Mary’s Bleue Moon Café

Restaurant Review by:

Every once and a while, luck is on your side, as it was on a recent Date Nite, when Intrepid’s director-at-large chose this restaurant for a first-time visit. It proved to be an inspired choice!

Mary opened the restaurant in 1939, catering to the 12,000 airmen who trained at the Pat Bay airport until 1945. So many of them found it an easy walk to the cottage-style eatery at the eastern end of the runways that it quickly became the place to go for fast and tasty snacks and meals.

Owned by countless Marys since its inception, this unimposing white and blue cottage still has model planes (mostly wooden) overhead with photos documenting eighty plus years of aviation history adorning the walls.

Because Intrepid had more than a history lesson in mind, he was pleased to be to be asked promptly what libation was on his flight plan. A long list of craft brew was on offer, as well as wine and any mixed drink one could imagine.

The menu (see below) seemed at first overly extensive. Intrepid, not a seasoned cook, assumed that the back of the house created dishes using sauce that enhances many basic meals, or ready-made salads that could adorn many plates. And if not that, perhaps the kitchen relied on prepared dishes that magically appeared after a short nuclear event in the micro-oven.

This was not the case. The chef quickly sent out two dishes that featured fresh fish, salads and vegetables that seemed just to have been picked and sauces full of zip and flavour.  

Mrs. Intrepid, addicted as she is to that great Canadian classic, shepherd’s pie, chose Shepard’s Pie (sic), piping hot from the oven in a small casserole, an amount so generous that half of it left in a takeout box to grace her plate the next day. The dish included savoury ground beef, peas & mashed potatoes baked with a topping of cheese for $16.50, and came with a huge green salad packed with fresh mushrooms.

Fish and pasta gourmand Intrepid requested the Garlic Lovers Pasta, featuring roasted garlic, many giant prawns, spinach, leeks, tomatoes & penne noodles tossed in virgin olive oil. Mm, mm, good! $18.50 

Given the high quality of food and service offered on his first visit, Intrepid recommends you explore the rest of the menu fearlessly, including Breakfast and daily specials. Mary’s is definitely worth all those hours in the air!

Mary’s Bleue Moon Cafe

9535 Canora Rd, Sidney

8am-9pm Daily
250-655-4450       

Menu:  https://www.marysbleuemoon.com/menus

– The Intrepid Diner


Gregory Bosecker

VRMNC Newsletter Editor.