Victoria's Gastro Pub

Victoria’s Gastro Pub - Columbia, MD.

http://www.victoriagastropub.com/

When I was in Montreal last summer gorging myself on Poutine, I wondered where I could get this magical creation when I returned to the US.  So I did a quick google search for Poutine on the internet and came up with a surprisingly short list of places that serve it.  A couple of food trucks and a place called Victoria’s Gastro Pub in Columbia Maryland.  Fast forward 9 months later and I finally had the chance to visit Victoria’s and sample a few of other things.

Victoria’s is a short drive west of 95N off Route 100 and are open for brunch, lunch and dinner.  My visit was for a late dinner and by the way, they have live music in the bar area some nights, as well.  The restaurant is a stand-alone establishment and is pretty large from the outside.  The interior has a certain British pub feel to it.

I absolutely love Poutine

The food was pretty good!  I tried the poutine, a side spinach salad with maple balsamic vinegrette and their Seared Sea Scallops with Mustard and Mushroom sauce.  The poutine was sublime.  Victoria’s makes their fries with duck fat and they come out crisp and rich and cut in a similar style to Five Guys.  The gravy was very tasty and again, they use duck to make the gravy, as well.  Traditional Poutine uses cheese curds but they chose to smother melted gruyere on the fries and gravy instead.  The verdict on this approach?  Loved it.  I think I prefer this to actual curd chunks.  Finally, there is duck confit mixed in, as well which gives a nice contrast of texture as well as beefing up the protein content a little.  Quite possibly the best poutine I’ve had to date.

The salad and scallops were both very good but I’m on a bit of a downer with scallops these days.  It’s really hard for me to love them after having a very average scallops dish a few months ago.  Still, the scallops at Victoria’s were cooked very well and the sauce and accompanying vegetable salad in the middle were quite nice.

One of the restaurant’s obvious strengths is their beer/wine/cocktail menu which is several pages deep.  I didn’t have the opportunity to try one of their many rare beers but beer-hounds will surely find something to whet their whistle. 

Victoria’s is exactly what it is trying to be; a pub with a large selection of drinks and some good pub fare.  Prices may be a little more than your traditional pub and this may hurt Victoria's in the long-run.  However, in this case, it was worth the trip.

Rating – Four out of Five stars.