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.
Where to eat Newfoundland specialties in St John’s
Newfoundland is like a different country. The people there have a distinct accent and their own dictionary. Place names seem to be made up by pirates. The level of development is 10 years behind the urbanized provinces of Canada. And the food appears to have branched off from Britain and Ireland in the 1800s and developed into its own, much like Quebec did with French cuisine in the 1700s.
St John’s
Here’s where to try the mildly intriguing foods of Newfoundland in St John’s.
Fries with dressing
Ches’s Famous Fish and Chips
No, not salad dressing. Newfoundland dressing is what the rest of Canada calls turkey stuffing. It’s a mealy mix of bread crumbs and summer savoury, the key ingredient. Summer savoury is a herb that was somewhat popular in British cooking but fell out of favour in the rest of Canada. Here, it lives on through dressing.
Dressing is usually found with fries and doused with gravy, leading some to call it “Newfoundland poutine”. Pubs and greasy diners serve them. For fish and chips with dressing, local institution Ches’s is a good introduction.
Ches’s Famous Fish and Chips
Ches’s isn’t the best fish and chips in St John’s (some say it’s The Duke of Duckworth) but it’s one of the oldest. My cod bites and chips were traditional British style. Rather bland flour batter and thick-cut chips. The magic is in the gravy and dressing (both sold separately). The dressing was crumbly and one could clearly see and taste the green savoury leaves. The gravy was one-note but combined with the dressing and fries, it was a novel and satisfying experience. It’s like turkey dinner without the turkey. 7/10.
Cod bites and chips with dressing and gravy from Ches’s Famous Fish and Chips
Where to eat Canada’s own shawarma variant and splurge on lobster
The number one iconic food of Halifax is surely donair. Yes, people may associate Halifax with seafood but it’s neither unique (Prince Edward Island, Maine, and New England also have similar species) nor cheap (when on sale, Nova Scotian lobsters are cheaper in Toronto). Donairs, on the other hand, scream Nova Scotia.
Halifax-Dartmouth ferry
Sweet and messy donair
Donairs are a Nova Scotian adaptation of shawarma and gyro wraps. Compared to the minor variants of shawarma around the Mediterranean and Middle East, this one is a significant departure. There are 3 defining characteristics of a donair:
Sweet garlic white sauce. With a foundation of evaporated milk (or condensed milk in modified recipes), this sauce has its lovers and haters. It’s slathered liberally, resulting in a messy, and some say soggy, sandwich. It’s popular enough to be bottled up and sold on its own. And it also pairs with other Nova Scotian foods like garlic fingers (more on that later).
Compacted meat. Although the meat is grilled around a rotating spit like shawarma, it’s minced so finely and packed so tightly that it resembles corned beef. One wouldn’t be able to tell what animal meat it is. It has a bouncy texture too.
Topping of raw white onions and tomatoes. For the purists, there are no other additions like lettuce, pickles, peppers, or hot sauce.
The donair was invented in 1973. To be more accurate, that was the first prototype. After some experimentation, the final form and name emerged in 1974. The creator went on to open King of Donairs, which is widely regarded as the modern birthplace of the dish.
Donair meat now appears in various incarnations that have proved just as popular: on donair pizza, donair subs, donair egg rolls, and donair poutine. Accompanied with the signature white sauce of course.
Aux Anciens Canadiens is one of the few restaurants in Quebec City where one can try traditional cuisine. The reason for this paucity is that it’s peasant food. Old Quebec food is heavy and doesn’t have broad appeal. Like fèves au lard (baked beans with maple syrup) or tourtière (minced meat pie). Enterprising restaurateurs who can re-invent the cuisine will surely be fêted.
But it’s not going to happen at Aux Anciens Canadiens. They value authenticity and it’s the reason people tourists visit. To add to their street cred, they claim to occupy the oldest house in Quebec City.
Poutine is the undisputed number one iconic food of Canada. The second is…um maple syrup? And that wraps up the list of famous Canadian foods.
So, if you are foodie, you have to go to Quebec, the birthplace of poutine. Montreal and Quebec City are strong contenders but food snobs like to point out that the best poutines are outside Montreal. I don’t know if that is true but I do know that Quebec City has Chez Ashton, a fast food chain with great classic poutines. More on that later. Moreover, Quebec City is fairly compact, so it’s an easy place to try different poutines.
Quebec City
What makes a great poutine?
There are just three components in a classic poutine. It’s hard to mess them up but also difficult to excel at them all.
Fries Medium cut. Crisp on the outside. Double- or even triple-frying is optional.
Gravy Dark brown, semi-thin, and salty with a deep meaty flavour. The gravy can be based on chicken, beef, or both. Vegan options have also appeared but the classic is heavy on beef.
Cheese This is the most difficult component to source but the easiest to prepare. The “cheese” is actually cheese curd, not actual cheese. They are a byproduct of cheese production and are like white, bite-sized cushions. It’s hard to find them outside of Quebec and Ontario.
The cheese curds must make a squeaking noise when you chew on them. Obviously, they must remain intact in order to squeak. That’s why they are added to the poutine at the last moment. The chef should ensure that the gravy and fries are not too hot to melt the curds. Any poutine that uses mozzarella, cheddar, or Cheez Whiz is sacrilegious. Heavily-melted cheese is also a sign of an inauthentic poutine.
Variations abound, from Galvaude (chicken and peas) to bacon. Restaurants with the best traditional poutine may not have the best all-loaded ones. For a fair comparison, only traditional poutine was ordered for this taste test.
