We will be spending time here and want to know of good restaurants and well known upscale shops. Thanks.

What's a good restaurant?

We go to:
Big City Tavern. Lively, relatively young crowd.
Cheesecake Factory. Ouch!!! Reliable.
Cafe de Paris. French food.
Mark's. Upscale.
Cafe le Bonne Crepe. Excellent crepes.
Mango's. More family until 9-10PM then the music? starts.
Timpano. Italian. used to like it more.

Go to www.lasolasboulevard.com for more info.

You can also branch out beyond Las Olas by taking the Water Taxi to various stops along the intracoastal waterway. My favorite spot on Las Olas is the Riverhouse. It has excellent fare and ambiance, being alongside the New River.

I agree. The Riverfront is also somewhat upscale.

All of those mentioned are within 5 minutes of each other.

Yes, the beach trolley is an option as there are more restaurants on the beach. It runs back and forth down Las Olas to the beach.

Myer is right on.

Not on Las Olas (agree with Myer) but the best restaurant coolest place in Fort Lauderdale by a mile is Cafe Mortorano.

http://www.cafemartorano.com/

Seasons 52 at the Galleria is excellent.

Charlies Crab is on the water and outstanding seafood.

Lastly, one of my favorites is Bistro Mezzoluna and it is on 17th Street.

Big City Tavern is a great place to sit outside and drink wine.

Yes Riverhouse is very nice a bit up river. My son got married there outdoors.

Also on Las Olas:
Jackson's Steak House - upscale and very good
Zucca (I think) - This was excellent but the price increased quite a bit from their openning. A pasta bar. They have 2 station. You pick the type of pasta and the ingrediants. The make it right in front of you. Quite different.

My favorites - on South Beach on Lincoln Road - Tiramesu
In Weston Town Center - Tarantella

The last 2 a very far from Las Olas and not worth the drive.

Never been to Mortorano. have to check it out.

The River House is one of my favourite restaurants. Try to get a table overlooking the waterway.

http://www.ftlauderdaleriverhouse.com/

Yes, the Cheesecake Factory is reliabe but we find the portions ridiculously enormous (and trust me, we're not small eaters!) -- plan on sharing.

Re shops, I think there are many lovely shops on Las Olas. Personally, I never miss Chicos but that's because we don't have them here in Canada. #39;( I love browsing Las Olas Blvd!

One of our favourite things to do is take the 'sunset' cruise on the inland waterway, looking at all the gorgeous houses and boats, and then have dinner at River House afterwards.

hdm,
I've been on a canal cruise a couple of times. Once with somebody I knew who had a boat and the other time was on one of those university events.

I could live in a few of those. And they all have the "empty" look. I guess they're somewhere else.

The best one we took was last December. Of course, it gets dark early so the lights were on in the houses and boats and you could see some of the interiors, and everything was decorated for Christmas.