiday there.