Vancouver BC restaurants for birthday celebration

February 3, 2024 6:33 PM

I'm going to Vancouver for a quick overnight trip to celebrate my birthday with my family. We'll arrive before dinner, and leave sometime after lunch the next day (but possibly after another dinner). I and one son have no dietary restrictions, but my wife is currently on a restrictive diet -- no gluten, no dairy, no egg -- and my younger son is a super picky eater (no hot vegetables :-/). Can you help us find places where we can all eat celebratory food? We'll be in the West End.
posted by StockingMarionette to Food & Drink (8 answers total)

Response by poster: To be clear, this is not an allergy situation -- cross contamination isn't a concern.
posted by StockingMarionette at 6:42 PM on February 3, 2024

How upscale are you looking for?
posted by lookoutbelow at 6:59 PM on February 3, 2024

We really enjoyed Oddfish, though that’s over the bridge in Kitsilano.
posted by supercres at 7:07 PM on February 3, 2024

Also over the bridge, but Vij's is always superb. Depends on what 'picky' means. They have tons of choices with no veg (or more accurately no identifiable veg) But it'll all be 'spicy', of the not hot variety.
posted by cfraenkel at 7:16 PM on February 3, 2024 [1 favorite]

You could try an izakaya like Kingyo - always a fun experience and you can pick and choose the small plates to eat to ensure everyone gets something. Lots of fish options for your wife (just look out for soy sauce, see if they have tamari instead?) and definitely options without hot vegetables too.
posted by thebots at 7:39 PM on February 3, 2024 [2 favorites]

How old is your son? If he’s under 12, I would try Rocky Mountain Flatbread on Main Street (they are gluten friendly, with risk of cross-contamination, not gluten free) or Chancho for tacos (they make their own tortillas gluten free). At the high end, you should be able to get your dietary restrictions taken care of at Boulevard. It’s the kind of place where you can call ahead and have the chef prepare for you.

Vij’s experienced shrinkflation and is not good value for money. I personally would skip all Asian due to the soy issue.
posted by shock muppet at 9:02 PM on February 3, 2024

Would your son eat sushi (including vegetable sushi)? You could bring your own gluten-free soy sauce since cross-contamination isn't an issue. Though I don't know if there's anything else to beware of - apparently there are conflicting opinions about whether all rice vinegar is gluten free?

This site lists supposedly gluten-free restaurants in Vancouver. If you scroll down you can search by specific foods and cuisines.
posted by trig at 3:20 AM on February 4, 2024

One kind of fun option might be the Brazilian BBQ place on Denman. They have a big salad bar / hot bar of options and then bring the meat around on spits and carbs it at the table which is entertaining. So there would be a fair number of cold vegetables for your kid and everything is very "eat what you want and not what you don't" which is helpful for pickiness. It is a buffet though, so risk of cross contamination is higher than usual.
posted by jacquilynne at 6:02 AM on February 4, 2024