Julie and I decided to go to Sooke for a couple of days and stay at Sooke Harbour House. The last time we stayed there it was owned by Frederique and Sinclair Philip who had run the Inn and restaurant for 40 years. Then they got involved with a couple of grifters who forced them out of business. They were eventually awarded a $4 million dollar settlement but never received any payment.
The property was sold in a foreclosure sale and then later sold again. The present owners are trying their best to make it into a going concern.
We usually check Expedia prices versus going directly with the hotel. In this case it was not only less expensive going with the hotel but they had a ‘stay and dine’ deal that included $75 off meals at no additional cost. I booked that and reserved the restaurant for the night we arrived.
On the way we stopped in Duncan for lunch at a restaurant called Thai LumLum. Google gave it 4.9 out of 5 from 243 reviews. The food was delicious. There was also a lot of it so we were having second thoughts about dinner at Sooke Harbour House and eventually decided to cancel our dinner reservation.
We like to go to a good restaurant once in awhile but we also like comfort food. A couple of things we have noticed over the years: first the chefs at higher end restaurants seem to want to make a name for themselves by coming up with creative dishes that one would not recognize as comfort food.
One of Mom’s favourite sayings was “That’s very clever but not very interesting”. She usually applied it to symphony music but it could also be applied to some restaurant menus.
Mom’s other saying about menu items was: “if I can’t pronounce it, I’m really not that interested in eating it”.
The second factor concerning going out to a restaurant is that as you get older, you get stuck in some decade – maybe the 90’s. When you go to a restaurant, you are still thinking 90’s prices and it always seems to be a big surprise – so sometimes the food is comfort food but the prices just aren’t that comfortable.
When we arrived at Sooke Harbour House and finished unpacking, it was 4:15 pm. Happy hour is from 3 to 5 so we decided to make the appie’s our dinner so we ordered chicken wings, prawns cooked in garlic and a caesar salad + a couple of glasses of wine and a beer to help wash it down. That all cost less than the $75 ‘stay and dine’ certificate so the bill came to $0.
We had intended to go to Point-no-Point for lunch the following day – something we always do when we go to Sooke but when we called up they said that the last time they served lunch at the restaurant was 2018. I guess that was the last time we went to Sooke. We booked dinner instead. The menu items had what I would call comfort food but the prices were a bit high for our 90’s view of the world. We went anyway,
During the day we went to Sandcut Beach. A few people had talked about the waterfall going over the cliff at Sandcut Beach and one of the photos I saw made it look pretty impressive. When we got there, we realized that there had been no context from that photo we saw – no person to give an idea of scale. It turns out that the cliff and waterfall are only slightly taller than I am. It’s still interesting though.
On the way back from Sandcut Beach we stopped at French Beach and wandered around. The plan was then to eat at the restaurant Shirley Delicious (in the town of Shirley) and then go to a few other places before heading back to Sooke. We remembered from the last time that Shirley Delicious had been busy but we thought we were early enough.
Wrong!! Shirley Delicious had added a whole new parking lot – a typical size for a trailhead parking lot (50 cars or so) with the trail going 200 meters directly to the lineup at the restaurant with about 45 people already in line.
Shirley Delicious is very popular for two reasons: 1. yes the food is delicious and 2. there are no other restaurants nearby.
We wanted something light so ended up having a soup and sandwich at “Mom’s” restaurant in Sooke.
All in all it was a good trip. We always enjoy Sooke: lots of interesting hiking trails and places to visit.
Below are some photos taken around the grounds of Sooke Harbour House and Whiffin Spit. More photos later.
WR Foster 