I don't know what possesses me to get up at 7:30am to conquer both a mountain and breakfast before noon on my day off but there is something to be said about making the time for a guilt free afternoon of bedcapades and cake - even if it's sunny - that what blinds are for.Locally loved, Lady Marmalade is an ideal choice to jump-start such a morning. Heavy on organic ingredients and unassumingly health conscious they pride themselves on local farm products and serve up bread from Victoria's staple organic bakery, Wildfire. The menu is diverse but slender offering hearty home cooking with a heavy Mexican tilt. From what I've seen in the past the service is usually pretty laid back without being to smug or lazy- a balance rarely achieved in such an atmosphere. After only being open for five years in Victoria and two in Toronto, Lady Marmalade is an established institution regularly packed around late breakfast and lunch time.
Chris and I rolled down there Friday morning just after 8:30 and watched their first table pay their bill, leaving the restaurant in our hands. We leaned hard into a pot of coffee and ordered a couple tofu scrambles with sides of chorizo. Well, we ended up with plain old-spiceless sausage that were good nonetheless but the mistake wasn't corrected despite the order being pretty damn straightforward. I've had the tofu scram before and it'll really get a fire lit under your ass packed with bockchoy, shitake, spinach and basmati brown rice but this time THE SAAAAAAAAAAAAALT...made me want to soak my eyeballs in saline. Lucky Chris likes salt so he he had no arguments on that front. I've come to the conclusion that a high volume restaurant are used to just pumping out multiple orders at a time but when it gets down to individual orders the ball gets dropped from time to time. It was tolerable and as I've had good experiences there before, I'm going to cut them some slack. But maybe take a note if you run a restaurant in the area...you never know when some over-indulgent Gen Y'er is going to review your food and post it to her modest blog page...and if it's not even modest...word of mouth travels fast in a city like Victoria..
So, all said, I do suggest you go get yourself fueled up there and go do something with your day - even if it's only going down to Fisherman's Warf to watch dogs bark confusedly at the domesticated seals. End it at 2pm between the sheets with a piece of cake and you've got yourself a day in the life of the Unmanageable Oven.
Addendum: My friend Hannaha went for lunch there today and texted me saying the service was HORRENDOUS but the soup was amazing. And when I mentioned this post to Tired Tim from work he said people were walking out the last time he went in because the server was chatting up some girl at the bar...not impressed, guys.
