Thursday, April 30, 2009

New plantings in the garden

I bought the apricot tree a few weeks back and it is doing well, lots of green shoots.

This week I planted six blueberry bushes. My aim is to have enough to allow us to be able to get a pound a day in the peak season. I am not sure I have enough for that, I will see in a year or two.

There are 60 strawberry plants in the ground, about 60 garlic plants as well. I have spinach, basil and lettuce sprouting. The seed trays have numerous cucumbers, pumpkins and zucchini happening. I will be planting this along the sidewalk on Maddock street to try and get rid of the lawn there.

Four of the peach trees from last year are doing well, one is sickly and one died. No blossoms on them yet, they are still very young. I hope for some fruit next year.

Pictures in a few days on all of this

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Romano's Macaroni Grill - on Douglas outside of Mayfair Mall

Monday night we had a long day with many frustrations and at 6pm we had nothing ready for dinner. We decided we would go out for dinner. Our first choice was Floyd's @ at Douglas and Burnside. But is was closed, that may have been a Monday night thing, but it might also be closed for good, I have no idea.

We had walked so were considering where to go next and after some thinking decided on the Macroni Grill. I had always thought this was part of a chain and of the same quality as White Spot and others of that ilk. It is owned by a larger company, The Spectra Hospitality Group, but it is a one off.

It was not busy for a Monday night, but it was also not empty. The service was very good and made us feel valued as customers.

I had the calamari fritti to start and was not thrilled, the breading was not what I like on calamari, though the aioli that went with it was very good. Sheila had a starter salad which looked good and tasted good.

As a main I had the penne with spicy sausage and peppers. It was well done, but there was a lot of it, enough for two adults. I like the fact that spicy really means spicy, this was not some weak hint of heat, there was good heat here. I would most certainly order this again.

Sheila had the chicken parmesan. I was not interested in that as it was heavier than I wanted for a meal and honestly I had still not gotten over the horror chicken parm I had at Romeo's in Broadmead. Her meal was very good as well, but once again very big.

We had litre bottle of San Pelligrino, which was reasonably priced. Sheila had a margarita which was good. I also had a beer and the price was crazy $8.49!

Total bill for two - $70

We will go back, but I suspect not order booze.

Romano's Macaroni Grill on Urbanspoon

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Kuku's East Indian - 24 Burnside Road West

Last night we decided not to cook, the boys were off to Catherine's and we walked over to the new restaurant in our neighbourhood, Kuku's.

Kuku's is at Burnside and Harriet and is just in the process of opening. At the moment they are only doing take out food in the space that used to be Balkan Pizza - those Albanians did a good pizza and miss them being there. They have also taken over the space next door that was the Muffin Girl and working to make it a sit down restaurant with a buffet. They have some, though not all, of the permits from Saanich in place. Saanich does not seem to be interested in making the process of red tape for small businesses or homeowners very easy. There is no sense of the municipal staff being there to help people get things done. The owner of Kuku's talked about how much he had already had to spend on the permitting process.

The place was busy at just before six last night, almost a line up out the door. We ordered a lamb curry, butter chicken, garlic naan and vegetable pakoras. It took them 20 minutes to get it to us, so we just went for a walk with Max.

Inside they have a display case filled with various Indian sweets.

We got our food and took it home. We should have had some rice with it as well.

The butter chicken was amazing, I highly recommend getting it. The pakoras were also wonderful - crispy, light and moist inside. The flavour of the lamb curry was good, but some of the meat was tough and could have used more stewing time. The garlic naan was so light on the garlic that I could not taste the garlic - maybe they gave us regular naan.

I am looking forward to being able to take a seat inside soon. I would love to invite guys from the Victoria Buffet Blog to come join me as soon as I here it is open.

Kuku's on Urbanspoon

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Update on Sezechan City on Burnside Road. This high quality Chinese buffet restaurant has been closed for a few months for renovations, or so the sign says. The outside has been very, very quiet and there has been no evidence of anything going on inside until this week.

Earlier this week lights were on inside and there was a large dumpster full to the brim with stuff from inside. Looks like something is happening there. I will look in the windows this weekend and see if there is anything else to report