Second Saturday: Dinner at Pizzeria Prima Strada

May 23, 2011 By Korena in the Kitchen Leave a Comment

I almost didn’t post about this Second Saturday outing, because the pictures I took are so awful (crappy cell phone camera + dark restaurant = baaaaaaad photos), but the pizza was so good that I can’t not share. So here it is. Please excuse the photos!

This edition of Second Saturday actually took place on a Monday, because I was out of town for the second Saturday of May. Katheryn, Lynette, and I met for dinner at Pizzeria Prima Strada in Cook St Village for beautiful, thin-crust, oven-fired, Neapolitan-style pizza. We had all eaten there before, so Second Saturday was just a good excuse to eat there again. One thing I really like about this restaurant is that they use fresh, Vancouver Island ingredients wherever possible, including mozzarella di bufala from Natural Pastures (made with milk from Fairburn Farms, home to the only water buffalo herd in Canada!), pepperoni made by Choux Choux Charcuterie, and house made sausage and salumi. I love food even more knowing that something so delicious is produced or grown nearby!

The menu is pretty small, which I usually find is a good thing, because it means the kitchen is not trying to do a hundred different things; instead they are focused on doing one kind of thing very well, and it usually results in a much better meal. In Prima Strada’s case, there are a few Antipasti and Insalata offered, ten different pizzas to choose from, Dolci (desserts), and some daily specials. They also have a succinct wine list and serve local Driftwood Brewery beer and several Italian liquors. The pizzas range from the cheeseless Marinara to the traditional Margherita to the spicy salame Diavola to the cream-based Panna e Pancetta. We ended up going with the Funghi (porcini cream, roasted mushrooms, roasted onions, fresh thyme, mozzarella, pecorino), the Panna e Pancetta (cream, pancetta, parmigiano, mozzarella, ricotta, scallions), and a special pizza with spicy Calabrese salami, roasted red pepper, arugula pesto, bocconcini, and red onion. We also ordered a bottle of wine, Mezzomondo Rosso, which was good but honestly I can’t remember anything specific about how it tasted. I was concentrating more on the pizza ;)…

Lunch at Café Ceylon

April 4, 2011 By Korena in the Kitchen 3 Comments

On Saturday, my mum came over to Victoria to visit for the day. We did some errands downtown, browsed through some kitchen shops and bookstores, and went out for lunch. We were planning on going to The Blue Nile, which is an Ethiopian restaurant in Esquimalt, but it turned out they weren’t open for lunch. Instead, we went to Café Ceylon – and am I ever glad we did!

Café Ceylon serves Sri Lankan and Indonesian food, and after reading a favourable review of it – on Urban Spoon, maybe? – I had made a mental note of it as somewhere to take my mum, because she is an adventurous eater and loves trying out ethnic food (as do I!). Luckily I had the foresight to put the restaurant’s location in my phone, so when we discovered that Ethiopian food wasn’t going to happen, I had an alternative….

Afternoon Tea at the White Heather Tea Room

March 19, 2011 By Korena in the Kitchen 18 Comments

My friend Lynette and I are secretly little old ladies at heart. One of the defining things about our friendship is our undying love of tiny sandwiches, scones with jam and cream, and tea, and we often celebrate the milestones in our lives by going out for afternoon tea. Heck, we don’t need a milestone – any occasion is a good excuse. We have even gone so far as to dream up a “Tea Tour” of the English countryside, wherein we would travel from tea shop to tea shop, sampling afternoon teas and writing reviews to publish in a book (who knows how realistic this is, but a dream is a dream, right?). In preparation, we have been to nearly every afternoon tea-serving establishment in Victoria, from the quintessential (and expensive) Fairmont Empress Hotel to the more-British-than-Britain (and now defunct) Blethering Place, but we have not yet written any reviews.

This is about to change. Prepare yourself for the first Tea Party review.

(This means we will have to revisit all the local places we have previously had tea at – darn! 😉 )…

Second Saturday: Cider Tasting at Sea Cider Farm & Ciderhouse

February 15, 2011 By Korena in the Kitchen 3 Comments

Please excuse the bad quality of the photos – they were taken with my cell phone!

Second Saturday is a “club” consisting of my friends Lynette, Katheryn, Tangle, and I, where we go out somewhere for drinks and food every second Saturday of the month (hence the name).

This weekend I went on a Second Saturday outing to a cider tasting at Sea Cider Farm & Ciderhouse, a local cidery in Sidney. Tangle was unable to join us – she was busy doing a show with her puppetry troupe, Entangled Puppetry – so it was just Katheryn, Lynette, and myself.

Lynette managed to score a sweet deal on the cider tasting from Groupon.com, which included nine samples of cider, a platter of local cheese, meats, preserves, and bread to compliment the cider samples, hot buttered Rumrunner cider (yum!), and a bottle of your choice of cider. It was awesome, and would still be totally worth going even without the deal – the full flight of nine cider samples is only $16 regularly, and it was enough for all three of us to get a good taste of all nine. And it was delicious, of course!

Honey cured smoked salmon from Sointula, local cheddar and Natural Pastures Comox Camembert, Galloping Goose Co. sausage, blueberry cider preserve, black olive tapenade, bread from The Roost, and dark chocolate

The ciders we tasted can be found here, in order from driest to sweetest. The first two, Flagship and Wild English, were both “ultra dry” and champagne-like, and none of us were big fans – they didn’t have a lot of apple-y flavour (at least not to our uneducated palates!). Kings & Spies and Pippins were slightly sweeter, less dry, and had more cider taste. Katheryn liked Kings & Spies, and I liked Pippins, but again, not our favorites.

Cider is exciting!

Then we had the Bramble Bubbly, a seasonal cider made with apples and blackberries. This was Katheryn’s favorite, although she swore it tasted like cranberries rather than blackberries. I could taste (and smell) blackberry, but not so much the berries themselves as the blackberry canes – you know the smell of blackberry brambles in the hot summer sun? That was what the cider tasted like. Incredible!

Katheryn and the Bramble Bubbly

Next was the Rumrunner, which is aged in rum barrels. It was seriously delicious – it had sort of caramely toffee notes and just enough sweetness. It was the cider used to make the hot buttered cider – Rumrunner, mulling spices, and butter (recipe here). Awesome!! We all had this one down as a favorite, and Lynette ended up taking it home as her free bottle.

Hot buttered Rumrunner – cheers!

The sweetest ciders started with Cyser, fermented with honey. It had almost a buttery, nutty taste that was amazing. Another favorite all round! The last two were more apératif or liqueur-style ciders. Pommeau was 18% alcohol and tasted like apple scotch or whiskey – it had the smoky taste as well as the alcohol taste. I managed to sip it without making a (really bad) face, whereas Lynette and Katheryn both threw this one back, tequila style. Not one of our favorites. The final cider was Pomona, which was like a desert or ice wine. It was delicious and syrupy, and would have been fantastic over ice cream. Again, a favorite for all of us.

Cast iron chandeliers and vaulted ceiling in the tasting room

As I said above, this tasting would be a great way to spend an afternoon, even without the deal. The cider was delicious (and even when it wasn’t to our liking, it was interesting and fun), the food was yummy (and locally sourced), and the tasting room was beautiful: vaulted ceilings, big cast iron chandeliers, long rustic trestle tables, and windows looking out over the fields and water. I will definitely put this on my list of “things to do again”!

Wing Wednesday at Christie’s Carriage House Pub

February 10, 2011 By Korena in the Kitchen 4 Comments

This evening Sam, Nate, and I went to Christie’s Carriage House Pub for wings and beer. We were worried that it would be super busy because not only was it Wing Wednesday, there was also a Canucks game on, but we got there around 6 and there was plenty of room.

Christie’s has good wings. I already knew that, but this visit cemented it. We had several flavours going on: sweet Thai chili (deliciously sticky and sweet with a chili kick), Saharan dry (crisp and spicy with a peppery dry rub), Blue Boy (hot sauce and blue cheese together in mouth-watering harmony) and teriyaki, which I didn’t taste but I’m sure was just as good as the others. So 10/10 on the wings.

So as to be slightly healthy along with my chicken wing binge, I ordered a small green salad. Often a salad in a pub is a sad thing, but this one was pretty good. The salad greens were crisp and fresh (romaine plus some spring-mix-ish leaves), the cucumber slice was not too unwieldy (I hate it when they hide a 3-inch long slice of cuke in the middle of a perfectly good salad), the carrot was freshly grated, and the pickled beet slivers on top were a nice touch, as were the dried cranberries and pumpkin seeds. I have a feeling that the sundried tomato dressing was not made in-house, but it was still tasty. I didn’t peruse the menu past the wings and salads, but the burgers at the next table looked awesome – stacked high on a hand-made-looking bun (?) and skewered with a steak knife.

Christie’s has an extensive collection of beers on tap – 34! – including lots of local island (Phillips, Vancouver Island, Driftwood) and mainland microbreweries. Every time I am there I mean to try the Back Hand of God stout, but I usually chicken out. Next time! This time I had the Driftwood ale, which was pretty good – bitter, but I’m starting to like bitter beer more and more.

The price was also quite reasonable: I had a dozen wings (29 cents each), a small salad, and the special beer on tap, which came to under $13 after tax. Pretty decent for a meal that included a beer.

I think the trick to Christie’s is figuring out when it’s not too busy, because we have tried to get in a few times before and they have had no space – and judging by the lineup at the door when we left at 7, it fills up when there is a hockey game on. But it’s safe to say we will be back to sample some more things off the menu, now that Nate’s wing craving has been satisfied.

Second Saturday: Dinner at Pizzeria Prima Strada

Lunch at Café Ceylon

Afternoon Tea at the White Heather Tea Room

Second Saturday: Cider Tasting at Sea Cider Farm & Ciderhouse

Wing Wednesday at Christie’s Carriage House Pub

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