Gassy Jack's Neck of the Woods
byBefore moving downtown a few years ago I had only ever been to Gastown [wiki] a couple of times. Aside from being a usual destination for out-of-towners the majority of my experience included hitting dank ol’ pubs for nights of sticky shoes and Irish music. Times have changed and there’s more life in that corner of downtown, no longer is it solely for tourists and the downtrodden, although the combination of the two is a little perplexing. You have geeks and hipsters toting their Macs to the cafe, passing by trendy restaurants while BMW’s breeze through spewing the essence of Yaletown egos from their tailpipes.
The neighbourhood has character, I’ll give it that, and the history is beyond compare [Gastown.org][Warehouse Studio]. I’m looking forward to exploring more facets of Gastown – starting with the food.
One thing that I’m still searching for is a great lunchtime eatery since I’m now working a fancy new job on Water Street. I put the call out on Twitter the other day and Roland [RolandTanglao.com] [Twitter] was gracious enough to share some knowledge, which of course I have to pass on.
There’s Blake’s Coffee Parlour (221 Carrall St), Salty Tongue (213 Carrall St), and Fetch’s Hotdog Cart which can be found at the corner of Water St and Abbott. At Brioche (401 West Cordova) you can get pastries, coffee and soup and Roland recommends Jules Bistro (216 Abbott St) for great steak fries. There are even more choices when you take a short walk into Chinatown, such as Newtown bakery (John‘s personal favourite is the spicy steamed pork buns).
I have yet to try any of the above, except for Newtown, but I’m looking forward to all the possibilities. I’m used to being within close proximity of a food court and I’d be pretty happy not to see another for a very long time. Above all I’m pretty stoked about exploring a part of town that is less than familiar, be it for the food, the history, the people, or the blog fuel.
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that’s a great picture of gastown, rebecca!
great post!
yes spicy pork buns (ma laht bao is my bad transliteration of the Cantonese) forever!
don’t forget special B also!
Please IM the next time you go to New Town, maybe Richard and I can join you!
I’m going to try and check those places out when next to the hometown I visit later this summer.
Do you feel that now you’ve moved from burb to inner town, you look at the `burbanites coming to in-town a little differently?
Hm, well I went from living in the burbs, to living in Boston, then back to these burbs. Then I moved to Vancouver (Kitsilano area), and am now in the West End of downtown. It was a strange jump all over the place and I definitely cut the folks from outside of Vancouver a lot of slack, it’s the downtown people that I worry about sometimes :p
Nobody, well very few people , actually grew up in Downtown Vancouver so it’s not as though the people that live there are actually ‘from’ there. Most are transplanted from other parts of town,other parts of the GVRD or other cities altogether.
Want a reasonably priced drink while you’re in Gastown?
Stop by the Black Frog – Water St. at Cambie by the steamclock.
Don’t be spooked by the Oilers memorabilia, many Canucks fans have been known to raise a glass there. 🙂
[…] based out of Gastown. I’ve been blogging about my discovery of the neighbourhood ever since. Where to get lunch, what to see and do, and where to get a great sammich. Well yesterday our company moved out of our […]