If you’re visiting Vancouver and want the inside scoop on craft beer, Vancouver Food Tour offers Gastown Craft Beer n Bites tours. Follow your guide and beer educator through several well known Gastown haunts and learn beer history, beer and food pairing and taste several beers paired perfectly with bites along the way. The company also offers craft cocktails tours and a Gastown tasting tour. Visit their website at www.vancouverfoodtour.com
A couple of new spots have popped open recently in the city that are worthy of your visit. Gord Martin of Bin 941 and Go Fish has opened Sol-Sunbelt Cookery in Coal Harbour. Here they are serving up Mediterranean dishes at both lunch and dinner. In Olympic Village many craft beers along with casual bites are now available at the Tap and Barrel, a concept brought to us by the Daniel Hospitality Group. Over on the east side of Vancouver East of Main (the restaurants name and location) is now open at 223 East Georgia Street and also offers Mediterranean-style tapas, sandwiches and mains along with craft beer and cocktails, and at 397 Railway Street Railtown Cafe a team of chefs bakes up pastries, gourmet soups, salads and mains employing sous vide cooking techniques. Even further east in Burnaby on East Hastings Chef Alex Tung has sourced a true Neopolitan pizza oven and is cooking authentic Italian at Cotto Enoteca.
If you are looking for a special fall meal come to town and try out the Guest Chef Series at West. Executive Chef Quang Dang hosts Chef Marc Lepine of Atelier in Ottawa and the Canadian Culinary Champion of the Gold Metal Plates last year on October 2 ($120). On November 11 it is all about Morocco with guest chef Mourad Lalouh, Executive Chef at Michelin-starred Aziza in San Francisco and the author of the new cookbook Mourad: New Morroccan ($190 including a copy of the book).