The Mint

Address: 1414 Douglas Street
Phone: 250.386.6468
Website: http://themintvictoria.com/
Price: ~$15 dinner entree
Notes: good drinks, eclectic food, open until 2 am



The Mint was one of my first favourite places ever! It has a really funky vibe, excellent food and a great martini list. Their "thunder spaghetti" is one of the few pasta dishes I will order out. Mostly, they serve Tibetan curries which are fairly mild, and other interesting takes on random dishes. Their naan pizza appetizers are pretty yummy as well.

Downsides are that it can be really loud, especially if you are there when a dj is playing. It can also be quite dark, as there is no overhead lighting except plug-in christmas lights strung across the ceiling, plus candles on each table. This isn't a bad thing on a date, but not so good for a work meeting - or for reading the bill!


Service
February 9, 2011
I got to the party we were going to late, but it seemed to be kind of average service. I ordered a drink when I got there, but the waiter didn't remember that it hadn't come for quite a while - two drink rounds later, I think. It sounded like that had been going on most of the night. That being said, at the end of the night they ordered a Flaming Lamborghini for the birthday girl, and three waiters plus the bartender collaborated to create the drink, and served it at the table with an extra server to add 'sprinkles' to make the flaming drink sparkle, so that kind of made up for the rest of the night! 

Food
February 9, 2011
Everything people ordered looked fantastic. Unfortunately, it was a late dinner after a long day, and I was starving so I'm afraid I gobbled mine down so fast I didn't savour it or spend too much time on the flavours and thinking about how best to describe it.

A couple of people at the table had a greek platter, which looked fantastic! Bread, meats, olives, and dips. My partner-in-food-and-life had the perennial favourite "thunder spaghetti" and proclaimed it even better than remembered, but I think it's pretty much as awesome as it has always been. We have always pronounced it more like "THUN DAH SPA GEH TEA" in a very deep voice. Sometimes, we try to replicate it at home. Basically, it's your standard savoury pasta sauce but with lots of spicy peppers and Italian sausage in it and fresh Parmesan on top. 

I had the butter chicken platter. It comes on a fancy metal plate all sectioned off into the different side - green veggies, potatoes, rice, naan as well as yogurt and a spicy tomato side sauce. The curry itself was quite smooth with lots of rich earthy spices. I noticed that they mention the chicken is marinated, which makes sense as it was very tender and flavourful. This isn't your grocery store butter chicken, and it's not that ultra spicy either.

I had a martini from the specials list (on sale for $5.25 on Wednesdays!) - "Danger Swoon."  It was a gin martini, so a bit odd as they tend to be but I had forgotten to pick something and suddenly the waiter was there and I just picked the only thing I recognized. One drink for me only - driver. They are one of the only places in town to have kettle one vodka, which is what my PILAF had and it does make an excellent vodka martini.

Dessert was a flourless callebaut chocolate cake, which was dense and chocolatey but needed to be paired with something more stand-out than caramel syrup to really make it 'zing.' My PILAF had the mint lime cheesecake, and it was quite smooth and creamy and worked quite well.