We live in Seattle and have been to Vancouver many many times. I even lived there for 3 years from 1999 - 2002 in my early 30s. It's a lovely city and well worth many visits. We had a free weekend and some extra Marriott points so we decided to head up to Vancouver on short notice.
Hotel
We had a free certificate for any Marriott property to a max of 35,000 points. On such short notice the only one that we could get that was reasonable was the Civic Hotel in Surrey City Centre. We had never stayed in Surrey before and thought it would be fun to explore. The Civic Hotel was really really nice. Very fancy for Surrey. It is located right on the Skytrain and very convenient if you are arriving in Metro Vancouver from Seattle. Surrey has a vision with this new neighbourhood that in x years it is going to be like Yaletown in Vancouver. All glass condos and fancy restaurants. It is not quite there yet. I can see where they are headed and maybe they'll get there. For now, it is a lovely hotel in a bit of an odd location. Being on the Skytrain was a plus for sure.
Surrey
My wife is Indian and Surrey is the place to be for all things Indian in Metro Vancouver. When she heard we were staying in Surrey she took over the restaurant planning.
- Saravanaa Bhavan - we went to this South Indian vegetarian restaurant for Saturday lunch buffet. Wonderful! My wife is from Andhra Pradesh in India and tucked in for her fill of comfort food. She was very happy with the authenticity of the food and I was the only white guy in the place.
- Tandoori Flame - dinner buffet was here and the buffet was massive with great veg and meat options. The price was $10 more than Saravanaa but worth it for the variety.
- Navraj Sweets & Restaurant - we really did not have any more room to eat at this point. We did stop here for 2 pounds of jalebi which they made fresh for us. We waited 15 min and received the warm jalebi and a couple samosas to go. So so good!
Our take on Surrey is that this is the place to go in Metro Vancouver for Indian food. Yes, there are loads of Indian restaurants in Vancouver proper and they will be good but Surrey has become an Indian town. The food is awesome and worth the visit.
Richmond
While Surrey is Indian, Richmond has long been Chinese. We went to the Richmond Night Market and were blown away. Think of the food stalls at any festival but with 2-3x the number of stalls and 90% of them are Asian. The food quality in variety and taste was wonderful. The crowd is there to E A T! The Richmond Night Market is open from May to October only so if you are looking to go head there soon. We had food from 4-5 stalls and then waddled back to the Skytrain to head out.
Final Thoughts
There is more to Metro Vancouver than Stanley Park, Granville Island, and the Capliano Suspension Bridge. People on here ask for hidden gems all the time. I would say the Asian food of Richmond and the Indian food of Surrey are tourist worthy!
Submitted September 23, 2019 at 07:03PM by Cascade425 https://ift.tt/2kERxqt
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