The Victorian

Review: My wife and I decided to have a go at this place this past weekend in celebration of our 6th wedding anniversary. Upon arrival we entered into a rather large, extremely quite, lobby area and were greeted by a lovely young lady for our coats. We were showed to our table immediately and from there it was down hill...mostly. The ambiance is sort of the old style "old boys club" dark gloomy. We are mid 30's so something a bit more elegant and airy would be nice, although quiet was our desire and this we received, for a while anyway. Our waiter was at our side in a flash ready to serve although his name was not given which would have been nice. His “tuxedo” was a bit on the old side which added to the feeling of being “stuck” somewhere in the past. He was very pleasant and professional though, so as for service I will not complain.

For starters we had the crab cakes. The Thai sauce they were served on was reminiscent of one of my favorite store bought “Cattle boys Hot n’ Honey”. Now, being we are in Saskatchewan I’m always a bit leery of ordering seafood, however, being this place is self declared “seafood & steakhouse” and considers itself to be fine dining, I thought I might find something special. Nope. The cakes were advertised as being encrusted in panko to which they were not. There was no exterior crunch (microwave?) and a brown, under seasoned mushy lump, which in my home kitchen would have been bite size, was set before us (x4). If I wasn’t so concerned not to bother my wife with complaints at the time the cakes would have been in editable.

Anyway, with the service still being good and the enjoyment of my company increasing we move onto the next course.

Before heading out I decided to have a look their menu online and immediately got excited about the whiskey flamed Rib Eye (Is it me or should any descent steak house offer the rib eye on the menu?). I wasn’t even going to open up the menu however, the decision on the starter had to be made so I did. Upon doing so I found the item had been re-named to the "whiskey Flamed Prime Rib Steak"..What? So I inquired. I guess I was OK with the rib eye being removed and substituting it with prime rib, if that were true. It was not. What I was told was that it is not prime rib, and that it was a “rib steak”. Still hanging on the thought of having a real good juicy rib eye I then asked, “rib eye?” with a great amount of excitement. “No” I was told, “it’s a prime cut rib steak and sometimes it’s good, and some times it’s bad”. My next unenthusiastic words were “10oz New York”. My dear wife had the chicken, and as chicken goes, it was good. Not that I’m going to go to a place for the sides, but I must make mention. The veg was horrible. It consisted of a half raw (one way or another in my mind please) red bell pepper “stuffed” with mixed p/c/c. Can you say frozen bag kids?. My potatoes were good though. I had the oven roasted baby potatoes (again though, there was a slight seasoning issue) and she had the sweet potato mush au gratin.

At this point I had resisted all things alcohol as neither my wife or I are drinkers; however, it was time. She had a strawberry daiquiri, which the party next to us were ordering, (I’ll touch on that a bit later) and I had a Gibson’s on ice. Then another, then another.

For desert.

The chocolate pyramid was again something that you might see under a clear piece of plastic in your frozen desert isle at the super market….Ok, I’ll admit I did like it though. Also ordered was some sort of rum flambé tart, which was whooped up table side. This of course utilized the table side cooking skills of our wonderful waiter. One small butter tart was cut up into four and added to the sauté pan, then, about 1oz of rum (plastic bottle bad stuff I might add) was set afire only slightly singeing the hair off his head. After a slight chuckle I was told that one was for show and the next dose of rum would be for taste and not burnt off. OK then. Then, about 1Lb of butter and about the same amount of brown sugar was added to the dish which was poured over some freezer burnt white ice which I will not add the word cream to. All this in a martini glass.

But the coffee was good!

O, and I was going to mention more on the party next to us. Great people, but jeans, t-shirts, leather jackets and the stench of cigarette smoke isn’t something I’m looking for in a “high end” restaurant.

Time to call restaurant makeover, in my opinion of course.

Having said all this, you put that meal in a place that charges half or less and you'd have a good meal. But come on, for this price you should get more. Put some care into the food guys!

Keith

Review: This is a restaurant that is definitely a 3 dressed up as a 9. The tuna steak we ordered was overcooked, the service was slow and unattentive, and the waitress couldn't even pronounce common wines properly (Merlot and Chablis - which almost made me laugh). Appetizers and desserts were nothing spectacular - trying to make a breaded chicken finger seem like an elegant appetizer is a joke.

Review: horrible