End Dive, now celebrating its second anniversary, aspires to be a gastronomic dive bar, or so the story goes. It's a quirky little cocktail bar and restaurant with the most minimalist of websites depicting End Dive’s Blonde-haired Frogman logo, the longitudinal and latitudinal coordinates of the restaurant that hyperlink to a Google Map, the word “reserve,” which offers reservations only for precisely 5:30 p.m, and that’s it.
No menus. Nothing about the owners, chefs, history. It’s all a mystery. Walk-ins are welcome anytime. I arrived at about quarter past seven on a Saturday to find the place packed.
Inside, the decor of wood and brick is dominated by a long and quite traditional wooden bar. There's a row of tables along a wooden banquette with its back to Harold Street, and a window bar that looks out on Government Street.
A row of circular vents high at the back immediately catch my attention, as they have been ingeniously rendered as the googly eyes of several green frog faces painted on that green wall. Art by the same artist (who also created the Frogman logo) feature bizarre cartoonish characters and landscapes depicted with solid fields of often improbable colours.
I am seated at the bar, near the back and handed two small paper menus: one titled Swill, and the other Scraps.
Swill lists End Dive’s nine signature cocktails. Each boasts a complex recipe with precise and sometimes mysterious ingredients.The Okey Dokey ($18) features Goslings Black Seal Rum, Wray & Nephew Overproof Rum, Woods + Nonino Amaro, Esquimalt Company Kina Salal, Lacto Strawberry & Tomato, Cacao Nib Tincture, and lime.
That’s an impressive list of seven ingredients offering sweet and bitter and sour; herbs, molasses and citrus, and both local craft and imported ingredients. Mixed together this concoction of flavours produce what could be the ultimate dessert cocktail: rich, smooth, frothy and yet with body. I can’t help think of a spiked trifle and wonder if I should be drinking it with a spoon.
Scraps is divided into three unlabelled sections. At the top is a selection of five vegetarian options, in the middle are three pasta options, and below are five seafood options. Like their cocktail counterparts, each dish is a culinary safari, smart phone in hand.
What is Kina Salal? Essentially a tonic flavoured with local salal berries. Lacto Strawberry and Tomato: Think house-fermented kombucha. How about Za’atar? A savoury herb blend featuring Sumac among perhaps, marjoram, oregano, thyme, coriander, or curry.What about Togarashi Shichimi? Or Green Apple Tigers Milk? Or Sea Buckthorn?The list goes on.
Hello? Google? Help!
And the dishes are unnamed. And their descriptions do not quite tell all. I choose Walnut Pate stuffed Morel Mushrooms served with charred Dragon Carrots, Tahini Whipped Feta, Quince Mostarda and Shiso Leaves ($26), but some of my Morels are stuffed with other mushrooms instead of the Walnut Pate, and there is an unmentioned accompanying dollop of Sweet and Sour Rhubarb jam.
And what is Mostarda? A condiment of candied fruit in mustard oil. And these Shiso leaves that seem to grow full form and brilliant green from my dark pile of charred carrots and woodsy mushrooms? Well, they are a member of the aromatic mint family with a particularly citrusy-minty flavour.
The dish looks like a microcosm of fertile forest floor, and earthiness is certainly an apt flavour descriptor within a virtuoso culinary performance of contrasts and complements, both in terms of textures and flavours. And that is a pretty good description of the whole End Dive experience.
End Dive
