Urban Thai Bistro (map, reviews, website, 1119 Hamilton St., Vancouver, BC, Canada, phone: 604-408-7788) is a great place to go for delicious and affordable Thai food in the heart of Yaletown (in downtown Vancouver).

At lunch time, there are some great specials which include a salad, spring roll, a main entree and rice for $8.00 before tax and tip. Service is fast and attentive, and the restaurant’s decor is pleasant and inviting. Urban Thai Bistro also serves a good selection of vegetarian and tofu dishes which make it a regular place to visit for some of my vegetarian friends. Dinner time prices are also reasonable, in the $12 to $18 per person range.

Pictured below is Lunch Special 76S ($8.00), which their menu describes as beef with green curry paste, eggplants, bell peppers, peas, basil leaves and coconut milk. It is also served with a spring roll and a green salad (not pictured).

For more photos and info, please view Part 3, Part 2, and Part 1. Their menu is also available on their website.

Beef with green curry paste, eggplants, bell peppers, peas, basil leaves & coconut milk

Salade de Fruits Cafe (web site, map, 1551 West 7th Avenue, Vancouver BC, Canada, phone 604-714-5987) is an authentic, unpretentious French restaurant that is hidden away inside the French Cultural Centre in Vancouver’s South Granville area. One of Vancouver’s “not so well kept secrets for French Food” (FoodVancouver.com), this casual bistro serves up some of the best French food in the city, but in a home-style atmosphere with friendly French (and English-speaking!) service.

Angela Murrills writes in the Georgia Straight (click here to read review):

Weekdays at noon it feels like small-town France, where everyone decamps from their office for a couple of hours during which the mark of a truly civilized country parking is free by law. A fresh-fish dish or two, grilled prawns, moules frites, quiche or a sandwich it’s all competently made, sans froufrou, and mostly under $10.

Christine G. Louie describes the food at Salade de Fruits (writing in the Peak, SFU’s student newspaper, click here to read review):

The moules et frites ($11.99) arrived with puffs of steam wafting up, the P.E.I. mussels fat, perfectly steamed little morsels sitting in the most fragrant of broths. Accompanying the pot of shiny black shells lay a stack of fresh-cooked pomme frites, still glistening from their bath of hot oil. Crispy, golden-brown, and thinly sliced, the pomme frites were perfect for dipping into the pool of broth or the little container of their homemade mayonnaise. The calamari dish came in thick ringlets, fried to a glorious golden-brown, and looking ravishingly hot. The smoked-salmon baguette was clean tasting, jazzed up with capers and sweet onions, and sandwiched in the same lovely bread. The steak dish was pounded into a thin large slab, arrived on top of a layer of gravy-smothered frites.

Wow, I love those descriptions, thanks Christine!

Pictured below is some of the food we enjoyed: the Saumon Sauvage (Wild salmon entree, around $16), the Calmars à la Nage (Calamari dish, $9.99), and the Escargots à l’Ail (snail in garlic, $5.99, a French delicacy!). My friend also ordered the T-Bone Steak served with fresh crab (not pictured), which he described as juicy and of really high quality (he’s a regular of steak places around town).

Saumon Sauvage (Wild Salmon entree, $16.99) from Salade De Fruits French restaurant in Vancouver

Calamari dish (Calmars à la Nage, $9.99) from Salade De Fruits French restaurant in Vancouver

Escargots à l'Ail ($5.99) - Snail in garlic, a French delicacy! Food from Salade De Fruits French restaurant in Vancouver.

Fresh baguette (French bread) included with the meal at Salade de Fruits French restaurant in Vancouver

Indian Oven (web site, map, reviews, 2006 West 4th Avenue Vancouver, BC, Canada, phone 604-730-5069) is one of my friend’s favorite places to go for Indian food in the Vancouver area. It’s located on the second floor of a building at West 4th and Maple Avenue in Kitsilano, with a great view of the bustling shopping district and the mountains and downtown skyline in the distance.

I was really quite impressed by the quality of the food (we ordered vegetarian selections this time, but the menu has a good selection of non-vegetarian items as well). To start we enjoyed an appetizer of Onion Bhaji ($6.99, pictured below) which were deep fried and crispy, similar to Pekora but without the meat. Hub-uk (click here for their Onion Bhaji recipe) describes what makes up an Onion Bhaji:

The basic recipe consists of onions being chopped and then made into a sort of batter with chickpea or gram flour, spices, and sometimes with herbs, then fried until golden. They have a mild taste and are not hot.

For the main course, we tried the Bombay Aloo ($10.95, pictured below), a tasty dish of diced potatoes cooked with cumin seed & specialty spices, and the Vegetable Korma ($10.95, also pictured below), which is made with carrots, cauliflowers, and broccoli cooked in the restaurant’s own special cream sauce. We also had an order of Pulao Rice ($3.50), and Garlic Naan bread ($2.25), which their menu describes as “white flour leavened bread coated with garlic”. Yum!

nanashi, a reviewer on DineHere.ca (click here to read review) writes:

Being from West Bengal, and growing up on Indian food most of my life I’m always looking for a taste of home. I discovered the Indian Oven last year and have found my self routinely selecting it for take out, over other Indian restaurants in Vancouver. The Indian Oven specializes mostly in North Indian cuisine, which is quite common among Indian restaurants in North America… Tandoori/tikk/kebab specialties of this restaurant are far above most of the other restaurants in west part of Vancouver.

The restaurant also has free delivery within a 5km radius (click here for their take out and delivery menu), and 10% off for pick-up orders.

Indian food from Indian Oven restaurant in Vancouver: Garlic Naan bread ($2.25), Bombay Aloo ($10.95), Vegetable Korma ($10.95)

Onion Bhajis ($6.99, appetizer from Indian Oven restaurant in Vancouver).

Closeup of Vegetable Korma ($10.95) from Indian Oven restaurant in Vancouver.

Garlic Naan bread from Indian Oven restaurant in Vancouver ($2.25)