Arriving in Victoria

The Victoria Parliament building
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We had a reservation at the Laurel Point Inn, which was a very short 5 minute walk from the ferry. That's probably the best thing about the Laurel Point Inn. Other than that, we weren't very impressed (and wouldn't stay there again). Their web site is elegant and some parts of the property were quite nice, but overall our impression was that they didn't quite "finish" things. (If it weren't for the fact that they were in construction on a new restaurant while we were there, I'd have guessed that they ran out of money.) There were many shortcomings that I won't bother to enumerate, but there are a lot of hotels in Victoria, so next time we'll try another one.

Most of the time we spent in Victoria was walking and eating. We had some really spectacular food, and eating is Brad and my favorite pastime. On Saturday, we walked for a while and then ended up at Ferris' Oyster Bar & Grill. The indoor space was a bit cramped, the decor not very interesting, and the staff not overly friendly, but THE FOOD...wow! To start, they have baked oysters served eight different ways. We got one of each. Not only were the sauces phenomenal (banana curry, creamy pesto, sage mushroom and more), but the oysters were enormous. With that we got mussels in a cream sauce served with delicious garlic bread and a side order of sweet potato french fries with three kinds of flavored mayo. It was so unbelievable that we returned for lunch the next day (and we almost never do that traveling).

Oysters with banana curry cream...yum!