House. As always, a step back in time...nothing has changed since our student days. Big portions, reasonable prices, same decor, iceberg lettuce in the salad. That's the thing we missed the most when we moved to Victoria over 40 years ago...the cheap ethnic restaurants. And I guess that's why we hit all those when we first come back to Vancouver.
After the pleasure of Nick's it was pretty hard to take that there wasn't one Italian restaurant in Victoria! After a few years, the restaurant, Chef Anthony, came to town and made life bearable. And then Antonio's, where we enjoyed so many wonderful French meals. And now, of course, it's an entirely different scene in Victoria although much more expensive than dining in Vancouver. It was pretty depressing to be 24 years old after growing up in Vancouver to be told your dining choices were pretty much the Princess Mary, the Dingle House, and the Empress. And I won't even begin to mention that you couldn't swim in the ocean...!
But then, I wasn't commuting to Delta to teach and Jim could walk to work. We would have both been commuting if we stayed in Vancouver. While Richard loves Vancouver, he feels Victoria was a great place to grow up as a kid.
We are sometimes asked if we regret not staying in Vancouver because now we'd have a home worth millions. Nope, no regrets there...just can't get too excited about money. And we would have never considered living in an apartment on in the West End so not have this wonderful urban experience. We would have been happily ensconced forever in our West side house. And who knows....we may not have been so attracted to the south of France where we could swim in the ocean if we had the ocean in Vancouver. Or been as interested in big cities like London, Paris, NYC, San Francisco if we lived in Vancouver. We've had a hell of a lot of fun in those places!
