BC Ferries...

No trip to British Columbia is complete without a visit to Vancouver Island, and for most people, that means taking a ferry. In the interests of public service, on a recent trip over to see relatives I decided to sample and report back on some of the food available. I should disclose that I am an island girl, and so have eaten many a meal on the ferries over the years. Thus, I have some nostalgia for the classics, in particular, the clam chowder. The clam chowder I remember was red, tangy, and nicely laced with chopped clams, and potato and carrot cubes. It is still red, but it seems less tangy, and a little less filled with goodies. More disappointing, however, was the new thickness of the chowder. It seems to contain a great deal of cornstarch now. Manhattan style chowder is not supposed to stick to your spoon, or so I thought. Also troubling, they were temporarily out of packets of saltines. One of my favorite things to do as a child on the ferry was to crush the cracker package, neatly breaking the crackers into bits which were then easily poured into the soup, a pleasure I was denied on this trip.

I also sampled the one of the new burgers. I say new because when I last traveled the ferries on a regular basis the burgers were typical institutional burgers, whereas now they are from Whitespot. This happy fact actually gave me some enthusiasm for my task - what child growing up in BC doesn't love Pirate Packs! Add to that the fact that one of my uncles appeared in a Whitespot TV ad in the 80's and I was ready to love my burger. I ordered a legendary burger with cheese combo, and upgraded to the sweet potato fries. Despite being the only person in line at the time, I had to wait several minutes for my burger. I was unperturbed, because at least that should mean it was fresh, or so I thought. As it turned out, the patty was so overcooked as to almost be burnt, and yet it was cold. The fries were piping hot, however, as was the chipotle mayo they were served with (spicy hot that is). Truth be told, however, the state of the hamburger patty didn't bother me tremendously (I have rather low expectations of ferry food), as the sauce on the burger was just as delicious I remembered it. There is something special about successfully reliving a happy childhood food memory, and the burger did that for me. And the sweet potato fries were actually pretty good for food prepared in a floating institutional kitchen - a little soggy, and the chipotle mayo was more heat than flavor, but they could have been much much worse.

Travel tip: If, like me, you are not a fan of Starbucks coffee, you might want to know that there is a Saltspring Island coffee stand in terminal at Tsawwassen. It's at the other end of the building from Starbucks.

2 thumbs up.