We just returend from five days in Vancouver, B.C.- an absolutely lovely city. A short note for a few tips:

The Fairmont Vancouver hotel was, as you would expect, quite nice: excellent service. We ate well, and Vancouver has fabulous seafood- highlights were at "C" restaurant, located on the river just across from Granville Island. It had probably overall the best food, the best wine list, and was the most expensive of all the restaurants we sampled that week. Blue Water Cafe had a lovely atmosphere but I would give the food no more than a "B": also they took license to continue to pour wine and designer water for our party of 12 without asking, running through quite a few more bottles of wine ( and making for a slow morning) than we'd really authorized. No one, to my understanding, said "keep it coming". "Coast", in Yaletown, was also quite trendy and loud: very good quality seafood, but nothing that extraordinary. A very welcome surprise was "Joe Fortes Chop and Seafood House" which was excellent all the way around- very fresh oysters, very high quality seafood, excellent ambiance ( reminded me of an upscale New Orleans neighborhood restaurant) cheerful, professional service, and decent ( not cheap, but not outrageous)prices. It was about a 5 minute maximum walk from the Fairmont. We liked it so much we had two dinners and a lunch there.

Local wines, which were really awful, have improved a lot since we were there 5 years ago. We had some decent sauvignon blancs and pinots: my friend David found a Pinot called "Dirty Laundry" which he pronounced "excellent". He also raved about "Pair Bistro".

Cafe Artigiano, which was about 30 feet from the hotel, provided some of the best capuccino I have ever had and excellent light breakfasts- the smoked salmon bagel, served with thinly sliced (pickeled?) onion, capers and fresh lemon is to die for on a hungry morning.

Sun Sui Wah (3888 Main St, in Mount Pleasant) is widely acknowledged to be the best Chinese seafood and the best dim sum restaurant in town- we went for dim sum Sunday it was a riot of noise, luscious smells, and food.Highly recommended, but call for reservations or wait at least 30 minutes.

We love the northwest and Vancouver, a beautiful town, does not disappoint. We found nearly everyone friendly and polite- enjoyed our time there and will look foreward to returning.

Jim in Salt Lake