Seeking recommendations for a Sunday brunch Venue near the Y in Vancouver

[willsaway]

A small group of us Aussies are staying at the YWCA Vancouver over consecutive Sunday's. We are boarding on a "3 ship" day, and taking @martincath excellent advice to board later. We have a late checkout. I had planned on Medina, as have brunched there some years ago. But we don't relish paying for the privilege of a reservation (tipping is bad enough for us),  nor an hour's queue. So, 2nd or 3rd choice option gratefully sought please, within walking distance. Our first Sunday there we're opting for the Sky Tower's Brunch.

[martincath]

Sunday, Medina queue is insane without those resos (which do go to charity BTW, in case that makes a difference...?)

 

Chambar is where Medina began - utilizing the empty kitchen in the then-dinner-only resto - but the success of Medina led not only to them moving to their own space, but also Chambar adding their own weekend brunch service with a somewhat similar menu... smaller, but frankly it spanks Jam Cafe (on the same street, and the absolute pinnacle of Not Worth It brunch queues) six ways to Sunday. Head straight up Beatty, look for the Skytrain station, the big steps behind it, and the (in nice weather) delightful outdoor beer garden space is Chambars - their interior is also large, so these days staffing is definitely the limiting factor in terms of any wait time rather than lack of available tables.

 

Also not far, and while it's best for Happy Hour IMO compared to brekky, is Homer St Cafe - their house specialty has always been rotisserie chicken but personally I've found that their house-cured pork belly is the real big hit, we've been dining here since they opened, had pork belly every meal, and it has always delivered... while I'd personally rather pay the charity fee for Medina, I've had a brekky or two here and can recommend both the sammiches and the biscuits'n'gravy. Really my only beef is that they cost as much as Medina but aren't quite as good...

 

One relative bargain spot, but with the caveat that I know there's been a change in both management and staff since I last dined, is Uva - the wine bar under the Moda Hotel. Back in the day this was a fantastic spot - home-made black pudding even! - but always under the radar. These days the menu is much more compact, but a decent size sit-down fried brekky for under $20 incl tax is virtually unheard of in a Vancouver resto!

 

The other real bargain I can suggest if nobody is fussy about table service is A&W - they're not just the least-bad fast food resto chain in general, they offer almost a Full English for barely over $10 a head. The only thing really missing from the Full Canadian is black pud - you get hash browns, streaky bacon, snags, eggs (cracked & fried to order, not patties!), beans, tomato & toast, and no social obligation to tip as it's counter service! Closest one is on Robson, just west of Homer, very short walk.

 

Not sure how readily you can find black pudding in Oz, or if that's a thing you'd all enjoy, but if so the Irish Heather in Chinatown is a bargain at $17 for both black AND white pud as well as bacon, snag, eggs, toast, mushrooms and beans (and if you were going to do any sightseeing around Chinatown in the morning it's convenient, do stuff, eat brunch, then head to the pier). Or maybe do 'Chinese brunch' - dim sum! A few options, with Victoria on Melville and Kirin on Alberni both being pretty close to the pier.

 

Last possibility I'll mention is super convenient for the pier - De Dutch Pancake House, at the other hald of the Convention Centre. Great portion size for the price, the only reason I don't go to my local one more often is the lack of a 'dutch baby' style pancake on the menu (to be fair, German rather than Dutch origin but super-common across the whole PNW).

 

Edited August 20, 2023 by martincath

[willsaway]

As usual, your suggestions are spot on. If I told my companions we'd be up for another $100 (oz $$), on top of menu, and then a tip, irrespective of good causes, they'd throttle me with their support stockings. So I do thank you, especially using the "budget" word. We'll be back on yet another Sunday a week later, on a side to side ( your prior advice to take off for the day) so I'll keep the pancake place for Sunday No 3.

As to black pudding, not unlike Vegemite, it's an acquired taste, so pass.

Nice to communicate in real time. Any budget dinner tips also welcome.

Sue

[martincath]

7 hours ago, willsaway said:

...As to black pudding, not unlike Vegemite, it's an acquired taste, so pass.

Nice to communicate in real time. Any budget dinner tips also welcome.

Sue

Well, for the ultimate savings you could make use of the Ys kitchens and make your own brekkie from grocery store bought stuff? I recall whipping up simple egg dishes at the Y myself on our first visit, a few rounds of toast with an omelette or cheesy scramble and we were set for the days wander! There was a decent selection of pans, plates etc. Both Vegemite and Marmite are stocked by several chains of supermarket & drug store BTW 😉

 

Dinner-wise, Happy Hour in general is where the bargains are if you can manage to eat on the earlier side (rare to go beyond last orders at 6pm); Chinatown is probably still your best value dining around downtown: Chinatown BBQ deliberately charges low prices to maintain affordability for the local senior population, and with a group you can take advantage of the large platters to share; New Town Bakery isn't just the famous apple and egg tarts, they have a sitdown resto through the back with pretty modest prices (though they close early, 7ish IIRC?); Phnom Penh (no website content - they don't need one! Yelp has up-to-date pics of the menu though...) has generous portions, with 6 people you might get your own table, everything shares well, and at almost fifty years in the biz to still have queues nightly is all you need to know about their quality and value!

 

Not just because you're Aussies who might be missing a parm, but also because the pricing is very decent for downtown - Moose's Down Under is the local Aussie watering hole, and while they do expect tipping the baseline pricing is about as good as it gets for pub grub in the core... with a decent 30% off across the board for appies before 7pm every day also one of the most generous Happy Hour policies.

 

You could also get a couple of big pizzas delivered, or for even cheaper buy premade fresh pizzas at grocery store and cook them in the kichens, then eat them up on the rooftop patio at the Y? For something a bit fancier than Pizza Hut and their ilk, but not as annoyingly hipster as needing certification from Italy, I find Straight Outta Brooklyn a good fit - you can pre-order for a specific time, pick up at the Robson branch and walk them back to the Y in five minutes, and while at ~$20ish for a pie they're not cheap they are much better value than most of the artisanal places with good, robust flavours (my wife looooves their white pie, I prefer the classic pepperoni but find there's actually too much meat!?, so I peel off about a third of the slices, she puts them on hers, we swap a slice, we're both very happy bunnies).

[Meander Ingwa]

18 hours ago, martincath said:

De Dutch Pancake House,

How could a place with a name like this not have Babies???!?  That seems seriously wrong.  Personally I were in the area I would head for Dim Dum in Richmond, but that does not satisfy the original criteria.

[martincath]

15 minutes ago, Meander Ingwa said:

How could a place with a name like this not have Babies???!?  That seems seriously wrong.  Personally I were in the area I would head for Dim Dum in Richmond, but that does not satisfy the original criteria.

You're just spoiled down in WA, where every pancake place and it's granny has babies on the menu... what a horrific sentence out of context!!!! 😉

 

De Dutch claims to be authentic - and Babies are like the Germans of Pennsylvania, a corruption of Deutch rather than actually-Dutch. More scandalous given they're in Canada is no maple syrup - just Stroop, a caramelized sugar syrup (I'm also not a fan of their version, it's too burnt compared to anything I ever had in the Netherlands - they claim it's deliberately dark, but then so do Starbucks to excuse their over-roasting of everything except the Timmies-clone Blonde Roast!) When I have visitors we usually end up in De Dutch at least once, but I always go savoury so the stroop's avoidable!

[OrcaGirl]

A couple of other brunch options within walking distance of the YWCA:

 

Fable Bar + Diner, 755 Richards St (directly across the street from Medina)

 

Le Petite Belge, 340 Robson St

 

OEB Breakfast Co., 1137 Marinaside Crescent (opens at 7am and you've got about an hour before the line gets crazy, or you can put your name on the waitlist via app before walking down; if the weather's nice, I order their breakfast poutine bowls for pick-up and walk over to Cooper's Park for a brunch picnic)

[em-sk]

On 8/20/2023 at 3:51 PM, martincath said:

You're just spoiled down in WA, where every pancake place and it's granny has babies on the menu... what a horrific sentence out of context!!!! 😉

 

De Dutch claims to be authentic - and Babies are like the Germans of Pennsylvania, a corruption of Deutch rather than actually-Dutch. More scandalous given they're in Canada is no maple syrup - just Stroop, a caramelized sugar syrup (I'm also not a fan of their version, it's too burnt compared to anything I ever had in the Netherlands - they claim it's deliberately dark, but then so do Starbucks to excuse their over-roasting of everything except the Timmies-clone Blonde Roast!) When I have visitors we usually end up in De Dutch at least once, but I always go savoury so the stroop's avoidable!

 

While I am a fan of De Dutch, they are not quite very close to YWCA.  As a kid my parent use to take me to the one in Kingsgate Mall (that has now long closed).  Still a favourite.

 

Jam Cafe 556 Beatty St, is closer.  They have a southern US theme to them.  (https://jamcafes.com/).

 

Edited August 22, 2023 by em-sk

[Milhouse]

Just to throw another option in the mix...

Earl's has a limited weekend brunch menu but includes a typical bacon & egg plate, chorizo hash dish, benedicts, and omlettes.  We've gone a few times as I think the dishes are made well (but they aren't massive if that's a criteria).  

A couple of bonuses:  Their brunch happy happy hour runs until noon which includes both discounted food (~$3-5 off) and beverages.  They also take reservations.

Their Yaletown location is about a 10min walk from the Y.  Their test kitchen is about a 15min walk but apparently currently has apple dutch baby pancakes as a test item.

 

FWIW, if you have access to a phone, Medina will call you when your table is close to ready so you don't have to stay physically in line (at least that's my most recent experience a few weeks ago, though on a weekday).