1001 Wharf St
Victoria, BC

Hours: 11:15a.m.–9:30p.m.
Phone: (250) 380-2260

Quite literally, this article has been years in the making. Many, many moons ago James Shaw took me out for a birthday meal at Nautical Nellies. I asked if he was sure and I’d like to turn this into our next article for our blog. He agreed. As he once wrote, “His idea of what that means is equal to an expensive dinner for the man whose tastes know no boundaries. This year’s outing was Nautical Nellies or as I would call it Naughty Nellies cause it felt like I was giving money to an exotic dancer.”

We started to do some writing and for no reason whatsoever, he never finished his part of that article. Don’t ask me why. Maybe he didn’t want to be reminded of that night?

Back then, this restaurant offered a Festival of Seafood. I thought I’d get a mountain, but gotten a hill. The combination of flavours was good, but it wasn’t as terrific as I thought. I should have gone for the Chilled three-tier Seafood Tower. I imagine that would have been a monolith! Menu descriptions can deceive.

There was hardly enough crabmeat. The scallops were decent, and I wolfed through the meal in nearly no time. The balsamic rice helped slow me down since I was more or less counting the grains like a hungry Chinese Vampire.

Sept 2018 Update:

More than a year has passed. James decision to retire from this blog was his way to dodge the fact he never intended to fulfil his promise to finish writing this article– much less do anything else. I’m revisiting this article only to describe the past experience compared to this time.

With things to do in town, I returned to see what has changed. I’m not surprised the previous years offerings are gone; to sustain either means how popular that meal offering is. When it’s no longer a big seller (no surprise given what I tasted last year), it typically disappears off the menu and to be never replaced with a similar meal.

When I want crab, I should head to Port Angeles for their Crab Festival. Certain tastes are best fresh out of the ocean and others, well …

I had lobsters instead. It was far more delectable. I also had a side of fries. You can never go wrong with either. On the rating scale, this operation’s meals bumped up by a half point from its three out of five.

July 2019 Update:

Another year, another notch up and down the beltline. I was in town with Tracey Moore (first voice actress of DIC’s English dubbing of the anime Sailor Moon), helping her out filming footage to promote Kre8 Studios. This program is a summer school for get-up-and-go artists and media enthusiasts (like me) to learn how to get their ideas out to the world. Whether that’s to get their feet wet with voice acting (which was the focus last year) or learning the business in dealing with agencies, this year has a lot more to offer! They have fan events to get the local community engaged! More information of what’s offered this year are on their website.

Nautical Nellies is improving. Despite a small disappointment in seeing the Atlantic lobster roll served on a hot dog sized bun, a brioche, the money is all on the two kinds of crustacean meat used. It was dripping sweet, a quick meal to which I could have had two of! But at nearly $18 per, I had to be careful lest I slip a $20 to the siren at the request for another, and another. I’d probably need three of these to be filled. The sweet meat was perfect with the crispy bacon and tarragon flavoured mayo.

Their baked oysters was a Japanese-style flavoured delight too. Usually, there’s only a few ways to dress a mollusc, and this time it was in a cute kimono and a wink. Seriously, the Japanese mayo, spicy togorashi and tempura crumbs has me considering not to have them in the raw next time. The Asian flavour was worth slurping down.

I revisit operations when I find flavours to keep me singing. Nautical Nellies’s will have it bumps. No operation can be perfect all the time.

4 Blokes out of 5