If you're going to Victoria BC...and you should, you should...be prepared for a comfortable, friendly, pleasant town with incredible scenery and quiet pleasures. Victoria, located on the southernmost tip of Vanouver Island,is blessed with the tang of sea air, ocean, coastal and mountain scenery, agreeable people, and a welcoming atmoshere.
We were fortunate enough to make a reservation, sight unseen, at the Victoria Regent, a medium-sized hotel splendidly situated immediately on the lovely Inner Harbor, on Wharf Street. When we arrived we were upgraded to a suite (hello, low season!) and ended up with a huuuuuuuge fifth floor suite and a balcony window looking directly over the Inner Harbor, with the grand old Empress Hotel and the Parliament Building standing proudly forth, limned totally in white lights for a spectacular night show.
Even on an overcast and mostly drizzly cold November day, Vancouver is fun. The old town area is great for endless aimless strolling and ducking in and out of wonderful little shops, and countless pubs and bistros and coffee shops. The BC Museum is a great museum too; it's a natural history museum, which my wife usually shies away from, but she loves this one, and rightly so, for they do a remarkable job telling the history of the area. We were happy to stroll through for a couple of hours and get a feel for the ancient and modern history in a great swooping arc of discovery.
There are the usual tourist trap restaurants. We found one---however, it wasn't all that bad. They had good local brews on tap, most notably from the Russells Brewery. I don't even like Hefeweizen, and I liked the Russells Lemon Hefeweizen! Still and all, I settled for the Russells Cream Ale, a surprisingly dark cream ale style that was very drinkable. My wife had an Okanagan Sauvignon Blanc, which was merely okay, and actually----surprise, surprise---opted for a second glass of Mission Hills Chardonnay. Bit too oaky for me, but still it had a lovely aromatic quality, and good, precise flavor of apple, pear and citrus. For a new world/oaky/chard, it wasn't too bad.
The big find, though was the restaurant we were gently steered to by the hotel staff. It's right across from the Empress. Pescatore. Excellent, lively bar scene, warm atmosphere, friendly but not overbearing waitstaff, a decent wine list, and excellent food. I'd highly reccomend it. If for no other reason than the soup. I am a soup lover. I am, specifically, a chowder lover. They made it easy for me: they have three soup specialities, so they do a 'soup flight'. I had a mini-bowl each of New England Style Clam Chowder, Manhattan Style Clam Chowder, and Crab Bisque. The NE style was great; the Manhattan style was interesting, with a slightly different spicing in the tomato base; but the Crab Bisque was the best I have ever had! Lovely, endlessly deep rich, silky flavors and textures, compulsively spoonable. It was awesome bisque.
Our main courses were likewise excellent, although I made the better choice. My wife had a sort of Salmon Wellington, with a salmon en croute. Quite good, but once again we were reminded that the less you do to salmon the better. Simple prep and simple saucing is best for that fish. Put too many things with it and you cover up the essential loveliness of the fish. I had some fresh-caught Queen Charlotte halibut (local stuff) in a butter and caper sauce. Nothing better than good fresh halibut---and that's what this was.
We decided to keep things simple, so we ordered from their house wine list, where you could order glass or carafe of some well-selected wines at modest prices. Spotted the Babich NZ Pinot Noir for a really nice price, so we ordered a carafe of that, and it was perfect with both the salmon and the halibut dish. Light, crisp, lean, no gobs present, and good zippy acidity overall. Good PN with fish or seafood.
We had a lovely time in Victoria, recharged our sensory banks, met some nice folks, had good food, good beer, and good wine. It's a town I could go back to regularly.