Move over Fred: there is a barbershop in the Rodeo Lounge. As of last Friday, you can get your ears lowered at the city’s biggest and most popular country bar in Burnside. Hours are Monday to Wednesday (and Saturday) from 9 to 5 and Thursdays and Fridays from 9 to 7pm. What, no shooters and […]
Andy Murdoch
Andy Murdoch is an awesome guy.
Posted inNews + Opinion
Staff of Life cafe closes
Well, some sad news for cafe habitues at the Staff of Life on Quinpool. The Cafe closed its doors for good February 5th. But, if you are addicted to Staff’s high class samosas and artisanal breads, you don’t have to worry. Owner Manouch Babaei is not getting out of that business. On the contrary, he […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Invest in Nova Scotia Wine
2009 might be a great year for Colby Clarke. The 27 year-old Development officer for the Kings Community Economic Development Agency is the main coordinating brain behind a new marketing package aimed at increasing investment in the local wine industry. I spoke to him a week ago at the launch of this program at Bear […]
Posted inFood + Drink
Makin’ it on love
Every January, veterans spill the same phlegmatic phrases about that roulette wheel called the restaurant business. Winter is the ultimate cooler. A good November and December can carry you through a January slump. Winter weekends stay good, but weekdays crap out. You do your best and cut your losses. And if that fickle customer, lady […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Valentine’s dinner: reservations
Looking for a booking at the end of lonely street? There’s not a lot left out there, friends. Red-hot Bear and all the other heavy hitters – Gio, Fid, Chives and the Press Gang – are booked up for Saturday night. But fear not! Some have tables last-minute tables. Or, adjust your plans and go […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Black Cat coffee at the Smiling Goat
Coffee aficionados: Saturday morning, I want you to switch your taste buds to turbo. Go to the Smiling Goat and strap yourself in. Wear a hemet with a swizzle straw, because Goat owner Smilin’ Geoffrey Creighton tells me that starting tomorrow, he’s unleashing Chicago-based Intelligentsia coffee into the Halifax consumer market. Intelligentsia’s s Black Cat […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Industry comes out of shell at Sip n’ Shuck
This year’s Sip n’ Shuck at the Delta Halifax featured a celebrity shucking competition. Well…maybe celebrity pushes the envelope. Notable shuckers included Tory ministers Chris d’Entremont and Ron Chisholm (who won first and second place) and councillor Dawn Sloane. It was Sloane’s first time shucking an oyster. She struggled a little onstage with the uncooperative […]
Posted inFood + Drink
Offally good
[Editor’s note: This story is one of a package of three of Andy Murdoch’s articles selected for Honourable Mention in the Food Writing category of the Association of Alternative Newsweekies’ 2010 awards. See all three here.] Blame Robert Burns. He couldn’t resist cracking wise about haggis when he tried to extoll its virtues and lauded […]
Posted inFood + Drink
Recipes: Meat and Vegan haggis
Meat Haggis Inspired by a recipe called “Pot Haggis” in The Highlander’s Cookbook, by Sheila MacNiven Cameron. That is to say haggis cooked like a terrine, or a pudding, in a double boiler, without the sheep’s stomach. 1 cup and a half of pinhead or steel cut oatmeal, toasted. 1/2 lb beef suet 4 onions […]
Posted inLove the Way We Bitch/Love
Submit a bitch function working again
Er, I think. Please do what you do best: start bitchin’! This site is starving for new complaints. If you send one over the week-end, please send it again. Also — we are looking into the missing comments. If you wrote some gold in the past, it should reappear soon enough, although it will not […]
Posted inFood + Drink
Formosa’s wonderful gifts
Between the recession and the Chinese New Year of the Ox (January 26), this is going to be a tough, hard-hat year. Yeah, yeah, so what else is new? My astrological forecast: enjoy more Dartmouth idylls at Liu’s Formosa Gift and Tea House while you put your shoulder into the oh-nine grind. Jeffrey Liu, the […]
Posted inFood + Drink
Halifax’s cappuccino undergrounds
What do off-duty baristas do? With good-natured sadism, they train picky customers to pull espresso shots and make them compete against one another. That’s the premise of the 2008 non-barista championship, in the year coffee culture percolated in Halifax. At one end of barista Zane Kelsall’s kitchen is Steve-O-Reno’s first ever espresso machine, a small […]