Blog - Your Restaurant Sucks

Through a comment on the blog here, I was made aware of the blog "Your Restaurant Sucks".   I like what I have read so far of the blog, he pulls no punches and savages places that are just not up to the standard we should expect.  He speaks to my take on this city vis a vis food.

The 'mission' statement for the blog:

We live in Victoria, BC, Canada, and we love dining out. The problem is, good dining and service in Victoria is hard to find. Yet, no one in our local media seems to want to uncover this dark underbelly of our restaurant industry. Our aim is to give you the straight, ugly goods - as we see, taste, smell and experience them.

We are not culinary snobs. We love a good diner and dive as much as the next person. Some of our favourite places in the city are burger joints and places specializing in fast, but well-made takeout food.

In addition to sharing our bad restaurant experiences, we will sprinkle in some good ones. Victoria is not a complete wasteland of tourist trap eateries and prosaic West Coast Cuisine pretenders. There are exceptions to the rule.

We welcome comments, and anyone who wants to submit a review, if it's negative enough, we will consider publishing it here.

I like the fact that there is an online foodie community coming together to share what we experience in restaurants in this city.   He is linking his posts to Urbanspoon, so we should have even better information about where to eat before we go out.

Amuse Bistro and Bakery in Shawigan Lake

To celebrate a success by Sheila in her new business idea, we went out to dinner last night.  Having my 23 year old niece is living with us for a couple of months makes going out easier.  

I heard that Amuse Bistro and Bakery in Shawnigan Lake was supposed to be a good place to eat and reading the review at Feast or Burden made up my mind to try it.

The space is not large, it is in a small converted house.  There are not a lot tables, but the various small rooms give it a wonderful ambiance.  There is also a very nice back patio as well.

The chef is Bradford J. Boisvert, an American with a record of being good, very good.   Few people get to take part in the American Bocuse D'Or.   He opened the restaurant with his wife Leah Bellerive in 2006.

Leah was the person that served us and she is a perfect fit for the restaurant.  She has a calm grace and a relaxed manner that enhances the whole experience.

The menu is short but focused on local fresh food.   It also changes constantly as different ingredients are available.  We were quickly seated and served.  After ordering we were given bread with a lentil or bean spread - I was not taking notes last night as I was too busy enjoying dinner with Sheila.

We got an amuse bouche of a white gazpacho before the starters.  It was a cucumber basil one and reminded me of how much I do like white gazpacho and really should make it more often.

I started with grilled spot prawns with lentils and a salmon pate/terrine.  Perfectly done, the prawns were on a bed of asparagus and green beans which was on top of the salmon..   Sheila had the house made chacuterie, some sausage and pate.  

Between the starter and main  we were given a lemon thyme sorbet.  A perfect scoop in a Chinese soup spoon.

Shiela's main was the cider braised chicken with a barley/lentil side - she had pickled veggies to go with it.  I had the roast lamb with white beans, asparagus and green beans.   The lamb was perfectly crusted on the outside and rare on the inside.   The lamb was tender.   This was one of the best dishes I have had in a very long time.  The white bean side was light in a way I can never manage with beans.   The use of lentils and beans throughout the menu has inspired me to try and make some dishes with them.  

We got deserts, Sheila had a cheese panacotta, I had a chocolate rhubard tart with a cranberry ice cream - big enough for two.

Drink - I had a nice gewurtztraimner for the starter and some Belgian beer the main.   The restaurant is the sort of place that is not pretentious and intimidating in a way that some upscale restaurants can be.   I did not feel foolish ordering a beer with the main and it went very well.

We both had coffees after dinner - locally roasted coffee from Moziro's two doors down.  The smell of the coffee was so good that we had to get a cup.   They finished the evening with two perfectly made truffles.

The price for our meal was quite reasonable, many lower quality restaurants charge more for their meals.

By my measure - can I do better at home?   Amuse clearly is not something I could ever easily do at home.  I will be going back there, ideally often.  There are few other places on the island that have the attention to detail and exhibit the definition of west coast casual dining.

All I can say is go there, try the place, you will not be disappointed.

An early morning visit to Fol Epi

I dropped by Fol Epi early Saturday morning with my son that is interested in being a baker.   I was mainly interested in taking some pictures, but also in giving my son a chance to see them at work.

Cliff runs an amazing operation.   He mills his own wheat, some of which will be grown on Vancouver Island this year.   Sounds like he will get about 15-20 tonnes and will be making flour available for sale to the public.

He told us that they start work at 3:00 am, Stephen did not think that was too early to start, so I may have a baker in my family in the future   Stephen is interested in high end baking, not run of the mill baking.   He wants to own the bakery.

I am amazed at the quality of his danishes, light beyond belief and not covered in a sweet syrup.  The bread it wonderful as well.   Watching him making it was interesting.

He bakes with a wood fire oven.   The look and feel of the oven is not like the typical commercial ovens in use elsewhere.  He has two small silos outside his shop for grain storage.

I highly recommend going in and checking out how they work.   You can look through the windows and watch.

Szechuan City Buffet Burnside and Harriet

Since I live only one block from this restautant and it is by far the closest restaurant to me, I like to be able to gohere.   Since the remodelding after it was closed for a couple of months, the place has been disappointing.  I went again tonight because it was walking distance, I was expecting mediocore food, I was pleasantly surprised, it was decent.

They had a good spicy squid.   The muscles were well done, there was a shrimp dish that was also well done.   The selection was larger than I had seen and it was more interesting than it has been.

We got  there at around 5:30 and it was quite full, clearly others have noticed the food has improved.   The last time I was there I managed to get a table easily.

Solomon Siegel is back serving cocktails - now at Veneto

OK, so it seems we will have to go back to Veneto to check out the work of Solomon Siegel,  I found this ad in this week's Monday Magazine.

I have issues with Veneto because the name and the style of food they claim make not sense in connection with the food they serve.  The food was decent enough, but I had some issues with it as well.  I suspect it would be worth checking out again as it could very well have matured.   I know, I have a very picky standard when it comes to fine dining.  They also suffered as I went to Poppy in Seattle almost at the same time.

Solomon Siegel operated Solomon's at the location of the Herald Street Cafe.  It was a cocktail bar done right, done really right.   He closed it done, I suspect because this town really is not ready for upscale dining and drinks.   We are after all a provincial town ;-)

He introduced us to Fentiman's tonic water.  They also do ginger beer, cola, lemonade and more and are very much worth finding and drinking..

Fresh Bakery and Bistro - 3115 Cedar Hill Road

On my way to pick up one of my sons from his mother's house, I stopped by Fresh Bakery and Bistro. This is one of the former La Colina locations around town during their sudden expansion.

I wanted to drop in for a coffee and some baked good, after it was no longer La Colina, Fresh was still a decent place to get a coffee and baking. Today not so much.

The americano I had was decent, I drink it without milk so I have trouble with very bitter coffees. The problem was the baked goods. The selection was limited and frankly looked heavy and clunky. I had a pecan tart, nothing to write home about.

The place seems to shifting from being a bakery to more of a restaurant.   I feel like they are aiming to be something like Fifth Street Bar and Grill.  The focus is more on the nighttime food and the beer.  They are also promoting watching hockey games.

They are advertising themselves with these rather cool retro 50s looking postcards.   I think they say a lot about the image they are going for.

I hate to say anything bad about staff, but the staff in there at 4 pm looked bored and disengaged.  I am sure they are nice people and a slow afternoon in a restaurant does not get anyone going, but the image they put across is one of not caring.

If/when I go back, it will be to try it for dinner, assuming that they rating number your see below rises over 70%.

Yoshi Sushi - 771 Vernon Ave, across for Saanich Municipal Hall

Sheila and I decided to grab some lunch out today and opted for Yoshi Sushi in the Gateway Centre between Vernon and Douglas.  

I have seen this strip mall area for years but never been in there.   I had heard there was a decent sushi place in there, but it was never top of mind when going out.   Today it made sense as we were over at Mackenzie and Shelbourne.

The plaza was clearly intended to be a retail location, but almost every storefront was more of an office than anything remotely retail.   Several government offices are located here.    Yoshi Sushi is located in the southeast corner and has lots of space to park - one of the reasons I vetoed going downtown for lunch.

Yoshi Sushi is relatively big inside and has a lot of tatami rooms.   The sushi is made upfront in view of everyone, something I always like in sushi place.  

We ordered a decent selection of maki and shared a large Sapporo beer.  The spicy scallop was the best of the lot.   The prawn tempura roll was too big and not well formed, it was clumsy to eat it, one piece was the end of piece you would normally discard as the trimmings.   We also noticed that the nori on many of the maki was torn.  It looked like someone was rushed and made basic mistakes.   We also had a spicy salmon roll, great flavour, but the pieces were not consistent in size.   There was also a problem with the coverage of the rice on the outside, there were spots that were spotty.

The flavour was decent enough, but not something better than other places in town.  The price is a bit on the more expensive side, though not unreasonable.   Our meal was $44 before tip, $9 of that was the beer.

On my number one scale to judge a restaurant - "could I do better at home?" - Yoshi does not pass.

If you are going to have a website, try to update your stuff once in awhile.    The events page has the last event in 2005.  Online they also offer a sushi club which entitles you to a 15% discount.