I’ve been looking forward to visiting the Crown Diner. Owned by two professional chefs (Harvey Eade and Moody Fadhil), their early press release trumpeted an “everything from scratch” menu. I’m excited. For a diner, the decor is upscale—definitely not going for a nostalgic feel here. A few fish-shaped light fixtures are left over from a […]
Food + Drink
Restaurant reviews and ratings for Halifax, Nova Scotia, featuring articles about the best new downtown Halifax and Dartmouth NS restaurants, fine dining, pubs, seafood, local bars, chefs, beer, donairs, pizzas, vegetarian and organic food and more.
Posted inFood + Drink
BYOW: a year later
When Nova Scotia changed its liquor laws to allow Bring Your Own Wine (BYOW) last year, I imagined people would come out in droves—a legion of oenophiles, bottle in hand, enjoying fine dining with a wine they chose themselves. Not so fast, buddy. The impact of BYOW regulations on dining habits is virtually nil. Consumers […]
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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 […]
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Persian diversion
When I reviewed Shiraz, the little purple bunker at the south end of Hollis, I promptly fell in love with Persian food. Each time I toted my lunch out of this impossibly tiny restaurant, I wished the place was bigger and closer to home. It seems Shiraz owner Ebby Gholami was thinking along the same […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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Brussels: beer n’ frites
Ken Greer and Boris Mirtchev, the brains behind the successful Hamachi mini-empire, have turned to Mirtchev’s Belgian roots for their latest venture. Brussels opened on Granville in September and is comprised of two long narrow rooms, side-by-side. The dining room’s beautiful wood panelling, high-backed banquettes and comfortable wooden chairs provide a warm sense of grandeur. […]
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Heads and tails: charcuterie
Joel Rousell has a leaping pig tattooed on his forearm. It’s a classy looking pig, discreetly overlaid with a grid of the various pork cuts. The tattoo was inspired by the pig on the cover of Fergus Henderson’s cookbook, Nose to Tail Eating. Henderson is the British chef who reminded the western world to eat […]
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Cocktail questing
When the temperature drops and grey snowstorms drift into our port city, mixologists around town adjust their cocktail lists in small ways to take the chill out of their bars. Take Cooper Tardivel, manager of Mosaic Social Dining Lounge on Argyle, for instance: Since winning Best Bartender in The Coast’s Best of Food poll back […]
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Courtly love
The proliferation of big box stores and the ever-increasing popularity of online shopping hasn’t affected the winter sport of mall crawling. Everything’s under one roof, sale signs are everywhere and, of course, Santa lives there. And when throngs of shoppers need sustenance to push on and gather their last bits of holiday loot, they rely […]
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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 […]
