Seafood, biscuits highlights at Victoria Gastro Pub

By Elizabeth Large | Sun restaurant critic

February 10, 2008

Coined in the early '90s in London (and popularized in New York), the phrase "gastro pub" is supposed to suggest a place with a warm, casual publike atmosphere that offers upscale food. But even so, the name of Columbia's new restaurant, Victoria Gastro Pub, is unfortunate. It sounds too medical to be appealing.

The place has another potential strike against it: its location. It replaces a Bennigan's franchise in a Columbia shopping center, and several people have asked me if it's part of a chain -- which it's not.

Of course, the space has been elaborately -- and for the most part handsomely -- redone, with wood paneling, period light fixtures, a couple of bars and leather-covered bar stools. The only reason the many rooms don't feel more authentically pubby is that, well, it used to be a Bennigan's. It's hard to cover that up.

Actually, it's best if you don't think of Victoria Gastro Pub as a pub, or a fine dining restaurant or anything else but just what it is. For instance, what pub would bring you hot, soft buttermilk biscuits -- one of the highlights of our meal? My idea of haute cuisine pub food is more like the extravagant duck fat fries with garlic aioli.

An even better example is the Victoria fish and chips. It's the classic battered and deep-fried fish, only made with a large, delicate piece of sea bass that had snowy lumps of crab meat at its center. Shrimp were supposed to be in the mix, but I'm not sure it wasn't better without them.

Victoria's regular fries (sorry, "Belgian frites,") are pretty spectacular on their own, and they aren't served with just vinegar, but "Bavarian beer vinegar." There's remoulade instead of tartar sauce for the fish.

In fact, seafood might be the way to go here. British Columbia oysters on the half shell were plump and slithered down sweetly, even without any help from the excellent, gingery cocktail sauce and mignonette sauce offered. A crab chowder, not too thick and with the flavor of real cream, would have been just about perfect if it had been served a little hotter.

The exception was the pretty layered salad of lobster, julienned jicama, avocado, onion and tomato. Its decorative lobster claw had been cooked to mush.

But the emphasis isn't on seafood here. The seasonal menu is divided among starters, "Lilliputians" (aren't restaurants inventive when it comes to the small plate craze?) and as many burgers and sandwiches as entrees.

The sandwiches are offbeat, like a DLT, made with duck, and an Edwards Virginia ham sandwich, the paper-thin slices of ham piled high on a split biscuit and then weighted down with melted cheddar. Not a heavy sandwich, oh no. The plate spilled over with more fries.

There are nice touches with the sandwiches, like thin, crisp homemade bread-and-butter pickles and Pink Lady apple chutney.

The trend of preparing the same meat two different ways has been resurrected at Victoria in the Duo of Lamb. The lamb chop was almost raw inside, but the braised lamb had potent flavor. The meat was neatly flanked by whole baby carrots roasted with their tops on and a rutabaga puree. The Marsala sauce had the sheen of a cornstarch gravy, which is never as appealing to me as a reduction.

A grilled flatiron steak was flat-out timid, with not much to remember it by. It was covered in another version of thickened gravy. The vegetables were more intriguing: mashed potatoes with the zing of horseradish and fresh baby spinach.

Pasta is represented by one of the "Lilliputians": a large, tender tortelloni filled with wild mushrooms; cheese and tomato give it more substance.

British cuisine gets an unexpected nod among the desserts with a trifle of custard, berries and pound cake and a dumpling (a whole apple wrapped in pastry) that was like something out of Beatrix Potter.

Otherwise, it's a chocolate cake with the sweet crunch of praline, or bananas Foster over a shortcake biscuit, my personal favorite.

Service at Victoria started off shaky but quickly recovered. Apparently, the bar was backed up, so while there was a long, long wait for glasses of wine and a couple of cocktails, the food service was quite well-paced.

There are so few independent restaurants in this area offering anything in the way of fine dining that I hate to say anything that might dissuade you from trying Victoria Gastro Pub. There are very good things to be had there. On the other hand, the food is simply too uneven for me to recommend it across the board.

This is one of those places where regulars will find the dishes that work for them and have good meals.

I don't know why the Bennigan's left, but I'm glad its replacement is a nonfranchise restaurant that's trying to do some interesting things with its food.

elizabeth.large@baltsun.com