Bold Knight Restaurant

Amazing Food! Amazing Service! I highly recommend it!

I am not sure what the previous 'Critics' have been smoking but we have been going to the Bold Knight for over 10 years (and yes we go to other restaurant as well) . The Bold Knight serves great food and we have yet to be dissappointed.

We received a gift certificate for the Bold Knight.
So, on June 20/2010 6 of us went.
Disappointed is an understatement! Everything and I mean EVERYTHING
was bland , bland ,bland . No spices whatsoever, We ordered everything from steak and lobster to salmon entrees, ceasar salad and appetizers.
The mushroom/escargo mozzarella appy was particularly disturbing, I could have flipped that baby off like a frisbee, it had no creamy consistency whatsoever it was a solid tasteless mess. The prices are outrageous for what they attemp!
Don't even get me started on the garlic butter, I thought O.K. at least I can dip my lobster in the butter and get some flavor.......NOPE! Nothing NADA
Just plain and simple tasteless food with an exorbitant price tag.
Don't go there!!! I heard there are new owners , maybe that is the problem!
I'll say it again.....DO NOT GO THERE!!!!

June 2010

The Bold Knight (Trans-Canada Highway, Chase River, Nanaimo BC)

The place is so bad it gives bad a bad name.

Having driven by this cherub-bum pink and tricycle-blue cinderblock for years, we finally threw conventional dining wisdom down the garbarator and went for dinner.

Sometime, even when your brain is screaming, Stop now. You can save yourself. Turn and run! you still cross the threshold, and, like a portal into a bygone era bad dream, it is suddenly in 1978. Dont look down because that is also the last year the carpeting was changed. The walls are a jousting match of Arthurian knights, complete with crossed swords and shields, hoisted on a backdrop of mottled (is that mould?) textured flock wallpaper.

There were other diners. That, stupidly, gave us hope.

Seated in a booth upholstered in burled Carpathian genuine imitation leather, we looked at each other, and the absurdity of our situation, and started to laugh. Then we looked up. The ceiling is a cosmos of gold flecked mirror and, in his best Austin Powers accent, my Brit friend Ian crooned, Shag me baby. More laughter.

Then we waited, and waited, and waited. Three tables. Three waitresses, but still we waited. Finally water arrived. After 15 minutes. Then the menus papyrus from the crypt of a Greek Steakhouse circa 1980.

Shock and awe. First at the items listed (when was the last time youve seen escargot in garlic butter with mozzarella cheeseif ever?), and then the prices. WHAT?!? Five star prices in a dime deli.

Ian the Brave ordered popcorn shrimp and I had oysters Rockefeller. His shrimp, when they finally arrived (cold) were miniscule indentured shrimp incarcerated in handcuffs of cornmeal clay served with Kraft mayo. My oysters, although advertised as Fanny Bay, likely came from a salt water swamp near the BP oil spill in the Gulf. Spongy watery spinach blanketed the meager oysters and to further the injustice, Canadian asiago cheese was mounded on top and then the whole mess was cooked to within an inch of its life, thus creating a trampoline texture to the outer surface.

Then our respective glasses of wine arrived. 30 minutes after ordering them, having reminded our waitress 3 times. It was warm red wine, likely stored beside the stove. Whatever it was supposed to be it wasnt. It was cruel and red. Thats as far as we got.

Then the main event. My meal was ribs. Overcooked with about 15 centimeters of coagulating syrupy-sweet ketchup sauce and, this really is the best part, a baked potato wrapped in luminous gold flecked (to match the ceiling no doubt) tin foil.

Ians Alaska crab has been frozen during the last ice age, defrosted and cooked quickly, thus leaving the extremities warm but the inside ice cold. His steak, he did admit, was okay and cooked medium rare, as ordered. He too was gifted with the gold wrapped baked potato and proffered, via a 5- sectioned serving vessel (did they find it in a garage sale?), sour cream, chives, faux bacon bits and ketchup. Egad! Oh yes, and long-ago steamed broccoli stems - cant forget those.

Nothing of what was ordered was finished. We had to ask for our bill repeatedly and then gave up, went to the front cash, and as much as we wanted to pull a dine and dash paid an outrageous amount for tragically unhip nauseating food and service.

It will be a bold night in hell before wed venture through those doors again.

The best place for a meal in Nanaimo, if you are driving by it doesn't look like much but inside it is very nice. The food is out of this world, best steak and lobster. Will be back soon.

One of the best meals I have had in a long time. Large portions, great service.

This place has the best steak in town, great service and atmosphere too.

When I lived in Nanaimo years ago we had a staff party at The Bold Knight. It was absolutely the best steak dinner I have ever had, and anytime I go for a steak dinner elsewhere I always compare it to The Bold Knight. Thus far I have yet to find a restaurant that serves a better steak. Thanks for the wonderful memories.
Always a satisfied customer!! ( Simply The Best ) )