A Beautiful Noontime in Victoria, BC: Lunch at Milestones

I walked into the bedroom, kicked off my shoes, stripped my suspenders from my shoulders, and arched my back. Dolly-girl was on her fainting couch; she looked over her glasses and above the dime novel she was eyeballing, paused, and said, "Your reputation is starting to precede you there, Jack. Trouble's not going to have much of a challenge if you keep this up--the Luckies, the feedbag, the brown liquor, and such." "Thanks for the welcome home, Dolly-girl." She returned to her rag, muttering.


"Meanwhile, did you book us into Milestones in Victoria?" "I did and I confirmed with Anna-Maria that she's set to get there by clipper, ferry, and road coach. Little Chianti--hard to believe she's all grown up...Tells me she was at a face-to-face with a bunch of mouthpieces like to sue sawbones, follow? Go figure, but somebody's gotta keep them clean."







We hit the road at the crack the next day. Our roadster hummed along and in no time, we were looking south from a northbound ferry, headed from our country to theirs. Didn't seem right, doing a Maple Leaf without Rouge and the Newshawk, but they live back there and couldn't make it out here seeing as how it is pretty much all the way across the continent. Next year.





Milestones is a joint we read about in some gawker-book Dolly-girl picked up at the newsstand back in Stumptown. Turns out the Milestones we settled our carcasses into isn't the only one in Canada, but it is the only one on the Inner Harbour, and it is the only one with the beautiful sunny view of the Empress Hotel. Missy waved us to a table, handed us the whadda-yas, and said, "Right back, eh?" We gave each other knowing nods--"we're north of the border, der," Anna-Maria chirped.



Missy was back, as promised and asked if we were planning on wetting our whistles with anything other than the local version of Bull Run. We were. The girls gave a nod to the pomegranate margarita, which had me shaking my bean--I'm a purist and I'm betting nobody's doing the hat dance around a pomgarita. Me, I ordered up a pint of the local hops. It was good--not great, but good enough to put the corners of my trap on an upward course.



Missy picked us out as tourists, I don't know how. But if she hadn't figured us, discussing the whaddya would have tipped her. Dolly-girl and Anna-Maria started right away with the girl thing: "If I get this and you got that then I could have part of that and you could have part of this and we could split..." A feedbag's a feedbag in my book. You put your own nose in it. Otherwise, it's a trough you're bellying up to.



Anyhoo, Dolly-girl gave Missy the thumb's up on an order of well-dressed diner on a stack of frog nails while Anna-Maria told her to burn one, take it through the garden, and pin a rose on it. Then she made a little circular motion with her hand and mouthed "We'll be sharing..." Missy got it. She turned to me, "Yours Mac?" "I'll have mac if you got it, but if not, wrap up an Oncorhynchus kisutch, toss some bag-jobs on it, and give it a shot of the Swiss-on-the-Rhine. Splash-a-yesterday's special on the side." "On it. Coho wrap with capers and pesto, cuppa chowder..."





We did some gum-beating about this and that, enjoyed the sun and the view, and quicker than a float plane ride for a cruise ship tourist, Missy was back with the plates. The feedbags were as promised. We dug in, and in no time, you could hear our noses scraping the bottom of the bag. Milestones won't be a culinary milestone, but for lunch on the harbour, it's worth the stop.











We walked out of the joint for 4 Green Queens, a little pricey, but given the location, the Capital of British Columbia, the Inner Harbour, and the fact that it was Northwest Deuce Days and the town was full of roadsters, not bad.

A promenade along the waterfront took us past a bunch of buskers, but none more fanciful than this pretty mermaid, perched on her perch and playing an accordion. "That's enough to make my tail flip, I told her as I dropped a couple Loonies in her straw hat." That got me a flip of her tail, a chord from the chord-ion, and two looks through two waves. It was gonna be a long weekend...