oysters Archives - Foodology

Ferris’ Oyster Bar is located in Victoria, BC. When I was here for a work trip, I wanted to check it out as it was one of the most talked about places in town, plus very high reviews. It is more upscale compared to the Ferris’ Oyster Grill on the first floor. Mags and I came here once we wrapped up work.

The interior is nice and cozy with cool art on the walls.

Baked Oysters (one of each $18) has 6 different flavours you can choose from. Since Mags and I wanted to them all, we opted to try them all.

The flavours were:

Cornelius – corn flakes, butter, fresh thyme
Bottecelli – pecorino romano, cracked pepper, lemon and breadcrumbs
Original Rockefeller – spinach, green onion, butter and Pernod
La Truffe – Creamed Leaks, crispy prosciutto, truffle oil
Sea horse – horseradish, butter, lemon
Catalan – romesco, bread crumb, olive oil

When it arrived to our table, I thought it was strange it wasn’t baked in the shell. The only flavor we enjoyed was the Botticelli, but everything else was quite strange.

Virgin Seafood Caesar ($6.50) has freshly shucked oyster, chilled mussel and tomato juice with spicy picked green beans, piparras and fresh horseradish. It was a beautiful presentation and tasted great!

Chicken Liver Pate ($9) is served in a mason jar and topped with a pedro ximenez gelée and served with crostini. We did not like this dish because we like to keep our pâté separated from the jam. It really was drowning in the jam and masked a lot of the pâté taste. I would never order this again.

Ceviche ($12) was served with local seafood, aji amarillo, and spicy leche de tigre. This dish was also very disappointing because it did not contain any acidic notes in the sauce. It tasted more like mango juice with tuna sitting inside.

Overall, Mags and I were not very impressed with Ferris’ Oyster Bar. Nothing tasted right and the service was atrocious. Our server dropped some of our crostini on the table, while she was placing it down. She just said ooopps and put it back onto our plate with her bare hands. The only thing good was the Virgin Seafood Caesar. There’s a lot of other Oyster bars that are better than Ferris.

We Rate Ferris Oyster Bar:

Address:
536 Yates St
Victoria BC

Website:
http://www.ferrisoysterbar.com/

Insadong Korean BBQ Restaurant has been on North Road and Lougheed for a while now and have been serving guests traditional Korean cuisine. The restaurant is pretty huge and can accommodate large groups.

I came here with my family for Fathers Day and it was quite busy. Parking was a bit tough but we eventually found a spot.

Depending on which area of the restaurant you sit in, it will look different. The area we were in had pretty poor ventilation, so it was very smokey for most of the time. The table we were at wasn’t wiped down properly, so there were bits of food still on it.

Family BBQ Combination ($79.99) can serve 4 -5 people but we had a lot of leftovers…so you can have 6 people eat this if you really wanted.

In this combo, you get:

Smoked Salmon Salad
Radish Seaweed Roll
Seafood non-spicy tofu soup or soybeans soup
Seafood Pancake or Bulgogi Japchae
Marinated Beef Galbi Ribs
Marinated Chicken Bulgogi
Marinated Spicy Pork Bulgogi
Marinated Short Ribs
Mussels ( 3 pieces)
Prawns ( 3 pieces)
Oysters( 3 pieces)

Before the main dishes arrived, we were given complimentary side dishes (banchan). You will find a lot of picked vegetables like bean sprouts, cucumbers, radishes, potatoes and kimchi. The side dishes are refillable if you want more.

Radish Seaweed Roll was a light and refreshing dish and it’s good to eat your vegetables beforehand because all the meat will be coming next.

Next, all the marinated meat and seafood arrived on a large platter. Mmmmm Mmmmm Mmmmm time to get this party started.

The marinated galbi beef ribs are cut and placed on the hot grill by the server. They didn’t really say anything and just placed it on there for us. We were confused since they didn’t explain what they were doing. As you can tell, service here is a bit strange.

Everything else we grilled on the stove ourselves. The chicken, beef and pork were great. The seafood was ok, but not as fresh and flavourful.

Seafood Pancake came on a hot plate. It was decent, but not the best one I’ve had.

Smoked Salmon Salad was good, fresh and had a good amount of smoked salmon.

Seafood non-spicy tofu soup was good to contrast the items part of the combo. Great clean taste and has a good amount of tofu and seafood.

Overall, we were so full at the end of the meal and had a few item to take home. We still had a little bit of uncooked meat, so they helped us cook it before we left.

We added 2 bowls of rice for $1.99 each and the end of the meal totaled to $88.17, which is not bad for so much food. You do get value from the combo sets on the menu. The downside about dining here is that the service can be quite poor.

We Rate Insadong Korean BBQ: