Chai Gallery

To me Chai is the most pleasant restaurant in vancouver. The atmosphere is fantastic. It’s relaxed warm, and wellcoming. Chai’s energy is so relaxing that it helps you unwind from weeks of hard work.
The food is very well prepared. It has all the art, warmth, and energy from various areas in the east. I especially like the food in the east is east. Their buffet is very diverse including many delicious food appetizers and desserts.
Most of their ingredients in organic. Their water is filtered. Their Chai is fantastic. They have gluten free options. They are the best. I never get any food allergies when I eat in Chai restaurant.

Had my 30^th birthday here at the Chai Gallery Lounge. Originally wanted to have it at the East is East restaurant but they weren’t able to accomodate my party of 40 so they suggested Chai Lounge. It was a buffet style and I was a bit skeptical of having a buffet but it was too late to look for other options.
The night went great. The atmosphere was really unique with wooden stump stools and loungey seating. There was live music. The waitresses were very accomodating and pleasant to work with. Chai samples were handed out to everyone.
I hate the idea of «buffet» for my birthday but the food was great. Everything was fresh, hot and full of flavour. There was a salad/​fresh fruit section which was great as well. For $ 25 per person, it was a lot cheaper than most places for a party this large and I enjoyed being able to move around easily and catch up with everyone since it was a casual environment.
All in all, I had a great time here for my birthday and would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a spot for a large group.

This place markets itself as ‘green’ — organic food, hippie style, charitable, yoga, recycle, and all the ‘green’ jargon you can think of. The restaurant is a long-​ish room with wooden benches/​stoools along each side of the wall, rustic looking walls (made to look like they were made of mud), and Persian carpets lining most of the room. I do like the feel of the room albeit uncomfortable seating (their benches and stools are hard and pillows, far from soft). The ambiance is unique — you have to give it that. Nowhere else in Vancouver can you find someplace like this. You have live bands that play unique instruments like the tabla to entertain you, flamenco dancers gyrating through the night, impressive partner yoga demonstrations, and individuals reciting Rumi poems (yes, pretty deep! :p). Depending on the night, you might see a hodgepodge of performances but they are all fairly unique. The fact that their band members also look/​sound like foreigners also add to the exotic-​ness of this place. For ~$ 30, you get all you can eat dinner. I find it a little steep given the variety (or lack thereof) of the food. Some are yummy, others palatable. Dessert is typically fruits, chocolate mousse, and rice pudding which is my least favourite (tough for me to have rice for dessert when rice is my staple growing up). Entrée also depends on what they have for the night — it changes and I have had overcooked fish. I have heard their chai is tasty (chai isn’t exactly my cuppa tea!). If I have friends visiting Vancouver, I do like to take them here. It’s a different kind of experience (in a good way mostly) if you don’t think too hard about whether or not you believe in their marketing/​philosophies. Just go, be entertained, and prepare to overpay. After all, I do find myself overpaying in Vancouver, so heck, if I’m going out, I brace myself and focus on FUN! :-D

Well, the atmosphere is nice and creative, more towards Native American styles. I was impressed by it, BUT the low stools and the super low tables are designed to send you to a chiropractor for a few weeks to come.
The food is OK if you are addicted to pepper. This place categories itself as Afghan and Persian, but I found only one Persian dish (I am Persian myself, born and raised) which tasted a little like the original cuisine with A LOT of pepper.
I eventually left with a sore throat and an upset stomach.
They should call it Mexicanized Persian, which is not Persian tasting at all.

One of the single best dining experiences in the world. Seriously. I felt like I had been transported to another place and time. The food is exquisite and such an incredible value. The most romantic place for a date. If you want to say «I’m cultured and love the best things in life» take your date or your friends to Chai. If you come to Vancouver and don’t go there you’re missing one of the most special things about this world-​class city… Whenever I’m in town from San Diego, I go there, have hosted large parties, and they’re always so accommodating.

My date and I had decided to avoid the line up at Naam and headed up to Broadway in search of a restaurant with good vibes and low volume that would allow us to have a good conversation. We walked at first into East is East, and the server offered to show us upstairs to Chai Gallery. She gave us a brief overview of the buffet service, desert, how to order drinks, and the cost. She showed us to a seat, where we were able to enjoy live sitar music, followed by live music of some other oriental guitar/​lute like instrument I wasn’t familiar with, but was still just as beautiful.
First of all, I have to say the décor here is phenomenal. I grew up in the Middle East and this is the first time since moving to BC that I have experienced a place that felt ‘authentic’. Designed after elements of the Silk Route, an ancient route of trade that connected Asia to the Middle East and Europe, the gallery is a feast for all the senses. Sight, sound, taste, touch, smell.
The food was phenomenal, and the chai speciality drinks even better– a lemon ginger chai with brandy, and a darjeeling chai with baileys.
The only complaint I would have was that the seating wasn’t as comfortable as it could have been– we were sat on a bench that didn’t have a lot of cushioning.
It was the perfect place to spend an intimate evening.

I’m not overly happy with how transparently obvious this restaurant has been in trying to tap into the yoga pants and nag champa cabals of the westside. I would be all in favor of dedicated restaurant run by people who are, well, yogis, and deeply serious about health, wellbeing, nutrition, and sustainability. Chai understands the consumer opportunity in pretending to offer versions of such virtues — but that’s all you’ll get, mood not substance.
And I mean you have to be in the mood to find it groovy here, which it can be if you’re willing to suspend geographic belief — because they’re a rather contrived vibe here of ethnic indulgences of the facsimile variety. The staff looks like last year’s grad class from Kits High: young, blond, and attic-​room pale. It’s very vanilla, in flavor and skin tone, despite its pretensions to the mysterious Middle East. They hit that theme a little hard, and the effect is more like a Victorian colonialist’s diary than an evening in Mysore. But that’s their vibe: like or no. This place markets itself as a distilled elixer of the Silk Road, more Aladdin’s lamp than Akbar’s own, and the paisley cushions and tree-​trunk tables make it more appropriate to a Haight/​Ashbury museum. It’s fun, if you’re into it. Pretentious, if you’re not.
Food is very good: not the cornucopia of discovered treasures of the mysterious east, as they want you to think. .. but more like «Fusion Cooking for Intermediate Chefs» kind of level. It’s tasty, with a handful of vegetarian options, but overpriced.
At the end of the day, it’s still basically kebabs, rice, and bread kind of basics. Vegetarians will do all right here. Vegans? Forget it. You’ll have to be VERY careful. And what is beyond cloying are the cheap appeals to esoteric tantric knowledge: ‘our chai is aryuvedic’, I was told. Whatever that means? It has spices in it? Uh huh. Wow. I am bowing to your arcane knowledge.
Live music is a plus: there’s a top caliber sitar player here, and some passable flamenco. Again, with the dimness of the room and the heavily perfumed ambience, it might be a fun date place. But it’s not exactly cosy: it’s rather cramped and claustrophobic.
On a personal note which will be of relevance to some readers — and undoubtedly a cause of nasty mirth in others — I received very poor treatment on account of being a transgender woman. Although staff knew my name (I was on the guest list), and it’s quite obvious from my attire, my server insisted on calling me ‘him’, ‘he’, and ‘sir’ throughout the evening. Some readers will find this amusing, no doubt, and I’m used to that, sadly. But it wasn’t cool. You don’t have to subtly undermine a person’s humanity like that. When my really nice friend stepped in to say, «Erica is a ‘she’ «– the server rolled here eyes in a mixture of disdain and disbelief. It was extremely uncool. It was definitely not cool. And when I first wrote a review about this incident on another site, a flame war erupted — probably instigated by someone at said establishment — that included me being called a ‘tranny’ and that people like me (ie: trans women) should pack up and leave the city. It was in fact some of the foulest language I’ve ever had used against me in which my trans status was invoked as a negative: «It’s hard to tell with you trannies,» I was told. And it confirmed my suspicions: ‘spirituality’, as long as you can wear it or eat it. Compassion? Virtue? None of the Yogi’s Benevolence like they make themselves out to be. It’s a shame: the food was reasonably nice enough that I would have returned. Obviously, I won’t.
I appreciate the last paragraph will be of little interest to the vast majority of readers. But it was a degrading and dehumanizing experience that I would not wish on anyone. There are plenty of Indian and Persian restaurants in Vancouver, with chefs who are from — you know — India or Iran. This isn’t trying to be any of those, however: it’s niche positioned itself as a montage of ethnic ‘encounters’, and so performs as a tableaux as much as a restaurant. Chai offers a Disney-​esque kind of magic carpet ride, which will no doubt appeal to many who are too intimidated to venture outside of Kits. A shame — with a little more soul, and a lot less glam, it could be somewhere really intriguing.

I haven’t been to Chai in quite a while, but when I do go, I definitely try and hit it up on a Wednesday night. Why you may ask?
They used to host a fundraiser for ‘Children of War’ & ‘World Vision’ every Wednesday night from 7:30pm-1:30am at a flat rate of twenty-​five dollars, but I’m not sure if this still goes on.
The night is complete with food from, I believe it was seven, different countries in the Middle East, four different types of Chai, as well as live music and dancing entertainment.
The food was indescribable; as a Middle Easterner myself, I was glad to see that they employ authentic chefs from the actual countries that were offered at the buffet, rather than an American-​fusion take on the cuisine.
The place is decorated from floor-​to-​ceiling with rugs and soft pillows– truly rep’ing the Middle East’s home and café seating arrangements.
Recommended Main Deal: try everything at their buffet.
Score: sugar and spice and everything nice.

The word «atmosphere» may appear frequently in this review; it’s because when you’re at Chai Gallery, you feel almost transported to another part of the world. Above East is East on Broadway, Chai Gallery is unlike almost any other place I’ve visited. Wonderful food, a variety of chai, live music, and a great atmosphere.
There are few chairs or tables (at least up front); most seating is on large pillows on the floor or blanketed benches at the sides of the room. It’s not a bad thing; it adds to the atmosphere, and may get you talking to your neighbours.
The food was outstanding. It’s a buffet, so we were able to try a variety of dishes, yet there was nothing we did not like. I can’t think the last time that happened to me.
As for the entertainment, there was live music during and following the meal, and it, too, was excellent and well-​suited to the atmosphere. A belly dancer even performed for a few minutes.
The $ 29 (if you’re in a group, $ 35) price excludes drinks (though you do get one sample of chai) and may seem a little steep, but being a buffet, you can go back for more [excellent] food, and really you’re not just paying for the meal, you’re paying for a whole evening’s experience, which makes it a bargain for the price.