Hello, Dear Reader!
August seems to be harvest time here on the island. Last month we wrote about some of the farmer’s markets in the area, and we’ve been adding to our food cache by eating the many fruits that are ripe and ready as we wander the roads and trails around Victoria. Himalayan blackberries are unfortunately highly invasive around here, and so (strictly as a means of suppressing their spread, you understand) we’ve been collecting and eating their berries by the bowlful. The canes do have quite persistent thorns, however, and don’t give up their crop easily, as our scratches can attest! We’ve also been fortunate to find some tayberries, and in one spot a few loganberries that we simply couldn’t pass up. We’ve also found some semi-wild apples, and if our neighbour’s pear tree would only grow a little more over the fence… oh well.
But enough about that. We were fortunate also this month to have family come for a visit, and they’re big fans of Korean food. Although we’ve sampled various Chinese cuisines as well as Japanese and Thai food, we’d never been to a Korean restaurant. We ended up at the Korean Gardens (3945 Quadra St. in Saanich, just south of McKenzie). Actually, our nephew-in-law did a wonderful review of the restaurant, so we’re just going to copy what he said here:
“After reading some of the negative reviews we were hesitant to visit the Korean Gardens restaurant. In fact, we first tried to find a Korean restaurant downtown instead based on those reviews. Luckily that restaurant was no longer in business and a hunger for Korean food drove us to the Korean Gardens.
Contrary to what others have experienced, the waitresses were prompt, yet patient, as we navigated the menu looking for dishes similar to those we were familiar with from other Korean restaurants. Once ordered, food began arriving quickly. The food tasted great, and the size of the dishes was average for this type of cuisine. All through the meal the service remained superb. It’s a rare restaurant where the staff will go out of their way to make a two year old, our son in this case, feel at home.”
It’s a restaurant we look forward to visiting again. We also had the opportunity to have breakfast out at Floyd’s Diner earlier this week; we wrote about Floyd’s in our first ‘Food’ post. The experience was wonderful, as always, and we maintain that the servers there give the best hugs in town.
Enjoy!
M&M
P.S. You can read more of our Food posts and restaurant reviews here.