If you are one who chooses a vacation or travel destination based on local fare and cuisine, then Vancouver should be your next stop.  With influences  from the French, Japanese and other worldly cuisine, you might have to book the time you spend in Vancouver depending on how much your adventurous palate wants to experience.

You absolutely can not leave Vancouver without a sushi or seafood experience.  So where do you go?  The Blue Water Cafe and Raw Bar.  Chef Frank Pabst wants you to experience the best fresh and wild seafood British Columbia has to offer.  Come see why some celebrities have been spotted here.  Try the spice crusted local Albacore Tuna Carpacchio with a nicoise vegetable salad, the Gulf Island Swimming Scallops with a tomato and caper relish.  Perhaps you came for the oysters.  Their extensive list are the fruits from every corner of BC.  Beach Angle from Read Island.  Chef’s Creek from Deep Bay, Vancouver Island.  Effingham Inlet, from Barkley Sound.  Komo Gway of Baynes Sound.  Slurp these down with other wrapped raw delights from the Raw Bar; Ahi Tuna Tataki, Unagi Kabayaki, Toro…  Each of these to be paired perfectly from any selection from their award-winning cellar and bubbles.

If you really want to taste local, I mean really local fare, then your next destination will be the Raincity Grill.  We are not strangers of the farm-to-table concept that has seemed to have swept the dining scene recently in the last couple of years (if only we had gotten a clue earlier), but these guys have been doing the local-sourcing thing for twenty years.  Their 100-mile Tasting Menu represents all foods raised, caught and grown with

in ethical means.  Raincity offers its visitor world-class flavors and all from the local farmers, producers and fisherman of British Columbia, and just think, all within 100-miles.

Taste the French side of Vancouver at the rustic, yet elegant Café Salade de Fruits.  Whether you’re touring in the area during brunch, lunch or for a casual dinner, they have anything you might expect from a corner cafe in Paris.  Oeuf Benedicte garnit, Steak frite, Calamars a la capone, Moules et frites, Cuisse de lapin confit…

Oh, yes, I forgot.  There’s some Italian too.  La Terrazza is not just a stop for the best pasta of Spaghettini al Bisonte of bison truffle meat balls, wild BC mushrooms and a Parmigiano cream.  What!  Oh, they've got more.  Landlubbers and sea-scroungers alike will delight in their menu.  You can have king crab with a slow roasted arctic char a jalapeno potato croquette, sable fish, oven-roasted rack of lamb encrusted in grainy mustard with mint consommé and a fontina potato gratina, a pan-seared duck breast from Fraser Valley with a ricotta cheese tart and caramelized shallots.  If you want to see what the Chef Gennaro Iorio’s really got, try any of their tasting menus set at $55 or $95.  Check with Sommelier Giulio Miceli as your wine guide to choose from their 44,000 bottle, Award of Excellence by Wine Spectator cellar, to sip on the best with each delectable course.

So, that list is just the appetizer of cuisine-Vancouver, but this bayside city is as wondrous and eclectic as its culture and inhabitants, and the restaurants as bountiful as the fruits plucked from the sea.  There is more, so explore.