3 Best Cheap Restaurants on Kingsway

What these places lack in ambiance, they make up for in delicious, budget-friendly fare

Credit: Flickr / JiMong

When your stomach starts grumbling and you’re on Kingsway, head to one of these three restaurants

Kingsway Avenue is home to three of the best restaurants in Vancouver, and they’re all budget-friendly

If you haven’t discovered the paradise of cheap and tasty eats that is Kingsway, drop what you’re doing and make the trip.

From Fraser to Joyce, you’ll find some of the best restaurants in Vancouver along the oft-forgotten Kingsway Avenue that are among the cheapest restaurants in town. The following three have proved time and again that they are worth going back for.

Sal Y Limon Mexican Cuisine, 701 Kingsway (Fraser & Kingsway)

Located in a non-descript strip mall at Fraser & Kingsway, Sal Y Limon keeps it simple, cheap, and tasty. Focusing on the basics like tortas and burritos, Sal Y Limon makes fresh and honest Mexican food to eat in or take out, all in environmentally friendly packaging, too.

I highly recommend the quesadilla with cheese and lamb marinated in cilantro (“queso y cordero al cilantro”). The cheese doesn’t overwhelm the delicately seasoned lamb, and topped with one of the many fresh house-made made salsas, it’s the perfect light lunch or happy hour meal.

Pair it with a Jarritos soda or one of the many other refreshing Mexican sodas available at Sal Y Limon. For only $8.25 plus tax, your wallet and your tummy will be humming happy mariachi tunes all night.

Green Lettuce Restaurant, 1949 Kingsway (Victoria & Kingsway, next to TD Canada Trust)

Ready your taste buds because you’re about to experience the cheapest and tastiest fusion food in Vancouver. Owned by a Chinese family that grew up in India, Green Lettuce’s menu is a blissful and unique marriage of spicy Indian and Chinese cuisines. Packed every night with diners and a line-up of take-out customers, the secret is obviously out that this is one of the best restaurants in Vancouver.

The hot chilli dumplings are definitely delicious and definitely hot, so have a glass of Hong Kong-style iced coffee handy to calm your taste buds after taking a bite of this appetizer. The signature Green Lettuce fried rice with chicken and shrimp is also not to be missed and will last you three meals easily.

If you order take-out, you save 10%, and there’s also a location in Surrey if you live on the other side of the Fraser River.

Tung Hing Bakery, 1198 Kingsway (one block west of Knight)

Fresh Asian baked goods for less than $2? The best Vietnamese subs in town for under $4? Yes, please. At Tung Hing Bakery, you can purchase a delicious honey garlic sausage Vietnamese sub with crunchy fresh vegetables and herbs, like daikon and cilantro, on a freshly made baguette, a salty sweet BBQ pork bun, and two buttery egg tarts that are so bright they look like they’re smiling at you for under $8.

Gobble it all down on a leafy side street in the neighbouring Kensington-Cedar Cottage community.

Looking for something a little different? How about one of Vancouver’s best greasy spoons or sushi restaurants?