Since we prefer to cover Vancouver on foot, we stay downtown when we fly in or take a car. We alternate between our favorite Hyatt Regency over the underground Royal Centre Mall -- the morning brunch is a great way to start the day -- to the British Hotel Vancouver where decorated suites pamper visitors and the restaurant's duck in cherry sauce is beyond compare. Visitors on tight budgets can write for lists of B&Bs or opt for suburban lodgings. South of Vancouver convenient to the Airport, Richmond offers many fine hotels. North Vancouver adds more just a Sea Bus ride across Burrard Inlet from downtown.
All this activity builds big appetites. Residents seem to snack on sticky buns and muffins in mid-morning, eat ice cream from homemade cones and chocolate after lunch and finish the workday with splendid Canadian beer and snacks in a pub before dinner. It's easy to find high quality, relatively high cost meals at chains such as Trader Vics or hotel dining rooms such as our favorite and very traditional Timber Room at the Hotel Vancouver. Less expensive dining out of town on incredible seafood features treats such as grilled black cod from the Salmon House on the Hill. Tudor meals at the Park Royal Hotel offer great values too . So does "pick your own" seafood from the tanks of The Lobsterman on Granville Island.
However, we don't eat many "real" restaurant meals in Vancouver because there's so much to sample. Instead, we graze along Robson Street. A Vietnamese soup and snack, followed by some German wurst or stuffed cabbage down the street, then a stop for Italian ice cream in a fresh-baked cone or a chocolate, barely samples the options here.
Granville Island Market overwhelms munchers. Last trip we counted over 200 different kinds of sausage and pate, 100 varieties of fruit including sweet strawberries the size of golf balls, at least 175 baked sweets and 41 different ethnic food stalls. A survey, considerable discussion and a return to several stalls for the makings of al fresco meal enjoyed on the dock overlooking the site of EXPO 86 justify a visit.
Snacking through Chinatown on dim sum and "just one" raids on the varied foods sold in underground malls require either much rationalization a la "all this walking burns off calories" or more self-control than most own to stop eating long enough to work up appetites for a sit-down meal.
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