Dining In Victoria

My last trip to Victoria was back in the early 1980's - so one should anticipate change, but I had hoped for oh so much more!  In a word, the dining was horrible!

The hotel had an attached cafe, so I did all of my breakfasts there.  The food was good, similar to home, but one would hope for selections that you do not make at home.  At least that is always my philosophy with restaurants - if you can make it yourself: stay home.  But, like most hotel spots - the food was edible and not a bad price.

Lunches were a little harder.  The area restaurants were ghastly!  Greasy, undercooked, over priced.  It took all I could do not to the blame the service staff and still tip them!  Lunches ran about $25.  Best I had was a Dim Sum in Victoria's tiny Chinatown.  There at least most of the selections were good but the bad was sooooo bad it really killed off the good!

My favorite dinner spot used to Milos, where the food has fallen to only resembling Greek food and short changing the customer is apparently the standard practice.  Probably too afraid of not getting tipped I imagine. 

So how about tandoori?  In most Commonwealth countries there are great India places to dine.  And yes I tried one but again the food really lacked in almost all regards.  Sigh.

And, although too much to hope for, there is the Rathskeller for German food.  In my note book I had noted this served Holstein style of cooking and pretty good.  Well, those days seem to have been long gone.  The menu read much the same, however the food was the absolute WORSE of the entire trip of eating failures.  Sigh.

So where did I end up, since obviously I did not starve?  The Old Spaghetti Factory served up not only the best meals but also the cheapest!  There was just one drawback - you may well not get what you order.  So, it appears to be copying Italy for originality of service!  My seafood fettuccine morphed into spaghetti with Mizithra cheese (bleech!).  I did insist on my original order and after some teenage attitude coming my way did get exactly what I had coming to me.  Never piss off a teenage waiter....  The hostess was most apologetic and I never did see said waiter there again during my stay.

So, when in Victoria: Museum Cafe, Lee's Dim Sum and The Old Spaghetti Factory were all ok food sources...  Just be sure to bring a bag of beef jerky with you so you will not starve if you try elsewhere.