Opening a new restaurant is never easy, and the public health order that shut down dining rooms isn't making that any better. But even in the time of COVID, local food entrepreneurs are still starting businesses. These vendors have been limited to operating solely online, getting their goods to customers via either curbside pickup or delivery service.

“Many people don’t want to make a line in front of grocery stores, so a lot of people order food and order groceries,” says Eungsub Lee, owner and chef at Gama by Lee, which operates out of the Halifax Brewery Market.

After immigrating from South Korea almost three years ago, Lee got food experience working with other vendors at the Halifax Seaport Market, and fell in love with the market atmosphere. “I like other vendors who help me a lot, and it’s a very good place for me to practice my English,” he says.

Lee was planning to open his Korean dumpling restaurant on April 1. But when COVID-19 hit Halifax, he was forced to change his opening plan, shifting to a website created by his wife who’s a graphic designer. Lee also called upon his experience as a part-time Skip the Dishes driver get his food to customers. “Through the Skip the Dishes experience I know how to deliver food without contact,” he says in a phone call. "I know how to sanitize my car and stuff.”

He’s planning on expanding to more food soon, like rice bowls and bibimpap, but for now, Gama by Lee sells two types of mandu dumplings: one vegan and one pork. They come in pre-made, vacuum-sealed bags.

When COVID subsides and the world returns to a new normal, Lee hopes to follow through with his opening plans for Gama.

“After everything becomes normal, I’m wanting to come back to the marketplace and open my food stand,” says Lee. “I like delivery without contact, but I more like to sell food face to face. I want to talk [to] people and I need to practice English more.”

But in the meantime, he’s filling dumpling orders as fast as he can and there is no shortage of customers. “I can say I’m busy, all the orders for this week are full,” Lee says.

Over in Bedford, Halal food is being cooked up for delivery during the month of Ramadan by Country Foodstuff & Vogue.

The owner has been cooking in small batches, helping to bring people together through food during Ramadan while masjid (mosques) are closed. They’re excited to put their “cultural foods in front of the Nova Scotia people.” Dishes range from Indian khichuri rice to Bangladeshi roast chicken.

Other restaurateurs have built a local following on Instagram, using the social media platform for take-out sales. This includes north end Halifax’s Loner Pasta Co., which started its delivery services toward the end of April.

“It started out with just making a lot of pasta at home over the quarantine,” says owner Joe Martin in an email. Typically, Martin works as a chef at Stillwell, which is doing limited service during the pandemic, so he’s had a lot of extra time on his hands.

Martin’s pasta is small-batch and handmade, and so far Loner Pasta has featured rigatoni, spinach pappardelle and even lasagna noodles. They’ve also added Roma cheese from local cheesemaker Ciro Comencini to the delivery list, along with your pasta.

“Every Monday at 1pm on our Instagram we announce the menu for the week that consists of 5 different shapes,” explains Martin.

Along with up to 50 orders per week for the public—which sold out this week in 24 hours—Loner is also giving five free meals to front-line health care workers, who can email them to get their hands on some yummy pasta (first come, first served).

“The world is pretty glum right now and if we can make a few people smile I’m happy,” Martin says.

Although the small pasta operation is keeping Martin busy during COVID-19, he doesn’t know if it has legs long-term once he’s back at his regular gig.

“I’ll likely dial back to 1-2 orders a month to see where this could go,” he says. “It just currently occupies a lot of time and it would be difficult to balance that much pasta and work full-time running a kitchen.”

If you're looking for a quintessentially Canadian dish, you could do a lot worse than Albertan ginger beef or Newfoundland-style chow mein (cabbage, not noodles). Just about every small town from coast to coast boasts at least one thriving Chinese restaurant, and Chinese food has become a culinary backbone of Canadian culture. But in the past month, coronavirus panic has elicited a flurry of fear and discrimination affecting Chinese restaurants. The Globe and Mail reported last week that some Toronto restaurants are seeing drops in business between 30 and 80 percent. In Vancouver, business has declined similarly for some restaurants.

We wanted to know how Halifax's 60-plus Chinese restaurants are faring. We're happy to report none of those we spoke to have noted any decline in sales. We hope it stays that way. So consider this a celebration of the most Canadian cuisine of all. Whether you never outgrew sweet-and-sour chicken, or gravitate to peking duck with steamed pancakes, there's bound to be a nearby restaurant that makes your gastronomic dreams come true. Here are five of Halifax's favourite Chinese-owned restaurants, and why we love them:

Chinatown Restaurant
213 Bedford Highway
Jane Chen, owner of Chinatown Restaurant, is constantly busy these days thanks to Chinatown's new location, which boasts crystal light fixtures and a seaside view of the Bedford Basin. Yet, perhaps the most breathtaking thing is hidden from sight: "We have so many authentic dishes that aren't on the menu," Chen says. "When people come and they're looking for something more authentic, I have so many recipes in the back of my mind that I can make."

A few of these dishes include XO sauce with seafood, and black pepper beef with king mushroom. Chinatown also provides homemade dim sum, including options otherwise hard to find in Halifax, such as their durian puff, egg yolk cream bun and sesame ball with salted egg yolk.

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Fan's Chinese Restaurant
451 Windmill Road
Fan's Chinese Restaurant on Windmill Road has earned plenty of awards over the years. There are many mouth-watering favourites on the menu, including northern dumplings, Dan Dan noodle soup, Ma Po tofu and three-course peking duck. The restaurant also boasts a lengthy dim sum menu, and a sizable gluten-free menu that covers noodle dishes, seafood, beef and pork and chef specials.

On top of the food, Fan's provides a cozy, family-friendly atmosphere filled with dark-wood accents, warm lighting and an aquarium that houses several glorious specimens.

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Jean's Chinese Restaurant
5972 Spring Garden Road
Jean's Chinese Restaurant has been downtown 17 years, and owner Kong On Jean has long watched his customers' preferences evolve. "In the past couple years, people seem to like healthier options, vegetables and spicy foods," he says. "A lot of people are looking for gluten-free noodles, so we sell a lot of those every day."

The restaurant also makes homemade hot sauce and soup stock, two ingredients that both pack a flavourful punch. But says Jean, sweet-and-sour chicken remains the bestseller, followed closely by beef and broccoli and fried rice.

Whether customers are searching for something heavy or light, they're in good hands at Jean's.

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May Garden
Multiple locations, see maygarden.ca
May Garden traces its roots back more than 40 years, to a small take-out spot on Beaverbank Road in Lower Sackville. Owner Eric Yeung bought the business from his relatives in the early '90s, turning the tiny take-out experience into a sit-down restaurant. Now there are four May Gardens across HRM, each with an extensive menu including both authentic and Canadian-Chinese food. Yeung prides himself on paying close attention to customer feedback, often incorporating suggestions into the menu. Several options include a crispy and flavourful barbecue-roasted duck (which has to be ordered 24 hours in advance) and siu mai, a dim sum dumpling stuffed with pork and prawns.

Truly Tasty
6214 Quinpool Road
Because ramen is a Japanese dish, some might forget that Truly Tasty on Quinpool has Chinese owners. But what's impossible to forget is the flavour of its ramen broth, which boasts an umami-filled balance of sweetness, saltiness, earthiness and richness. There are multiple types to choose from, such as the spicy tan tan ramen with homemade sesame paste and Sichuan black pepper, or the customer-favourite crispy fried chicken ramen. Whatever ends up in your bowl, the noodles are sure to be tender and springy. With warm service and a minimalist atmosphere, Truly Tasty consistently offers a little slurp of heaven.

If you’ve ever wondered what exactly a professor of food philosophy thinks about every day, make a date for Wednesday, January 15's homecoming lecture by King’s College grad Megan Dean, now a food-philosophy prof at New York state's Hamilton College. 

While we all know that eating should be about more than shovelling calories down your gullet, Dean goes beyond discussions of healthy vs. unhealthy (ever hear of healthism?). Her work is premised on the idea that eating can be about a lot more: resisting patriarchy, embracing freedom and in general shaping who we perceive ourselves to be. The flip side is that it also shapes who others perceive us to be, making labels like “unhealthy eater” all the more damaging.

So if you’re interested in some heady talk about matters of the gut, get down to King’s for 7 pm January 15

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Megan Dean: Why it matters how we eat
Wednesday, January 15
New Academic Building (Archibald Room), University of King's College
6350 Coburg Road
7pm
Free

The idea behind the taco is simple—protein, vegetables and condiments in a starch wrapper—but the results are spectacular. We hope the same will be said of Halifax Taco Week. In this event put on by The Coast, restaurants across the city are offerng a taco special from Thursday, November 14 to Wednesday, November 20, giving everybody a great reason to enjoy eating out while raising money for Feed Nova Scotia.

This is the first Taco Week, and 90 restaurants are participating (in comparison, The Coast’s first Halifax Burger Week started with about 20 restaurants, and it’s grown to become the single biggest Feed NS fundraiser in the province). There are beef tacos and vegan tacos and Indian tacos and pork tacos and $5 tacos and tacos with clever names and donair tacos, because Halifax.

Your favourite restaurant probably has a taco special. That place you’ve never been but have been meaning to go DEFINITELY has a taco special. Find out about them all by picking up a Halifax Taco Week passport around town, or click with tacoweek.co.

Halifax Oyster Festival
Fri Oct 4, Sat Oct 5
1521 Lower Water Street
oysterfest.ca

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D avid Burns is the founder of Maisy's Pearl, an oyster-focussed catering company in Hamilton, Ontario that focuses on education as much as consumption at its pop-ups, parties and private events. (And, cutely enough, is named after his two daughters, Maisy and Pearl.) This year he's bringing his bivalve know-how and shucking skills to Halifax Oyster Festival for the first time. So, naturally, we had some questions.

Do you remember your first oyster?
"I was 15 and out for dinner with a good friend and his family. His dad was like, 'You've gotta try these.' I was like, 'How do I do it?' and he was like 'throw a bunch of Tabasco on! Down the hatch!' I didn't chew it, just swallowed it. It was clearly just a vessel for sauce, I didn't think too much about it. Then, I started working at Rodney's Oyster House around 2011 or 2010—I've always loved seafood and had an appreciation for seafood. I met some really cool people there and they were like 'Have you ever had oysters?' They opened it properly, it was pristine, and said: 'Add a couple of drops of lemon to cut the salinity, chew a few times and swallow.' And it was unreal.

It's funny, I moved to Hamilton and there's nothing really going on in the city. My wife was like, 'start a catering business, educate the people on how they're supposed to be perfectly shucked, how they're supposed to be consumed.' And I did. People have been really receptive. Now I'm educating people from my first experience to my first real experience."

What was it that made you want to bring oyster culture to Hamilton?
"This city is very communal, they’re very hard working. The nickname for the city is Steel Town, and these people will not spend their money on anything unless they see value in it. Before moving here, I went to different bars and restaurants and tried to sort of what I would do for a job. I’m going to these places and ordering oysters and I thought, this is just a way for restaurants to boost up their cheques, or bills. There’s no real experience involved. I think enjoying oysters is all about experience and its a very social thing. And not that they’re bad restaurants, they just didn’t know what they were doing.

I’m very good at what I do when it comes to opening an oyster and educating people about it. So I was like, 'I’m going to bring that to this amazing city. Quality product the way it’s meant to be.' "

Why is proper shucking important?
"You think about the person on the other end who's put the hard work, time and effort in to making sure this product is alive and well when it gets to us, and then to have someone massacre it? It's almost an insult. I always try to make people aware these people are working hard, that it takes a lot of time for an oyster to get to your table. I'm the last guy to touch the product, so I want it to be perfect."

What's your advice for someone trying an oyster for the first time?
"It's my favourite thing to do. My go-to is: 'Listen, if you've haven't had an oyster, today's your lucky day, and you're going to experience an oyster the way it's meant to be.' And then I show them the gills, the mantle, the belly, the adductor, how it's all been severed properly, the way it's supposed to be. As opposed to if you're drunk at a restaurant with your buddies, feeling daring on a big bold red wine. It's smooth and crisp and exotic and it has a nice mouthfeel, when it's been opened properly. 

Interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The closest thing to getting inside Ian Matheson's brain is spending some time at the Propeller Arcade. The Propeller Brewing Company staffer and resident pinball nerd was the champion behind the north end brewery's no-frills, ultra-lax basement bar, which opened about nine months ago. Now he's helping it level up.

"We thought it would be so cool if we could use the brewery floor for something. Fifty percent of the people who come down here are in shock and awe of these games they haven't seen in a long time, but so many others are taken aback by the brewery itself. When people see it, so many want to go down and explore," says Matheson of the idea to expand the Propeller Arcade offerings—and square footage—for one weekend only. After calling up some friends and collectors ("I love to get stoked on this stuff, and so do they," says Matheson) the brewery is ushering in fall by hosting Level Up—three days of maximum fun. Think black lights, disco balls, classic arcade basketball, air hockey, driving games and a claw machine, plus the usual old school classics you can always find at 2015 Gottingen Street.

The XL Propeller Arcade experience takes place Friday, September 20 and Saturday, September 21 (from 4pm to midnight) and again on Sunday, September 22 (from noon to 6pm for all ages, and until 10pm for the 19+ crowd) when Hopyard Beer Bar will join in on the fun, with snacks on hand.

"It's all about having fun really," says Matheson. "I just really wanted to fill a room with fun stuff, and thankfully they let me." 

Hurricane Dorian is coming. Like the worst visitor ever (an uninvited one), that hot mess is going to show up, over-stay his welcome, lock us indoors, knock some stuff over and probably take our electricity with him as he storms his way towards Cape Breton to mess up somebody else's weekend.

If you've seen the fuss online—the closures and cancellations, the warning you'll  need food and supplies for up to 72 hours—yet haven't done anything to Be Prepared just yet, here are 10 things to grab at the grocery store that'll help you get in and GTFO as quickly as possible.

Living through the last-minute pre-storm shopping experience is nearly as bad as accidentally swinging by the Quinpool Superstore on student night, but together we can get through this.

1. Chips
Forever number one on the shopping list, but especially in these stormy times (thank you, Stephanie Domet). Buy food flavoured options—pizza! roast chicken! loaded baked potato!—and make like you're eating a meal or just stock up on your faves. Chip aisle ravaged? Here's a snack hack: Pre-pop a bunch of popcorn, season it and fill a few Ziploc bags.

2. Bread and peanut butter
Go crunchy for maximum protein intake.

3. #stormcharcuterie
Is this an Italian trattoria or your dark-ass, candle-lit apartment? Bouj it up with some crackers or bread, hard cheeses, dry-cured sausage (maybe soppressata salami or a stick of Brother's pepperoni), figs and a jar of pickles. They'll all keep without the power of a fridge.

4. Tuna
Nothing says un-sexy storm preparedness like a can of fish.

5. Trail mix
Nuts and dried fruit will get old fast, but will keep your belly full.

6. Cereal
With non-dairy milk, or by the fistful.

7.  Avocados
When you're eating all of the carrots and cucumber out of your crisper, whip up some guacamole to bring a little bit of good fat to your raw snacks.

7. Fruit
After you've ploughed through your chocolate supply, turn to nature's dessert: Apples, citrus, bananas and other long-lasting, countertop-friendly sweets.

8. Canned beans and legumes
Bean salad, anyone?

9. Gatorade
Electrolytes, baby! If water gets scarce, a neon sports beverage is smart to have on hand and it doubles as a way to combat a day-drinking induced hangover.

10. Good company
Drown your sorrows and your internet-free boredom—yes, no power = no wifi—with some pleasant, invited company. (You're probably not going to find that at the No Frills, but who knows?) Build a puzzle, play a board game, maybe even...talk. If, like Dido, you're determined to go down with this ship, you might as well do it with a good friend by your side.

September is good for crowding enjoyment into late summer days, much in the same way that the Bay of Fundy's rising tidal waters push beach-goers together onto shrinking patches of sunlit shore. Domaine de Grand Pré's Moscato ($25), launched in the height of summer this year, is my choice of wine to accompany the glow of late summer afternoons.

The wine's peachy colour matches the long sunset hours of September, thanks to the skin colour of New York Muscat, of which Grand Pre's new wine is made. I was surprised the winery, which makes table wine from the same grape, would be able to source enough to craft another single-varietal wine. New York Muscat is notoriously frustrating to grow. The vines' yield tends to be very inconsistent. Plus, it is an in-demand ingredient in many Nova Scotian wineries' Tidal Bays due to its signature aromatics of lychee, rose and pink grapefruit.

"We've figured it out," says Jürg Stutz, winemaker at Domaine de Grand Pré, when I ask him about the winery's ability to commit to another wine style featuring the grape. "We give it a high trellis, let it droop over and let it go. It's difficult to maintain, looks wild, but it seems to work."

Then again, at another vineyard, Grand Pré uses vertical shoot positioning, a more traditional trellising method, to grow New York Muscat. "We've learned over the years which methods to use where," says Stutz, reminding me how specific the demands of viticulture can be, and that Nova Scotia is still very much in the learning and experimenting phase of this fast-growing industry.

Domaine de Grand Pré's latest experiment is a delicious one and, so far, a success.

"We're down to the last couple of pallets," says Stutz. "There's big demand for the Moscato because of its low alcohol and effervescence...it's a great summer sipping wine."

This Moscato is beautifully aromatic, with a perfect balance of acidity, sweetness and fizz that calls for a dip in the Bay of Fundy, or a bag of salty potato chips if you don't have the bay at your toe-tips. The bitter endnote of New York Muscat gives this wine an added dimension of body that fully satisfies, leaving beach-goers and chip-munchers licking from their lips the flavour of gratitude. a

T here is a very friendly baker at the Seaport Farmers' Market who you should pay a visit to. Elaine Sphair wakes up at 4am to bake delicious the Brazilian treats that she sells every other week, on Mondays and Tuesdays at the market. There you'll find her spread of freshly made pão de queijo (a gluten-free Brazilian cheese bread that is the tastiest snack you'll ever discover), brigadeiros (dark chocolate and coconut truffles), gooey coconut cake and doughnuts filled with doce de leite or custard cream. These delicacies are so rare to find in Halifax, let alone Nova Scotia, and Sphair is happy to be sharing the taste of Brazil with her customers.

Her new business, Elaine's Brazilian Bakery, is a part of Immigrant Services Association of Nova Scotia's Bridge to Entrepreneurship pilot program, which supports immigrant entrepreneurs in bringing their businesses to life. Sphair immigrated to Canada in 2017 with her family and comes from a bank management background, but a love for baked goods fed her drive to switch careers months before she arrived in Canada.

"I was already planning on changing jobs when I got here. So a few months before my move to Canada, I started working in my brother-in-law's bakery where I could learn several baking and cooking techniques," she says. "The opportunity to open Elaine's Brazilian Bakery came along with the ISANS organization, where I study English every day in the morning."

She also attends business-based courses four times a week through the pilot entrepreneurship program, which provides space at its incubator table/market stand at no cost to clients. This is where you can find vendors like Sphair selling their products and practicing their English in conversation with market-goers.

"I do everything with a lot of love," says Sphair of her one-month-old business. Over time, she hopes to work towards running a permanent market stall and, eventually, a stand-alone bakery. "I love cooking and I believe that food brings people together."

You’re either old enough to remember chasing the sound of the Dickie Dee through your neighbourhood, or you’re young enough that a bicycle selling frozen treats is totally novel. For Jacqui Keseluk, either option works. The pastry chef-turned-entrepreneur is ringing in her first summer on wheels, selling hand-crafted popsicles under her newly launched business (run with longtime friend Brian Larter) Glory Pops and sums up her early success simply: “People like fun things.”

Keseluk bought the bike and popsicle-making gear earlier this spring, stoked on the idea of being her own boss and having a creative culinary outlet. “It’s interactive and it’s easy to eat,” she says of the appeal of her handheld snacks. “You see food trends every year—right now it’s all about doughnuts and tacos, before it was macarons, there was the burger craze, but no one in the city is really doing gourmet popsicles. They’re very big in New York and LA and I hope I’m ahead of something.” So far she’s been experimenting with straight-ahead options like raspberry-mango, strawberry—“that’s what the kids want”—as well as flavours like peanut butter banana and cucumber lime. “As long as I have a solid inventory of the basics, I get to play,” she says.

Apart from selling her treats at The Atomic Cafe (6451 Quinpool Road), Local Source (2530 Agricola Street) and Raven Espresso  (14 St. Michael’s Avenue), Keseluk will be peddling (and pedalling) her pops all over central Halifax, around the Common and at special events. “I plan to be out on the bike any time it’s sunny and hot out,” she says.

Glory Pops won’t melt away with the short-and-sweet summer—she’s got plans to partner with Halifax bars in the name of boozy popsicles (think prosecco and mixed berries) as well as venturing into protein popsicles for the fitness-focused community. But for now, the best bet for finding Keseluk’s bike is to find her on Instagram. “The ’90s seem to be repeating themselves as far as fashion trends,” she says, “so maybe it’s going the same way with food.”