We finally made it to Ch’i Restaurant at Nanaimo and 1st last night for dinner and drinks. We had tried before on a Monday when it first opened but it was closed so we went to that old standby the Irish Heather instead.

We sampled quite a few things off the menu. I had the oven roasted sablefish with curry coconut polenta and the coriander beef striploin. The sablefish was yummy, but the beef wasn’t as tasty as I hoped. The other folks had mostly vegetarian dishes, so I can’t comment on those as they contained things like tofu and eggplant, but we all shared some delicious goat cheese spring rolls.

The dining room is large and peaceful with regular tables, a lounge area and Japanese style seating areas. It wasn’t busy so we hope they will survive until summer when we can take advantage of their patio that was remodeled with bamboo, Buddha and water fountains everywhere. The only thing that struck me as odd was the state of the bathroom - the toilet roll wasn’t connected to the wall and it didn’t look like the garbage had been emptied, strange because there was plenty of staff standing around.

We each had a dessert. I had the decadent chili chocolate molten cake (something like the photo). This was not a smart choice late at night, but it was too good not to finish every bite of at the time.

Overall, the server was attentive and able to answer all our questions and I left knowing there were other items on the menu I still needed to try.