Block Kitchen and Bar Victoria — Restaurant in Victoria

We dined here tonight on January 27/24 to try our first Dine Around set menu of the season.

We arrived and were greeted by friendly servers and got seated right away for our 5:00 reservation. We had 2 cocktails both of which were excellent. The Yuzu Shall pass and a seasonal cocktail with basil oil. I did also try a glass of the feature Saki but found it extremely pungent but bland at the same time. I mentioned to the water that I wasn't fond of it, and they showed exceptional service and took it back without charge.

The first course of the Dine Around menu was a scallop with Tobiko and Schichmi. This was served in a scallop shell a la coqulle st jacques style. This dish had a lovely balance of spice, sweetness from the scallop and the tobiko. If I had to criticize this dish at all, I would say that the tobiko could have been presented nicer.

Second we received the Tako Yaki topped with kewpi mayo, Japanese BBQ sauce and bonito. The flavour was fantastic, and it wasn't drowning in sauce like some are at other places. The texture was a bit more crisp and perhaps cooked a little long as the inside was fluffy, but the outside took away from that light pillow-like texture sometimes seen in tako yaki.

Third, we received fried crispy cauliflower tossed in a General Tso sauce. The texture was perfectly crisp, and the cauliflower was cooked where it was tender but didn't lose integrity. The General Tso sauce had a good balance of acidity and salt but lacked the intensity of sweet spicy notes that some have.

Next came a tuna tataki with seaweed salad and zen dressing. This was seared perfectly and had a lovely sesame flavour. The seaweed salad more appeared like fine diced greens rather than wakame or other seaweed salads, so the flavour/texture was a bit unexpected, but was still a nice light foundation for the tuna.

Our final savoury course was prawns served in a Thai curry broth accompanied by naan bread. The broth was great and coconut forward, with a pleasant balance of spices and richness without being heavy. Sadly, the prawns were quite overcooked, which really let the end of our meal down.

An order of Edamame was also ordered for the table to share, which had a togorashi seasoning, which was amazing. They were perfectly cooked, and the seasoning was just right.

During the final 3 courses, I had a glass of the Howling Bluff Sauvignon Blanc. It paired nicely with the food, but on its own was a bit too acidic.

The dessert was the most disappointing part of the meal. It was described as a Hawaiian butter mochi with rum pineapple compote and milk ice cream. The ice cream had a nice texture and a slight chewiness. The pineapple was lovely, sweet, and let the rum come through in a balanced, rich way. The "mochi" itself was served as a solid triangle piece of the glutinous rice. It was very grainy, bland, and unpleasant. The dessert lacked a HUGE amount of finesse and quality from that of their savoury dishes.

Overall the experience was a B- with good aspects, some great ones, but some key components were quite a let-down. Since this was a tasting menu, I was a bit disappointed that the water didn't describe each dish as it came to the table. I know this is usually reserved for more fine dining, but it would have added a nice touch. I just hope that they might consider altering the dessert of this set menu because it killed the end of the meal. However, the rest of the experience...

We actually were not crazy about our dining experience here. Based on the reviews, we chose it over a bunch of other restaurants in Victoria, and wish we had chosen differently. I’m not sure if it has been overly hyped or we caught it on a bad night. Service was really harried, starting with the hostess, who didn’t seem to want to give us 30 seconds to choose whether we wanted to eat inside or outside— the energy was just to get us seated as fast as possible. That energy of impatience and a sloppy attitude towards service pervaded throughout the night. Tables were uncomfortably close together. Part of the problem was a server serving a bigger table in the corner window next to us who seemed purposely oblivious to us. When we arrived and the hostess was seating us, this server saw us but didn’t make room for us to be seated, forcing me to wiggle in on the other side and push up against the person in the two- top. It was embarrassing and weird. This would have been a good time for the hostess to say something and help us out, or for the server to graciously make room for us. You have to be aware of how you’re using space in a configuration like that. Throughout the night, she was visibly encroaching on my husband’s space, bumping up against him without apologizing, while she hung out with the family she was serving. Our own server was visibly harried and our plates piled up, so I started bussing on my own, putting plates under each other. She did that thing where you try to make eye contact and they pretend not to see you. I asked her to take the menus from us and she just put them next to me on my seat instead. In terms of food, the kimchi was lovely, flavorful and interesting, and the ahi was very good, but some of the food was more heavy- handed than we anticipated, particularly the calamari and Korean fried chicken, the latter dish was just a bit too sweet. All in all, it wasn’t a relaxing experience, and memorable for the...

I wanted to love it but the food was very mediocre and perhaps I simply ordered the wrong things but the way to my heart is through my stomach. That said I’ll tell you the good and the bad things because obviously reviews are somewhat subjective. I was so excited when I saw the menu so I hope other items are better for you all.

Pros: -The server was lovely and friendly and when it got busy and we had to get her attention, we never had to wait long. The decor and vibe is very cool. I love the high ceilings and open kitchen. my cocktail was great and very unique, my server suggested it because the menu was a bit overwhelming with lots of ingredients I’d not heard of. they take reservations.

Cons: it was uncomfortably hot. Perhaps that was just because we were close to the kitchen but I don’t love feeling too warm. It can be very loud and the tables are fairly close to each other. the food was super disappointing. I ordered the spicy salmon tartare and it tasted like tinned salmon salad with mayo. I guess I expected more of a traditional tartare and it was really fine wee salmon pieces (blended even) and very mayo heavy and a bit on the fishy tasting side. It didn’t taste like lovely fresh salmon as I’d hoped for. It was far too rich to finish. I didn’t find there was much spice to it. I also got the Humboldt squid thinking it would be more of an Asian style. It was almost like a tonkatsu dish though and I think squid is a nice delicate item which shouldn’t be turned into a thick breaded chicken wing. It was very dry with not enough sauce for the end product. Also far too heavy and thickly breaded to enjoy. I’d hoped to share the appies with my friend but she was not at all interested in them so I spent $82 for a cocktail and 1.5 dishes (couldn’t finish half the salmon). I absolutely support spending more on the finer things but this was not one of them...