Shirley Day, Shirley, BC

Shirley was named in honour of the joke in Airplane that ends with the punchline: 'Don't Call Me Shirely'.  Surely.

Shirely is a small community on the road out of Sooke towards Jordan River, Port Renfrew and the edge of the Pacific.  As you travel through the woods on the border of the Juan De Fuca, you'll pass a swathe of B&B's, cabins and getaway lodges.  There's small holdings and farms, a meadery and The Shirley Delicious Cafe.  Next to the Shirley Fire Hall and the social centre of this settlement.

The lovely Brunette of my Acquaintance knows the area well, selling her baked goods and jams at a market there every couple of weeks.  But once a year, there's the Shirley Fun Day, where everyone in the area and beyond comes togther, buys local produce, meets, greets and eats BBQ salmon.  All intended to raise funds for the fire hall and to keep the community centre running.

It makes the rural crowd proud.  They chat to the neighbours that they may not see quite as often, bond over shared experiences and check in with each other.  Meanwhile, the kids run around and cause gentle mayhem. And the urbanites in their BMWs drive out to buy the most exquisite chocolate brownies I have ever had ($1 a square).

I could have spent a small fortune on veg and jarred preserves, but came away with some fresh Arugla sprouts.  And a belly full of BBQ Salmon.  Which was delicious, especially with a heaping mound of fresh salad (probably not locally grown) and a chuck of tasty olive oil bread.  And some rice.  Pretty good meal for $12.50.

I also managed to win a case of Joia Natural Sodas and a new baseball cap in the silent auction.  The Brunette is not so keen on me wearing a cap all the time. I maintain it keeps the sun out of my eyes and the sweat of my neck.  Though as The Libertines once wrote:

There are fewer more distressing sights than that

Of an Englishman in a baseball cap

And we'll die in the class we were born

Well that's a class of our own my love

A class of our own my love

(A Time for Heroes)

We left the country idyll to the sounds of the loudest Electronic Dance Music I've heard since I went to 'rave' aged 19.  Apart from that, if you are out that way, stop in to the cafe, or the Sunday markets. 

The Salt and Pepper Fox, Food Delivery, Downtown Victoria

I am working at the Watershed a couple of days each week. I recently hosted a packed lunch boardgame session there.  The food was ordered in from the Salt and Peper Fox.  I assumed the Salt and Pepper Fox was some older dude with gray hair and a smooth, louche manner.   Instead, he's much younger, with no greying hair, and a friendly, effective manner.

The Salt and Pepper Fox specializes in handmade, brown bag lunches.  These are delivered to your workplace, as long as you've ordered before 3 pm the day before.  There's a small but good selection of sandwiches, 3 sides salads, and a bunch of extras, like pop, chips and cookies.

I ordered the Mum's egg salad, with a kale caesar (because I love my kale) and a bag of Hardbite salted chips.  It arrived all wrapped up in a big brown paper bag. My name on.  Just like my Mum would have made for me if she'd been in North America where the brown paper bag lunch is a thing. Instead, I used to have lunch in a plastic lunch box, with a thermos full of orange squash, and a sandwich roll, on a home baked bread roll.  If it was salami, the filling would not always get eaten (sorry mum).  If it was ham or cheese, it was eaten with much happiness.

But enough nostalgia.

The caesar had a smooth, creamy dressing, that wasn't slapped all over the leaves, but instead just enough to add a zest to the dark lush green leaves.  The croutons were crunchy, showing they'd only been added to the salad recently, and not allowed to soak and go soggy.  Very nice.

The sub-style sandwich was overflowing with a fresh egg mayonnaise and big chunks of mature cheddar cheese.  The eggs were rich, golden, flavourful chunks, that were offset by the slightly salty bite of the cheddar.  There was a liberal helping of crisp iceberg lettuce to add a little crunch to the proceedings.  A very fine sandwich, a two napkin affair as the filling escaped the bread.

The chips were 'Hardbite'.  They do a decent enough crunchy bag of chips.  I can't get excited about them.  They rounded out the $12 meal nicely. That's the meal deal: 1 sandwich, 1 side, 1 salad.  There's plenty of eating in there to fill you up. I'd probably leave the side for an afternoon snack next time... and go for a fresh baked cookie.

The roast chicken and harvati got two big thumbs up from the rest of the group. I'd probably give the tuna a go next time... tuna, cheddar and a fresh red pepper sauce sounds like a good combination to me.

Monday's lunch menu is always a special edition but I have no had a chance to try it yet. This isn't as cheap as Subway.  But this is also delivered, saving you time and effort, and you are getting great, healthy food.  My next packed lunch board game session is coming up on the 18th, and I'll be ordering again

http://www.saltandpepperfox.com/

Top five brunches in Victoria

I'll admit it, I have had this posting on hold for a while for the week where I just don't have anything new to post and write about.  I just can't keep it back any longer, but in no particular order, here's my list of top brunch spots in Victoria:

1) The Fernwood Inn.  The two egg breakfast is a great deal, but  the steak and eggs skillet is fantastic.  Eat here on a hot summer's day, on the patio. Enjoy the parsnips muddled up into the breakfast potatoes, the big meaty pork sausages or the apricot toast.  Prices are a little high, but you pay for the quality.

2) Glo.  The beef short rib hash has all the right combinations for a meat eater's breakfast: potatoes are done with plenty of flavour and starch to fill you up, protein exuding a rich, savoury flavour and eggs letting out a golden yoke to add richness to the piles of veggies hash underneath.  You can get a wind-shaded spot outside, or enjoy the quiet indoors any time of the year.  Why this place is not rocking every Sunday is probably due to the location out of the down core.

3) The Blue Fox. If it just was as quiet as Glo, I'd probably not have anything else to write about, as I'd just go there all the time, and this blog would merely be 52 weeks of eating at the Blue Fox.  However, this isn't the Worst Idea of All Time (and anyways that would involve eating at Cora's every Sunday for a year).  Instead, it's a rare treat that remind me how good the basics of food can be done.

4) The Guild.  The full works breakfast at the Guild is a heart attack on a plate.  If you ate it every day, never exercised and washed it down with a pint of melted ice cream.  As the start to set yourself up for a long day's hike/renovations/moving a friend out of their fifth-floor walk-up apartment after a relationship-ending fight, it's a grand start.  I love the mix of west-coast and English-style gastropub at the Guild.  And the fact it's never too busy.

5) Spoons.  Only if you can catch it when it's just busy enough to be good for people watching, and not so busy the wait is half a day.  They do traditional breakfast here with plenty of everything. Or they twist it up a notch or five with a some extra combination, like breakfast fajitas or a massive side of poutine with your pulled pork benny.  Go for a diner style experience, and you'll be more than happy.

I think that's my top five.  Other favourites include Avalon, Picnic Too and Ferris's upstairs.  It's a hard list to confine to just five in Victoria.  And indicates the high bar you have to clear here to be notable.

EDIT: Uptairs at Ferris's no longer does a brunch menu, I am reliably informed. No more Weekend Crossword...

Juma Food truck, Food Truck Fest, Victoria

The food truck fest was a wash out for me this Friday.  I got downtown as the heavens opened, so hardly had a chance to scout around and see what interesting things were on sale. Once the water starts dropping down the back of my t-shirt, I'm done.  I met my (damp) friends and then headed to a small silver caravan that had a chalkboard offering steak specials and an organic lentil dahl.  I thought about a steak or the Chinese five spice chicken wings, but this wasn't the weather for meat al fresco.

I got the dahl.  3 minutes later, I had a medium sized cardboard tray filled with Basmati rice, wilted greens and a healthy spoonful of a rich brown lentil stew. We headed to my friends apartment to eat, and on the way back, the poppadum shards took the worst of the rain.  I can't really rate how good these were.  Even the best in the world would have gotten soggy.

The rest of the meal was great.  The lentils with spicy, but not with an intense heat.  A flavourful, wholesome mouthful.  The greens counter-balanced the earthy tones of the curry.  The rice was cooked perfect.  I liked it.  I'd order more if I can find them again.

So looking to find out where they were from, I found the website, and discovered it's a farm-to-fork operation, producing their own meat and veg to serve.  The lovely brunette of my acquaintance would approve of their home raised, happy chickens.  I guess it's now a case of following them on twitter and seeing if I'll be nearby again.

As for everything else there... my friends said the Mac and Cheese from the Mac truck was awesome, and the burger was big, fat and delicious.  Sorry for the lack of details.  It wasn't a detail sort of day.

EDIT: https://streetfoodapp.com/victoria/juma ; This will help you find Juma, and I guess other food trucks in town.

Northern Quarter, Downtown Victoria

The Friday Night Quiz at the old Fort Street Cafe was a night of legends.  Much loved and admired, so much so I still get hits on my post about it years after the Fort closed down.  But Benji and his team are back, with Torin Egan.  Torin ran the food at the Superior Cafe.  Another place I really liked, and that is also closed now.  So if two old favourites team up, you expect good things.

The Northern Quarter is the result.  Looking to have some of the vibe of live music and entertainment from the Fort, with interesting food and drink of the Superior.  It captures aspects of both, I feel in my two visits, but with something different.  It misses the rough, underground (literally) feel of the old Fort Cafe, and also the high art decor of the Superior.  Instead, it feels more like a big open loft apartment, with a big open space from the up front stage to the square bar at the back.  There's copious art on the walls.  There's lots of solid, tough wooden tables, regimented into rows.  The floor is polished concrete, the ceiling has a wavy set of slats hanging from it.  These probably do wonders for the acoustics.

I went in for a quick brunch this past Sunday.  In short, it's pretty good.  It didn't hit the top level of places in Victoria (Glo, Blue Fox, Picnic Too, etc), but it's a solid second tier in Victoria.  The best features of the Eggs Benedict I had were the bacon jam under each soft poached eggs, and the house made tomato ketchup.  Both had pep and zing to them, that worked with the dish. The eggs were soft with a nice runny yolk, but a solid white, so the whole thing kept it together, rather than being underdone and oozing.  The garlicky hollandaise was fresh and not over rich.  I would like to have seen a bit more garlic bite in it, but not everyone wants their breakfast to make them reek all day.

The coffee was plentiful, smooth and rich.  It was kept topped up by an efficient floor staff who made an effort, and went that bit further than just asking for my order.  Benji was working the floor, making sure all his guests were looked after, saying hi to everyone he knew, and making friends with those he didn't. The staff were all great.

I like the space, and I like the effort they are making to get good local music in, have social events, and bringing back the Quiz night.  They have a firm vision to have good food and good entertainment, to build a local scene for all sorts of talent.  I will hopefully convince my group to dine here again for a second opinion.