Glo Europub

Address: 104 - 2940 Jutland Road
Phone: (250) 385-5643
Price: $12-25 entrees
Website: http://glovictoria.com/
Notes: An offshoot of the Moxie's brand. Lovely atmosphere, good deal on the chefs plate combo.





I love the location of Glo - it's in a very modern circular building, with a skylight through the top over the central bar and lots of lovely curves in the decor. It's a great place to go to have a group together, as it's kind of out of the way and not too noisy. Their patio outside looks epic - will have to remember that in the summer time!

The food here is reasonable, although it comes from the school of "pretty" and "trendy" and there are some really good dishes, but the attention to detail isn't quite consistent enough to make me a regular. Some things are very, very good but then something weird and not right comes out of left field and all that attention to detail feels false somehow. That being said, I've only been here a few times, and lots of people we know eat here often so perhaps we've just had some off nights in the kitchen although our recent visit was more consistent for sure.

The one thing I think they could do to really make this place stand out is improve the bathrooms. I don't know why, but nice bathrooms are important to making the place have the feel of being Really Nice. The bathrooms here are anything but - plain ceramic "brick" floors, ubiquitous beige stalls with barely working locks, standard sink etc. Considering their competition is in the class of the Cactus Club (best bathrooms Ever!) and Moxies (also nice) it seems weird to overlook that detail.



Service
September 3, 2011
We ended up with the same server as last time. We must have made an impression because she appeared to recognize us and was friendly and helpful for sure. It seems like it must be a pretty good place to work - I even saw the bartender laughing with customers while helping to set up an umbrella to shade them from the sun.


April 10, 2011
Our server took a little while to warm up, but once she did she was very friendly, and we were swapping stories about the ridiculous prices of wine here compared to the US and how we would all love to move there just to drink wine and soak up the sun.


Food
September 3, 2011
My mother-in-law had demanded our presence at a meal prior to her trip to Mexico and it was her choice of restaurant & to pick 'small things to share' (apparently wine counts as a small thing) since it was so hot out. Our meal today was pretty good - in fact if this had been my first meal at Glo I probably would have been significantly impressed. Definitely put it higher up my mental rolodex! 


These were pretty tasty, although I am still a bit stumped about how to eat it altogether. The won-ton on top was crunchy and had a really tasty stuffing, but it was nearly impossible to eat with the scallop because trying to cut the wonton into a bite-sized piece resulted in lots of flakes and nothing much forkable. Still, the flavours all worked really well and I would order this again.


Despite what you would thing, the highlight of this dish is Not the prawns wrapped in bacon. It is the sauces that come with the prawns wrapped in bacon! They are, however, extremely worth it. The acidity from the lemony mayo and a pineapple salsa set off the bacon and prawn flavours really well.

What a fantastic find - super creative, super tasty and just plain fun. We had to talk my mother-in-law into ordering this but I'm really glad we did! The crust was really nice, especially topped with a garlic cream sauce. The egg on top was cooked perfectly, and the bacon and parmesan on top were both excellent. I would visit again just to order this! 

Since more wine was ordered at the end of the meal and I won the rock-paper-scissors for not driving (yay!) I delved into the drinks menu. This is a twist on a drink that reminds me of my time in England, and the weather that day reminded me of drinking pimms & lemonade with fruit in the sunshine so I couldn't not order it! Instead of lemonade they served it with ginger beer, which worked quite well and showed that they understand that lemonade here isn't anything like lemonade in the UK so it would be sacrilege to try to replicate it directly. I appreciate that immensely.


April 10, 2011
Full disclosure: I had a wicked cold this night, and was dreading standing let alone eating or being social but it was a good friend's birthday who we hadn't seen in a while so I forced out an appearance. My sense of taste wasn't there at all, so I have substituted the opinions of others at the table. You're in luck, however - it was a table of food loving people including a butcher from Slaters, a bartender from Spinnakers and two amateur chefs who say things like "oh, we should have a dinner party where we make only dishes named after people!" and "I tried making Julia Child's beef bourguignon the other day..." so I trust their take on things.

There were some really neat looking things going on around the table. They had a chefs special plate deal - four courses for $25. This was a really good deal considering the main options included steak and duck and if you'd ordered similar dishes just off the menu they would have been $25 alone.

My partner-in-food-and-life ordered a Manhattan to start. It came in a very manly tumbler instead of a froufy martini glass, which I thought was a really nice touch. Sometime it seems like a manly drink to me. It had a cherry in it, but upon further inspection it had been soaked in brine, which was odd. It worked, but in a weird way. The other drinks on the drink menu, which was extensive, looked good and I notice on their website they have a Mile Zero G&T drink feature right now with all local ingredients (Victoria Gin... Meow!) and I'm very sad to have missed out on that last night.

One woman at the table had carbonara pasta on top of fried chicken, and the presentation was very cool - I wish I had taken a picture! The noodles were there, with huge flakes of parmesan on top but then the very bottom of an egg with the egg yolk was balanced on top to mix in. It looked fantastic!

My PIFAL's meal came with gnudi (pronounced nood-ie). We weren't entirely sure what these were at first, so it was iPhone to the rescue! Google said it was a cousin of gnocchi, but really the filling for ravioli without the pasta that ends up like "little pillows."  Turns out to be exactly true! I tried a bite of one, and it was amazing. This was squash gnudi, and it was amazing. Probably the highlight of the evening.

Spinach and Goat Cheese Salad via foodspotting.com

Everything worked reasonably well in this salad except the beets. At the time, I was struggling to figure out what they were because I didn't remember from the menu, and because they were yellow I was confused. The texture just wasn't right. I think had they been cut differently it would have been okay, but they had almost no flavour and I just ended up picking them out and eating them separately and then going back to the rest of the salad. There was also a touch too much dressing - but that's a pet peeve so others might not have thought so. The hazelnuts were an amazing addition and the goat cheese was really tasty, and the shredded apple was nice so overall it worked, and it was a great deal at $11.50. 

Vanilla Creme Brulee via foodspotting.com

Half the table ordered this for dessert. We were all disappointed, I'm sad to say. The flavour was nice but the texture was wrong to the extreme. The custard wasn't. It was too thick and almost gooey while being slightly grainy - I'm pretty sure it was either over or under whisked but I have yet to make creme brulee so I couldn't tell you which. One of the other people at the table also pointed out it had been torched and the refrigerated, which takes away from some of the enjoyment of the combination of cold custard and warm topping. This has not previously occurred to me, but she may have just ruined many a creme brulee for me. Pout!

One of the other desserts was described as a "deconstructed" Black Forest cake. Weird terminology, since really what they meant was they cooked a piece of chocolate cake and topped it with whipped cream and a cherry sauce.