Eating Victoria- Food Blog and Eating Guide

The Black Hat
1005 Langley St.
250-381-2428

This was one of the most exciting restaurant visits of the month for me. The Black Hat,  was arguably one of the most anticipated new restaurant openings in downtown. The space is second to none. The renovation and rejuvenation of the building is beautiful, an open and welcoming conceptual lay-out.

Recently, I ate at chef/owner Sam Chalmers restaurant in Oak Bay, Bistro 28. He cordially invited me to come try out his new baby, The Black Hat. My friend JP joined me, as I knew he would appreciate some of the more meaty options. I looked at the menu posted on their website (http://www.theblackhat.ca/) just to see what I was getting myself into.

[ Just a note of some of the confusing parts/sp? on the menu:
'Torchon or Foie Gras', is it supposed to be Torchon of Foie Gras, or is it a choice of preparation?

Serano chili= serrano chili

'Cerviche'= ceviche, seviche, or cebiche

The disclaimer at the bottom of the menu states that the Black Hat ' strives to be as local, seasonal, and sustainable as possible", yet they feature a jaw-dropping Wagyu tasting?

Also the staggering amount of raw preparations, I definitely haven't seen this done before in Victoria, ceviche, crudo, tataki and tartare.

But what stood out to me most, was that as a vegetarian, I wasn't going to have a lot to choose from for dinner.]

I ordered a beer to start off. First impressions of the room, I enjoyed it. The tables were beautiful, not crazy about the chairs. Not a huge fan of the amateur photo’s of women in bowler hats in the mens bathroom either.

Our server was a nice girl, presentable and smiling, a touch on the nervous side. She accomodated my request for the wagyu meatballs and spaghetti to just be a veggie spaghetti. My company ordered the chicken stuffed with chicken liver, over a fine brunoise of roasted celeriac and apple, with a celery and fennel salad and shallot jus.

Verdict on the food: I’d give mine a 7/10. The pasta had a really nice texture, so that was the star of the dish. For $21, I found the portion to be quite small, especially because for 3 dollars more I could have had it with Wagyu meatballs? Explain that food cost to me. The sauce the pasta was tossed in was more of an oil than a sauce, so by the end of the dish my tongue was coated in oil. There were heirloom cherry tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant, mushrooms, onions, red peppers and good quality parmiggiano. Don’t get me wrong, it tasted good, but it’s nothing memorable. At the end of the day, it’s a small bowl of pasta, and somewhat pedestrian.

JP had the chicken roulade($26). It was presently beautifully, the plating reminded me of how Ulla does their plating, on a long rectangular plate. The knife skills were the star, good crispy skin on the outside too. My only criticism would be about the chicken livers. Maybe this is just a matter of taste, but when I previously ate offal, I would like it prepared in a way that I knew I wasn’t eating it ( in a mousse, terrine, sausage, or chopped up). Perhaps The Black Hat is very purist, in that they kept the chicken livers whole when stuffing the roulade.

For the dessert I had the S’mores. This was clever, absolutely bleeping delicious. This was a great interpretation of a classic, jujjed up with sick pastry skills. It was a layered chocolate dessert, with a milk chocolate mousse, shortbread crust, dark chocolate ganache, and piped marsmallow that had been bruleed, garnished with some raspberry coulis.

The menu reads pretentious the first time through. But I think I understand what Mr. Chalmers is trying to do. He’s bringing classic dishes and preparations to Victorians, with good ingredients, and sometimes there’s a bit of a twist. And I commend him for that. I don’t agree with having so many raw dishes or Wagyu beef on the menu, both because it’s been done to death and I think it’s time to move on. Sure, having crazy expensive pampered and extravagantly-fed beef is exciting for Victoria, but when it’s flown half way across the world, it seems kind of gimmicky. I guess you could have the same argument for any imported products. 

The service wasn’t very confident. For example, when I ordered a glass of ice wine to go with my dessert (upon recommendation from the sommelier/bartender), our server asked me if I wanted that in a 5 ounce size, when very clearly on the menu, all wines and ports are 2 ounce pours. Furthermore, I received my dessert before my ice wine, subsequently waiting close to five minutes for the wine to arrive. That was really the only downfall of the service that night. The server was friendly, but just didn’t know the menu front to back, which is acceptable because the restaurant was still fresh out of the gates.

Would I come back here? Hmm.. I have mixed emotions about that. For 50 dollars, I don’t know if I enjoyed it that much. I would honestly come back for the dessert. Having had both the vegetarian entrees( the farro risotto that I had at Bistro 28 and the veggie spaghetti) I really don’t have many reasons to go back to The Black Hat to eat. I don’t go out to fill up on salads. The atmosphere is cool, and it would be a nice place to have a few drinks and dessert.

Drinks: 8/10
Entrees: 7/10 for mine, 8/10 for JP’s
Dessert: 9.5/10
Service: 7/10
Ambiance: 9/10

Overall I wish Sam and his crew a lot of luck. It takes someone with a lot of courage and drive to open this type of restaurant up. That’s one thing you can see when you dine here, the passion and dedication the people involved possess. I look forward to seeing how The Black Hat does in the future. Try it out and support a local business.

Cheers

-Eating Victoria

Marina Restaurant
1327 Beach Drive.
250-598-8555

I have tried most of the restaurants in Oak Bay, so The Marina Restaurant( Oak Bay Marina) was on my to-do-list. JB’s mothers birthday was about a month ago, so we planned to take her out for dinner. The Marina is in a stunning location, with great views of the water, nice big windows in the dining room. The price is definitely on the higher side, but considering what it is, an oceanfront restaurant that serves top-notch OceanWise sustainably caught seafood, it matches the price. We started off with a couple of bottles of wine,( we were a party of 9), and some people had oysters and crab cakes. The server we had seemed new, as his voice was quiet, which is kind of a faux pas when serving large tables. You need to be a strong communicator and command the attention of the customers when needed. Unfortunately, this server disappeared into the background quite literally, we rarely saw him. The bread served was nice, still warm, great homemade flavour.

The amount of time it took for our food to arrive was close to an hour for mains. In any other restaurant this would be considered crazy, but to serve 9 mains, most of which are seafood, and to be properly cooked is not easy. All the food came at the same time, with some mixed reviews but overall positive outcomes. I had the only vegetarian dish, a Gnocchi dish alla Romana, which was made into rectangles, a soft pillowy interior with semolina. It was served with roasted tomatoes, arugula, olives and lemon ricotta. I enjoyed the flavours, it was clean and tasty. My only complaint would be that I was waiting for more lemon flavour from the ricotta, it was hard to receive. The rest of the table enjoyed their meals, with the exception of some of the meat being a bit on the overcooked side( the pork and beef), but all the seafood was properly prepared. We also had desserts, and I was impressed with them all.

Overall grading:

Food- 7.5/10
Service- 6/10
Ambiance- 8.5/10

This place is great for a treat, but don’t go expecting the food in a rush, or top-notch service. There is room for improvement on the service end, especially with our table being over 400 dollars. It would have been nice to see some personality or even a bit of engagement from the staff.

Cheers

-Eating Victoria

Bistro 28
2583 Cadboro Bay Rd.
250-598-2828

This was a real treat, one I had been looking forward to for a while. When I visited Bistro 28′s website I was discouraged by how few vegetarian options there were, but I wanted to see how the restaurant was anyways. It’s a very small restaurant, maybe 10 tables with some bar seating. Everything was modern, clean and attractive. There was only one server working the entire restaurant which made it even more intimate, and he seemed to be on the ball, although as a server myself, I can imagine that at times it could be quite hectic and stressful for him. I ordered a gin cocktail, and my friend had a beer. The only vegetarian options I saw were salads, but the server gave me the option of having a side-dish usually served with the tuna as the main. It was a farro prepared in the style of a risotto, which sounded like a nice change from what I am accustomed to in restaurants. Farro reminds me of israeli couscous, but I just used wikipedia to research it. It seems to be an umbrella term for types of whole grains in Italy, some people use farro interchangeably with spelt, wheatberries and einkorn. Bistro 28 prepared it with red wine and porcini mushroom broth. It had a bit more chew than I was expecting but I thoroughly enjoyed the flavours. The dish was garnished with sprouts, fresh tomatoes, parmiggiano shavings, olive oil and olive tapenade. The ingredients were simple but very good quality. I remember the aftertaste vividly as I type this review, the rich red wine and fruity olive oil still linger on my tongue almost a month later, it was a delight to eat. The server mentioned that if I called ahead of time the kitchen would be accomodating in preparing a vegetarian entree for me. I will take them up on that offer. My company for the evening A, had a nice salad with citrus segments, and a cheeky take on ‘dry ribs’. Bistro 28 used pork belly, cooked beforehand I’m assuming, then fried at the last minute and tossed in coarse salt and pepper. It smelled amazing, little chunks of fatty pork belly reminded me of my meat-eating days. I won’t lie, I was extremely tempted to eat meat when I saw those bacon-y morsels. I impress myself with my will-power sometimes haha… The dessert we had was like a chocolate mousse, with a rhubarb sauce and fennel seed honeycomb. Great mix of flavour sensations.

This restaurant is quality with a capital Q. Very exciting food. I was inspired reading the menu, a lot of adventurous flavour combinations and preparations. Does anyone else know about the new restaurant opening downtown from Bistro 28, called Black Hat or something?

Food: A
Service: A-
Ambiance: A

Check it out for a special evening, and make reservations!

Veneto Lounge
1450 Douglas Street.
250-383-7310

JB and I went over to Veneto to try out their $30, 3 course Dine Around menu. I’ve been to Veneto over five times now, and they have consistently delivered great food, and generally good service. We ordered a couple of beers and rattled off our orders. For the first course I went for the duck poutine, and JB went for the creole onion soup. The poutine was nice, not a heavy gravy, more of a jus or broth. The onion soup was outstanding, almost like it had been thickened a bit, but the flavours were singing. I would order a big bowl of that.

For the second course , I had the pepper-crusted New York strip steak with a brandy demiglace and frites, and JB had the chicken with blackberry ancho sauce with yam mash. The steak was cooked exactly how I like it, but I found the peppercorns a bit overwhelming, and the portion on the small size. The veggies were nice and fresh, but they weren’t all cooked, some were still quite crunchy/raw. The chicken dish was a knock-out. I would never have thought ancho chipotle and blackberries would be a viable combination of flavours, but I was wrong. Verdict: Lip-smacking good!

For dessert I had the kahlua creme brulee with a Bailey’s glazed mini-doughnut. JB had the peanut butter brownie with bananas. Both desserts were tasty, but I found the doughnut a bit dry. The brownie was very moist. If I were to do the Dine Around again, I would order everything JB had. The onion soup, the chicken, and the brownie. For 30 dollars you get to try some fun combinations of flavours.

Service: 7.5/10
Food: 8/10
Ambience: 7.5/10

Camille’s
45 Bastion Square
250-381-3433
www.camillesrestaurant.com

A friend of mine raved about Camille’s, I didn’t know where it was, I must have walked by it over 50 times. She convinced me to go. I waited much too long, it blew me away.

This meal was a complete surprise. The entire experience couldn’t have been more enjoyable. I owe her one.

Camille’s is situated in Bastion Square, if you venture down the short flight of stairs  you’ll enter a quaint, cozy, and luxurious dining setting.

I forget which night of the week we went, it may have been a Wednesday. There were only a few tables when we entered, but the room was full of food-related banter and romantic gazing. My friend J had so much faith and trust in this establishment, it was inspiring. She inquired if the kitchen was doing a tasting menu, which our server replied, ” The chef can prepare one for you.” She proceeded to ask if J had any dietary restrictions and/or allergies in a very professional manner. Given that J was having the five course tasting menu( all of which was a complete surprise, course-by-course), our server suggested that I order an appetizer so that I am not watching her consume food without me for a few courses. This made me crack a grin. I opted for the scallop appetizer, and the scallops much like the rest of the menu, was a local and sustainable option from Qualicum Beach. She thoughtfully asked if I would like her to pair wines for me throughout the evening. I agreed to have a glass of white wine with my appetizer.

J’s first course was a pork rillette, similar to a pâté, with some nice bread , mustard and pickled cauliflower(multi-coloured). My scallops arrived with her next course, a rustic borscht with a beautiful creme fraiche. The portion was generous, and it was intentional, as the servers had observed we were sharing our food, me being the greedy and snoopy foodie that I am. The scallops were delicate without a heavy sear as they are typically served in most restaurants. I think this was strategically prepared by the chef to match the mouthfeel of the shaved artichokes, tomato confit and fennel seed chips( almost like pappadums).

The pairing was perfect, if I recall correctly, a Naramata Ridge Chardonnay, not too dry with a subtle sweetness which complimented the sweetness of the scallops.

J’s next course was a plump and succulent sablefish from Hecate Strait( Queen Charlottes/ Haida Gwaii). The portion was extremely generous, considering her entire 5 course tasting menu was only 60 dollars( 90 dollars if you would like to pair with wine, which is very reasonable for the quality of product and service). The fish was beautifully buttery and flakey, with a flavourful tomato consomme moat around it, crispy chorizo chips, accompanied with a dill and kale salad. It was divine.

My main course was a duck breast with roast garlic and eggplant puree, brussel sprout leaf slaw with crispy pork belly, beets and carrots, yam gnocchi and quince chutney($30). Just describing it again makes my mouth water. The skin was crispy, the meat perfectly pink, and the flavours were incredible. The quince chunks coupled with the crispy pork belly bits was a bonafide foodgasm.

Our server had mentioned that a Pinot Noir would be the perfect match with this dish. I declined and said that I would have another drink with my dessert. She brought a complimentary tasting of the Pinot Noir with my duck entree because it would really add to the experience. It was very thoughtful and it threw me off. The level of service exceeded my expectations. The wine was rich with cherry tones, and it really did add to my experience and tasting of the dish.

J’s fourth course was a beef tenderloin with parsnip puree, yam hash, and sous vide beef tongue. When our server first described the dish, I thought I heard her say beef tallow, so I expected little bits of soft fat. But we were confused when we started eating it. Upon collecting our dishes which we nearly licked clean, she commented that we enjoyed the tongue. Shocked and laughing, ” I guess we did!”. The tongue was so soft and it was a great way to try tongue for the first time.

So far, J’s tasting menu was 4 for 4, I tasted all of them, and I was in disbelief. Could it be? A restaurant with a chef so talented, that he could consistently deliver a calibre of food so high. I was impressed.

For our dessert, J received a dark chocolate semifreddo( a frozen mousse) which translates to ‘half-frozen’ in Italian.  The texture was beautiful, smooth and rich, and there was some crunchy bits, maybe a brittle to contrast the smoothness. I ordered the citrus cheesecake. It was spiced with nutmeg and cinnamon. It was dangerously smooth, no lumps, and I think I tasted sour cream. It was a mild citrus flavour, but it still made its presence known. Our server informed us that she makes martinis , so based on her performance up until then I took her up on it, and ordered her Yuletide martini( 2.5 oz total, combination of Frangelico, Espresso Vodka and Goldschlager). She also brought us a blackberry port-style wine from Alderlea vineyards on the island, and a hazelnut sherry for tasting fun to go with our desserts.

 The generosity and knowledge of our server, coupled with the expertise of the chef, made this was one of the most memorable meals of 2010 for me. I look forward to going back and going on a culinary carpet-ride, with local ingredients and staff that really go the extra mile.

I really can’t fault anything major about the experience. The only constructive criticism I can give is:

-I found that the Men’s bathroom didn’t match the rest of the restaurant, could use a bit of touching up ( e.g. the wall art was crooked)

- One of my pet peeves is seeing mint leaves on dessert plates, I didn’t try it with my cheesecake, who knows it may have enhanced the flavour, but for garnish it makes me cringe

- In my duck dish, as much as I love starch, I really didn’t think the dish needed the gnocchi, They were an adorable shape, but I found the texture to be a bit gummy and they didn’t have much flavour.

- lastly, I know this is nit-picky, but my white wine was brought before my appetizer, and by the time my appetizer came with her dish, my wine was lukewarm. The server probably didn’t want me to just drink water while my friend was eating, so this was just a bit of a timing issue.

Really those critiques aren’t even that important. I had an amazing time, and keep posted for my next visit. This is the perfect place to take someone who loves food, wine, and supporting a great local restaurant which shows off local ingredients.

Thank you Camille’s!

Cheers

Vista 18
740 Burdett Ave.( 18th floor)
250-382-9258

I have been to Vista 18 over four times now, and you may have noticed from my recent reviews that I am started to lose my patience with restaurants in Victoria, Vista 18 is one of those restaurants who is poking me, pushing my buttons. I’ve had some good desserts here, and the drinks can be good too. I had a full dinner here a couple of weeks ago before seeing the symphony perform at the Royal Theatre. I’ll try and keep this short, but believe me, I could go on for a few pages.

The drink I ordered was good( I think it was called an Antioxidant), and the bread basket was actually really nice, warm seedy breads, with an olive butter. The service was actually good. We had a table of five, and we ordered appetizers and a bottle of wine along with cocktails and dessert( over 200 dollars for the bill at least), so I’m glad the service was up to par. The food in my opinion didn’t live up to the price though. I commend the Chef for using local ingredients. We had mussels, spot prawns and an order of yam/sweet potato crisps for appetizers. The crisps were tasty( especially the dipping sauce) but I would have prepared them to be served hot( right out of the frier) rather than cold. The prawn appetizer was a laughable portion on a mountain of bread, and I found the sauce to be quite fishy. I didn’t try the mussels, but they were good from the table census.

The most intriguing and most annoying detail of the evening was actually the same thing, the tasting menu. The menu appears to be three courses, with an option of salad or soup, an entree and dessert for $20.99. My friend and I were impressed with the price, so we decided to do that. When the server came to take our order she then informed us that $20.99 was the price for two out of three courses. What? So we ended up having to pay for a dessert on top of it, so it make the price more like $32.00. What an idiotic and misleading strategy to hook customers into that trap. The salad was pedestrian, didn’t surprise me at all, the dressing was bland. My friend liked the steak, but I thought the portion was small, and the quality of the meat was mediocre. The dessert we had to pay for on top of the two courses was very delicious, and well-prepared. You can see where I stand. I liked some aspects of the meal, but why can’t it all be outstanding? I don’t think I will go here again. 50 dollars of my hard earned money for a relatively blah experience. The decor is kind of outdated too, but who knows, maybe people keep coming back for the spectactular view. This place has a lot of potential, but I think next time, I will try a cocktail at Clive’s downstairs.

Cheers