Another notch in the belt
The Bourgeois Gourmet shares his most memorable meals from 2006
IN THE QUEST to find decent places to eat where you can fill your belly without emptying your wallet, we visited dozens of restaurants in Nova Scotia this year, reporting on almost 50 of them. My doctor estimates I can do this for two more years before I’ll have to cut a bigger doorway into my house. While people are always offering to switch jobs with me, it’s really my guest eaters, wife Kathy and son BJ, who really have the great gig — eating, but not writing. So, as has become tradition for the last Friday of the year, the annual Stick a Fork In It Awards. Restaurant of the Year ( Halifax division) TRINITY Proprietor Ross Miller and executive chef Tony Hiltz both returned home to Nova Scotia after years of working out west to team up and create Trinity two years ago. With Miller running the front of the house and Hiltz presiding in the kitchen, they’ve put together a versatile menu that borrows from several cuisines, and a small but able wine list. I had heard nothing about Trinity before we went there for dinner in September, but I was blown away by the quality of the food, the attention to detail and the service from waiter Kaloyan Vassilev, known as Coco. Three of us ate a superb dinner for $ 88, which was an absolute steal. Business has increased by close to 200% since the initial review appeared, and Hiltz, not content to sit on his laurels, has just revised the menu for the second time. ( Outside the City division) AVON EMPORIUM My chowder consultants say Doris Hagmann, who runs this charming Summerville, Hants County, establishment, makes absolutely the best seafood chowder in the province. She’s pretty good at everything else, too. We were there for the Sunday brunch and couldn’t believe the vast array of homemade foods in the buffet, made from scratch by Hagmann and her daughters. The brunch is on hiatus until Mother’s Day, but the restaurant is open all week. Consult their web site for directions and make a reservation. Best place to have a Stella Even though I’m paying much more attention to wine lists than I used to, it’s still more likely for me to have beer with my meal, and if it’s available I almost always get Stella Artois. The bartenders at the RED STAG TAVERN, in the Brewery Market, are trained at the Beer Institute and as a result, the Stella is cold, fresh, poured properly and arrives in the right glass. Honourable mention CELTIC CORNER in Dartmouth, KELLOCK’S in Berwick. Best service No service disasters come to mind from this year, although I’m still puzzled by the Truro restaurant that has a gigantic sign that advertises Sol beer, but doesn’t sell Sol. Just as important as competence in a server is honesty, and I was impressed by the waiter at the REDWOOD GRILL who told me he didn’t think much of their French onion soup, and the waitress at BEARLY’S, who in response to my selection of the lunch special, told me “ You don’t want that." Best was our waitress at JANE’S ON THE COMMON, who could expertly discuss everything on the menu and chose wines that perfectly complemented our meal. Best atmosphere When a reader wrote in to ask for a suggestion on where to propose marriage, I suggested VIVO, where a meal in a romantic setting doesn’t require taking out a loan. ( She said yes.) Other places to go for a nice intimate meal include the FRENCH QUARTER and ROGI ORAZIO. The OLD SCHOOLHOUSE in Barrington Passage has an inviting look to go with its long history and MOLLYZ DINER has an engaging décor and an even more interesting clientele. Best burger This would be an easy choice, even if I hadn’t been told this story over Christmas: A few days after the review of LISA’S CAFE appeared in the paper, a guy from Halifax stopped in front of a house in Windsor, where the owner was doing some yard work. “ I’m looking for the place that serves the Flintstone burger," he said, becoming fairly agitated when the local had no idea what he was referring to. “ How can you not know that? It’s somewhere in Windsor, it was in the paper!" Between them, they eventually figured out the guy from the city was looking for the Giant Fredburger at Lisa’s, which I’ll bet he decided was worth the drive. Best wings Just as certain that almost any bar you go into will have chicken wings on the menu is the knowledge that they’ll be deep fried garbage with mild, hot or honey garlic sauce. Thankfully, there are exceptions, like the Cajun wings at the FRENCH QUARTER, the Calypso wings at the THIRSTY DUCK and the Thai wings at the RED STAG. Best french fries The campaign against factorycut, pre- cooked fries appears to be a losing battle but some restaurant owners continue to fight the good fight, including KELLOCK’S, where the fries are hand cut, thick and made from Yukon Gold potatoes. Honorable mention: PHIL’S SEAFOOD and WILLMAN’S FRIED FOODS. They also have incredible French fries at the WARD ROOM but you have to be in the military or know someone who is to eat there. Best fish and chips What’s true about the fries at the WARD ROOM is also true of the fish. For traditional fish and chips available to anyone, it’s hard to top WILLMAN’S or the RED STAG. For lighter coating that’s closer to breading than batter, PHIL’S SEAFOOD and PINEAU’S CAFÉ are unbeatable. Best baked beans A new category this year, but one I felt compelled to include. The beans at MOLLYZ DINER and DECO BBQ were both incredible. Best appetizer I love the idea of the monthly meetings of the Food and Wine Club ( which are open to all) and maybe the best thing I had to eat in a Nova Scotia restaurant all year was seared quail legs with braised French green lentils served by chef Terry Vassallo at the CHEF’S ROOM. Sometimes I’ll just sit here and daydream about the taste. Honourable mention The bruschetta at KELLOCK’S, which incorporates locally made goat cheese. Best dessert Always the toughest category in which to make a selection, because there are so many worthy contenders, particularly in restaurants outside the city. Nominees included the butterscotch cheesecake at LISA’S CAFE, where they offer as many as a dozen homemade desserts, the tiramisu at ROGI ORAZIO, the REDWOOD GRILL’s chocolate peanut butter bombs and the sugar pie at PINEAU’S CAFE. But the Stick a Fork In It award for best dessert this year is a tie between the chocolate cake with boiled icing at the WEST SIDE DINER in New Glasgow and the butterscotch pie at the FIRESIDE CAFE in Canning. Letters For some reason, negative reviews generate the most mail. I think you could fairly describe as hate mail the letters that followed the review of Jasper’s in Sydney, especially the unsigned screed which described me as ( unspeakable profanity) four separate times, and closed with the hope that I would choke to death on a bone in a bowl of turkey soup. A person who claimed to own the Mahone Bay pub that came in for some criticism wrote a rebuttal that was longer than the initial review, centred on how much I sucked, and even disparaged my wife and son. And speaking of BJ, he was the subject of my favourite letter, in which the author wrote that it was his belief that BJ was not in fact a 10- year old boy, as I claimed, but in fact a restaurant owner who accompanied me on trips to restaurants for the sole purpose of surreptitiously putting a knife in the back of the competition. Keep those cards and letters coming. Bill Spurr is a features writer who freelances this column. ( bspurr@herald.ca) |
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