Vancouver, BC, Canada is more than just a beautiful city that has easy access to the water as well as amazing snow capped mountains that are less than an hour from the city. The city is a true melting pot of culture and you can see that when you start looking for places to eat. When selecting a place to eat I always start at what kind of food I either love or even want to expand and go outside my comfortzone and try something new. I am always amazed at the diverse amount of selection in vancouver, which makes it one of my favorite cities especially to eat. Even though I have favorites I always try new places. My wife and I as well as another couple went out each Friday night with the goal that we would eat a different kind of food each week, we went for months before we actually ran out of types of food from around the world to try. 
One of my favorite places is an Indian restaruant called Vij's Restaurant . The food is amazing so on weekends the place is packed but always worth the wait. While you are waiting there are a ton of shops around the corner on Granville St and if you want to just hang outside and wait on the small bench then they will have homemade Chai for you to sip on. And once you try it the storefront next door is all take home, frozen and super good for just at home. Perfect to impress a date at home - Eat in or Take out, Viji's is still after 12 years on my top 10 in Vancouver! Go try it!There is a great cook book from Vij called Vij's: Elegant and Inspired Indian Cuisine
and totally worth the purchase. It has easy to follow instructions but it for cooks that are more comfortable in the kitchen or do not mind spending a bit of time to prep. The photography is superb and the detail throughout the book ranks this book an 8/10 for me. A great gift idea for any aspiring chef.
