Let me just preface this by mentioning that I am in no way what most folks would consider a foodie. When I looked up the definition, the first entry was accurate, but the other two were definitely off. Basically, I don’t believe I have the ‘refined palate’ that a true Foodie would have but rather have an appreciation for good food whether it comes from a street cart, greasy spoon, or a 3-star establishment.
So how about we say that I enjoy eating and leave it at that?
Sounds good to me.
We’ll leave the food porn out of it.
Exploring new worlds with the tip of my tongue
It’s pretty safe to say that I don’t travel far from home. I have been off the continent but twice (Puerto Rico and Prince Edward Island) and knowing that I won’t be able to travel extensively for some time I’ve decided to tour the world through food. Living this close to New York City has to have some advantage, doesn’t it?
The importance of having the right dining companion(s)
Thus far, I’ve done most of my exploring while away in Halifax where I meet up with my favourite exploratory dining companion, Gerald. We make a point of sharing every dish we order and talk endlessly about how flavours work (or don’t) and whether we could pull this off at home.
I remember driving the Cabot Trail in October and landing at the Keltic Lodge where I had probably one of the best meals of my life food-wise, but it fell a little flat because I dined alone. The views out of the windows of the Purple Thistle Dining Room were breathtaking, the staff attentive, and the meal divine but without someone across the table to share my thoughts with, the experience as a whole kinda fell flat and I was surprised to note that it affected how I tasted things. Somehow, I wasn’t as mindful of the little nuances and I’m sad to say that as a result, I don’t remember what exactly I ate. All of this to say that it seems important to me to explore cuisine with someone that’s either enthusiastic about broadening their horizons, or mine, but preferably both.
Tasting Nova Scotia
February is the right time to be in Nova Scotia for an eating adventure as its annual Savour Food & Wine festival takes place, offering many gastronomical offerings, courses, and events. My trip was already planned out when I found out about it so it’s safe to say that next year will definitely feature a trip revolving around this.
This trip featured mostly repeat visits to restaurants I really liked with the addition of Thai dining (twice!); something I’d never tried before. Now that I’ve tried it, I’ll have to look around New Jersey (and well, NYC) for more of the same. Here’s what where & how we dined (Comments from Gerald will appear like so)
Wing Fu - I love Chinese food and Wing Fu never disappoints! After my hassle-filled 46 hour trip from New Jersey to Halifax and some new (i.e. clean!) clothes in hand, it was very comforting to sit down to Hot & Sour Soup, Ginger Chicken and Veggie Lo Mein. Could it be that I now find Chinese food more comforting than mom’s mac & cheese?
Wing Fu might be the best Chinese restaurant in Nova Scotia, and I’m lucky enough to have it within long walking distance, and the prices are completely reasonable to boot 
Hot and Sour soup is a personal favourite, and I think I prefer noodles to rice now (and rice may be the one weak link at Wing Fu as well) so lo mein is a given. Ginger Chicken was Heather’s idea last time she was out, and I have to say I was plesantly surprised. Sure, I love Ginger, but my first love with Chinese food is stir fries, not meat dishes. This is simple delicious, though. It tweaks the tongue without being obnoxious.
Curly’s – I did not have the scallop pie (and yes, this is a surprise)! My tummy was kinda off so I forwent the superdelish & rich and instead opted for a Grilled Chicken Caesar wrap which was thankfully lightly dressed. While not exactly adventurous, I was still in comfort mode and this did the trick. I was really more into the company of friends than eating, anyways.
Curly’s is a fairly run of the mill tavern, with the exception of the Shubie Mud (a decadent brownie and ice cream dessert) and the seafood. I was in a comfort food mood, though, so I just went for a mozza and mushrooms hamburger & fries, with gravy for the fries. It was fine, but unexceptional. I’ll eat at Curly’s every so often, but I don’t clamour for it unless I’m going to splurge.
The Sweet Spot Chocolate Shop – No trip to Elmsdale is complete until I visit Nancy at The Sweet Spot. Her fudge is the smoothest I’ve ever encountered and I feel pretty safe in saying that even if I were to find a reputable candy maker here, I would still prefer hers. This initial trip was just to place the large take home orders of Maple and Chocolate Mint fudges but naturally I could not leave empty handed. One piece of Vanilla fudge and a piece of (the oh-my-goodness best) Caramel later, I was on my way.
There’s not much to say here that Heather doesn’t cover, except that I am amazed that we are lucky enough to have a confectioner this good in the neighbourhood. The prices are high, but the quality is off the scale. Unusually for sweets, the flavours are subtle, and the sweetness is pleasant, not overwhelming.
Stayner’s Wharf Pub & Grill – Stayner’s is another of those places that I’ll probably go to every time I ‘come home’ to Halifax. This being a lunch time visit, I chose to order 2 appetizers to share with Gerald & Dan over one single dish. Not surprisingly, I ordered the calamari and the Figgy Parm. The Calamari is lightly breaded an fried just right, leaving the whole so superbly tender that it almost seems sinful to dip it into the sweet chili sauce, but then you do and it’s like a little bit of heaven in your mouth. The Figgy Parm (crostini topped with prosciutto, figs, cream & parm cheeses w/cranberry chutney) is just as evil and I’m still dying to replicate it at home. I completely forgot to ask for the recipe: I have half a mind to call and ask. I mean, I think I have the components figured out, it’s just figuring out how to put it all together properly. Also yummy was the fried pepperoni I snagged from Daniel’s plate, only found locally. I hope Dan forgets that he wanted to add some to my care package. Goal for next visit: go for live jazz night.
In addition to sharing the calamari (perfection) and figgy parm (which is almost overwhelmingly good – it just trips so many flavour notes, every one a pleasure), I ordered a cheese burger and fries with gravy. I was expecting a good burger, but this was beyond just good. It may be the best burger I’ve ever had. The trick of a lean but moist burger is a little beyond me, but not the chefs at Stayner’s and the flavour is awesome. Even the cheese (real cheese, not processed stuff) are really good. Someone has a real eye for detail at this little place, and it shows in everything I’ve had. The Simply Seafood Too, which I had over the summer, is a marvelous blend of seafood, pasta and sauce, by the way.
Oh, the pepperoni is made by Chris Brothers, by the way, just in case you’re curious
Chabaa Thai Restaurant – This was a new cuisine to both Gerald and I. My only exposure, if you want to call it that, was Lemongrass Chicken instant soup. <insert appropriate giggle here> I knew right off the bat that Pad Thai was getting ordered but it was hard to narrow down the rest of the meal but after a long perusal of the menu we settled on Mango Salad, Lemongrass Chicken, Pad Thai w/prawns, and mixed vegetables (ordered specifically for the baby corn & Chinese napa). The first delightful surprise was the Mango Salad. Don’t get me wrong, it obviously sounded good on paper but here’s the surprise of it: lime leaves. I don’t even have the right words to describe how they taste, only that they were fabulous. The chicken dish was sadly lost in my memory next to the Pad Thai which was the tastiest noodle dish I’ve ever eaten. So much going on in one dish!! I’d forgotten how much I enjoy the flavour of tamarind and look forward to learning how to incorporate it into my home cooking. The only real disappointment of the night was the vegetables, but I think that was more the fault of the waitress then the veggies themselves. No baby corn & no napa! Double whammy of missing vegetable goodness! After inquiring about their whereabouts (none left in-house), we chose not to send them back. They were good but I suspect the bitter taste of disappointment marred my opinion of the overall dish.
Wow. Just wow. I should have tried Thai food fifteen years ago. The mango salad was delightful, and lime leaves are sui generis and delightful. The Lemongrass chicken was surprisingly subtle, although the chicken was a tad overcooked. The other flavours were a delight, though. The absent baby corn and napa cabbage was a big disappointment for me, but the stir fry veggies were still well worth it. I didn’t even mind the tofu in it
The highlight, though, was the prawn pad thai (oddly, all forms of pad thai cost the same at Chabaa). It’s a symphony for the palate. Powerful yet subtle, a little fruity, a little caramel, and reassuringly carb-laden. I could eat this once a week for the rest of my life, easily.
I will return to Chabaa as often as I can, and I heartily recommend it to anyone that is even close to Halifax.
Mmmmm…..Thai food.
Elmsdale Pizzaria – Ahh, Donair! How tempting is it to learn how to make you properly and open up shop here in NJ? My nutritionist would definitely not approve. My tummy & taste buds resoundingly disagree and I salivate just thinking about eating this Haligonian treat. It looks like Gyro but tastes much sweeter, thanks to the sauce & cheese. Did I mention the sauce? The same sauce that’s used copiously enough to make the pita unusable? Yeah. I don’t know how the idea was conceived but I find that I don’t care. It’s just another food item I will have every time I visit. That and the garlic fingers. My only advice when eating this stuff is to make sure the company you’re keeping is eating it, too. Two (or more) garlics cancel each other out: nobody will complain about your breath if they have it, too!
Donair and garlic fingers – These have been staples since I was in university, and are practically the official foods of Nova Scotia youth Donairs were invented and perfected here, and serve as a simply amazing drunk food, or as a treat. To give you some idea of their popularity, no pizzeria in Nova Scotia could get away with not having them on their menu. Even the national chains have them, but only in Nova Scotia (and maybe New Brunswick). Messy, yummy, spicy sweet goodness.
Oh, and for the curious, garlic fingers are basically pizza dough with garlic butter and a thin layer of mozza cut into two-inch wide strips. Simple, but also perfect for dipping in donair sauce or in sour cream. Cook until the cheese *just* starts to brown.
Wing Fu – Take 2! – The second visit to WF was slightly dampened by some customer service drama that just. wouldn’t. go. away. That and our eyes were waaaay bigger than our tummies. We remembered to order the spring rolls this time alongside Chicken Moo Goo Gai Pan, Pork Lo Mein, and more stir fried veggies. Just what army we thought we were feeding is beyond me, but it was all very, very tasty as per usual.
This meal was also hurt because it came on the night after “discovering” Thai food. While Chinese and Thai are completely different than each other, and comparisons are unfair, they are also much closer to each other than to European cooking, and the familiarity of the flavours of the Chinese food made them seem bland this night. To make matters worse, I think Moo Goo Gai Pan may just be a bit humdrum compared to a lot of dishes at Wing Fu, and we didn’t try anything as distinctive as the ginger chicken from the first visit. The lo mein still rocked, though.
Tim Horton’s – The coffee is better than Dunkin, no question. They charge way too much for a toasted bagel but the 12 grain is really quite meaty and satisfies that early morning carb craving quite nicely, tyvm. If only they mailed out the coffee to the US, I’d be a very happy girl indeed.
The Sweet Spot Chocolate Shop – On the spot, literally! I purposely went to the store an hour later than planned, knowing full well that CTV was due to be there at the original time we set for the Great Fudge Pick-up. Well, guess what! They weren’t done filming. The cameraman overheard that I came from NJ to get the goods. Long story short – I got finagled into a spot, managed to get the store name wrong (!!), all with a lip full of cold sores. Beaut! I don’t even *want* to know my little bit aired.
Steamy’s – OK. Steamy’s can only mean one thing: POUTINE. Up until May of last year, I didn’t think it possible that I would ever eat poutine outside of Quebec, but I was proven wrong. So very wrong. It’s such a simple food, really… french fries, poutine gravy, and cheese curds. How could so many people get it wrong? I mean really, people! Don’t serve me fries with brown sauce and mozzarella and try to pass it off, ok? I won’t have it!! The bonus to this visit is that I got to bring a local with me to spread the word of the Gospel of Poutine. Proselytizing never tasted this good before…
I’ve had faux poutine (with mozza instead of curds and standard gravy and fries rather than montreal style) plenty of times before, and I love it. This was something else again, though. It just goes to that next level, and is something special. I think a lot of it is the quality of the gravy – bad gravy is the easiest way to ruin a poutine, so the opposite just makes sense. The texture of curds is more pleasant than mass market mozza, too, though.
Too much of this stuff would kill you in a hurry, but I look forward to treating myself to it again. I don’t think I’ve been completely spoiled for the more pedestrian variety, either.
Honourable Mention: The Vines Pasta Grill – Because we somehow failed to realize that the restaurant wasn’t open on Mondays. Luckily, I didn’t blog about my last visit so whilst I mourn the possibly lost opportunity to try Potato Parsnip with Tarragon soup (not to mention the Tiramisu and the Chocolate Decadence and the…), I can relive my October experience. My first trip to The Vines included a Tomato Basil soup with Feta which I’m going to replicate in my apartment one of these cold wintry days to go alongside a grilled cheese sammy. Sweet and salty all at once, perfect for my tastes! Chicken Filo was my entree and the easiest way to describe it is Beef Wellington, subbing out the beef for chicken. I remember this because it was the first time I’d ever eaten duxelle and it kinda overloaded my senses. I don’t remember ever being sad when finishing a course before and that’s quite how I felt after the last bite. Until dessert. And for that, I’ll let Gerald take over. I have a feeling that he’ll manage to say it all.
I got to go to The Vines a week before Heather came up (including the mentioned potato parsnip tarragon soup – amazingly, very nummy), so I was more or less sated. Still, this place is so good that missing out is always a disappointment, even if Chabaa was the consolation prize.
I want more tiramisu and chocolate decadence, though, darn it! Last time we went was the first time I had had these desserts, and either would have been a remarkable experience. Together they were practically religious. Such a contrast between them, too! The tiramisu is subtle and creamy with an alcohol kick. Elegant, yet it is hard to really describe it as understated because the flavours are layered and complex. Compared to chocolate decadence, though, it is the height of subtlety.
Chocolate decadence is chocolate on top of chocolate on top of chocolate. It practically shorts out your brain, managing the trick of being more chocolatey than chocolate. Creamy, rich, aromatic. Unbelievable.
The main part is somewhere between cheesecake and truffle, while the base is dark chocolate-flavoured crumb crust. Served with a few dots of brightly flavoured raspberry puree on the side, any chocolate fan should consider a pilgrimage.
Chabaa Thai Restaurant – take 2! The decision to go back was so embarrassingly easy. The Pad Thai was calling our names and we heeded its call! To this, we tried the spring rolls (just small enough, in my opinion), hot & sour soup, Beef Panang, and Chicken Pad Thai. My only disappointment was the tea. I ordered Jasmine tea fully expecting to see the pods at the bottom of my teapot but instead it was a mass produced tea bag. *sigh* The soup was exceptional if a bit hotter than expected. I think it caught us both by surprise at least once, right at the back of the throat. I would eat that soup anytime I had a cold, that’s for sure! The Beef Panang was excellent. The coconut wasn’t overwhelming at all and I felt it actually took away some of the lingering heat from the hot and sour soup. This time around we had chicken instead of prawns and I found it better this way and perhaps it had something to do with the messiness of it… chicken just blended in better (This may be the only time I refer to a bottomdweller as clean!).
Yeah, this was a no-brainer once we discovered The Vines was out. The Spring Rolls were absolutely perfect, with the vegetables hot but crunchy, and the wrapping a rich brown and crisp. Even the chili sauce that came with it was just right. And accent, not dominating.
The hot and sour soup was every bit as good, and better than any Chinese H&S I’ve had. Yes, I could have handled it being a little less spicy (when the juice catches the back of your throat unexpectedly, it literally takes your breath away), but somehow the spiciness felt right.
The pad thai was amazing once again. There really isn’t anything intelligible to add.
I was a little less enthused with the Beef Panang than Heather was, but that was due to personal preference rather than any real defect in the dish. Green beans are okay, and better than carrots, but not among my favourite vegetables, and on the heels of the hot and sour soup the spiciness wasn’t as welcome as it might have been. I didn’t hate it by a long stretch, but I think I’d rather try other dishes in future.
I’d forgotten about the green beans! I think I remember talking about alternate veggies and deciding that broccoli would be a better choice (for me, at least)
Future Prospects: Where I’d like to go next time around
Opa!
5 Fishermen
Sugar Moon Farm
Addis Ababa – oh no! I just read that the Ethiopian restaurant is no longer there, having been replaced by Aleppo (middle eastern cuisine). Boooo indeed! Guess that’s why I can find no to add here…
