The Naam (web site, 2724 W. 4th Ave. Vancouver BC Canada, phone: 604-738-7151) is a full service vegetarian restaurant that is open 24 hours and is popular for inventive organic and natural foods dishes. The Naam has won the “Best Vegetarian Restaurant” award for the last ten years in the Georgia Straight Magazine’s Golden Plate Awards (Reader’s Choice).
The Naam serves breakfast from 6am until 11:30 am on weekdays (and until 1:00pm on Saturday and 2:00pm on Sunday). I enjoyed the “Naam Special Breakfast” (pictured below, $9.50) which is two eggs any style, two whole wheat pancakes, veggie sausages or “Sam’s strips” (a kind of veggie patty) and home made potato fries. Yum!
For lunch and dinner, the restaurant serves tasty creations such as enchiladas, burritos, burger platters, curry, rice bowls, and wok dishes.
The Naam also features live music (mostly folk, jazz, and blues) from 7pm to 10pm every evening. Check out their web site for the upcoming schedule.
Video from the Naam:
“Naam Special Breakfast” ($9.50) – two free range eggs any style (pictured above, scrambled), two whole wheat pancakes and syrup, veggie sausages, and home made potato fries (which were very delicious, and totally not greasy!)
The Foundation (2301 Main, Vancouver, BC, Canada, phone: 604-708-0881) is a funky vegetarian restaurant with retro decor and a liberal, activist vibe. Popular dishes include the nachos, salads, and pasta. Pictured below is my Mango Forte pasta ($9.75) which was an inventive dish that combined rotini pasta with a sweet dressing, fresh stir-fried vegetables, mango, and spinach salad, sprinkled with fresh Parmesan cheese.
Many people discuss The Foundation on DineHere.ca (click here for review link). Bexby Jones, a reviewer, writes:
It’s not really a place to bring a date (unless your date is an outdoorsy vegan hippy/ skateboarder musician type) and I probably wouldn’t go here for business dinners. But it’s great for friends/ boyfriends/ girlfriends, no matter who you are. The food is definitely comfort food. The rice/ quinoa dishes are rich and saucy with nuts and raisins and things in them. They kind of remind me of stuff my vegetarian hippy mom would make me (if I had one). The salads are tasty. My favourite dish by far is the nachos. For just $8 you get a platter of nachos with corn and beans, and amazing salsa/sour cream, that can fill two people. At night it’s a great place to come for candlelight & wine. They’re open late, too. Sun-Thurs till 1am and Fri/Sat till 2am (but they stop serving drinks at 1am).
Taste of India Restaurant is a fast food restaurant located in the Tinseltown Food Court at International Village mall (view map, address: 88 W Pender, Vancouver, BC, Canada, phone: 604-806-0799) on the edge of downtown Vancouver.
The mall is really close to GM Place Stadium and BC Place Stadium, as well as the Stadium skytrain station, and it’s a convenient place to stop for a bite to eat before the Canucks hockey game or BC Lions Football.
The food court at Tinseltown mall is on the level below the movie theatres. Taste of India Restaurant provides a healthy and delicious alternative to the other fast food outlets such as Taco Time and Vana Vietnamese.
At Taste of India they make their Naan bread fresh to order – I was really surprised: it only takes about a minute for them to roll the dough and bake it, and it tasted awesome! Pictured below are two different orders of Combo 2, which includes two items of your choice from their menu with rice and Naan bread for $6.25. Some vegetarian items are available.
Indian food with freshly made naan bread ($6.25)
Indian mixed vegetables, Curry Chicken, and Naan bread ($6.25)