A small, spirited restaurant on south Main Street that regularly makes local “best of” lists is the Budapest Restaurant and Pastry Shop (3250 Main Street, East Vancouver, 604-877-1949), nicely en-sconced near Heritage Hall. Plan on substantial servings of goulash or schnitzel.
A friend who lives on East Hastings Street will bus it all the way south to the Hungarian Duna Delicatessen (5026 Victoria Drive, East Vancouver, 604-324-2715) for their poppy-seed pastries.
And a food-writing colleague reports that one of the city’s best-kept secrets is tiny Portuguese Cinco Estrelas Restaurant (2268 Kingsway, East Vancouver, 604-439-1124). Though dinner ends around 9 PM
Canadian- rather than Portuguese-style this is the place, I’m told, for flambéed chorizo or pan-fried beef medallions with brandy mushroom sauce, accompanied by an Iberian wine from a limited but very satisfactory wine list.
On the west side, the simple but appealing Kino Café (3456 Cambie Street, Central Vacnouver, 604-875-1998) features sultry flamenco dancers at night who, according to a regular, “lend the whole room a sensuousness — even the windows fog up.”
On the first Friday of every month, the Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral (716 East ioth Avenue, Central Vancouver, 604-876-4747) hosts a dinner — pierogi, borscht, and other traditional dishes — at friendly round tables in the church hail. It’s a popular, welcoming event in a fine heritage building and, at last report, only 10 bucks.
The Freybe family has been making quality European sausage in Vancouver for half a century. But you can get these and other deli meats cheaply at the Freybe Thrift Shop (716 East Hastings Street, East Vancouver, 604-255-6922). A budget-conscious east-sider of Ukrainian heritage, who especially likes their wine chorizo, claims that the bits and pieces sold mid-weekly as “dog food” are perfectly good for human consumption.
A secretguides.com correspondent recommends the Round-up Café (10449 King George Highway, Surrey, 604-581-0337). Sandwiched between a bank and a gas station near io4th Avenue, this magnet serves, I’m told, authentic pierogi dishes and awesome lemon pie.
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