A positive review of Ferris’ Oyster Bar and Grill—talk about preaching to the converted. Ferris’ which has been in business since 1990, is a bit of an institution with downtown diners and justly so. The atmosphere alone makes it a stand-out. With its Barbary Coast bistro décor, high quality artwork and scratchy samples on the stereo, it just is what it is. Ferris’ is free of contrivance while still acknowledging the importance of style.

The same can be said of the menu. It is largely free of trends both progressive or regressive. The emphasis on oysters in this city that pays so little attention to its maritime culture is near and dear to my heart. Burgers also get a lot of respect as does pasta. There’s very little of such culinary band wagon jumping as smashed potatoes or cartoonish retro choices.

It also highlights the liquid side of life with a healthy bar and the endearing list of champagne cocktails. (Yeah, I know it’s not champagne, but sparkling wine sounds like something you drink behind the plaza.) This made my wife Laurel, in her all-black outfit of thrift shop items and a pack of Gauloise rolled up in her sleeve, very happy.

We got the ball rolling with a half-dozen freshyly shucked niyagi oysters and an order of red-hot poppers. The small, fresh oysters were eminently slurpable and in their oceanic perfection, rendered the accompanying salsa superfluous. The red-hot poppers consisted of cream cheese and jalapenos breaded and deep-fried.

See—even though Ferris’ is cool, it’s not snobby. I mean, this is bar food. But great bar food. The poppers were so free of oil, the dish they were served in could have skipped the return trip to the dishwasher. Crisp, hot and hot. Alongside the poppers was a mayonnaise and chipotle-based sauce that acted as a balm to the heat of the jalapeno.

To wash down these goodies I dosed myself with a glass of the Sumac ridge gewurtztraminer ($7.50) while Laurel was tickled by the aforementioned champagne cocktail ($4.99). While the Sumac Ridge didn’t ascend to the heights of some BC gewurtzs, for example, Cedar Creek, it still had that clear sweet-and-sour quality that this province seems so adept at producing.

Once you get your main course at Ferris’, you’ll wonder why you ever bothered with an appetizer. You’ll wonder why you ever bothered with lunch. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that there were two meals worth of food on each of our plates. Doggie bags are de rigueur here at Ferris’. If the food was crummy this would be laughable, but it’s miles from crummy. My order of Colin’s Special ($12.50): penne with smoked salmon, capers, onion and sun dried tomatoes in a dill cream sauce under what looked like an entire block of shaved parmesan, slowly revealed itself to be a robust piquant rib sticker that had enough sharp flavours to keep it light despite its over-all oomph.

Laurel had the Cajun Prawns ($13) served in a tomato-pepper-onion sauce over the top of Ferris’ celebrated sweet potato fries. Cajun food—now there’s a trend with legs. Wow, what a crazy mess. Tender prawns entangled in a nest of sautéed vegetable matter all doused with a spicy tomato cream sauce that drained down slowly and gloriously, soggifying the huge bed of fresh cut fries. It was almost like some strange transamericanfranco reunification where the Cajun meets the Quebecois poutine and behold—Poujun is born!

If you’re trying to gain weight I recommend a steady diet of this culinary riot.

Of course, it’s all ridiculously cheap in part because they don’t bother with stacking or getting all artistic with the coulis. They don’t even garnish. They just pile it on the plate and serve it. Oh, I’d like to give them a big kiss.

Since we hadn’t actually passed out yet we decided to have dessert. The signature deep-fried rice fritters ($4.50) served hot in a brown paper bag full of icing sugar were a lot of fun. If you can imagine deep-fried rice pudding then you get the idea.

The chocolate caramel layer cake ($4.50) was not made in-house, but nevermind, it was a pleasingly restrained effort in this time of over-the-top “decadence” desserts with a fine genoise sandwich and assertive caramel. I think Ferris’ has been so good and so reasonable for so long without any hoopla that maybe it gets taken for granted like an old reliable friend.

Remember to turn to your old reliable friend one day and say, “I’m really glad you’re around and taste so good.”