Victoria Gastro Pub has quickly risen amongst the ranks of casual restaurants in Howard County. For good reason, it brings fun fresh ingredients together with classic dishes and bar food to deliver an end result that typically yields a satisfied customer.
We decided to visit Victoria’s for brunch as our experience with their brunch in the past had been excellent. We started off strong by ordering a side of biscuits as a pseudo appetizer. Let me tell you the biscuits are worth the price of admission (if there was one), they’re buttery and moist. The house jam was a perfect compliment to these masterful biscuits. I would literally love it if I was covered with these biscuits so I would have to eat my way out of said biscuit blanket to breath.
From there we ordered the “special” which was a short rib omelet, and that’s where the wheels began to fall off. The egg portion of the dish itself was fine, cooked well no complaints. But most people can prepare an egg, the filling was terrible. I described the flavor it left in your mouth to Mrs. Unmanly Chef as “spaghetti mouth”. It just tasted like bad over seasoned meat sauce, the short rib rather than being braised was just ground short rib. And not ground that well mind you as chewy pieces of short rib found their way into our mouths more often than we would’ve liked. The sauce used for the ribs was over seasoned with pepper and basil masking any flavor that the kitchen was trying to bring out with the meat itself. I could’ve forgiven all of this, if they only had prepared their “potato hash” better. The potatoes were under cooked and didn’t resemble anything like a hash, which I don’t even care about. But come on, cook the potatoes all the way through. There is nothing worse than a under cooked potato and that’s what I had.
We also shared the french toast which is prepared with bananas, crushed pecans, and fresh whipped cream. It’s well done and very tasty, but honestly it tastes like a dessert rather than a breakfast or brunch item. There’s nothing wrong with this dish, in fact if super sweet breakfast is your thing order this dish.
Victoria’s is the kind of place that I will give a second chance. Why? Because they’ve shown me in the past that they’re a great restaurant, I’m hoping that I just caught them on a off day. Overall, I was disappointed and hoped for more; the dishes were poorly executed and left us unsatisfied. The service was great and the prices were reasonable, so may be the real lesson here is just don’t get the omlet and you’ll have a great time!
Rating: 2 Stars
