Dine Out Vancouver Festival: January 16 – February 1st

Local chefs and organizers are prepped for Canada’s largest food and drink festival. Presented by Tourism Vancouver, the 13th annual Dine Out Vancouver Festival features more than 270 of Vancouver’s best mix of restaurants offering three-course meals at $18, $28 or $38 plus lots of BC VQA wine pairings.  The 17 days festival also includes a delicious selection of flash-in-the pan events crafted by Vancouver’s top chefs, restaurateurs and food experts.

Here’s a look at what’s on:

• International Chef Exchange. What happens when you combine two internationally acclaimed food festivals? An out-of-this world dining experience! Join Dine Out Vancouver Festival and the Brighton and Hove Food and Drink Festival for a one-night-only collaborative dinner prepared by Executive Chef Matty Bowling of the U.K.’s award-winning Terre à Terre restaurant and Executive Chef Felix Zhou of The Parker.
• Neighbourhood Brunch Crawls. Six Vancouver neighbourhoods are featured in these delicious and quirky “Vancouver Foodster” curated tours.  Grab your “passport” and hit all the stops, tasting your way through each neighbourhood’s hidden breakfast hotspots.
• Secret Supper Soiree. Vancouver’s most unique culinary road trip features a two-act tour full of cannapes, wine tastings, cocktail samples and a full sit down dinner.  Travel around the city on a doble decker bus and experience a dining adventure like no other.
• Street Food City IV – Vancouver’s original food truck fest returns for a fourth year on the front plaza of the Vancouver Art Gallery.  For seven days, take a mid-day break to sample from more than 20 of Vancouver’s food truck vendors.

• Mamie’s Southern Feast Longtable Dinner. Ditch the winter blues for a three-course, family-style Southern dinner at Mamie Taylor’s. You’ll feel like you’re sitting in Mama’s kitchen with a menu of deviled eggs, biscuits smothered in Bourbon butter, fried green tomatoes, scalloped potatoes, whole-roast suckling pig (carved table-side) and Mississippi Mud Pie.

• Robbie Burns Whisky Supper. Celebrate the birth of Scotland’s favourite son as Café Medina owner Robbie Kane and Executive Chef Jonathan Chovancek mark Robbie Burns Night with a three-course, family-style dinner paired with cocktails prepared by internationally acclaimed bartender Lauren Mote.

You can also choose from 25 Vancouver hotels offering special Dine Out room rates starting as low as $78, plus a number of exclusive “Dine and Stay” packages that are sure to please. Here’s a look at this year’s highlights:

• More than 20 hotels offering rates of $78, $108 and $138 (plus tax; based on double occupancy,).

• The Listel Hotel’s Forage & Feast package includes accommodation; a two-hour rainforest walk and edible food identification tour led by Executive Chef Chris Whittaker of Forage restaurant; 10-course West Coast winter tasting menu; preserving workshop that will teach attendees to make and preserve IPA mustard and jam; foraging and preserving welcome gift; tickets to various Dine Out events and more.

Visit dineoutvancouver.com for all the details.