Ocean Garden

No. 127

Located at the corner of Government and Fisgard, I consider it the most "tourist" oriented of the restaurants in China Block.

If you ever walked by it, you will see that this place is usually full of non-Chinese. Yet, the signs are written in Chinese and English.

I wasn't sure what to expect. The place is large, clean but feels run down. Its best times are long past.

The lunch menu is massive. Items range from 7 dollars to 10. As I have learned, at Chinese restaurants I avoid the preset lunches; instead I try to find interesting dishes in the menu. Its menu, like it is frequent in Chinese restaurants, is really a bunch of "combinations": do you want rice or noodles? soft noodles or crispy noodles? do you want pork, beef, shrimp, seafood, chicken? do you want sauce X, Y or Z? It would be significantly easier to decide if the provide a "choose one of each" type of menu, rather than listing every possible combination.

I settled for "Schezuan prawns on rice".

The dish is huge, full of vegetables, but too much sauce on it. It disappoints. It is messy and lacks good flavours. There is nothing special about this dish. My suggestion? there are better restaurants in the block, hence avoid, unless you are looking for a lot of cheap food.

Surprisingly, the restaurant always looks busy from the outside. Go figure.

Verdict: Avoid

Paid: 10 + tip

For more information, including address, please visit:

John's Place

<2010-10-04 Mon>

No. 122

John's Place is located in Pandora, few meters from Douglas. It is a local's favourite.

Having woken up at 5:00 AM to take the first ferry to Victoria from Vancouver, I was very hungry at 10:00 AM.

Lively and noisy was my first impression as soon as I stepped in. The restaurant was playing very loud music, and it was surprisingly full for this time of the day.

John's Place is a "full day" restaurant, that offers a large breakfast menu.

John's place is a visual feast too. Like Pagliacci's, one can't stop looking at the walls. It is full of posters and photographs that cover music, sports, and entertainment. Here and there you can find photos of "John". The center piece is a large mural of the now defunct Tiger Stadium in Detroit. Under it, the wall is peppered with photos of famous players of the Tigers. No other subject is as heavily represented. John must be Tiger fan, I reckon. There are Canadian icons too: a photo of Joe Carter running the bases after his famous home run that gave the Jays the World Series (I still remember that moment, soon after the roar in the neighbourhood caused by the play--I was living in Jay's territory at the time); a faded poster of Gretzky in his early years holding the Stanley Cup along Geoff Cournall.

The breakfast-lunch is populated with pancakes and eggs. I ordered the "John's Special": two scrambled eggs with chorizo patties. The eggs were dry, the patties had only a faint flavour to chorizo, but a heavy one to cheap grease. It was a forgettable breakfast that makes me wonder: why is this place so popular? The other two times I have eaten here I left wondering why I did. The food has always disappointed me. The food, in my opinion, does not deserve this restaurant's popularity. And this is a question to you, the reader. If you like John's place, would you mind explaining me why?

Verdict: Avoid

Paid: 9.24 + tip

For more information, including address, please visit:

Shiki Sushi

<2010-09-21 Tue>

No. 111

I was prowling for a place to eat when I saw the restaurant. I was surprised, because I could not remember it being there. (Update: it used to be on Fort St, to next Beirut)

As I entered, I was shocked: this didn't look like a typical Victoria restaurant. It had a certain "posh" feeling. First, it is a very large place, very large. The tables are sparse, with lots of space in between that is occupied by planters. The sits are leather chairs, they are very attractive. The back of the restaurant is dark, intimate, and contrast with the bright area close to the windows.



I ordered the sushi-sashimi special (the most expensive special). The soup was ok, but I was surprised when a bento arrived. First, the entry in the menu wasn't labelled as a bento, second it was small, too small--I thought--for what i was going to be charged.



It included 2 hokkigai, 2 hotate, 3 maguro, 3 sake, all of them relatively small. In fact, as I looked more carefully, the one hokkigai was split right in the middle, to artificially increase the number of pieces.



The rice was covered with gravy. I don't like it, and I wish they would ask before they do it.

The sushi and sashimi felt average, and were overpriced.

Verdict: Expensive, average food. Avoid.

Paid: 16.74 + tip

For more information, including location, please visit:

Pagliacci's

<2010-09-02 Thu>

No. 95

In online-reviews, Pagliacci's is a well-liked restaurant, but I don't understand why (at least at lunch time).

In the positive side, the place is one of the most interesting to visit. Every cranny is filled with a photograph or art work that is worth looking at. No matter where you sit, you cannot stop looking around.

This is also one of the densest restaurants in town. Your table is right next to another two or three. I don't mind it, and actually, I sort of like it. It makes it feel alive. Not only it has lots of tables, the place is packed all the time. It is not uncommon to have to wait for a table. I was there at 1:30 and it was still full.

I ordered their Chicken Chickadee. This dish is chicken breast served
on pasta, with a soup.



The soup was lentils, and it was ok. It had the acidity common in canned tomatoes; the parmesan garnishing was a very good accent to an otherwise forgettable soup. It was accompanied with slices of focaccia; unfortunately it was oily and very salty and I didn't enjoy it.

The chicken was served with a sauce made with shrimp and artichokes. It looked very good. As I usually do, I smelled it. And smelled it again. Something was wrong: I had to get very close to the dish to really feel any significant smell. This was odd. My brain was telling me that this had to smell, yet it barely did. Was my nose loosing it?

I started eating it and discovered that it not only lacked smell, but it lacked flavour. How in Earth, could they create a dish so rich in ingredients, and make it taste so plain? The only words I have to describe its flavour is frozen food. The chicken chickadee tasted like a frozen dinner.

The food was abundant. In terms of amount it sounded like a good deal, but it was flavourless. Why is Pagliacci's so popular beats me.

Verdict: Lunch that tastes like frozen dinner. Avoid.

Paid: 14 dollars + tip

For more information, including address, visit:

KFC Hillside

No. 89
<2010-08-27 Fri>

I suspect I am not the only one who has fond memories of going, as a child, to Kentucky Fried Chicken. I used to love their mash potatoes with gravy.

While the corporate name is now KFC (some argue it is to avoid the non-so-healthy word "fried" in their name), this one still has the old "Kentucky Fried Chicken" emblazoned in the outside. As I entered, I was surprised to see that this one is really a take out place. There are some stools with around a high bench, a park bench (yes, a park bench), but no tables. The place was almost empty (it was around 1:20). It feels like this restaurant has seen much better years in the past. Today it feels run-down.

Like McDonals, I felt totally lost trying to decipher their menu. I ended ordering a 2-piece special, with salad and mash potatoes (included a drink, but converted it to water).

The most remarkable part of my visit was the quality of service I had. The two ladies that served me are probably underpaid, had no motivation from tips, and yet they were ultra friendly, and I got excellent service from them.

I got my food, but the stools were taken, so I had to eat standing. One piece of chicken was enjoyable (leg), the other not (back of the chicken). The salad had a green radioactive glow. Both the salad and the potatoes had an artificial flavor, and didn't ate much of either one. I think the next time I am at a KFC (there is no next time at this one) I'd just order the chicken, and it will be the non-crispy version. I don't think this chicken is worth this level of security for its recipe.


Verdict: Avoid

For more information, including address, please visit:

J & J Wonton and Noodle House

<2010-08-24 Mon>


No. 85



I used to eat lunch at JJ around once every two weeks, but I can't remember why I stopped going there.

The restaurant is popular, and if you come at the busiest times, you you will have to share one of the big tables (something I kind of enjoy, although many people bury their heads in their plates,
oblivious to the rest).

Usually, JJ has two specials, and at least one of them is a soup.I Ordered the Szechuan Halibut soup. It promptly arrived.

The fish was good, but the soup tasted like canned tomato with a hint of sugar. The good fish wasn't enough to overcome it. There was no Szechuan flavour, in my opinion. The noodles in the soup felt soggy (uncoooked, I think). Overall, a complete disappontment. I would think twice before coming here again.

Verdict: Mediocre food.

Paid: 9.52 + tip

For more infromation, including address, visit:

Beirut

No. 50

<2010-07-15 Thu> Not worth it.

I should be honest. I was already worried by the time I was walking towards the restaurant. The reviews about this restaurant haven't been very positive; the probability of failure was high.

I passed by Devour (a place that is high in my list of must-visit), and the ultra cheap Saigon Harbour, thinking I perhaps should change my mind. "No, Beirut is the place visit today", I kept repeating myself.

I like shawarmas and their close cousins the Greek gyros. One of my favourite fast-food meals is a Greek gyro in the Latin Neighbourhood in Paris, just between St Germain de Pres and Notre Dame. The gyros are made of lamb, and cut on-demand. You can order them on baguette or pita, and add fries or salad. Try the baguette and fries version for a full meal for a paltry 5 euros. The meat is usually juicy and full of flavour. Surprisingly, the fries and the baguette work together. I love them.

As I entered, Beirut positively surprised me: it had real meat in their spits. Very frequently you see in these restaurants spits loaded with a bad-looking meat paste, and who knows what is really in them. Beirut uses real meat, and it is marinated in very dark spices.

It is a "wall menu" and you have to stop to think what you want. They divide it into 3 main categories: wraps, platters, and side dishes. They are expensive: the lamb wrap costs 7:49 + tax. The lamb platter is a whooping 11.95+tax.

This is a hard area for a restaurant. There are too many restaurants around. Just across the corner, at Baan Thai, you can have an excellent lunch meal for 10 + tax that includes soup, roll, rice, the entree and unlimited water. At Pho Vy you can get a bowl of pho for a price similar to the wraps. And you get unlimited water!

This is fast food: I got my wrap "wrapped" in paper, and all they provide is napkins, and plastic cutlery. No water. There very few tables, each 50cm per side large. A long wall-and-window bar that is too narrow, and way from the wall, that you might worry your food will fall through the crack.

And this is fast food in its worse. Subway feels crafted in comparison (and it is just across the street, with better prices too).

Finally, the food. I ordered a lamb shawarma. I was surprised that the meat was not sliced from the spits on demand. Instead, it was extracted from a container as fast food is supposed to be.

The meat was hard and dry and the type of cooking/spices/marinate make it feel gritty. It was probably from the day before. Perhaps it is a staple of Lebanon, but I didn't like it. Despite being heavily marinated, it had little flavour, and some of it was plain tough. I didn't finish it.

What a shame. Cooking meat in a spit makes it cook slowly, accentuating the flavours. Middle Easterners, Greeks, and Mexicans use the same style of cooking with different objectives, and when done well, the results are superb.

On the positive side, the place was clean and bright.

I don't plan to come back to Beirut for lunch when there are so many, much better options around: Pho Vy, Baan Thai and Devour. Even Pho Hoa, Saigon harbour or Sookjay are way better. In fact, any of the restaurants that I have tried in a one block radius are better. And if you really want fast food: try Subway instead, or walk for a sandwich to Choux Choux (I think they still serve them).

The place, however, had a fair number of customers while I was there (around 10 people in 30 minutes I was there).

Verdict: Beirut Express is a fast food joint with overpriced mediocre food, at least what I tried.

Verdict: Not worth it.

Paid: 8.40

For more information, including location, visit:

Beirut

Editorial. You can read my review of the restaurant here.

Information asymmetry has benefited restaurants for a long time, particularly in touristic destinations.

According to information asymmetry, when one party of a transaction has better information than the other, it creates an imbalance in power. The restaurant knows far more about the service it provides than its customer.

For that reason we like and read reviews. The Internet has provided a medium that distributes reviews (formal and informal) at a speed that was unimaginable few years ago. Now it takes few days to spread the word that a new restaurant is "good" or "bad" according to the opinions of the first who go in and decide to write about it.

My intuition is that the turnaround cycle of some restaurants will be faster: bad reviews will overwhelm the public opinion of a restaurant, and sink it fast, unless the restaurant is capable, and willing, to correct course quickly.

Beirut Restaurant is a case in point. Urbanspoon is perhaps the most comprehensive site of food reviews for Victoria. Even though Beirut is new, it has significantly more reviews that many well established restaurants. And that is where the problem lies (in the spirit of full disclosure I should state that I have not visited this place).

Take a look its reviews. Pay particular attention to the number of
reviews that each of the reviewers has written. As of today (July 13), there are 11 reviews, the top 6 are all written by people who have reviewed only one restaurant. The restaurant is less than 2 weeks old, and yet, some of those reviewers claim to have been there three times. I am suspicious.

On the other hand, one of those last six reviewers was negative. And this is precisely the problem that new restaurants face today: a disgruntled customer writes a bad review about a bad experience---to which such consumer is totally entitled. This review is read by many people who are borderline on whether to visit or not, tilting the balance against the restaurant. To be fair, he is not the only one. Several reviewers have stated their dissatisfaction. Why go to a place where we
might have a bad experience when there are so many options that we know will give us a good one?

There is, however, one aspect that I support in many of those 1-time reviewer's comments: a new restaurant needs feedback. If you go there and you do not like the food, tell them. It will do nothing for your meal, but it might be the difference for the future of a restaurant. And if the restaurant adjusts and improves, we all win: its owner, its employees, and we, those we one day might decide to thorough its doors.

Hopefully Beirut will learn from its first customers, and survive this difficult beginning. Victoria needs Middle Eastern restaurants.

For more information, including location, visit:

Kaz

<2010-07-02 Fri>

The lunch started in a high note with a very nice
miso soup but quickly disintegrated into flavourless and soggy
tempura, one of the worse salads I have had in a long time
that had its dressing in the middle compartment of the bento (which
means I could not pour it), and fruit that looked like it had been cut some
time ago and had no flavour either.

Definitely, I place to pass by. No surprise the customers look like
tourists.

Verdict: Avoid.

Cost: 13.20 +tip (2 items lunch special plus uni nigiri)

For more information, including address, visit:

Rosie's Diner

<2010-06-24 Thu>

I like Rosie's. It is feels like an honest place that serves simple
food during most of the day (I think they are open from 8 to 8, almost
every day). Their tacky painting of Marilyn, Dean, Elvis and Marlon
that includes the name of the Diner is one of its peculiarities (Dean
and Marilyn are hard to recognize), along with strong colour palette
that makes this place unique in its own way. I kind of like it.

The place also feels homey. It is clear that there are relationships
made between the frequent customers and the staff.

I ordered a halibut burger with the soup of the day (seafood
chowder).

When my burger arrived the fish was battered, while I expected
grilled. The menu gives the option of one or the other. And this is
one of those small details that separates good servers: I wasn't asked
which one I wanted, and presented the battered one. Ok, fine. Perhaps
my mistake. The fish felt frozen, nothing to write home about, and the
chowder was inedible. Perhaps burgers and eggs are more their speciality.

There are very few options in this area that are open the whole day,
that gives Rosie's Diner an edge. But the food leaves to be
desired. Too bad, I really wanted to like it.

Verdict: Only if you eating outside regular lunch hours, and only if
in the area.

Cost: 10.45 + tip

For more information, including address, visit:

My Thai

<2010-06-03 Thu> Victoria lacks a good, signature Thai
restaurant. Although we have several ones, none of them raises. They
tend to attack the cheap section of the market rather than offer us
the greatness of that the Thai cuisine can be. My Thai Cafe sits
towards the bottom of the pile. The lunch special was nothing special,
in fact, it felt more like comfort food (without its own character,
both in presentation and flavour). Of the Thai restaurants in the
area, I think I prefer Sookjai Thai, but not by much. If you can, walk
to a bit farther and have lunch at Baan Thai, it is better, although
the prices are one or two dollars higher for the lunch specials.

Verdict: Avoid

Cost: Around 10 + tip. Lunch pricing.

Prime Steakhouse and Lounge

No. 11

<2010-06-01 Tue> I had passed by frequently, but never being tempted
to go inside. The only times I have visited this location was with
friends who wanted to dine here (in its previous
incarnations). Part of the reason is that it feels overpriced: entrees
are 15 or 16 dollars, a step up from similar destinations (Il
Terrazzo, Pescatore's, Bon Rouge--across the street) and at the level
of Zambri's (which is one of my favourite destinations). Furthermore, I
am not a meat eater, so take my words with a grain of salt. So I came
with reservations. I ordered their seared tuna, which is not a bad
dish. I like albacore tuna, and this was cooked the way I like it
(barely seared). Its crust was good, but the entire dish felt like a
diner meal: tuna on top of a bed of risotto (which was salty) with a
slab of wasabi on the side (is this sashimi? I didn't notice it until
I almost put it in my mount), and some vegetables (the carrots were a
bit hard) and the most striking of all: a section of corn in a
hub. This is, according to its prices, a high end restaurant, yet it
serves me finger food? It just felt wrong. The amount was large too,
just on the edge of what I consider an appropriate size. Having
discussed this with a chef, it seems that expensive restaurants feel
that they have to provide you with a lot of food so you feel that the
price was worth it.

Will I come back? That is ultimately the most important question. In
its price bracket and type, I would say is not doing well. Perhaps I'd
have to visit again to get a better perspective of the place.

Finally, my waiter seem to be a bit upset. She wasn't rude or
anything, but every time she stopped by my table she had an expression
as if she would have preferred to be doing something else. At other
places I feel comfortable, here that makes me feel unwanted. Furthermore,
the music! I am starting to go crazy! (they play a radio station from
Memphis). Those are small details that affect our dining experience
beyond what the food offers. The place is almost empty (only two more
tables have people).

Cost: 16.80 + tip. Lunch pricing.

Verdict: Avoid. Walk across the street to Bon Rouge instead.

For more information, including address, visit: