Richard Wolak, an openly gay Vancouver-based food writer and podcaster, whose influential VancouverFoodster.com celebrated its thirteenth anniversary this year, certainly had opinions and dish to share during our dinners together.
It’s been three years since my previous visit in August 2019 during Vancouver Pride (vancouverpride.ca), so there’s even more to catch up on, including the highly anticipated, conversation-stirring (and polarizing in some circles) inaugural Michelin Guide’s Vancouver edition, in which just eight venues earned one star. Shocking given how amazing the foodie scene is (honestly, almost any stranger off the street can rattle off opinions about where to eat), but that’s a big ol’ literal and figurative mouthful we’ll get to later.
As with many cities globally, some things have radically changed here since the pandemic, both good and not-so-good, with openings, closings, and shake-ups. Most dramatically, Vancouver’s Chinatown suffers from the same urban decay as, say, San Francisco’s Tenderloin district, yet many passionate, philanthropic locals and entrepreneurs are actively trying to revitalize the neighborhood and find solutions for less fortunate dwellers.
One is Carol Lee, a…
