Ben.z Noodle Restaurant (536 Seymour Street, 604-688-8385) is a recently opened Vietnamese restaurant that is within walking distance of the Waterfront skytrain station, Canada Place convention center and cruise ship terminal downtown. The menu is very friendly even to newcomers to this delicious cuisine, with only a few main choices and lots of pictures.

The Vietnamese Salad Rolls ($5.25, pictured below) are one of my favorite items: prawns, vermicelli noodles, and vegetables are wrapped in a delicate rice wrapper, served cold with peanut dipping sauce. The beef pho soup (reasonably priced at $7.75, also pictured below) is a huge bowl filled with various kinds of meats and noodles in a steaming broth.

This is comfort food at its best and is perfect for a rainy Vancouver day. The soup is served with a side plate of bean sprouts, fresh herbs, hot peppers, and a couple slices of lime (also pictured below).

Falafel Maison (516 Robson Street, Vancouver, 604-647-6450) is a small take-out restaurant that serves Mediterranean cuisine. The Chicken Shwarma plate is a humongous serving of grilled chicken on rice with tatziki and hot sauce, a small green salad, humus and pita bread (pictured below, $6.25).

A friend recommended an authentic Korean restaurant (1638 Robson Street, Vancouver, phone 604-689-3898) called Book Kyung Ban Jeoun Korean & Chinese Restaurant, located on Robson Street downtown between Bidwell Street and Cardero Street.

As is customary with most Korean restaurants, a few small accompaniments were provided with our meal such as the Kimchi (pictured below), onion, pickle, and a sweet sauce. The dish which I ordered was the Black Bean Noodle with Seafood, which comes in two bowls: a bowl of plain noodles, and a bowl with a thick rich sauce made with black beans, onion, and assorted seafood (pictured below, approximately $9.00). The very dark black bean sauce looks quite different from anything you might encounter at a Western-style restaurant, but I assure you it was very tasty!