Adventures in travelling to eat, with a dash of culinary history
Poutine has become a quintessential Canadian dish. Chefs are spooning out messy iterations of this gravy-curd-fry combination everywhere, and I love it all. I’ve eaten poutine in many forms and many places — like sitting curb-side after a night of drinking in Halifax or with […]
I was at the back of the bunch, so I couldn’t see where we were going. Our party of 20 or more had disembarked from the hotel in search of dinner. We were a worldly group — Canadians, Americans, South Africans and Ecuadorians — gathered […]
Eating is the best part about exploring a new place, but figuring out how to find good restaurants while travelling can be tricky. Even defining what a ‘good’ restaurant means to you is tough. Throughout your trip, you’ll have moments when it means something different: […]
Dining at the Fogo Island Inn feels like being at nan’s — an onslaught of pastries the moment you walk in the door until you walk out with a bagged lunch for the trip home. Here’s what’s new on the menu.
I’ve been The Food Girl in Town for two thousand, one hundred and ninety days. Here’s what happened in the 6th year. You’ll never guess how many restaurants I ate in this year… yes, I counted.
I think many people shy away from shellfish because they are nervous about cooking it at home, seeing it as a luxury item, or something relegated to summer boil ups on the coast. But The Great Shellfish Cookbook by Matt Dean Petit puts all those worries to rest by outlining all the things you need to know about cooking shellfish. I was delighted when this cookbook showed up in my mailbox, and even though it’s the end of summer, it’s certainly not the end of shellfish season — in fact oysters don’t have a season, and lobster is harvested year round on the East Coast. Here’s what I thought of it. (more…)
When new restaurants open in St. John’s, I get excited. When said restaurant opens a ten-minute walk from my house I get fired up — I couldn’t wait to blog about Noodle Nami.
When Jumping Bean closed their Harvey Road location earlier this year I was pretty crushed, it was one of the only places I could get a decent coffee in my neighbourhood, but a new restaurant got me over it pretty quickly.
I just knocked a big one off the bucket list. Or should I say a really long one? As part of a journalistic fellowship with the Canada China Business Council I was sauntering along that Great Wall within 12 hours of touching down in Beijing. We chose the Juyongguan section of the wall also known as the Juyong Pass, one of three mountain passes along the 21,000km wall because it’s supposed to be a little less crowded — like all major tourist destinations there are tips and tricks visiting the Great Wall of China.
Screw stopping to smell the roses, I’m all about them ocean views. Witless Bay is only about half an hour’s drive from St. John’s, so it’s easy to get there on a Friday evening, but it feels like it’s a million miles away.
Whether it’s a saltbox house vacation rental, drop-dead gorgeous boutique inn o homey hostel, there’s a plethora of Newfoundland accommodations to snuggle into this summer.
Kraft Dinner has always been there for me. When I was little, my father would add real cheese to boxes of Kraft Dinner in a (probably vain) attempt at making the addictive blue-boxed delight healthier for my sister and me. It spawned the creation of ‘cheese noodles’ where he would mix up butter, milk and cheddar together with macaroni in another attempt at getting us to eat something a little less… processed. We’ve been devouring them regularly, and believe me when I say cheese noodles are not Kraft Dinner nor are they stove top mac n’ cheese. Just ask my girlfriends — after years of doling out drunken bowl-fulls, the girls still message me from all over the world asking me to make it for them.
While perusing ‘historic saltbox homes near the ocean’ on AirBnb I stumbled upon a series of small cabins cloaked in canvas. “There’s Glamping in Newfoundland?”
Chef Cameron Stauch is a world traveller. As the partner of a Canadian diplomat he has lived all over the world, documenting his travel and his cooking on his blog A Global Kitchen. Dive into my review of his new cookbook Vegetarian Vietnam.
When I first walked by Kimchi & Sushi the first thing I asked myself was “Is there such thing as Korean sushi?” After a quick Google search I fell down a rabbit hole of frenzied (but fierce) debates over whether Korean sushi is better than Japanese… I haven’t come to a decision, but repeated trips to this downtown St. John’s restaurant will probably help me decide! Last month, the new app HelpMeOrder asked me to collaborate with them on some videos featuring the best dishes at restaurants featured on their app and I was more than delighted to oblige. The app helps indecisive foodies determine the best dishes at restaurants all over the city, and for my Anthony Bourdain moment I ate the best of Kimchi & Sushi’s dishes and talk about it!
The Food Girl in Town is about everything I love: cook pasta for my friends, culinary history, and finding fancy hotel rooms for cheap! As a culinary adventurer and freelance writer, I travel to eat. I spend a lot of time researching my next trip — there's always a next trip — and booking hotels near restaurants I want to try.
