This was a big year for Eat This Town! I accomplished a lot with this blog in 2014, and it’s time to take a good look back at my year in review and to get pumped for 2015!
There were some highs and lows this year.
Rousseau Chocolatier set up shop this year, providing Halifax with unrivalled quality hand-made chocolates. I happened to meet Natalie and Julien before they opened their chocolate shop, and was on-site for their grand opening.
Another high point of the year was the Gahan House taking over the space abandoned by the Hart & Thistle. I’ve swung by for their oyster bar on a couple of occasions, and I’ve been quite impressed so far with this new addition to the local beer scene.
Perhaps the lowest low of the year was Ray’s eviction from the Scotia Square Food Court (which is now dead to me). Ray is now peddling falafels and grilled chicken at his new location in Burnside, and I hope to make a visit sometime this year.
- My last meal at Ray’s: Falafel Wrap
In 2014, I ate pizza from every non-chain pizzeria on the peninsula.
My Pizza Quest began last Februrary on Quinpool Road and eventually made its way all across the peninsula. Winners were declared for each neighbourhood which were then put head-to-head in a final competition. The Halifax Peninsula Pizza Final was the biggest event I’ve hosted, and I was joined by Haligonia.ca who filmed the event.
I also partnered with Cailin O’Neil from Travel Yourself to do a SOMO (South of Morris) Pizza Crawl, where we hit up some of the more gourmet pizzas in the city.
In April, MyGyver and I drove up to New Glasgow to attend the Pictou County Pizza Competition, where I got my first taste of brown sauce pizza.
It was a big year for pizza!
- Salvatore’s: Winner of the Halifax Pizza Finals
In March, I busted my ass to win the title of “Burger Ambassador” for the Coast’s Burger Week.
This meant that I got to parade around all week with a “Burger Ambassador” sash and eat free burgers. I also appeared on Global’s Morning News with Paul Brothers. You can watch that video here.
During burger week I sampled 21 burgers, amounting to a total of 16 burgers consumed in 1 week. That is a feat on its own, but I also managed to post a blog every day, reporting on my burger adventures.
Read my Burger Week 2014 Round Up.
- Triple Cheese Bacon and Mushroom Melt – the Burger Week contribution from Cheese Curds
After Burger Week was said and done, The Coast asked me to write an article about the Best Lobster Rolls in Halifax. This was my first time writing for a written publication. I sampled 20 lobster rolls around the city (because really, I don’t mess around) before selecting 5 rolls for the article. My personal favourite was at The Esquire Restaurant, followed closely by Avery’s Lobster Roll at the Harbourstone Pourhouse & Grill.
I plan to eat a few more lobster rolls this spring and to have a full blog report for the summer of 2015!
- Lobster Roll at The Esquire Restaurant
In the days leading up to the tourism season, I got to guinea pig all of the tours that were currently offered by Local Tasting Tours. I was particularly interested in the brand new HFX North Craft Beer & Food Tour and I wrote a blog post about my experience.
I think that food-centric tours are a great way to get acquainted with a city, even if it’s your own. There are now apparently two new culinary tour companies based out of Halifax: East Coast Beer Tours and Taste Halifax Food Tours. I hope to experience these new tour offerings this year and provide a full report!
- En route with Local Tastings Tours
I haven’t done much travelling since I moved back to Nova Scotia in 2012. I’ve had to settle for road trips around the province, and even those have been few and far between. My family generally does an annual wine tour of the valley, but this year I convinced us to go a little deeper to check out Bear River and Annapolis Valley Highlands wineries.
We split up the trip between Annapolis Royal and Digby, but we scheduled all of our meals around my plans to conduct a Digby Scallop Quest.
- Pan-fried scallops at The Boardwalk Cafe
I’m much more low-key about Sausage Week than I am about Burger Week. However, I did attend the Ladies Beer League Sausage Party on the new Scanway Patio. I also sampled several promising sausages and released my findings to my Facebook followers. I was particularly impressed with Ace Burger’s currywurst rendition, EnVie’s vegan sausage and pretty much everything at The Auction House.
- Vegan Sausage at EnVie
In August I started a brand new quest – nachos, this time, at the request of Jenn from Jenn Gregory Photography.
I realized this would be the perfect opportunity to branch out and enlist fellow food lovers to come along on my quests. So I threw out the invitation on Twitter and started putting together my Nacho Team. To this end I created the Halifax Food Questers Facebook Group – which I hope to grow into a community for like-minded food questers. If you are reading this and you think you have what it takes to be a Food Quester, send me a message on any social medium platform you wish. I could use some fresh palates!
The Nacho Quests take the form of a pub crawl – only with nachos (although beer definitely makes an appearance). We eat a plate of nachos from every restaurant serving them on a particular street, and each person fills out a scoring sheet.
The first two Nacho Quests took place on Spring Garden Road and Argyle Street, and the quest will continue into 2015 with visits to Brunswick Street, Barrington Street and the Waterfront.
- Nachos at Mexi Cali Rosa’s – our #1 pick for Spring Garden Road
During the summer, I casually conducted my ongoing Fish ‘n’ Chips Quest. There are so many places to get fish ‘n’ chips around here, that I’m still doing preliminary research and reconnaissance missions to narrow down the scope.
Over the past two summers I’ve been to 11 places known for their fish ‘n’ chips. In 2013 I chose Evans Fresh Seafood as my favourite. My top pick for 2014 is …
Fredie’s Fantastic Fish House!
I’ll need at last one more summer before I feel confident holding a more official quest. However, I may try to conduct a mini-fish’n’chips quest this summer in either Lunenburg or Truro – which is very exciting!
- Fish ‘n’ Chips at Fredie’s Fantastic Fish House in Bayer’s Lake
2015 will be jam packed with more pizza, nachos, burgers and fish ‘n’ chips!
I’ll have my first brunch post up soon, followed by my first quest of the year: All-You-Can-Eat Sushi!!!