Big bites, small bites – yummy bites

Posted on May 11, 2012 by admin

Royal Oak restaurants in Victoria BC are a diverse bunch. They’re really handy for most of our bed and breakfasts, offering our B&B guests a fine selection nearby.

Within a short walk of each other these restaurants include seafood, Italian, Thai, steaks, Mediterranean, Chinese, pizzas, and Greek cuisine. Giovanni’s Tapas is the latest in the area.

Giovannis Tapas - Royal Oak restaurant

One of the nicest features of its menu is the big bites, small bites option; well, that’s how I see it. I’m a “big bites” person so relate well to the dinner entrees which include steak, chicken, salmon and several pastas. My wife is a “small bites” type so the tapas menu is welcome offering a selection of small plates: salads, seafood, pasta, antipasto etc. For either of us the range is wide so our choice is catered for.

The other advantage of this duo menu is that one can enjoy a light tapas lunch and/or a full-blown dinner. They are open Tuesday to Saturday at 4517 West Saanich Road. See our Victoria hospitality page for more details. 

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Victoria Events Calendar 2012

Posted on March 1, 2012 by admin

For many years the Greater Victoria Bed and Breakfasts Association has maintained a very comprehensive list of local events. It is a wonderfully helpful guide to our guests enabling them to make the most of their visit to Victoria.

Do take a look through our events calendar. It includes major tourism activities, local arts happenings and festivals. This is not just a list; it gives activity descriptions, times and costs and, most helpfully, a link to the appropriate website. One of our members, Jos Lindenberg, spends hours each year compiling this in her typically quiet thorough way (she will shoot me when she reads this!) and we are most appreciative.

Glancing through events for 2012, mostly about the arts,  I see details about art gallery shows, a farmers market, concerts, theatrical productions, Royal BC Museum exhibits. And I see Deep Purple are coming to town; I had no idea they were still performing. For more general tourism festivals you can view the Tourism Victoria events calendar. And, of course, your bed and breakfast hosts will have a wealth of local knowledge they will be glad to pass on.

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The Tapas Bar, Victoria

Posted on February 1, 2012 by admin

Dining in Victoria BC offers a myriad of choices. Not only does downtown Victoria have the expected wide range of cuisine styles but the options within these are much greater than you might expect. Victoria has more restaurants per capita than anywhere in North America, solely excepting San Francisco!

You will start the day with a (very) full breakfast. Then a day of sights and activities will be best served by a snack lunch with the anticipation of a fine dinner. Bear in mind that people eat their evening meal earlier than in Europe so do not leave this too late.

Here is a suggestion appropriate to either a light lunch or an evening meal, since it is so flexible: a tapas meal. Tapas originated in Spain with offerings of a wide selection of tasty shared dishes. You choose a combination of appetizers from salads, meat and vegetarian dishes, seafood, pastas and pizzas incorporating influences from different cultures. You then linger conversationally savouring the varied tastes. This provides a pleasant lunch break from a hard days tourism or a relaxed evening to discuss the explorations of the day.

The Tapa Bar in Victoria BC

The Tapa Bar in Victoria BC

Trounce Alley in downtown Victoria is a charming little oasis of quiet where you will find one such tapas bar: The Tapa Bar. Its lively eclectic atmosphere is a great setting for these Latin-inspired dishes.

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Butterfly Gardens – the tropics in Victoria

Posted on January 2, 2012 by admin

Butterfly Gardens gives a wonderful sense of the tropics even if it should be cloudy on a typical Victoria day here on Vancouver Island. Close your eyes and imagine …

You open the doors and are immediately struck by the humid tropical heat and by the wonderful smells of jungle plants. Then a butterfly flutters before your eyes and in the distance you hear birds calling. This is Butterfly Gardens.

This delightful place is close to the Butchart Gardens, Church and State Winery and the Raptors birds of prey display. So consider them all as a wonderful days package on your visit to Victoria.

Butterfly Gardens in VictoriaTropical plants like banana plants, vines, palms and over 200 species of orchids provide the lush setting in which you will see 3,00o butterflies from 75 species. There are many moths – look out for the Atlas Moth, the largest in the world and read about its fascinating life cycle. See charming birds including parrots, flamingoes and ducks swmming in the stream and pond, frogs and tortoises.

Click to see Victoria Butterfly Gardens on YouTube. Better still, pay the Gardens a visit. Your bed and breakfast hosts will be pleased to tell you more.

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Blue’s Bayou Café-restaurant in Brentwood Bay near Victoria, BC

Posted on December 20, 2011 by admin

Blue's Bayou Café welcomeYou might think the name of Blue’s Bayou Café is a reference to a genre of Louisiana music. Blue is actually the name of chef and owner Blue Benoit who operates Blue’s Bayou Café together with his partner Lorill Fraser. Together, they’ve imported authentic Cajun/Creole cuisine at its very best – right down to the ragin’ Cajun alligator sausage – to the Victoria restaurant mix.

And when we say ‘Victoria’, we actually mean a scenic little hideaway at a marina in Brentwood Bay, about 25 minutes from downtown Victoria but about four minutes from the Butchart Gardens. In fact, it’s so close to the gardens, on a summer Saturday evening, you can enjoy superb dining on Blue’s harbour-side outdoor deck and take in the Butchart Gardens fireworks display.

Blue Benoit and Lorill Fraser

Blue Benoit and Lorill Fraser with the marina in the background.

The restaurant’s genesis lay in a 1997 trip the Calgary couple made to New Orleans. The Cajun cooking inspired them so much that, after a move to Victoria, they established Blue’s Bayou Café. Since then, the two have been back to New Orleans many times with a mission to collect ideas and funky, wild bayou decor to adorn the restaurant walls. The marine character of the immediate area – a salt-water marina is next door – only adds to the ambiance.

Since Blue is the chef, the quality of what goes on the plate is always paramount. Victoria’s local daily newspaper has given Blue’s Bayou a four-star rating. Joining the alligator sausage on the appetizer menu is ‘Voodoo dippin’ cauldron’, Creole Queen crab cakes and ‘French Quarter’ fried green tomatoes. Of course, no Cajun menu is complete without Jambalaya, but other dishes with a creole character include seafood cannelloni, horse-radish encrusted fish, bayou chicken, ‘Southern Comfort’ loin of lamb and ‘Blackened Voodoo’ beef tenderloin. Po’boys are on the lunch menu, along with a superb ‘Big Easy’ shrimp melt, and gator gumbo.

Shrimp melt

If you’re headed to Butchart Gardens, Blue’s Bayou Café is a tasty stop before or after your gardens visit. And there’s much more to see on the Saanich Peninsula.

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Messing about on the water

Posted on November 4, 2011 by admin

Whale-watching and kayaking are two popular pursuits of visitors and residents alike on southern Vancouver Island. The reasons are fairly obvious in different ways.

Exploring the coastline gives a different perspective of the island, a new way to enjoy its beauty. Taking a whale-watching trip adds a thrill to this.

Victoria whale-watching for orcas

Victoria whale-watching

Great Pacific Adventures have their base in Victoria’s Inner Harbour where the fun begins. You will be in the hands of a long-established whale watching company whose skippers / naturalists will give you a memorable experience whether on their ocean cruiser or on a zodiac.

It is unusual not to see whales but they do not breach before your eyes to order! There are three pods (families) of residents and passing transcient orcas so you can hope for the rare whale soup of up to 80 killer whales. Humpback whales appear quite often and you may well see porpoises and seals too. Tours usually visit Race Rocks where sealions, Steller and California, are draped on the rocks by the lighthouse. And look out for a variety of marine birds. It is a trip you will long remember.

A change of pace comes from peaceful kayaking around our shores. Each summer I rent a kayak from Pacifica Paddle in the glorious setting of the Saanich Inlet at Brentwood Bay, near the Butchart Gardens. The scenery is splendid, the waters placid and the other vessels not overwhelming.

Victoria kayaking in Brentwood Bay

Kayaking in Brentwood Bay

On my first trip I was accompanied by one of the staff at Pacifica Paddle. We paddled around the native island of Senanus (see photo). A few weeks later I took a “recovery” course, discovering that tipping over and righting oneself can be achieved with a smile.

This summer I went alone to explore Todd Inlet behind the Butchart Gardens where they had the cement factory and jetty 100 years ago. A couple of weeks later my wife and I joined friends on their boat and we moored in the inlet to watch the Gardens fireworks overhead.

There are so many ways to explore the Vancouver Island coastline off-shore, sailing and fishing trips too. Do ensure you include one of these on your visit to Victoria.

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Satisfy your senses …

Posted on May 3, 2011 by admin

Satisfy your senses here in Victoria by visiting Church and State Wines in Brentwood Bay.  They are situated on the Saanich Peninsula close to both Butchart Gardens and Butterfly Gardens.

I hear you … “I realise my taste buds will be satisfied but what about the other senses? And what has that falcon below got to do with a winery?” Read on.

The Raptors at Church and State

The Raptors at Church and State

Church and State Wines is really three Victoria attractions rolled into one.

Firstly, you can taste their selection of award-winning wines in their splendid tasting bar open daily in the summer. Smell the wine as you swill it gently around in your tasting glass.  Then purchase a souvenir of your visit to Victoria.

Secondly, you really must see one of their demonstrations of The Raptors. This awesome (I do not like that over-used word but here it is appropriate) display of peregrine falcons, hawks, a delightful owl, a vulture and a bald eagle will thrill you. Learn about their behaviour, discover their personalities.

Here I cheat, in that you can try to hear the owl as he silently flies just over your head. The raptors are a magnificent sight as they fly over the vines where they act as bird pest control.

Then enjoy lunch on their wrap-around patio. The food is local, prepared by gourmet chefs and elegantly presented. I can vouch for it being very tasty.

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Visiting Victoria Wineries

Posted on March 11, 2011 by admin

Victoria wineries have been one of the great success stories for tourism in our area. A few years ago there were very few vineyards on Vancouver Island but now, for example, one of our member bed and breakfasts has four on their road alone.

Take Starling Lane Winery, one of the Saanich Peninsula wineries. They are one of the businesses on our hospitality community page – local businesses we recommend to visitors to Victoria. Like most Vancouver Island wineries they are small, family affairs who are rightly proud of their craft; in this case several families each with their own vineyard working together.

Victoria winery, Vancouver Island vineyard

A Victoria winery

Do not think that these small wine-making operations produce inferior wines compared to the large wineries; they often win awards internationally. Most BC wines are white, light and fruity. I was so impressed with the 2010 champagne at Starling Lane that I purchased several bottles.

You can also visit local cideries, a meadery and a distillery all on the Greater Victoria area.

So plan a few hours to tour them all and sample their wares. Buy a bottle to enjoy in the evening at your bed and breakfast and take a few souvenirs home. Bear in mind that some of these wineries are only open on summer weekends so plan accordingly – ask your Victoria bed and breakfast hosts about this.

If Victoria wineries are not to your taste, there are craft breweries with large numbers of beers and even a meadery (have I invented that word?): anyway, a wide range to sample – all on the Saanich Peninsula.

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Visitors to Victoria BC

Posted on February 11, 2011 by admin

Visitors to Victoria may come for the BC weather, the beautiful scenery, gardens and wineries or the many attractions. For us, as their B&B hosts, it can be interesting to see how and in what they come here.

I’m not referring to the several ferry routes from BC and Washington State or Victoria International Airport, it’s their modes of transport that can intrigue us. In anticipating our guests’ arrival we wonder how (and also when – occasionally a vexing question!) they will arrive. One guest flew in by seaplane and was driven to the bed and breakfast by one of the staff. Another of our visitors came in a vintage car. Others had been touring Vancouver Island on a Harley-Davidson. But our best memory is of a young couple who wanted to escape from taking care of the kids for a while. They cycled from Washington State, took the Anacortes ferry to Sidney and arrived at the B&B on a tandem.

Visitors to Victoria BC

Visitors to Victoria BC, by tandem

They visited all of the out of the way places in the Victoria BC area that visitors often don’t see, coming back late at night sunburnt and happy. They must have turned many heads as they rode around the Saanich Peninsula on their bicycle built for two. They said they wanted to arrive “in style” and they sure did.
Whatever your means of transport you’ll find the Greater Victoria area easy to explore. The Saanich Peninsula is compact and thoroughly pleasant to explore, from Victoria in the south to Sidney in the north.

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Bed and breakfasts in Victoria

Posted on February 1, 2011 by admin

Bed and breakfasts in Victoria BC Canada vary immensely so we have a website listing a good variety to help you find exactly the right accommodations for your visit here. They are on our Victoria bed and breakfasts association website and we will include helpful information on this new blog as it develops.

All these bed and breakfasts are on the Saanich Peninsula which is on the SE corner of Vancouver Island. The peninsula includes the city of Victoria to the south and the town of Sidney in the north. Since it is only 20 miles (30 km) north to south it is very compact so all the attractions are easily accessible.

Greater Victoria BC map

Greater Victoria BC map

All our member bed and breakfasts are close to the Butchart Gardens (none more than 15 minutes away) and on the way you will pass fruit stands, wineries, lakes and parks in the rolling countryside of the peninsula. Nearby are Butterfly Gardens and the Center of the Universe at the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory. There are beaches for a quiet stroll or sunbathing and kayaking at Sidney and Brentwood Bay.

All these bed and breakfasts in Victoria are in quiet settings convenient to everything you might wish to see and do: the best of both worlds! There are restaurants in Sidney and Royal Oak, shopping in Sidney. Downtown Victoria is easily reached with its Inner Harbour, Royal BC Museum and nearby Craigdarroch Castle.  We hope to welcome you to this beautiful part of British Columbia – do let us know how we can help make your Vancouver Island vacation memorable.

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