NealAndMel

Hello folks !
First post, treat me gentle.

We've got our one way flight booked to Vancouver in May armed with PR and looking forward to fun and frolics in our new life. Have lived our whole life in London (we're fast approaching 50) so looking forward to having a go at it in a new and different city (and weekend skiing Whoop Whoop )

Very interested in peoples personal experience of those foods from home that they miss? I'm sure there's a thread somewhere but I can't find it with the search.

We mainly cook fresh from scratch, so broadly the same meat,fish and veg (better steak & fish?) and am sure we can buy the necessary curry spices. Looking forward to trying the different veg varieties that will be around.

Expecting to miss:
A good cup of tea (Amazon to the rescue?)
Unsweetened bread (buy a breadmaker?)
Brown sauce
Baked beans
I can take or leave marmite
I'm taking my coffee bean to cup machine (and a step down power thingumy)
European style chocolate?
European style bacon
A good whisky (but checking out the whisky thread)
I know from previous visits that beer isn't going to be an issue.

What else in your collective wealth of experience?

Hawkmoon77

Hi and welcome to BE.

Tea - you can get Tetleys / Yorkshire Tea here no probs from main supermarkets. Orange Pekoe = your standard cuppa.
Baked beans - buy the 'british style' Heinz in supermarkets & no bother there
Marmite is available, but pricey
Bread we buy from a local baker

Don't buy the rest.

I miss pork pies & decent cheese (at affordable prices)
And fish fingers that haven't been minced to death.

Shard

Welcome aboard! A few foods you might miss, but lots of nice Asian (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) foods to explore.

Atlantic Xpat

All of those things are available (some for a price) in the small city I live in on the Far East coast. One imagines they'll easily be available in the metropolis of Vancouver.

Shard

I thought you guys just ate whale blubber?

Atlantic Xpat

Cod testicles

NealAndMel

One of our reasons for choosing Van - we've found amazing places on previous visits.

NealAndMel

Excellent ! Thanks. Glad my preconceptions and memories are worse than the reality

NealAndMel

Thanks.

Cheese worries me. Canadian cheddar YES, but worried about my extreme taste in hurty blue cheese!

Scotch eggs, pork pies and sausage rolls I'll miss , I'm sure I'll find the local dirty food equivalent. I'm pretty sure some of the "artisan" bars & food places in gas town will have some attempts at these.

Howefamily

You can get the hurty blue cheese in NS for a fee, I am more than sure you will be able to find it in Vancouver
And what you will find is a wealth of new food to try. If you like dining out look for a TV show called "You gotta eat here", covers Canadian restaurants, hole in wall establishments and everything in between.

dbd33

Toronto's not Vancouver but here I think the only food that's eaten in London or in France that's hard to find here is jellied eels. There's a lack of good Mexican restaurants but I suspect that's true of London. Some "foods" from remote corners of the UK, mushy peas and reformatted offal dishes such as blood pudding, might be hard to locate. I haven't looked.

Moses2013

Jaysus, even when they import tea they get it wrong. Where's the Barry's TeaAh luckily Amazon have it https://www.amazon.ca/Barrys-Gold-Bl.../dp/B0001SVZGE

NealAndMel

That'll be on the watch list, love new food and experiences.

Edo

For tea, you can find PG Tips at Sobey's. For a price. But unfortunately there is no Sobey's in Vancouver. However, Save On Foods has recently enhanced their British offerings in a special isle marked as Tesco (guess the king of creative accounting will be supplying all the good stuff to British Columbians through Save On). I hope its not too long until they start shelving some PG Tips in there.

beckiwoo

If you want good cheese (Chedder) go to Cost-co. They sell Dubliner and Colliers. The price is generally ok (around $10 for 300g) sometimes Dubliner is on offer