We ordered delivery the other night:
Sweet and Sour BBQ Pork
Beef Chow Mien
Chicken Fried Rice
Lemon Chicken

Where to start?
The S&S Pork was the worst. The meat was discoloured and iridescent. Not a good sign. My wife refused to even try. I did and found it absolutely foul.

The Beef Chow Mien was slimy with those deep fried/dried egg noodles —no regular chow mien noodles. The meat was gray and unappetizing. Practically no veg beyond hunks of onion.

The Chicken Fried Rice had a strange tang to it. The very yellow colour was off-putting. Nasty.

The Lemon chicken wasn’t awful it just wasn’t good. It was eatable however. With some rice from the rice cooker we had the semblance of a meal.

To add insult to injury the delivery was well past the 45min wait they assured us. Plus no freaking fortune cookies again.

Fresh fresh fresh.
Small plate/Tapas style servings.
The recipes feature locally grown and organic veg, fruits, and meats.
Excellent service, convivial host, unpretentious boho design
This is our second visit to The Superior. last night we celebrated our 6 yr wedding anniversary in style.
We could think of no other place in Victoria that has the combination of service, food, entertainment and non-touristy vibe to enjoy a night out.

We over ordered but we just couldn’t resist revisiting some of the things we had before and trying new exciting sounding items.

A jazz trio played at the end of the room (Steve Grebanier Trio) —very excellent local musicians.

Other patrons looked to be an eclectic mix of young hipsters to elderly couples. Dress varied from almost prom clothes to jeans and fleece jackets (Oh Victoria, what’s the deal with your love of fleece?)

The convivial host was everywhere, greeting patrons at the door, chatting with regulars and newcomers alike.

Outdoor seating available in a lovely garden space with obligitory gas heaters to ease the chill of the sea breeze.

We recently moved to Victoria and were on a search for a decent f&c place. All online researches and the local rag’s “Best of Victoria” rating indicated Barb’s is the place.

Very much a tourist hangout —not surprising given their location. That being said it sure seems they don’t have a clue how to really cater to either locals or out of towners.
Terrible signage for indicating where the line up should be —consequently they’re are hungry and annoyed looking people all over the docks trying to fidn where the line up starts and ends.

Once I made my oder, I patiently waited 25 mins for my for two orders of halibut and chips —at a premium price of almost $35 I hoped it would be good. The one good thing they do is provide you with a pager so when your order is ready they can let you know without having to bellow out.
When I saw the wrapped package, I mentioned it seemed pretty small and asked if there were two orders in it. The guys snapped “Yes, if that’s what your order was.”

Not feeling warm and fuzzy I hopped into the car with wife and kids and bolted home to enjoy our repast. Guess what? Once we opened the package we found one order —a very measly order if that of fish and chips.

I was pretty pissed off but my wife called them and told them what was up. They said we must have not picked up the other package. Pretty bad customer service —telling the customer they’re to blame. I was clearly not to blame and even took steps to ensure I had my complete order.

I will never ever go to this place again, Bad service, very expensive, and measly portions.

McMorrans is apparently a historical stop for food in Cordova Bay. Guess it’s seen better days.

Service is very slow. We waited to be seated at the front door with the servers trying to avoid our gazes in the bar. Finally one decided it was time to acknowledge us and said we’d be seated in a “just a minute”. 10 minutes later we were seated by the fly specked windows overlooking the sandy beach. Beautiful view.

It took another 15 mins and asking for our water to arrive.
Apparently there was a special but the server never mentioned it. Our drinks order in hand she departed and returned 10 mins later with the blandest caesar and g&t. Neither tasted like they had any alcohol in them.

We chose a Caesar salad and calamari for starters.

The salad was overdressed with something that could not be honestly called caesar dressing —no garlic, mustard or lemon flavour. More like mayonaise than anything. The croutons were out of a box and stale to boot.

The calamari were tasty although a bit soggy. The dips were obviously out of a bottle.

For main I had a seafood bake. Piping hot, overcooked seafood covered in melted cheese in very liquidy sauce.accompanied with a glass of house red.

My wife had the papadrelle with seafood in white sauce. The sauce looked and tasted suspiciously like my seafood bake. The pasta was very overcooked and tasteless —I wonder if they forgot to add salt to the boiling water?

Both meals were tasteless and bland with slow and unengaged service.

We’ve had lunch and dinner several times in both large and small parties.

The service is fast and friendly in a not too cloying way.
The menu is typical representative of local Japanese restaurants —the food itself is very good.

Something about clumps of tasteless cheese and bland toppings on a puffy over-proofed hunk of under cooked dough turns me off.

I scheduled a pickup for 5:00pm —fairly early in the pizza prep schedule. I arrived at 4:55 and was told the pizza wasn’t even in the oven yet. I asked if was really busy —the gal behind the counter smiled and said no and asked me to wait over on the bar stools by the window.

All very polite and nice and thoroughly annoying.

If the pizza wasn’t head and shoulders above that of any other in Victoria I probably wouldn’t order.

Nothing like walking into an empty pizza shop, have the three staff look up, turn away, and resume their conversation.

It bugs me that I have to loudly say, “Hi I want to order a PIZZA!” every time I enter the Shellbourne place —any kind of greeting as an acknowledgment of my presence would be greatly appreciated.

That said, the thin crust pizza are awesome goodness, the toppings in a perfect blend of proportion, distribution and texture.

Ten of us visited for father’s day brunch.

Great friendly service —if you like that particular style of waiter friendliness this is the place to go. Actually the waiter did seems like a pretty decent guy and made a very valiant effort when things went wrong.

The things that were wrong:
My niece’s sandwich bun was covered in mold,
I found a big chunk of foil in my hash.

After that I’d be pretty hard pressed to be convinced to return. I shudder to think what the kitchen looks like if obvious stuff like that slips by….

Not true Chinese fare —more traditional western style Chinese food.

My wife and I ordered a couple of their combos for dinner tonight. Pretty tasty although the spring rolls in my wife’s combo were disappointing —even more than the expected grease quotient and strange tast —not bad, just strange.

The Won Ton soup was fresh light and very satisfying. Decent chow mein, fried rice nice, crunchy well rounded chop suey, and a generous piece of almond chicken. The deep fried prawns didn’t look amazing but they sure tasted that way.

The only real disappointment was no fortune cookies :(