Around the southern end of Main Street in Vancouver, you’ll come across the Punjabi Market. Around the northern end of Main Street, you’ll be surrounded by Chinatown. In the middle, stretching from Mount Pleasant to the Queen Elizabeth Park area, is a neighborhood that is getting increasingly trendy. You’ll find all sorts of interesting eateries, like Burgoo, as well as a never-ending supply of coffee shops.

If you’re the kind of person who is addicted to caffeine, then this is a fantastic neighborhood for you. There is literally a latte and cappuccino shop on just about every corner.It would be impossible for me to highlight each and every one, so I thought I’d start with the southern end of Mount Pleasant.

Here are a few places that you might want to check out if you’re looking for something a little better than fast food coffee. I hear that the iced coffee at McDonald’s is pretty bad.

Bean Around the World (website)
3598 Main Street, 604-875-9199

This place has some of the better drip coffee in town. There are a few scant outdoor chairs and tables for those of you who enjoy drinking their coffee while soaking in a little sun. It’s located sort of half-way between the two busier parts of Main Street, so there aren’t as many people-watching opportunities other than the folks coming to Bean Around the World to share a cuppa joe with you.

The Grind and Gallery
4124 Main Street, 604-874-1588

A perennial student hangout, The Grind is one of the few coffee houses this stretch of Main Street that is open all around the clock. The only other 24 hour coffee shop that I know about on Main is Waves, but that’s closer to Main and Broadway. The Grind has decent coffee and an assortment of pastries, but easily its biggest appeal are the long hours. Perfect for studying and the student camaraderie may help you increase brainpower and improve memory.

Salt Spring Coffee (website)

4295 Main Street, 604-875-9727

One of the greatest ways to avoid burnout as a work-at-home professional is to partake in a change of scenery. Salt Spring is distinctly West Coast Canadian and they even refer to an Americano as a Canadiano. In fact, that’s the drink that you see at the top of this post: an iced Canadiano with a shot of vanilla and a splash of milk. If you’re into the organic stuff, they’ve got you covered as well (the micro roaster is located on Salt Spring Island). And yes, there is free Wi-Fi.

Re-Entry Espresso (website)
4363 Main Street, 604-872-0844

As its name implies, Re-Entry does not serve any drip coffee whatsoever. They only do espresso-based drinks, so come here for your fill of lattes, mochas, and macchiatos. It’s not the biggest place in the world, but the booths are comfortable and the staff are among the friendliest I’ve encountered. You’ve got to try some of their fresh-baked cookies if you happen to catch them coming out of the oven too. Free Wi-Fi makes this a great place to temporarily relocate your office in the middle of the day.

Lan from Pho Lan can be quite the angry individual. For a decided change of pace, Stephen Fung decided that we need to stick to Vancouver and discover some happy pho. Seriously, Brian (Bryan?) at Cambie Vietnamese Restaurant (located near Main and King Edward) is the happiest restaurant owner I have ever seen. It’s kind of creepy, really.

In addition to myself and Stephen, other attendees at pho this week included Leo Chiang, Greg Morgan, and Fake Fatal1ty Yurechko. Missing in action was John Chow, because he decided to party in Surrey instead.

Vancouver is home to a lot of great food and the best part is that you don’t necessarily have to indulge in places with white tablecloths to have a nice meal. Sometimes, you may not be interested in foie gras and caviar. You just want some comfort food.

Burgoo Bistro is located right in the heart of the Mount Pleasant neighborhood in Vancouver, drastically renovating a location that once belonged to Subway. Burgoo promises to provide you with homestyle meals that are comforting and wholesome. Pricing is in the same range as a Cactus Club or Earl’s, with entrees going for about $15. The menu seems to have been inspired by the Southern United States, but there are several international dishes as well, like Thai Tom Kah Gai and French Ratatouille.

The interior looks like the inside of someone’s rustic home on the Mississippi and the outdoor patio is perfect for bright summer nights. There’s nothing like kicking back and sipping on a mint julep or an ice cold beer. Anyways, you’re probably interested in the food, so let’s get on with the pictures.

Susanne ordered the BLT & C sandwich. It’s an open-faced sandwich with bacon, romaine lettuce, tomato, white cheddar, and lemon parsley mayonnaise served on toasted filone. The bread was very crisp and I loved the sharpness of the cheddar. It wasn’t particularly special (or big), but it was good.

A salad usually accompanies the sandwich, but Susanne chose to upgrade that to a huge cup of Gazpacho Amarillo soup. This Spanish soup — with yellow tomato, chilled cucumber, fresh oregano, and extra virgin olive oil — is served iced cold. It was very refreshing, tasting almost like you were just drinking a cucumber.

I decided to take the ultra-traditional route, ordering the Kentucky Burgoo. Having a consistency and appearance similar to stew, Kentucky Burgoo consists of slow cooked meats, lima beans, corn, tomatoes, cabbage, and okra. I had it served over a pair of biscuits, but you can opt for mashed potatoes as well. Traditional burgoo is prepared with small game (like rabbits), but this version uses more conventional meat. It was very hearty.

After polishing off our meals, we were presented with the bill… in a dim sum steamer. This is definitely a little on the kitschy side. In any case, the total bill — including tax, tip, and a couple of drinks — came to $48. Aside from the Main Street location, you can also find Burgoo on West 10th and in Lonsdale.

Even though John Chow is back in town, Dot Com Pho was not relocated back to Richmond for last Saturday’s get-together.

It’s one of those things where one begets the other, but Stephen decided to take some initiative and move our weekly lunch out of Richmond last week for some dim sum. The East Vancouver area is just more central for (nearly) everyone involved — I believe the only Richmonders left are John Chow and Ed Lau — and the Vancouver staging of Dot Com Pho is even attracting the attention of mainstream media.

The East Vancouver focus continued on Saturday when I suggested we hit up Pho Thai Hoa on Kingsway. That part of town is filled with a lot of Vietnamese restaurants, but Pho Thai Hoa is easily one of the best. It’s reasonably clean and the soup base is terrific.

The scooter king continued with his video producing ways this week, giving the root of all evil the day off. Maybe John is taking my PhotoShop contest a little too hard. Among the diners at Dot Com Pho were Bonnie Sainsbury, Leo Chiang, Ray, Tyler Ingram, Greg Morgan, and everyone’s favorite Communist coder Jeff Kee.

Making a special cameo appearance was action star Sally Chow. Keep an eye out for her after the credits!

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The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and Dot Com Pho is tomorrow. Oh, and there’s that whole business about a touchscreen phone and free slushy drinks today, but those are all secondary to a great bowl of Vietnamese beef noodle soup, right?

As Stephen Fung mentioned on his blog, tomorrow’s Dot Com Pho will be located at Pho Thai Hoa in Vancouver. It’s located along the north side of Kingsway near King Edward. If you know where the Rona and Famous Foods are, then you’re in the right neighborhood. It’s right on the corner of Kingsway and Perry.

Anyone is welcome, but do let us know ahead of time if you are coming. The best thing you can do is send a “tweet” to stephen_fung, because he has that mobile update thing going on. You can also use Twitter to contact me as well, but I don’t have that mobile update thing. Alternatively, leave a comment on either of our blogs.

We’re gunning to arrive at around 12:30pm. Because it’s a new location for Dot Com Pho and the owners of the place aren’t terribly familiar with us, it may be in our best interest to show up on time (or early) to make sure we have enough seats. I vaguely recall there being some larger round tables there with lazy Susans, but I’m not 100% sure.

See you tomorrow! You’re not Internet famous until you’ve appeared on Dot Com Pho.

It took Stephen Fung a little longer than usual to cut together this week’s episode of Dot Com Pho for no reason in particular, but the ten minutes of intelligent conversation and hilarity are now available for your viewing pleasure.

Seeing how Ed Lau is still in Japan and John Chow is lost in a corn field, we figured that it would be good to hold last Saturday’s Dot Com Pho in a location other than Richmond. Vancouver is a little more central for everyone involved and as much as we enjoy Vietnamese noodles, we also figured that it would be good to change up the cuisine a little. We’ve had Dot Com Dim Sum before and fun was had by all. Nothing quite like MSG and steamed dumplings.

Pink Pearl Chinese Restaurant has been a Vancouver institution for many years. I remember going here for dim sum when I was still a young child. The ambiance, atmosphere, and “cuisine” have remained pretty much unchanged all of these years. Then again, there’s not much innovation when it comes to dim sum.

A hearty thank you to Gary Jones of BlueFur web hosting for sponsoring our meal. Thanks Gary! If you ever need hosting for your blog or website, BlueFur is the way to go. Use the coupon code “ilovepandas” to save 10% on any hosting package.