Chakalaka

Good food. Big place, holds alot of people.

The Chakalaka Bar & Grill is located in Cassidy, BC, a few minutes south of the Nanaimo Airport. It is quite large, spacious and comfortable. They have an awesome looking patio out back with gorgeous stone walls and a lot of foliage for shade in the summer. I would definitely do the patio in comfortable weather. The menu is also quite extensive, without being overly complicated, and had an excellent selection of Greek culinary choices and beer on tap. We tried their Cuban Sandwich with fries. The Cuban had good flavour and was more or less a proper Cuban sandwich. My biggest disappointment was that the pulled pork was not fresh, on the fatty side and rather chewy. The sandwich had good portions of pulled pork, ham, Swiss cheese, pickles and also banana peppers, which added nice texture and savoury sour flavour. The bun wasn’t pressed in a grill, nor was it proper ciabatta bread, which would have also been a significant improvement. The fries were perfect. Crispy outside, soft inside, hot and not greasy at all. Yum! Dessert was sadly not impressive at all. The lemon meringue pie and cream puff were old and did not taste homemade. I should note that the Chakalaka may be the only place I've found in the Nanaimo region to even have a Cuban sandwich on it's regular menu, so perfecting that sandwich would give them a solid and unique menu item, and let me be clear that it's almost there. The service is incredibly warm, friendly, and attentive. That alone would encourage me to give the Chakalaka another try. Our server was such a sweetheart. While we were there, another customer told her that their burger was sensational. The burger menu selection was quite impressive in variety and combinations. I would definitely try a burger next visit.

Convenient location. Just off the highway 1. Food was average. Service was friendly and prompt.