hile Vancouver proper seems to have its share of contemporary Asian restaurants, North Vancouver is still lacking. There’s plenty of Korean, Thai, Japanese and Chinese restaurants, but none that have ambitions of menus filled with dishes that span that corner of the globe. Leo Lee (a Korean born in Japan) has decided to diverge from a single country theme with his newest venture – East Zone Eastern Grill and Bar.

Located in the newly built space at 1227 Marine Drive (at Pemberton), East Zone travels to the Far East with dishes such as lettuce wraps, Hainanese chicken rice, sushi rolls, curried mussels as well as some nods to Canadian pub food (try the wild cock! – hot wings with blue cheese).

The space has 140 seats and is reminiscent of Cactus Club or Milestones. Vince Klassen (ex Keg, Cindy’s in West Van and the Caprice) is working on the bar menu. So far there are some interesting sounding cocktails, a decent beer list and premium sake selection will work nicely with many of the listed dishes. The kitchen has set out to do some ambitious globe trotting.