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Dining Out
Victoria ranks in the (unexpected) second spot as the North American city with the most restaurants per capita. Why eat in?!
We are in the process of compiling our observations of favourite spots to dine in British Columbia's capital city. Have a suggestion? We'll try it out!
Great dinner at Pablo's on August 23, 2010.
Top quality ingredients, excellent presentation, great taste. Congrats to Robert Cassells who has recently picked up Pablo's with intent to make it one of Victoria's best once again after a period of less than stellar performance. Pablo's is back!
Menu: Varied inventive dishes.- Starters: Crab and avacado; Seared Sechuan Tuna
- Mains: Pork Tenderloin, deliciously rosemary sparked; Lamb Noisette with a minted wine reduction
- Deserts: the sampler
- Wines: good list.
- Decor/ambience:
- Value for dollar: good, better than similar cuisine in world class cities - but ambience is an important part of dining out and the physical plant makes for "good" where the food might suggest "outstanding".
- Cost of our meal for two including wine: 300 CAD
Highly recommended:
Typical of high end restaurants, however, prices for wines are higher than they should be. The Burrowing Owl Meritage for 95 CAD can be had at Stage for about 70 CAD. I like Brio's philosophy of applying a 15 CAD up charge to each bottle (is that still in effect?)
This needs to be brought up to both the quality of food and the price (heck, call us!). We recommend attention to the front stairs and garden walk--these detract and stand in high contrast to a pricey menu placed above the weeds. Interior art includes some interesting pieces but overall is a bit hotel-ish and doesn't reflect the splendour of the culinary art Cassells offers. He has recently taken on the restaurant and it looks like a labour of love to rebuild it (rather than a well funded Vegas launch like the failed Niche in the same space). I'll cut him some slack for that.
Regards,
John