Eating Victoria- Food Blog and Eating Guide

Spoons Diner
2915 Douglas St.
250-382-5111

I have always been curious about Spoons Diner. I go by it on the bus every day on my way to work. I tend to avoid restaurants inside of hotels with the exception of a few hotels downtown. BUT, I had a Groupon for Spoons, so I invited a colleague of mine to come for brunch/lunch with me last month.

Spoons has a Floyd’s-ish influence, and it definitely fits in with the whole diner theme. It was very casual.  The servers were both women, and a bit rough around the edges, but I like that. Straight-shooters, down to business, and a bit of crass humour. Love it. Great coffee off the bat, and they filled it up without us asking.

I asked her what the special was for the day, and it sounded intriguing. Sufferin’ succotash eggs benedict. I’ve heard the term succotash dropped on tv food shows but I didn’t know what they were referring to. Essentially a succotash is beans and corn. Succotash most typically is lima beans with roasted corn, originating from the Narragansett language , msickquatash, meaning ‘boiled corn kernels’. Beans and corn are definitely not something I would have thought of pairing with eggs so I was excited to try it. SB tried the steak benny. While we waited for our food, we passed the time by with a few games of Trivial Pursuit trivia cards that were on our table, filthy but whimsical.

The food arrived and they were huge portions. The eggs were poached just how I like them. The hollandaise was better than most I’ve tried. The beans and corn were genius, I’m going to have to try that at home.
This is a no-frills diner, but I would definitely come back for breakfast. It felt welcoming and I was pleasantly surprised by the food.

Cheers

-Eating Victoria

Cabin 12
607 Pandora Ave.
250-590-1500

After reading reviews on other food blogs, and numerous reviews on Urbanspoon, I figured Cabin 12 was worth a go. I wanted a treat for breakfast, alas I was left with a trick rather than a treat. The worst part was paying for it. The space itself has been many businesses prior, which added to my initial skepticism to going there. But I enjoyed the eclectic decor, an aesthetic like Floyds. Is it just me or does Victoria have the highest concentration of hipsters per capita?

When I arrived there was only one server for close to 7 tables so I wasn’t expecting top notch service. There was obvious delays between each interaction. She was nice enough, but after taking my order I didn’t see her until I left. I ordered an eggs benedict to try out their hollandaise sauce. It sounded good, but I was underwhelmed when I received it. Nothing made it different, just a generic eggs benedict. The worst part was the hollandaise was cold. Usually hollandaise is served above luke-warm but not too hot, otherwise it will split. This sauce had no flow to it, just gluggy thick butteriness. The next strike was how the eggs were prepared. One was completely hard and lacking the creamy yolk if any was even left. The next disappointment was the hashbrowns. All different sizes of potatoes equals different cooking times. Some were overdone, some were still crunchy inside. These are all rookie mistakes. And this is a breakfast place? Three strikes you’re out. The worst part was no one came to quality check me. With tip, this gongshow(eggs benny and a beverage) came to 19 dollars. Highway robbery. Who is making the food pricing for this place? Sure it is relatively comparable to other breakfast places,the difference is they can actually deliver something consistent. I thought maybe they were just having a bad day, but some other Urbanspooners echo my same concerns. It didn’t seem like any of the staff could be bothered to do much other than the bare minimum. I’m going to stick to cooking breakfast for myself at home and make the same breakfast for a quarter of the price.

Avalon Cafe
1075 Fort St.
250-385-2129

I was hungry the other day for a nice breakfast, and my friend JH recommended that I try out Avalon on Fort. My first impression once I stepped inside was that it was quaint and cozy, a typical cafe set-up. I ordered some tea($1.75),and the skillet breakfast($9.95) which had peppers, mushrooms, onions, and meat over potatoes with scrambled eggs.

Positives: The two young ladies serving were very friendly, and they were efficient. The food came out quick, and everything was very fast, including the bill being brought to me. I liked the scrambled eggs, veggies, and potatoes. The oaten bread was nice, homemade which I appreciated.

Room for improvement: The quality of the sausage and ham was not up to snuff. The sausage was almost like a weissewurst style, but it had no texture, it was very uniform and soft, processed is the word that comes to mind. The ham had the same texture, mushy and not a lot of flavour. The bacon was fine, but the ham and sausage should be replaced with a higher grade product to compete with the other breakfast places in town. The rhubarb strawberry jam had a lot of flavour and I liked the taste, but the consistency was so runny, it wasn’t really a jam. Lastly, when I was looking around waiting for my food, I saw that all the artwork on the walls were for sale. That’s great, but the labels were kind of gawdy, perhaps printing out smaller labels with prices on them would look more professional.

Avalon is a cute little cafe when you don’t want to wait in line at the Blue Fox. The service staff are friendly, and everything is really quick.