There were cheers and hugs all around when Halifax brew fanatic Brian Harvey won the city’s first-ever Ultimate Brew-Off, sponsored by Garrison Brewery and the Noble Grape last Thursday night. Harvey accepted the award for a beer he co-brewed with friends Justin Lockhart and Steve Trickett. “We never really expected to win the competition. We […]
Food
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Liz Feltham finally blows her deep cover
Restaurant reviewers like to be anonymous. It’s their thing. But even for a reviewer, Liz Feltham guarded her anonymity to legendary lengths. When Liz started writing for The Coast in 2001, little did I guess it would be eight years before I’d meet her face-to-face. I hired her as an untested reviewer based exclusively on […]
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Liz Feltham retires as The Coast’s restaurant critic
I’m full. The meal has been great, but the table’s been cleared and it’s time to push the chair back, get up and walk away. Eight years of reviewing restaurants and writing about food for this paper has been an incredible experience, but now it’s time to move on, revitalize my jaded palate and see […]
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Bear Restaurant wins Best New Restaurant in Best of Food 2009
[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.] 3:30pm An hour and a half before Halifax’s Best New Restaurant opens, server Sarah Guthman walks in. She and […]
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Recipe Exchange Project makes recipe cards an artform
A small group of people, mostly NSCAD students, sit elbow to elbow around a small table, sharing the remains of a dinner in an otherwise empty hall attached to St. Matthew’s Church on Barrington. They are celebrating the success of the first Recipe Exchange Project event, an art experiment designed to teach cooking to the […]
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Sea Choice guide wraps up sushi problems
Let’s face it, your average sushi plate is about as vapid as a fistful of colourful pills wrapped in papery seaweed. Reliably available, uniformly identical, cut up, cubed, it tastes as stolid as any other fast food. Somewhere in our rush to be healthy, fish stopped being fish and became a product. Tony Soprano loved […]
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Spring means riesling
Ask any Sommelier or winemaker in Nova Scotia what their favourite white wine is, and it’s a good bet they’ll say riesling. Some might say it’s their favourite wine, period. There’s something special about Germany’s most noble grape that elicits this response. Riesling has beautiful lime, lemon, apple and/or peach notes, plus pretty white flowers […]
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Fid reopens!
After a six week wait, Fid pre-opened to media and fans last night. The new reno is modest and sets the tone for a more casual approach by the owners, Monica Bauché and Dennis Johnston, to their ten-year old fine dining institution. A banquette between the fireplaces, a redone bar where you can sit and […]
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Growlers filled with wheat
Don Harms, brewmaster for Propeller, pours bottles of Propeller’s new wheat beer, Hefeweizen*, into glasses. He places them on the bar. Daniel Girard, Garrison Brewer, puts his nose right up to the sudsy glass and takes a huff. Banana and cloves, that’s good. Lorne Romano, Rogue’s Roost brewer, takes his glass over to a window […]
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Seaport looks for new markets
For anyone wondering how the Halifax Farmers’ Market will fill up its new 42,000 square-foot space seven days and seven nights a week, the seeds of the Seaport Market are germinating in a new project sponsored by the market, called community connectors. “Everything we do is local, personal and direct,” says general manager Fred Kilcup, […]
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Anything but donairs
Here’s the science: beer is mostly empty carbohydrates. Carbs raise blood sugar. A quick rise in blood sugar (when you’ve finished your keg-stands) shoots insulin through your body. Insulin lowers blood sugar. You are hungry. On medical advice, we concluded it would be irresponsible to do a beer guide without mentioning what goes hand-in-hand with […]
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Organic basket case
“Garlic, potatoes, onions, carrots, beets.” Geordie Ouchterlony lists the organic vegetables he can’t get locally: “Turnips. Squash, beans…I mean beans, it’s something that’s really easy to grow here. There were no more in November.” Ouchterlony owns Home Grown Organic Foods, a home-delivery food service which does its best to sell local organic produce. Right now, […]