Imagine a charming, slightly tumbledown, whitewashed wooden house surrounded by a garden overflowing with edible herbs and flowers, looking out onto wild ocean views.
Located right on a promontory overlooking the Pacific Ocean, it is indeed an edible landscape surrounding Sooke Harbour House, located southwest of Vancouver. Island, just a ferry ride away from Vancouver.
The city is famous for Pacific Rim, fusion or West Coast cuisine, which is a happy marriage of influences from various ethnic cuisines as well as fresh local produce and rich bounty from fields, forests and oceans.
The best restaurants follow the mantra of wholesome eating — buy locally, eat seasonally.
And this is the case at Sooke Harbour House where the kitchen staff walk out into the garden daily to pick fragrant herbs, edible flowers, berries and greens for the table.
If you are staying on the ground floor, you too can explore this garden of Eden.
Giant squid caught from the Pacific Ocean with onion crust
Dinner at night includes sea urchins, snails, speckled sea cucumber, glistening abalone, squid, octopus, gooseneck barnacles caught that day. Or organically raised pork, rabbit, veal, chicken and duck.
The menu depends on the available seasonal produce. The night we went, I picked a salad of organic greens and edible blossoms tossed in a dried cranberry and rose petal vinaigrette, all produce from the garden, and an onion crusted giant flying squid, caught that day from the Pacific Ocean. A slightly tart sorrel puree was also served to offset the richness of the battered squid.
The barely cooked sablefish with delectable flesh had sides of lovage fritter, roasted rutabaga (a root vegetable) and cabbage shoots, which tasted like young bok choy.
A salad or organic greens and edible blossoms tossed in a dried cranberry and rose petal vinaigrette
The night before we had a spiced ruby beet soup, a day lily flower crusted halibut and a locally raised spiced pork leg with a sage flower sauce.
But this hotel, originally a simple whitewashed clapboard farmhouse dating back to 1929, wins awards not just for its cuisine, wholly satisfying as it may be.
The house is quite unique too, with its tasteful rooms decorated idiosyncratically, each one different from the other.
The dining room offers ever-changing views of the ocean. And as owners Sinclair and Frederique Philips are art enthusiasts, they have embellished the corridors with art pieces, which contribute to the calm, peaceful and beautiful ambience of the hotel.
1528 Whiffen Spit Road,
Sooke, British Columbia.
Tel: 800/889-9688 OR 250/642-3421
www.sookeharbourhouse.com
This article was published in The Straits Times' Travel Treats 2008, produced by the Special Projects Unit, Marketing Division, SPH
