Garden Bay pub

The Garden Bay Pub is not very far as the crow flies from my friends place at Pender Harbor but a long way by road, but well worth the drive as it turned out.  Four of us decided to walk up Pender Hill on Saturday morning and then thought a pub lunch was in order.  The walk was straight up I do not know the height but it seemed like a long way, up the view was spectacular and the pub was at the bottom.

So at the bottom of the hill waited a cold drink and a good lunch on a patio over looking the marina, life doesn't get much better than that.

The deck of the Garden Bay pub

I believe the Garden Bay Pub must have had a change in ownership or at least in chef in the last while.  The food used to be regular pub food not bad but certainly not great.  This time though the food was wonderful.  

Pat ordered a thai chicken pizza.  

Thai chicken pizza

This was an obviously home made thin crispy crust with a spicy sauce, chicken and jalapeno peppers topped off with cilantro.  This was a lot for one and as I was having a light salad she let me have a small piece, and it was very good indeed.

I ordered the salad with duck breast prosciutto.

This came with a fresh butter lettuce and shaved parmasan cheese, orange segments and a very light citrus dressing. Not your regular pub food indeed and it was perfect exactly what I wanted.  Actually that is not true what I wanted was fish and chips, but I controlled my self.

My friends husband went for something a little more traditional, a hamburger.

He thoroughly enjoyed this and I have to say it did look very tempting, but he had it with soup not chips so I could not even steal any of the wonderful looking fries I saw other diners eating.  I also saw the ciapino that someone else had ordered and it look wonderful, next time. 

It was a wonderful lunch much enhanced by spectacular weather, having just accomplished a heavy duty walk, and sharing with good friends.  But also the surprise of finding such good food in an unlikely place added to it for me.  The service was not the fastest in the world, as the good weather had brought out a lot of people on boats moored in the marina. But how can you complain in such beautiful surroundings and our server was charming.