Brie Mango Avocado Quesadilla

As well as being home to obligatory half dozen Chinese restaurants Victoria's Chinatown is also where our newest vegetarian eatery is located. It's the Venus Sophia Tearoom & Vegetarian Eatery. And yes, I ate the extraordinary Brie Mango Avocado Quesadilla pictured above down to the last crumb. I've lunched here several times now and have always been pleased with the food and the ambience. It's classy and comfortable without being expensive. The soups are superb and everything else I've eaten there has been very good. I recommend it highly. Have a look at the menu on their website by clicking HERE.

Chinatown Afternoon

In addition to the fractional addresses (scroll down to yesterday's post) another aspect of Chinatown I like is how much more laid back it is than the rest of the city. It's a little frowsy and sleazy, over-neoned and overparked and there always seems to be someone shouting in Chinese, groups of tourists wandering around, people jay-walking, clothes and vegetables for sale on the sidewalks. But if I spend a half hour in Chinatown I always feel more human.

23½

There's a lot to like about Victoria's Chinatown but one of the things that I always enjoy is the penchant for fractional addresses. This one is found in Fan Tan Alley. So far as I know, in our city these are only found in Chinatown.

Fan Tan Alley

This is one of my favorite spots in downtown Victoria. I always get my camera out and try to capture this interesting piece of the urban landscape, but alas, never to my complete satisfaction. Here is one of the many attempts!

Chinatown

I took this on my way to work this morning; I love the lights they've strung up along Pandora Street.

Dragon Alley

While Victoria's Chinatown is small it has some interesting features. The above looks very austere and modern but it is deep in the interior of an old Chinatown block accessible only through Dragon Alley, the entrance to which was featured in an earlier post. There are some condo flats here, offices and shops such as High End Dog (marked by the dog at the door in the above photo).

Chinatown

Regular visitors here will know I have a penchant for old or legacy lenses. Yesterday I was lucky enough to find (for $15) a lens that some call the best 50mm lens ever made - the Super Takumar f1.4 50mm. I've only just begun to play with it but I like what I've seen so far. It may require a bit of work - there is a slight tinge of yellowness but I know how to cure that. Today's post is just a few shots of Victoria's Chinatown I took to test this lens.

Mmmm 2 - The Noodle Box

Yesterday's post was Central American food at Hernandez. Today's delicious item is a recent lunch I had at The Noodle Box on Fisgard Street in Victoria's Chinatown. It seemed a bit pricier than Hernandez but there was a lot of tasty stuff in that bowl, called Cambodian Jungle Curry ($10.75). That fresh lime and those slices of fresh mango garnish were the perfect complements to the creamy, spicy sauce covering the noodles and tofu. There's lots of other good South-East Asian street food on the menu, too.

Chinatown Backside

Autumn's russet and rusty brown comes to buildings as well as to trees. And it also serves to remind me that old buildings can have a certain charm in their dilapidation that they may lose when they are "restored." Heritage is fine but the obsession with having old buildings look as if they were new is a little weird. It's akin to face-lifts, botox and cellulite suction pumps. Anyway, I particularly like the precarious porches and the red flowers on this "senior" in Victoria's Chinatown.

Phone Booth

Victoria's Chinatown is small but nice attention has been paid to details, such as the bright red color of many features, including this phone booth, the bench beside it and the street lamp poles in the background. Although they are so small as to be very difficult to see in this photo, the street name signs are also in red. In Chinese culture, red is an auspicious color, denoting prosperity and good fortune.

Dragon

One of many rewarding aspects of City Daily Photoblogging is the effect it has on one's perceptions. Every time I go out I see something "new." However, I suspect that many times it is not really "new" but it is only that I have just noticed it. Thus I am not really sure whether this dragon has been gracing this wall in Chinatown for a long time or has been mounted only recently, perhaps as part of the "150 Years on Golden Mountain" event celebrating the history of Chinese-Canadians in Victoria. In any case, I like it.****(added later) That little red plaque you can see near the bottom of the building reads, "Dragon Dance Mural by Robert Amos assisted by the Principal, teachers and children from the Chinese Public School to celebrate the 150th Anniversary of Canada's oldest Chinatown."****

Quonley's

In the shadow of the gate to Chinatown, on the corner of Government and Fisgard Streets, is Quonley's Grocery, where you can buy whatever you need 24 hours a day. This may not seem like anything special now when there are many convenience stores that never close. However, there was a time when Quonley's was the only store in the city that you could always find open.

The Gate of Harmonious Interest

This gate to Chinatown was built about 20 years ago as a gift from Suzhou, Victoria's sister city in China.

The Devil Made Me Do It

The City Daily Photo Blog theme for July 1 is signs with "No..." on them. I couldn't resist this one on a store doorway in Victoria's Chinatown. Other City Daily Photo Bloggers' photos on this theme can be seen by clicking here.

Maltby Trompe l'Oeil Mural

Victoria's Chinatown continues to offer some splendid street scenes. This one, a mural by Victoria artist, Jeff Maltby, is on Fisgard Street very near the Chinese Public School and the Lee's Benevolent Society Building, both of which are pictured in earlier posts on this blog. I love the way this mural is so beautifully integrated into its environment. It's actually on two walls, at right angles to each other and I have included a wider angle shot below that shows the mural in context.This mural is not only remarkable for its visual slight-of-hand but for its historical contribution to our appreciation of Chinatown and for its many charming details, one of which is below.

The Lees Benevolent Association Building

This is one of my favorite buildings on Fisgard Street in Victoria's Chinatown. Above is what it looks like to me. Below left is what it photographs like. When I "improve" the perspective of the building however, the man and the cars begin to look squashed as you can see in the side by side comparison below. Which do you prefer? Opinions and explanations gratefully received.

Original

Photoshopped

***For those of you who may be interested in this sort of thing - thanks to Jack's suggestion (see comments) I messed around a little more with this and was able to rectify the squashiness (below). When all's said and done, however, there is a loss of sharpness.

Chinese Public School

Another visit to Victoria's Chinatown, starting with two paintings by Victoria artist Jeff Maltby. The painting above depicts a Chinese Immigrant family in 1905. The painting below of the children arriving at the Chinese Public School is like a fast-forward through the decades for this family. The little boy on the left looks like he's dressed 1920's style. The little girl in her saddle shoes and pony tail is from the 1950's and the boy on the right, with his skateboard and crash helmet is definitely 1980's.The Chinese Public School, below, has been a part of these changes since it was built in 1909. The two paintings grace the outside walls of the Victoria Police Station, directly across Fisgard Street from the Chinese School.

Victoria's Chinatown - Fisgard Street

Victoria's Chinatown is the oldest and was for many years the largest in Canada. Vancouver's is now much larger but Victoria's Chinatown is still a thriving and busy part of the city. It's a great place to shop for Asian foods and there are many interesting shops, boutiques and, of course, restaurants. Chinese immigrants first settled in the area during the gold rush era in 1858 and soon occupied much of what is now downtown Victoria. Canadians of Chinese ethnic origin still form one of the largest non-European populations in Canada and, after English and French, Chinese is the most widely spoken language in the country.

In the center background you can see the tile roof of the glorious gate to Chinatown, donated by Victoria's sister city in China, Suzhou.

The photograph of the camelia below was taken in Market Square, one block over from Fisgard Street.