Mom's Cafe

Sometimes simple food is all it takes to keep everyone happy.  Of course, that excludes fast food, not because of it being unhealthy, but rather, it isn't something new (especially on vacation).  So we didn't get too fancy nor too far away from our hotel for lunch as we made our way to nearby Mom's Cafe.  This place gets high ratings and is also recommended by the locals.  Furthermore, it really satisfied the "family-friendly" criteria (even though our kids are completely at home eating practically anywhere).

Despite not really wanting to eat a burger, my son took one for the team (not that much of a stretch) and got the Bacon 'n Cheddar Burger with fries.  Keeping in line with the theme of the place, the burger wasn't complex.  It was straight up with crispy bacon and melted cheese on top of a thick meaty patty.  It wasn't exactly juicy, but not dry either.  It was well charred though.  He was happy with it, but it wasn't as good as the one we had at Westcoast Grill.  For my daughter, she went simple and had the bowl of Salmon Corn Chowder with corn, tomato, carrot, celery, onion, cream, black pepper and paprika.  This was on the thicker floury side rather than being creamy.  It was definitely sweet with some fishiness.  This was acceptable, but could've been less thick and it could've used maybe a bit more tang/acidity to lighten the richness.

I had the Baron of Beef Dip partially because Costanza had a really good one at Route 14 the night before.  Again, keeping with the theme, the version here was much more simple and straightforward with shaved roast beef on a French roll.  The beef was tender, albeit more lean and meatier than the sous-vide version from Route 14.  The side of garlic herb au jus was rather generic, but did the job softening up and flavouring the bread.  Costanza ended up with the 2 Piece Cod 'n Chips.  For a non-fish 'n chip joint, this was a solid effort.  The crunchy batter was light and not dense at all nor was it greasy either.  The fish itself was moist and flaky.  As for the fries, they were rather typical albeit fried properly.  I would've liked to see fresh cut double-fried Kennebec fries, but these were fine.  The accompanying tartar sauce was creamy with a bit of tang.  It could've used more white onion though.

Viv decided on the Turkey Cranberry Sandwich with house-roasted turkey breast, lettuce, tomato, mayo and cranberry sauce.  Although they state that it is house-roasted, the turkey seemed almost like deli-meat (to be fair, it could've been brined, then roasted).  Nothing particularly wrong with that other than we were expecting something less processed tasting and texture-wise.  The side of onion rings were crunchy for the flour-battered version.  We much prefer breaded, but these were fine.  Overall, Mom's did the job without much fanfare.  Was it better than anything we had so far in Sooke?  Well no.  But that isn't the point of the place.

The Good:
- Solid simple food for the family
- Okay pricing
- Nice people

The Bad:
- Chowder was far too thick
- Turkey didn't appear to be house-roasted or at the very least, it was brined too much so all natural meat texture was lost