Heron Rock Bistro, James Bay, Victoria

A long weekend, with Saturday seeing me at TEDx Victoria, and today doing some casting work for a show I am putting together.  That's my humble-bragging, oh-woe-is-me I-am-so-busy entry line.  I did however get to have brunch with breakfast friends (without the Brunette this week) at Heron Rock Bistro.

There may have been a wait list when we walked in.  I am not sure. It go confusing, as some people were being written down on the list, but I wasn't when I asked for a table of four.  As the next group got on the clipboard, I thought it best to check why I hadn't got on the exalted level of being written down.  Still no idea, but we got sat in a booth 60 seconds later, so all was well.

Unless of course that was someone else's booth, and they are waiting, cursing my name. The curse probably was to dry out my toast. Or make the coffee watery.  One of those two things, as the rest of the meal was good.

I ordered the Huevos Cubaneros. Two poached eggs on a mound of black beans, caramelized onions, crisp breakfast potatoes and some avocados.  And a mess of other good hash like things.  The mound was crowned by a good dash of Hollandaise and some finely chopped spring onions.  Topped off with a little splash of the house hot sauce. The hot sauce had a smoky punch to it, which rounded of my dish nicely. It's a hearty dish, that combined a lot of good veg into something that still felt like a decadent breakfast.

It came with some toast, which was pre-buttered, but not a soft, warm round. It was a warm and dry and tough triangle, I ate all of it, but really shouldn't have.  I like toast.  This was not good toast.

My friends raved about the Corned Beef Hash, made with cabbage for some bite and a pile of the caramelized onions.  The chef knows how to make a onion sweet, as it was also mentioned by the guy piling into the pulled pork special benny.  This was pork on french toast, with coleslaw and apple and guacamole and far too many things going on.  All good things, but like a ensemble cast movie, you sometimes want a hero to come forward.

And on that note, I leave you for another week, as I got more stuff to do tomorrow, it's almost midnight, and I am half asleep.