To expand on our eating extravaganza from part 1
(follow me!), here is part 2 of Prince Edward County.
We didn’t follow the Taste Trail but used it as a rough guide. (By the way I'll put up all the links in the next post.)
Day 1 - Miss Lily’s Café was the first place we saw coming into Picton. Kel was hungry and I was intrigued by the black and white checkered tiles. Attached to the Picton Bookstore (great store!), this Café serves up hot drinks, sandwiches and salads. The interior is bright and sunny and the alcove at the back makes for a perfect afternoon hideout. My hot chocolate took an unusually long time to make, but man it was so yummy and well blended - totally worth the wait.
Next (literally 20 minutes later) we stopped at the Buddha Dog, which offers snack size hot dogs with unique toppings and local cheeses. I asked for my server’s favourite combo and my topping was a wine reduction something something sauce with coat cheese. I stopped listening when I heard goat cheese.
It was so good! I kept repeating that sentence hours after I finished my dog. As a bonus, the interior has a beautiful hand drawn map of The County on a blackboard wall. Local, tasty, and affordable – I wish they’d come to Ottawa! $2.50 for a delicious dog.
Since we were staying at the inn, we decided to try the restaurant at Angéline's. Kelvin had the taster’s menu and I ordered à la carte. I was impressed even though there were glitches with my order. I started with the Soup Trio and one of the three soups was too salty. I didn’t say anything but the waitress noticed that I finished everything except the split pea and ham, so she asked me if something was wrong (I told her). She returned minutes later with a full serving of the yellow cauliflower soup (so gentle and flavourful!) and was genuinely apologetic. My main arrived and I thought I had ordered the mushroom linguine but there seemed to be meat on my dish. I took a bite and it was good so I didn’t let my bad memory get in the way of my happy tummy. I joked about it with the waitress and she confirmed my dish was the linguine, left and I thought that was that. A little later, she returned with the menu and actually the chef had made a mistake. There were two linguine dishes and he gave me the one with venison. She offered to make what I ordered or I could enjoy the rest and she’d charge me the vegetarian dish price. Our waitress took the initiative to investigate my order even though I didn’t specifically ask her to. Good food and great service. Mains are around $25. For one of those splurge meals, I recommend this as an option.
Day 2 – We went to a three wineries/breweries and one cheese factory. Because this was off-season and we didn’t sign up with a food/wine tour package, the tours were basically all closed to the general public. One of the wineries we visited was Huffs Estates. What a fun little place. For breakfast we had one round (3 shot glasses worth) of tasting, a condensed tour of the facilities and then visited their art exhibit. Yeah, this winery has an art gallery and also an inn. I was impressed by their staff, just really professional and down to earth – people who take pride in their work are always impressive.
We decided to be adventurous with our lunch choice. I won’t mention the name here but I can definitely see why it wasn’t listed on the Taste Trail. The waitress kind of scared me but at least we tried something off the trail!
For dinner we didn’t feel like fine dining again. Our B&B hosts recommended the Waring House and The Acoustic Grill for burgers flare with live music. We decided to
try the latter (missed the turn for the Waring House heehee). I was skeptical because this looked like your average (bad) over-priced pub food joint, and this one had a cheesy welcome message: Cool tunes, great food, bad coffee! Off we went since I didn’t feel like turning around. We were welcomed by a very friendly and genuine server, who I found out later, was the owner.
The first thing Kelvin noticed was the blackboard drawing. I guess the gigantic iphone advertising the pub’s app caught his eye. What caught my attention was their large selection of local beer, on tap to boot. I especially enjoyed the Wellington County Ale. Rich flavours and smooth, perfect with my pulled park sweet potato fries poutine. Kelvin ordered the bangers and mash (so manly!) and it was “hearty and substantial”. Haha what a review Kel! The live music started early (around 7:30 pm ) and the place filled up steadily with couples, girlfriends, even a family with a kid around 8 or 9 yrs old. The Acoustic Grill gets top marks for their food, beer selection, and atmosphere!
Day 3 – For our final meal in The County, we enjoyed a lovely breakfast made by our B&B hosts. It wasn’t fancy by any means, but from the table setting to the small cut fruit pieces, you could see how much care was put into the meal. As E would say, “it was made with love”.
That concludes Chubby’s food thoughts from The County. Oink! Oink!
Stay tuned for the third and final chapter on PEC.
Taken with an iphone. Not bad.
Part of the series, Banquet of Consequences, by Canadian painter, J.T. Winik.
When I realized I couldn't afford to take any of the paintings home.
