Prince Edward Island (PEI) is famous throughout Canada for its produce: potatoes, beef, dairy, lobsters, scallops, mussels, and more. While those are delicious, it’s strange that the Islanders haven’t created specialty dishes with them. One exception is fries with the works.
Prince Edward Island Convention Centre
It’s feasible to try all the restaurants in Charlottetown that offer this dish if you have the time, appetite, and companions to share the calories with. For those that don’t, here’s a quick rundown of the top contenders.
Edmonton has exactly one food speciality: their take on donairs. Since this is Alberta, the land of cattle, it’s also a good opportunity to try the local beef and game meats.
Victoria is a picturesque capital at the tip of Vancouver Island. What it doesn’t have is a specialty dish. There are several fish and chips restaurants. Lacking the appetite to try all of them, I opted for chowder instead. Good news is that they come in tiny cup sizes. With all the different variations, chowders might become the Victorian specialty.
Where to get the best Nanaimo bars in their place of origin
Nanaimo is a seaside town that’s used mainly as a transit point to catch a ferry. However, it has an outsized claim to fame on the Canadian culinary landscape–Nanaimo bars. They are widely found across Canada, though more common in the Western provinces. No one is sure who created this dessert but it emerged from Nanaimo in the 1950s. And yes, locals call them Nanaimo bars too, even in Nanaimo.
Yellowknife and the Northwest Territories do not have unique food creations. At best, they offer an opportunity to try the local produce. Yellowknife is blessed with the second-largest lake in Canada and fishing tourism is booming here. Naturally, local fishes are the thing to try.
Whitehorse doesn’t have unique food specialties. In fact, neither does anywhere in the Yukon. Early gold rush settlers brought sourdough bread from San Francisco, which in turn came from Europe. Although there’s a sourdough winter festival in Whitehorse, the “sourdough” here refers to hardy locals rather than the bread.
Jenni House at Whitehorse
While sourdough (the bread) isn’t a big thing in Whitehorse, it’s a fine place to try local game meats.
Good mid-range Jamaican restaurants are hard to come by in Toronto. The majority are budget restaurants geared for takeout. Simone’s Caribbean Restaurant is one of the exceptions. It stands out in the competitive Greektown restaurant scene and has survived for almost a decade. A testament to its quality.
Cinnamon buns can be found all over Scandinavia but no country does it better than Sweden. Denmark, Iceland, and Norway make a simple and boring roll. Finland’s version, korvapuusti, is a runner-up with its interesting angled cuts. In Sweden, the bun is intricately knotted, resulting in the most aesthetically-pleasing variant.
Sergels torg, Stockholm
Kanelbullar: the zenith of cinnamon buns
The Swedish cinnamon bun is called kanelbulle (singular) or kanelbullar (plural). It uses the same cardamom-tinged dough as other Nordic countries. The main difference is in its shape. At the better bakeries, the dough is braided and knotted. It results in a more airy bake. Also unique to Sweden, the kanelbullar are finished off with a sprinkling of crunchy white pearl sugar.
Sweden has a social ritual called fika. It’s essentially a coffee break with snacks. Kanelbullar is a popular option to accompany fika. If you consume them fast enough, you get cinammon and cardamon flavoured coffee, kind of like Indian chai.
As expected, the highest concentration of bakeries is in Stockholm. So, I set off on a quest to find the best kanelbullar in the city.
Mélange of Indian, Creole, and French on a granite paradise
La Digue, Seychelles
People visit Seychelles for the breathtaking beaches. The food isn’t as amazing. It’s either generic food, like pizzas and fried chicken, or homegrown Creole food. No prizes for guessing which one is worth eating.
Seychellois Creole food is island food with Indian influences and a touch of French. In Africa, Creole refers to any person of mixed ancestry from Africa and colonial Europe. Americans may associate Creole with Louisiana, but it’s really spread out from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean.
The best place to get local food is on Mahé island because that’s where most of the population is. Unfortunately, it’s not where most tourists linger. They head to Praslin and La Digue, with more gorgeous landscapes and luxurious accommodations. So, this guide will cover those islands as well.
Competition is fierce between dim sum restaurants in Richmond Hill and Markham. Diners there are unforgiving so if a restaurant survives a few years with long queues, it’s probably a good sign. Yang’s Fine Chinese Cuisine been around for more than a decade and is still popular for its dim sum. It would be even more popular if it was located in a more accessible location like other restaurants along Highway 7.
