A Tale of Two Cities

As a combination birthday and name day present, we sent Matt's parents to Québec City for a mini vacation.  They left on Thursday evening and returned on Sunday evening.  When we picked them up from the airport on Sunday, they were all smiles.  What a fantastic experience for them!  And if they're reading this, maybe they would be willing to share some photos and write a few words about their trip so that we can post it here.  Heehee.  =)

Since Matt's parents were out of town, we took a short trip of our own.  After a quick breakfast on Saturday morning, we headed out to Prince Edward County.  Our first stop of many that day was at Huff Estates Winery.  After purchasing a few bottles, we decided that we should find somewhere to stop for lunch.  We wandered into the Marshmallow Room Bakery & Tea Shop.  With a name like that, who could resist!  We purchased 2 slices of tarts (a sour cherry, peach, and chocolate slice for me, I can't remember what Matt's slice was right now) and 2 oatmeal raisin cookies.  Pastries for lunch, mmm.  After gobbling down our tarts, we headed across the street to Slickers Ice Cream for dessert.  Campfire crème.  Yummy!

After lunch, we stopped in at Black Prince Winery.  Next, we stopped in at the County's only micro brewery, Barley Days Brewery.  We left both places with a few items.  Good thing we had lots of room in the trunk! 

Next, we stopped in Picton.  We parked in one of the free parking lots and then meandered up and down Main St. and some side streets.  We managed to wander into Buddha Dog.  Yes, there *is* such a thing as gourmet hot dogs.  =)  They're small on size, but big on flavour once you add locally produced cheese and a sauce dreamed up by local chefs and made using locally sourced ingredients.  (Lucky for us, there's a Buddha Dog in Toronto, with their own locally sourced sauces.  I think we'll have to go investigate it at a later date.)  After finishing our gourmet dogs, we went to Bean Counter to pickup some caffeinated beverages.  It is located a couple of doors down from Buddha Dog.  Although they had gelato, I resisted temptation.  After more wandering, we went back to the car and headed to our accommodations for the night to check-in.  Seeing as it was only about 4:45pm after our check-in, we hit up one more winery, Waupoos Estates Winery.  A winery on waterfront property.  Wow.  It was very picturesque.  A few more bottles found their way into the trunk. 

Seeing as we didn't make any dinner reservations, we thought we might have a better chance by having an early dinner.  We arrived at Harvest just before 6pm.  We were told they were fully booked, but we could come back at 9pm.  Yikes.  Next, we tried Angéline's, located across the street from Harvest.  It was a little fancier than we were prepared for.  We ate dinner at the Barley Room, a lively local pub.  We indulged in an almond encrusted brie for an appetizer and baby back ribs basted with a blackberry smoked barbecue sauce.  Very tasty!

In the morning, we enjoyed a lazy breakfast at our B&B.  As we were getting ready to head out, we discovered that the husband of our host had a passion for classic cars.  We had an impromptu tour of his private collection, what a treat! 

After breakfast, we stopped in at Fifth Town Artisan Cheese Company and Black River Cheese Company.  Amazing cheeses.  We'll be making some day trips in the future to get some more!  For lunch, we went to Blumen.  We lucked out and had their gazebo area all to ourselves.  Our final stop before heading back to Toronto was at Sandbanks Estate Winery.  They had a self-guided vineyard tour that allowed us to explore their grounds.  We purchased our final bottles, and finally headed home.

Matt feedback on the wines:  It was a hit and miss; there were some decent stuff but overall at a higher price than Niagara equivalents.

So what did we have for dinner that night?  Why, a platter of fine cheeses and a variety of meats along with a bottle of wine.  ;)