The Reef Restaurant (web site, 4172 Main Street, Vancouver, BC, Canada, phone: 604-874-5375) serves Caribbean cuisine, a blend of European, African, and Asian flavors. The decor really adds to the candle-lit atmosphere, complete with a flaming steel drum, a wooden cottage facade with a corrugated tin roof over the kitchen window, and some colorful original paintings (which incidentally are for sale).

Check out their menu, which includes delicious items such as Oistin’s Flying Fish, a “Delicacy of Barbados”, fried in Bajan spices served with tartar sauce ($9, pictured below), as well as the Jamaican Jerk Wild Salmon ($14, also pictured below), which was really flavorful.

Flying Fish – a Caribbean delicacy ($9)

Jamaican Jerk Wild Salmon ($14)

The Sandbar (web site, 1535 Johnston Street, Granville Island, Vancouver, BC, Canada, phone: 604-669-9030) is an upscale, trendy seafood restaurant on Granville Island with waterfront views. (Granville Island is an arts, culture, and food mecca in the centre of Vancouver, just across the Granville Bridge from downtown Vancouver.)

I tried the Linguini Vongole, which was made with fresh clams, garlic, olive oil, and parmesan (pictured below, $14.95), and this dish was frankly one of the best clam linguinis I have ever tasted. Sometimes the juice from the clams can make the pasta soggy, but at the Sandbar, my pasta had the perfect texture and the clams tasted great with the combination of garlic, olive oil, and parmesan cheese. 

We also tried one of the signature appetizers, the Wok Squid ($8.50, also pictured below) which was a level above the usual calamari you’ll find at most restaurants around town. We were given chopsticks for this dish, and the squid was pan fried in a light batter with chilies, garlic, cilantro, and ginger. Very tasty!!

Linguini Vongole (with fresh clams, garlic, olive oil, and parmesan) $14.95

Wok Squid appetizer at the Sandbar restaurant (with chilies, garlic, cilantro, and ginger for $8.50)

(for interested camera buffs, I shot the first photo above using candlelight, with my Canon Digital Rebel XT, a Canon F1.4 50mm lens, at ISO 1600, 1/25 sec. and F1.8. I shot the second photo at ISO 1600, 1/30 sec. and F2.2. I had to take quite a few shots because the candle was flickering a lot, casting a different light every second. It so happened that I got a couple shots that I liked. We were sitting in the lounge at Sandbar and there were a number of TV’s surrounding us that were tuned to the sports channels, and these were also casting a variable light on the food. In this situation, with such unpredictable light, the trick is to just take lots of shots and then by chance you’ll get one you like. (I took 18 shots of the pasta and 7 shots of the squid.) I also calibrated the camera’s manual white balance setting by taking a picture of a white piece of printer paper, held up near the candle on the table. For another photo that I did in candlelight, please check out Stephos Greek Restaurant on Davie).

Milestones (web site, 1109 Hamilton Street, Vancouver, BC, Canada, phone: 604-684-9111) is a popular and trendy chain restaurant with a recently renovated downtown Yaletown location. Click here for a review from my previous visit.

This time I enjoyed the Mexican Corvina Sea Bass (pictured below, $18.99) which their menu describes as, “lightly fried, seasoned with red chile salts and fresh lime. Southwest rice, tiger prawns, fresh spinach, bell peppers, cilantro-lime broth”. The dish was nicely presented and very tasty!

Mexican Corvina Sea Bass