Canada dinner experience, links to photos

In Victoria, Helga wanted to eat at a nice restaurant with a view of the bay. The concierge at our hotel recommended a restaurant called Lure. He had a copy of the menu, which had no vegetarian dishes except a salad, but when he called he was told that they could accomodate vegetarians. So we set out, taking a short trip on a "ferry" boat (which could seat about 8 people) to the restaurant. We learned from the driver that it had only been operating by that name for a short time. It was a hotel restaurant, but it wanted to be "upscale", so things were served with "beet reduction" or similar bizarre terms that seemed to me to barely correspond to food at all—at least not food I would ever cook for myself.

After being seated, Camilla (our waitress) showed up with our menus. Roger asked her about the vegetarian meal, and she said "who told you that?" and "that's not correct!" Off she went to, presumably, chew someone out for saying that they could serve us. I wouldn't put it past her, because she had plenty of "personality". After we sat debating whether to just leave, she came back and announced that the chef had designed a dish for the two of us, and described it—it actually sounded pretty good, and it sounded like he'd already started, so we decided to stay.

The next hiccough came when we were tag-teamed and another waiter (Ingrid says he was the "nice waiter") put a special fishy appetizer in front of Ingrid. But Camilla swooped in and yelled at him, so Ingrid was saved from that fate. Instead, we were given "tomato water" which consisted of tiny dices of tomato in a clear liquid with herbs and some fennel oil floating on top.

Finally the main courses showed up and it was actually quite good. So I guess the story has a happy ending. We took a picture of dinner, which was phyllo-dough filled with spinach and other vegetables, with cooked beets, carrots, and asparagus for garnish. And all for only $20CDN per person, which wasn't bad compared to some of the fish dishes. Unfortunately, the photo was lost in a freak accident after I convinced Ingrid she's copied them to the computer before she actually did. Through time travel I hope to be able to recover the picture after we return home.

Canada dinner experience, links to photos

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