By Dessa Bayrock (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: January 23, 2013
45695 Hocking Avenue, Chilliwack
Prices from $7.95 to $21.95 (All you can eat for $11.95)
Monday through Thursday:
11:30 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Friday: 11:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.
Last time I ate at this restaurant it was still called Victory Fish and Chips, and the fare doesn’t seem to have changed at all. There is a definite focus on crispy, delicious British fish and chips (halibut, cod, and haddock), but also a selection of coleslaw, fish burgers, and meat pies. In a phrase: British delicious!
Character can make or break an establishment, and character is something that The Victory Restaurant has in spades. Sticking with an unsurprising British theme, posters and other memorabilia line the walls. One plaque tells me that beer is good with all meals, not just breakfast. Another sternly warns that all flintlocks, cudgels, daggers and swords are to be handed over to the innkeeper for safekeeping. Scarves from the last 18 football (soccer?) championships take up almost a whole wall. A flat-screen television informs me I am watching EastEnders, and judging by the drama unfolding around Janine’s wedding, it can only be a long-running British soap opera (the internet seems to confirm it’s been a staple of British airwaves since 1985). I am both terrified and intrigued by the selection of imported beer and fancy mugs hanging above the bar.
Unsurprisingly, I order fish and chips: more specifically, a piece of cod on a bed of potato counterparts. Spoilers: fucking delicious. The batter is just the right thickness and the kind of crispy, honey-nut brown colour that C-Lovers will never accomplish. The meat of the fish is almost too hot to eat, with just the right amount of flakiness that allows you to pull it apart into neat pieces without disintegrating completely. Warning: that fish will be gone before you can say no-slap-and-tickle-of-the-wenches (another thing a poster warns me is strictly forbidden in the tavern). You know why? It’s delicious, delicious, delicious. I can’t say it enough. It’s just the perfect temperature of too-hot-for-fingers, not-too-hot-for-tongues. It’s just the perfect amount of grease to make you appreciate the deep-fried carbohydrates you are putting into your body, without feeling like the grease is trying to eat you from the inside out.
Given how perfectly wonderful this fish is, it is to my sadness I am forced to report the matching chips are disappointingly lacklustre. Their golden exteriors lie, promising melt-in-your-mouth crispy potato heaven and instead delivering the sort of fry I would buy mass-market at Costco and bake in my own oven. I am an amateur. I am not good at baking fries in my oven. This is apparently something The Victory Restaurant and I have in common, despite their use of a deep-fryer. The chips alternated between too crispy and not crispy enough, and seemed lukewarm next to the absolutely perfectly wonderfully scalding temperature of the fish. I am sorry to say there are better fries almost anywhere in town, but I will mention the one perfect fry I ate from my order – it was crispy on the outside, smooth on the inside, and had sucked enough heat-juice from the fish to be the most gorgeous temperature found in fry-nature. This fry gives me hope for all other fries, and I have high hopes that these unenthusiastic chips are not the typical offering of this establishment.
I have several things to say in conclusion: First, that British tartar sauce is the best tartar sauce, and I’m 90 per cent certain that Victory creates their own mysterious tartar recipe in house. Second, the portions are more than generous and two decently hungry people could easily share a double-fish-single-fry- order combo. Third, I’m not sure I can get through a fish and chips restaurant review without using the word “sea-cow,” and I apologize in advance if it should sneak in.
So here’s The Victory Restaurant in a nutshell: if you’re looking for some classic British fish, this is the place for you. If you’re looking for British chips, I am sorry to report you can probably find better versions elsewhere. But don’t let that deter you; if you’re in the mood for “sea-cow,” there is no better restaurant in all of Chilliwack.
