The London Tube, Downtown Victoria

A restaurant so new, it is not on Zomato yet.  Zomato (aka Urbanspoon lobotomised) has not yet updated their listings to include this place, or the fact that City of Victoria and Downtown Victoria are pretty much the same place.

The London Tube is the hotel restaurant for the Best Western on Johnson Street. This was also once home of De Dutch and later 'Stones throw'. It has been open for about a month now.  I fear no-one yet knows of it's existence, instead lining up for worst food in other locations that don't really deserve it.

This Sunday, after running an easy (ha!) 21.1 km around the city, myself and 3 other finishers of the run met with friends in the London Tube.  We had out pick of any table in there, so we took a big long table near the back. There's several big comfortable booths, and 2, 4 and 6 place tables.  They are riding on the London theme, with fake signs from London landmarks, like Carnaby Street.  I am not sure what the London Underground would say about their use of the Underground logo, but no-one should get too confused... this is Victoria, Canada, not Victoria Station.

The menu is just long enough, with several brunch options, a pile of burger choices and some British inspired main courses.  You got your scotch eggs, fish and chips, and chicken curry.  They say people reckon the chicken curry is the best in the city.  That's a very large claim to make... but I saw enough today that I am curious to see if they can back it up.

I ordered the Three Pancakes.  At some point on my run I got a craving for pancakes. I'd normally have chosen the full english or what has the most chicken in it.  But this time, my head said pancakes. I then got bacon, scrambled eggs and sausages added to it. Minor nitpick: when I get additional sides, it is always nice to have them on the same plate as the main course.  Two rashers of bacon don't look as attractive as three big pancakes with two rashers of bacon fitted onto the plate.  Admittedly, with the eggs, bacon and sausage, they'd have needed a bigger plate for me this morning.

The pancakes were, soft and fluffy and most edible.  The sausages were breakfast sausages, slightly herby. They had that bite of the skin done just right so your teeth sink through it with a satisfying piercing of the tube.  The eggs were scrambled to the turn, still moist.  The bacon was bacon.  There are better rashers to be had in town, but this was done decently. I got a nice jug of syrup to pour over my pancakes, which was better than the single serving packet of butter.  Again, it just looks nicer to have two pats of butter rather than a plastic package.  They brought out hot sauce, and had all the other condiments you need for breakfast ready to go.

The coffee... tasted like it had been stewed a little too long.  Was not a fan of the coffee.

My friends had the breakfast poutine, which was a pile of country-fried potatoes, big cubes crisply fried, then smothered in a gravy .  Inside that mess was a lot of cheese curds, some eggs and a few chunks of meat too.  I tried a bit.  I liked it.  I also got favourable reports of the the breakfast sandwich and the beans.  I wonder if they home bake their beans?

Overall, this was an improvement to the Stonesthrow.  There's a bit more passion and care on the plate.  It's not going to blow you away on the breakfast side, but your going to get something decent, with new cue and good service.  Now, they just need to fix the TV to go away from the Shaw music channel...