Donut King & Coffee | 1200 Summit Drive | Kamloops, BC

This restaurant review is from 2011 and was originally published on "Hot, Fast, Dirty", a website I'd intended to be for 500-word-or-less reviews of independent and lesser-known fast food joints.  HFD has long since been closed and I've gradually been migrating the content to this site.  As with all my food writing, you'll be able to find this and other reviews on the Restaurant Review Index.

Every time I pass through the town of Kamloops another outcropping of buildings has sprung up along the highway like mushrooms after a rain storm.  Mostly big-box stores and chain restaurants, they share other qualities with mushrooms as well: for example, local pulp mills mean that the areas in which they grow smell  not unlike excrement and eating at the wrong one will twist your stomach into such knots that you will beg heaven for the sweet deliverance of death.  Sadly for you, God does not hear prayers in the desert.

The Donut King in Kamloop's Sahali neighborhood isn't far from exit 369 (Columbia Street) off the Trans-Canada Highway and when I arrived there after a long day on the road I felt I had earned a treat.  The look of the building isn't miles off that of Tim Hortons and, if I recall correctly, the building which houses this Donut King (there are 2 more in other parts of town) was once home to the Kingdom of the Rolled Rim.  Inside, the comparisons were hard to ignore and I had to assume that the owners had chosen "Donut King" because "King Tim's" was a bit too obvious, as was the slightly more inflammatory "F*ck You, Horton".

Somebody gonna get sued

The selection was a good deal more varied than Tim Hortons, with butter & raisin tarts, small round cherry cheesecakes & three kinds of cream tarts (banana, lemon, blueberry).  They had more standard offerings like cruller, longjohns, and a TimBit knock-off called DK-ee's, among other things.  I went with a cherry cheesecake ($2.99), something called a "What Am I?" (90¢) which looked like a Boston Cream donut wearing a golf cap, some kind of vegetable wrap served with hoisin sauce and one Old Fashioned Glaze DK-ee (I'm on a diet, man).

What the hell are you?

The DK-ee was dry and unpleasant - like eating a mothball - but the "What Am I" and cherry cheesecake were both solid choices.  "What Am I" had a cream filling of pleasant but indeterminate flavour which was, I suppose, the point and the cherry cheesecake - a New York-style cheesecake in a tart shell - was too rich to finish on my own but was enjoyable nonetheless.  As for the vegetable wrap - I don't know what the hell it was doing there or, more to the point, what it was doing on my plate but it was good as far as these things go.  Still, it was more out of place than Carrot Top at the Apollo Theatre.

Tim Hortons has, for some reason or another, become enmeshed with Canada's national identity.  I don't think the empire of the Donut King poses a serious threat to that but with better coffee and donuts made fresh in house they're a nice alternative.

Lee's Famous Recipe Chicken | 5777 Trans Canada Highway, Duncan B.C.

This restaurant review is from 2011 and was originally published on "Hot, Fast, Dirty", a website I'd intended to be for 500-word-or-less reviews of independent and lesser-known fast food joints.  HFD has long since been closed and I've gradually been migrating the content to this site.  As with all my food writing, you'll be able to find this and other reviews on the Restaurant Review Index.

Update February 26, 2013:  This particular Lee's has closed it's doors.  A new location in Campbell River has sprung up although they no longer seem to make the spicy chicken wings I loved so much.

There is no hope for the chicken. The first nail in its tiny coffin is that it is a graceless, unlovely beast whose daily routine consists of wobbling around a farmyard looking like an owl gone to seed. Not having a majestic bone in it’s body, it is eaten even by those who refuse the flesh of wild game because once upon a misty morning they saw an elk silhouetted against the rising sun.

The second mark against poultry is that it is annoying. Admittedly, being nature’s alarm clock the deck is stacked against it but with a little effort the chickencould have overcome.  Instead it just dodders around making awful sounds and picking at the ground all day.  There are ugly animals, just like ugly people, whose natural charisma allows others to see past negative characteristics like a body made of spare parts (platypus) or a nose straight out of the magazines that stores keep behind the counter (Proboscis Monkey).  The chicken is not one of these animals.

The third and final strike? God made chickens delicious. This is the most damning trait possible for an animal with the defensive capabilities of a sofa.

Lee’s Famous Recipe Chicken is a chain with a number of locations in the American southeast and 2, somewhat incongruously, here on Vancouver Island.  Usually I opt for the 6 Piece Strip Meal ($10.99, includes a drink & 2 sides) and small buffalo chicken wings ($5.29 for 8 wings).

The strips are generous portions of all-white meat, offered in Famous or Crispy, of which Famous is my preferred choice, a slightly chewy and mildly spiced breading.  The fries are fast-food standard, thin and crisp but with nothing to set them apart.  The centerpiece of the 6 piece meal, or of any meal at Lee’s, is the gravy.  

The thick, peppery elixir is the river that drives Lee’s turbine and easily outmatches the gravy from competing outlets like Popeye’s, Church’s or the dreaded KFC.  The small container that comes with the meal is never enough and it’s so good that you can power right through the guilt that tries to stop you from buying a second round.

The other thing I adore about Lee’s is their commitment to serving up buffalo wings that you cannot eat in polite company.  When ordering wings at many places it’s common to get short-changed on the amount of sauce you get – not so with Lee’s Buffalo Wings.  On every visit they come covered in (literally) eye-watering amounts of hot sauce and are impossible to eat without looking like a two-year old tackling spaghetti for the first time.On occasion I’ve given into temptation and purchased the large order of wings  ($8.99) but this is ill-advised as your sinuses will go into full shutdown and you’ll have to power-wash the sauce from your fingers.

They're worth the trouble, though, and Lee's is a chicken joint worth coming back to.

Hot, Fast, Dirty: Fast Food is Good for the Soul

Come check out my new project - Hot, Fast, Dirty:  Fast Food is Good for the Soul - news and reviews from the independent fast food scene (with a few good words from the big boys thrown in).  

Largely the Truth will still be updated regularly but HFD offers a tighter focus in a shorter format - (all reviews are 500 words or less) so it will be a nice change of pace.  

I'm aiming for it to be a more collaborative effort as well, so if you've got passions for fast food, writing and humor then click through to HFD and let's talk.

So far places reviewed include some here in Victoria (La Fiesta Cafe) some from B.C.'s interior (Donut King - Kamloops) and some from the good ol' U.S of A (Donut Storr - Westminster, CA).

Follow Hot, Fast, Dirty on Twitter (@hotfastdirty)

The Moon Under Water Pub & Brewery | 350B Bay Street | Victoria

Update February 26, 2013:  The Moon Under Water is still open but under new management.  I haven't been in a year and a half so can't say how this has affected the quality of the food and beer.

There is no end of talk here in North America about the “English Pub Experience”.  We imagine quaint little buildings in the country where rumpled men in patched jackets talk about the weather, the footie, and make off-color jokes about their wives.   Where a barman with rolled-up sleeves serves pints of nameless “lager”, “ale” and “bitter” from great brass taps and sets them down on the dark, polished bar.  If a disagreement should arise it can be settled with a game of darts or, if absolutely necessary, a gentlemanly bout of fisticuffs outside after which the winner helps the loser to his feet and then buys him a drink.

Come in, have a laugh, get stabbed.

When I was living in England with Nicky the television liked to remind us that “country pubs” were closing at about the rate of one a day.  In the pubs that remain you are more likely to find teenagers in short skirts screeching football songs than you are anyone who wants to talk about the weather.  The barman is still there but he’s pouring out pints of Budweiser, Carling and Strongbow Cider to ratfaced men with wispy moustaches and the social graces of fire ants.  If he can be bothered to put down his mobile phone long enough to work the taps, that is.  Disagreements, if they arise, are settled with a knife in your back, or if absolutely necessary, a savage kicking outside by a group of hoodied jackals, one of whom will use his mobile phone to record the event for posterity. 

It makes me wonder where The Moon Under Water fits into all this - advertised as an “English-style” pub it doesn’t look or feel particularly English and the menu is caught somewhere between the Old & New Worlds.  It’s neither Coronation Street nor Clockwork Orange but the food is hearty and filling and their session ales are the best English beers I’ve tasted in the three years since coming home.

Fernwood Inn | 1302 Gladstone Avenue | Victoria

The small neighborhoods, or villages, that dot Victoria are one of the city's hidden charms.  Some are more interesting than others, James Bay Village in particular feels like an open air home for the elderly and the boring, but with a range of independent businesses and often unique architecture they all have their own appeal. Fernwood Village always seems peaceful, rather than boring and at midday that's a welcome change from downtown and the rush of Blackberry-wielding power suits who pull down six figures but have all the social graces of water buffalo.

I Get Around

In the last few weeks Largely the Truth has turned up in a few new places around the web and in print.  I was profiled by Colin Newell on his CoffeeCrew Blog and submitted the guest blog post "Telus, Like Rock N Roll Dreams, Comes Through" to Russ Lolacher's customer service blog "The Upsell".

CBC Victoria did an audio feature on food blogs and alongside it listed a few from Vancouver Island.  It's only a list (and we actually had to submit our own names) but it bears mentioning.  You can find the list here.

On the print side of things I've been working as part of the start-up newspaper "Diversity Reporter".  Most of my contributions to DR are and will continue to be behind-the-scenes, doing things like editing articles for length and clarity, but my name will pop up on a byline from time-to-time.  The first issue, released this past week, includes a condensed version of this site's Cabin 12 review.

Diversity Reporter is a free, bi-weekly newspaper aimed at connecting with Victoria's ever-growing immigrant community.  It's available at grocery stores, coffee shops, mosques, temples and other locations all over the city.

Diversity Reporter is also on Twitter at @divreport

The Village Idiot Bar & Grill | 306 Mackenzie Avenue | Revelstoke, B.C

What’s in a name?  That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet.  But just look at a rose: it’s lovely, red (I know there are other colours, but those are only for your grandmother), and it can buy you out of almost any trouble you’ve caused.  This is based on a sliding scale, from a single rose “just because”, to several dozen, “just because I crashed your car while playing slap and tickle with your sister”.  The rose is invincible to degradation, even if you call it “Duane Allman’s gangrenous foot”. 

Other things are not so lucky, and were they to have their names changed, their image would suffer accordingly.  Imagine, for instance, that during a moment of intimacy with your lady, you glance downward and ask if she wants to meet “The Ringing Disappointment”, or “Fester”.  Will her answer be a breathy “Oh yes”, or would your bed empty faster than a church pew when Father Flynn passes the plate?  If you named your restaurant “The Village Idiot”, would anyone take it seriously?

Brown's Social House | 809 Douglas Street | Victoria

Back in 1991, when U2 were still releasing albums worth listening to, Bono wailed on about a young woman who was “even better than the real thing”, which the band said was meant to reflect the 90s obsession with instant gratification.   It’s been ten years since I bought my last U2 album and I’m more impressed with the 130 square metre bedroom Bono added to his Dublin home than I am his recent musical output, but I’ve got to admit that the little Irish devil had a point.  As it turned out the 90s were only a signpost on the road, ever since then the cultural landscape looks like it has been trampled by the Persian army as led by a metrosexual, yuppie, Xerxes.

The Office Lounge | 759 Yates Street | Victoria

It's been two years since I was beaten by schnitzel. The scene was a small, crowded bar in Cologne, Germany. I had been in town a few days visiting a friend when we were invited out for dinner and drinks. As we made our way there my friend explained that the bar we were headed to was a much-loved local, known for its convivial atmosphere and generous portions of schnitzel. Until that night I'd been completely unaware of the German capacity for understatement. Surely you've heard of the Goliath Bird Eating Spider? It's a venomous, burrowing, arachnid that lives in Venezuela, Suriname, and other humid places I intend never to visit. It grows to 10-12" in diameter and uses both venom and fear to paralyze prey.  It is the most terrifying creature on planet Earth and the schnitzel I was served was large & merciless enough to eat it and then send pictures to the spider's family afterwards, just for laughs.

Cup of Joe Cafe | #1 - 230 Menzies Street | Victoria

A close friend of mine once spent most of his time and even more of his money trying to win over the office ice queen, a tall blonde named Annette whose head was as empty as her brassiere was full.  Presents, cards & little favors, he punched all the spots on his sucker card trying to win her affections and after a series of chaste dates had gotten absolutely nowhere.  It finally ended at the office Christmas party when he found her in the stairwell frantically exchanging DNA with the copier repairman.  My friend was crushed and Annette’s explanation didn’t do anything to ease the sting:  “His name is Vincent; he has great arms AND a Mustang!  I thought you wanted me to be happy?”  For him that was the end of the office party and he left, miserable, priapic and bound for home thinking it was the end of his night too.  But then a funny thing happened to remind him of a lesson we all forget from time to time:  sometimes the things we want most have been right here all along.  Her name was Brenda and she lived two doors down.  Now and again they had run into each other in the laundry room but until this moment, when they arrived home at the same time and her smile cut through his misery and loneliness, he’d never really seen her.  Never noticed the twinkle in her blue eyes, the way she wrinkled her little nose when she laughed, or the curve of her...well, curves.  They talked until they didn’t need to anymore and my friend disappeared off the face of the earth for a while.  Once he’d come back down from the clouds he invited me out for breakfast at Cup of Joe to tell me the story, to brag more  than was strictly necessary and finally, to ask for a favor. 

Cabin 12 | 3111 Cedar Hill Rd | Victoria

Update 3/14/2012:  Hey there, loyal readers.  Cabin 12 has relocated to 3111 Cedar Hill Road near the Hillside Mall.  It's a bit of a hike but worth it for the friendliest restaurant in town.  This review refers to their former location at 607 Pandora Street but I stand by my words.


To get to the new Cabin 12 by transit take the #24 bus from downtown.  It'll let you off a stone's throw from their door.  Otherwise there are a number of buses that take you within walking distance, including the #4, 22, 25, 27 & 28.


Sometimes you just know that you're not going to like something.  In early 2005 I was going through a prolonged breakup when two close friends got tired of me drifting from room to room in my house like the ghost of Miss Haversham and dragged me to out to the movies.  Living in Revelstoke we had only one film on offer, the romantic comedy Hitch and I fought like mad against going in there; after I Robot there were a dozen things I'd rather do than watch Big Willy "Hell, yeah!" his way through more nonsense, but my friends prevailed.  

Funky, but in a good way

Two hours later I emerged from the cinema feeling better than I had in months - over the course of the film I had come to realize that I had great friends who really cared about my well-being.  That's a rare thing.  But take away that affirmation and you're left with a film that was, as predicted, absolute rubbish.  When I came across it on cable recently I felt an almost irrepressible urge to channel The King and fire my .44 into the television.  All the positive memories clustered around seeing the film couldn't change the fact that I knew I would hate it going in and felt no different coming out.  


I knew I wasn't going to like Cabin 12 because I'd heard it was "trendy", "funky", and "hip", three words that make the hair on my neck stand up, but I thought I'd give it a try - it only seemed fair.  Sometimes you just know that you're not going to like something.  And sometimes you're wrong.  I enjoyed my lunch at Cabin 12 more than any in recent memory and if this is the way that owners Corey & Dan always run their ship then I've found my new favorite restaurant.

The Podium Sports Grill | 531 Yates St. | Victoria

Athletics are not my bag. I don't know why exactly, maybe because I enjoy the same level of fitness as a stack of pancakes or that I refuse to tolerate any level of physical discomfort and to enter the world of athletics is know nothing but. Once, because I'd been told it built character, I went for a run around the neighborhood and after thirty minutes, with every joint howling in protest and my knees threatening suicide, I suddenly recalled an article in Omni about recently discovered links between character, humorlessness and responsibility and went home to spend more quality time with the sofa. I find the watching of sports to be an equally joyless enterprise - hockey, football and basketball all seem to involve minor variations on a theme; chemically-enhanced cavemen, all of them rich as Croesus, running back and forth perpetrating acts of violence against one another while a stadium full of drunken thugs howl encouragement. No wonder then, that I almost never bother going into sports bars, and a small wonder that I bothered with this one. I'm glad I did.

Al-Sultan Restaurant | 1813 Douglas Street | Victoria

In the bottom drawer of my desk, tucked behind the Emergency Whiskey and a stack of unopened fan mail, there sits a book. Large and lovingly bound in exquisite leather, it is a comprehensive list of the things in this world which annoy me. Some of the entries are more detailed than others, the most thought-out being calmly expanded upon in iambic pentameter using my finest calligraphy set:

"Pompous weird-beards who mope their way around
parties until someone says, 'Is that your
guitar?' and they look shocked, almost as if
to say, 'Oh this, this vast wooden thing slung
across my back that hits Bren in the arm
each time I walk past him? I had almost
forgotten that I had it with me, bro',
then play the first four bars to 'Stairway' while
all the other moonheads gaze on rapt and
the rest of us remember that we have
work in the morning and must be leaving."

Others are hastily scrawled in a pygmy rage using half-chewed golf pencils and considerably more four-letter words. These typically involve things that bother me about work, whatever slang is currently en vogue and things I see on television. Television is a scourge, particularly the advertisements, and several pages of my manifesto are devoted entirely to things like:

"Slap Chop Man: I wish that hooker had bitten off your tongue"

"Viagra: There is nothing at all wrong with your penis. It has retired from active service because it understands you to be too ugly to attract a partner the old-fashioned way and your income stream insufficient to acquire one via the same means as Slap Chop Man."

"Billy Mays: That God took you and not Anthony Sullivan or Slap Chop Man proves that He takes some kind of demented joy in our suffering."

Earls | 1199 Government Street | Victoria

There are a lot of reasons why it might seem pointless to review a chain restaurant:  the recipes are mostly the same at every location from San Francisco to Jacksonville, and, as a friend pointed out, if a formula is successful enough to generate franchises who am I to argue?  Well, over the years I've eaten at Boston Pizza, Red Robin & Ricky's All-Day Grill, and the only thing they do well is back up what H.L. Mencken said about getting rich by underestimating the taste of the American public.  The quality of a restaurant depends more on the competence of those preparing the food than it does on recipes alone so if the folks behind the scenes have as much enthusiasm for food as I do honest work then your dining experience will be as much fun as mopping the floors in an adult theatre. 

Almost any franchise that opened up in my hometown of Revelstoke over the years has either folded or maintained a consistently execrable standard, the only obvious reason being the available pool of listless halfwits willing to work for the wages on offer.  Paying peanuts will most assuredly get you monkeys.  Dan has always been a devoted fan of the Earls chain, for which I've hassled him endlessly but his ability to ignore me is almost unparalleled.  Only my wife does it better.  So when Dan informed me that Earls would be the chosen venue for his 26th birthday I figured there was no point poking fun and that inferior factory-prepared food would vindicate my snobbery.  And you know what?  The bastards made us a great meal and I barely had enough room left to eat my words.

Cafe Brio | 744 Fort Street | Victoria

For the longest time fine restaurants held no appeal for me. Growing up in Revelstoke, most of what I learned of upscale restaurants I learned from the "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air". I came to associate fine-dining with soft music, portions scarcely bigger than my thumb and DJ Jazzy Jeff being thrown through French doors. The details of eating in bistros or brasseries, like "salad forks", seemed weird & impenetrable, like French, and having to wear a jacket and tie just to eat dinner seemed diabolical. A jacket inside? And a necktie? Hell. Neckties are the miserable invention of some secret pervert with an interest in auto-erotic asphyxiation. You can't use them to sop up gravy, blow your nose or wipe your....er...nose, so I ask you - what does that leave?

Once I started paying for my own meals I headed straight for the type of place that didn't have dress codes. The best amongst them actively discouraged the wearing of anything hinting at affluence. Were you to enter the Central Station Pub in Kamloops wearing a suit, or even a pressed pair of trousers, the night would end with you upended in an alleyway trash-bin. Now and again, though, there are times when I want a quiet meal somewhere I won't be rolled for my pocket change. This weekend our friend Joline stopped in while on vacation from the U.K. and we decided to take her to one such place, our favorite "nice" restaurant, Cafe Brio.

Helser's on Alberta | 1538 Northeast Alberta Street | Portland, OR

Flying is idiotic.  Not all flying of course, I'm well aware that without the power of flight bumblebees, herons and the like would have a hard time getting around.  Human beings however were not born with the benefit of wings and are not particularly aerodynamic so we've spent the better part of our history tottering about on two legs, trying not to fall from high places and doing just fine.  A pack of maniacs who women tend to avoid decided that their free time would be best spent trying to defy nature and eventually, after much tribulation, we had the aeroplane.  The start of the airline industry meant that ordinary folks like you and me got to experience the immediacy of mortality courtesy of a flimsy metal tube hurtling across the sky at 500 miles an hour.  Because government bodies thrive on misery the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 was passed, which gave airlines & passengers carte blanche to stop caring about anything. 

From then on ordinary folks like you and me still got to experience the glory of the Skycoffin but now with two hundred other people dressed in sweat-pants, all with whooping plague, enjoying the same level of comfort offered in a cattleyard.  Add in turbulence and the looming possibility that some resentful virgin who spends too much time on the internet has hidden explosives in his underpants and air travel for fun makes as much sense as trying to kick a bear in the testicles.  The only time I will consent to air travel is when time is short, such as this weekend past when Nicky & I visited our friends Rose & Scott in Portland. 

Flying in the Dash 8 aircraft used by Air Canada for short hops like Victoria-Vancouver & Vancouver-Portland is to feel like you've been packed into a Port-a-John and launched by catapult.  I'm not normally a religious man but but if the almighty has an answering machine then by the time I got to PDX I'd filled the tape.   It was all worth it though, to see good friends, have good times and eat good food.  Portland eateries have almost never disappointed me and Helser's comes in at the top of what was already an esteemed list.

Lully's Sandwich Bar | 732 Broughton Street | Victoria, BC

Update, March 28, 2012:  Lully's is no more, replaced by the Cleopatra Hookah Bar.  As of this writing the hookah bar is not yet open to the public but, according to a source, hopes to be soon.

Like any good origin story the beginning of the sandwich is the subject of some conjecture:  are they a super-intelligent race of aliens rendered mute by their entry into our atmosphere?  Ancient texts that have the misfortune of tasting like Montreal smoked meat?  Both tantalizing theories, both unlikely ever to be properly investigated.  

The origin of the sandwich is lost to time and that may be for the best.  Scholars everywhere would never have recovered from learning that all their lives they've been using their lunch hours to masticate what's left of the Alexandrian Library. What is known about the sandwich is that name itself comes from John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich .  An inveterate gambler & gourmand he demanded of his servant something that wouldn't require his Highness to shift His bulk away from his beloved card game.  A full-turkey is a bit unwiedly to eat whilst gambling away the manor house so a piece of salt beef, wait for it, sandwiched between two toasted bits of bread fit the bill nicely instead and soon Montagu's fellow gambling addicts would order "the same as Sandwich!".  That makes our most commonly eaten modern foodstuff named after an obese gambling addict.  

The Pink Bicycle Gourmet Burger Joint | 1008 Blanshard St. | Victoria

Update:  Since this review was published I have returned to the Pink Bicycle and tried the Black Bean Burger, which was very good.  That said, I stand by my statement that the quality of their meals is uneven.

"Nobody's perfect" is one of those maxims that is not only true, but comforting as well.  We all make mistakes, some of them little, like forgetting to turn off the coffee pot before you leave for work.  Others seemed little at the time - that chocolate-powered five-year-old blowing through your living room on Christmas Day like a tornado made of underoos and wrapping paper, for example.  Knowing that we're not the only ones makes it easier.  Hell, in professional baseball you're considered a roaring success if you perform your job correctly one-third of the time.  The legendary Ty Cobb has the distinction of holding a career batting average of .364, the highest in major league history which is a big deal for those of you who don't follow this kind of thing. This means that the most consistent hitter in major league history only did his job right 36.4% of the time and has been immortalized for it.  If the restaurant business had the same kind of standards there would be Great Cannon Pizza outlets all over the city but mercifully that's not the case.  In this business if you screw up 70% of the time you will very shortly end up in receivership and be forced to face your public and have rotten vegetables thrown at you.  That is, of course, unless your establishments happens to have the location, short skirts & shiny brass geegaws to mask your total lack of quality or personality.  Up until today the Pink Bicycle has had quality in spades.  If we're going to continue flogging sports metaphors you could say that up until today they'd batted 1000.

Ma Miller's Pub at the Goldstream Inn | 2903 Sooke Lake Rd. | Goldstream

Update, March 28, 2012:  Ma Miller's Pub has become Twin Peaks, a Hooters-style pub.   There is some debate as to whether this location is part of the US Twin Peaks chain or has cribbed their logo.  The US site does not list a Canadian arm.  I haven't been to Twin Peaks yet but I assume the food is average and the view...inspiring.

Update, February 18, 2014:  Twin Peaks did not last and eventually Ma Miller's re-opened.  Now, word is that they are again about to close the doors.

My grandmother, bless her soul, tried for most of my young life to teach me important values, things like “cleanliness is next to Godliness” and “never judge a book by its cover”. Unfortunately these lessons were lumped in with other material that forbade things much closer to my heart: “stop eating, you’re going to explode” and “if you fart in church again God will send you to hell”. Poor lesson planning like this meant that many of her pearls of wisdom were thrown out with the mental bathwater and the older I get, the more I realize that some those things would have served me well after she was gone. My entire school career would have been considerably more illustrious had I not judged many books by their covers. At the time, I reasoned if a weighty tome was named "Dithering Heights" or "A Short Walk Up a Hill" and had a cover that featured demure women in frocks sitting down to tea, they were unlikely to include scenes of frantic mud-wrestling in which those frocks were torn asunder as the women vied for the love of wealthy Lord Pennyfeather. My time thus saved I would replace the book on the shelf and continue on to the volumes with that had more promising covers, were considerably smaller and most importantly, could be held in one hand. There is no spot on the honor roll for the student who writes a book report on “Sherry Has Low Standards & No Knickers On”.

Alzu's | 811 Bay Street | Victoria

UPDATE - January 26, 2011: According to neighboring businesses, Alzu's was closed as of Thursday. "Personal vehicles" were seen out front on Friday, possibly loading equipment. As of today the restaurant sits empty. A local business owner says that he spoke to Julio Alzu last week and that Alzu claimed to be "tired of running the restaurant" and was going "home to Guatemala".

Now we mourn the passing of a giant. Let us blunt our grief with the words of W.H. Auden.

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

This time, Max & I corralled our good friend Dan, took leave of civilization and braved the badlands. Dan’s majestic Monte Carlo rolled past the plains of Leng and the mountains where Rokhnm the cruel winter God slumbers, straight into the dust-blown hinterland known as Bay Street. Little is known about the history of Bay Street, although conjecture abounds: Some say it was partially hand-paved by Satan in the 12th century before he became bored and outsourced the rest of the job to a handful of Chinese schoolchildren. Some say that it’s been there since time immemorial, a lonely ribbon of blacktop waiting out the ages until Man found his way out of the garden and into the drug trade.

Victoria’s choice of late-menu eating options are limited to Alzu’s or Denny’s, while Denny’s presents better, with warmer lighting, brighter surfaces and more polish, for us it’s Alzu’s every time. Denny’s service tends to be lacking and the restaurant itself feels a bit like McDonald’s. Not the McDonald’s on the corner of Douglas & View you understand, which instead of a fast-food joint feels like an outpatient facility that also sells hamburgers, but a McDonald’s all the same.