There are several restaurant review sites that I used. Some of my favourites are Urbanspoon, DineHere.ca and to a certain extend Yelp.ca. Urbanspoon is the only one that had cleverly engaged bloggers to provide contents to the site. That is why you find that their site is so rich with information.
Urbanspoon even have an nifty iPhone app which I used a lot in locating restaurants, particularly the new Scope feature which employs the use of augmented reality. I might do a review of the Urbanspoon iPhone app someday but today I will just concentrate on restaurants featured on Urbanspoon.
Urbanspoon is based in Seattle. The site covers restaurants in the US, Canada, UK and Australia. However, in terms of Blogger content, Vancouver is running neck to neck with the bloggers in Seattle.
I started to work on this little project about two months ago. That was when I decided to make a visit to each of the Top 20 restaurants in Vancouver and blog about them.
It was easier said than done! It was because the Best Vancouver Restaurant Leaderboard keeps changing everyday, albeit not much. When I contacted Urbanspoon about this project, they were supportive and sent me a stack of “Top Restaurant on Urbanspoon” window stickers. I will be passing these out to the top 20 restaurants in the next little while.
For what its worth, the below is but a snapshot of the Top 20 at one point in time (last week). This is by no means THE top 20 restaurant list because if you look at the list on DineHere.ca and Yelp.ca, there are noticeable differences.
I’ve tried to make the Top 20 list below navigable for you. If you click on the Restaurant picture, it will bring you to the chowtimes post. If you click on the Food picture, it will throw you to an enlarged picture of one of the food we tried.
Enjoy!
Here is the complete list:
- Top 1-5 Restaurants in Vancouver
- Top 6-10 Restaurants in Vancouver
- Top 11-15 Restaurants in Vancouver
- Top 16-20 Restaurants in Vancouver
| Rank | The Restaurant We Review [Click Image for Post] |
The Food We Tried [Click for Larger Image] |
Comments |
#1 |
|
|
Believe it or not but the top “restaurant” is none other than Vancouver’s very own Japadog.They will be opening a full-on restaurant in mid-January 2010. |
#2 |
|
|
Plan before you go. Vij’s is so popular that the lines starts forming 30 minutes before they open. Only opened for dinner. Must try their Wine Marinated Lamb Popsicles, they are marvelous. |
#3 |
|
|
Best time to go is during their Low Tide hours from 3Pm to 6PM where the oysters are $1.50 each. At other times, the oysters are pricey but they serve the best and the freshest. A great place to hang out with friends after work. |
#4 |
|
|
It’s a shame that they will close after the Olympics because their lease is expiring. It is an amazingly romantic place for a dinner. People rave about their Salmon Wellington. Remember to take a glass of wine and walk to the pier. |
#5 |
|
|
Small place. But this is one place I will recommend to any visitor to Vancouver. The food is unique, fun and extraordinarily delish. Must try the Pomme Frites for starters. |
Sigh … I had been spending an hour trying to figure out what is wrong. I can’t seem to put in more than 5 on the table above. The moment I put in the sixth on the table the post would not display. Maybe there is a bug or limitation with WordPress. Anyway, I will just post the first five here and follow up a next post for the rest.
Ambitious project! Curious, on that then-top20 list, have you gone to them all?
He he he … yes, I did. Well, bar one and that is Gotham. Gotham was often on the Top 20 but I cheated a bit. I snagged the Top 20 list when they dropped down to #21. They are back up to #18 or something the past few days. Anyway, you and I know not to pay too much serious attention to this list. It is for all intents and purposes a fun list to read.
Ben
What a project.
Can you do the bottom 20 after this? 😛
Now, THAT is an interesting thought! Everyone does “best n restaurants”. A “worst n restaurant” list would be interesting to readers but would definitely attract the wrath of restaurants listed. Let me put on my thinking cap. LOL!
You’ve got the $$ for it, I say you should do it. I see no reason why restaurants would incur their wrath upon you, you’re giving them business & attention!
Pingback: Chow Times » The Top Restaurants in Vancouver — According to Urbanspoon (#6 – #10)
Pingback: Chow Times » The Top Restaurants in Vancouver — According to Urbanspoon (#11 – #15)
I like Japadog. But I think they are a bit overhyped.
Anyway, Happy New Year Ben.;)
Hi there, just stumbled upon this post while cruising Technorati for information for my new blog (Cheap Eats 2010, for budget dining during the Olympics). I discovered Urbanspoon when I started writing, and it’s been an absolutely fantastic resource for finding restaurants, jogging memory about a particular place, etc. I was really interested to read your post and find out what restaurants have done “the best” according to the site. If nothing else, it’s made me even more determined to go to Japadog and find out what the to-do is about!
I hope you don’t mind if I link to this guide as well as to your site in general; while I’m trying to compose a decent list of budget restaurants for Olympic visitors, I’m nowhere near the foodie that you and other bloggers seem to be! This list of top 20 restaurants as well as your other posts will be great extra reading material for my readers… when and if I get any! ;D