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You Need to Try This Perfectly Composed ‘Cobb Salad’ at Kitsilano’s Bel Café

You Need To Try This is a running archive of all the awesome drinks and delicious dishes we’ve come across over the course of our professional and private lives.

By-the-book Cobb Salads are rare. Most of the iterations I find on menus these days have been messed with somehow, the core ingredients disrespected or substituted with chefs adding their own flourish for the sake of making it their own. That’s fine, of course, as these can be delicious in their own ways (witness the Fried Chicken Cobb at Red Wagon), but in my opinion and experience they just can’t beat the original 1930’s classic. You can find a pretty fair exemplar of the California Cobb here in Vancouver – with grilled chicken, lettuce, chewy bacon, tomato, boiled egg, corn, blue cheese and avocado all doing their harmonious thing – at chef David Hawksworth’s Bel Café (currently just the Kitsilano location is open for takeout). It doesn’t have the complete compliment of salad greens that the Robert Kreis original calls for (missing endive and watercress, I believe), but history tells that it was born as a post-shift staff meal, sourced from a line cook’s leftover mis en place — so minor alterations should be acceptable! Visually, each element is proportioned and arranged with care, and this is true even when ordered in takeout form (as seen in the photo above).


Bel Cafe (Kits)
Neighbourhood: Kitsilano
1780 West 3rd Avenue

An Updated List of Where to Grab a Weekday Breakfast Around Vancouver

We've compiled a (non-exhaustive) list of our go-to breakfast joints to share with you, where you can get something beyond coffee and a muffin.

Vancouver’s Best Fries: Nine Versions

Although the origin of French fries may be implied in their name (more likely, Belgian, though), the food has since been picked up and modified by almost every cuisine going. Here are our choices for some of the best versions in Vancouver.

Expert Intel on Vancouver Area Dumplings

William Liu from Kam Wai Dim Sum shares his favourite dumplings and where to get them just in time for Year Of The Dragon celebrations.

The Tricky Business of Finding Vancouver Restaurants Open on Monday

It's the beginning of the week. You want to meet friends for a meal (or just don't want to cook), but so many restaurants are closed that figuring out where to go only leads to frustration, compromise, or a sad frozen pizza... No more! This updated guide is here to help.