Tuesday, October 27, 2009. The Land Of Mussels. Off Broadway. Freezing. Azura. All the ports have been starboard during this cruise. So is my stateroom. When I open the curtains in the morning, I look into the town. This morning's panorama showed a small town full of trees in brilliant fall colors and church steeples rocketing high above everything else.
This is Charlottetown, the capital of Prince Edward Island, one of the Canadian Maritime Provinces. I almost came here four years ago, invited to be a judge at a culinary competition involving the local oysters. All the flights were arranged and I'd booked the time off. Problem: the event was the weekend after Katrina. So much for that.
One of the great food specialties of Charlottetown is something I love and eat often: mussels. Prince Edward Island mussels are of such excellence that their provenance is usually identified on menus. (The way Louisiana shrimp ought to be across America.) These are the ones with the black-purple shells, meaty but not too big, with a superlative flavor that admits of many recipes.
I wrote my newsletter with the townscape for visual diversion. Then down the gangway at around eleven to start looking around. It was very cold--in the low thirties. Fortunately, I have my warmest jacket with me.
The city has built the cruise terminal up with a few shops and restaurants. One of them looked like the seafood houses that used to fill our West End. The utilitarian, no-frills kind with the great food. I walked past them half because I wasn't quite ready, to eat, and half because I thought a gaudily-painted place with the name "Lobster On The Wharf" in a location like this would probably be touristy. I later learned that the food there was not only terrific but inexpensive.
Charlottetown is a pleasant, peaceful-looking town. The quaint, solidly-built townhouses of one or two stories are interspersed with churches out of all proportion to their surroundings. And with pubs. Canadians do love their beer. At one point I wandered into the downtown business district, full of the kind of stark, modern-but-old stores you see in little towns in West Texas. A few cafes there, but all of them seemed to be either breakfast-and-sandwich spots, or ethnic restaurants. Where are the mussels and lobsters?
On Restaurant Row, is where. I found a cluster of eateries, all with very similar menus of the specialties I sought. In fact, now I had to decide which of the four places to try. Off Broadway looked most likely. The greeting from a genial man who appeared to be the owner and only waiter reassured me. I liked the look of the building, which the man said dated back to the 1850s. Irregular brick walls and oversize wooden beams convinced me.
Before I could sit down I discovered a table of four Eat Clubbers, who were coming to their end of their lunch. How was it? Terrific, my fellow 1968 Blue Jay Dale Hunn said--try the lobster.
I took a booth in the window, which would aid me in my picture-taking. And then another couple of Eat Club folks showed up: Ken and Barb Gehring. Ken is a native of Marrero, but he and his wife live half the year in Alaska and the other half in Seattle now. They've been with us on quite a few cruises, and he's always good for a laugh.
We started with raw oysters, at $14 a half dozen. We said a prayer that we would always live in New Orleans, where oysters are half this price or less, and bigger to boot. I could not denigrate the quality of these bivalves, though. They were meaty, briny, and entirely satisfying. Same species as ours in Louisiana, but smaller and more concentrated in flavor.
Then the mussels. An all-bivalve meal, but why not? I had about two dozen, served in the classic broth made from the mussel juices, white wine, onions, and herbs. But they didn't season it particularly well, and the soup left over at the end was less enjoyable than, say, the one you'd get at the Flaming Torch. The mussels themselves, however, were beyond reproach. All this was made even better by a pint of red ale made at the Gahan House microbrewery across the street.
A brochure about the Off Broadway revealed that it's part of a local chain of restaurants, two of which are in the same block. Well. I guess that guy doesn't own the place, after all. He sure acts like he does. We could use some servers like him in New Orleans.
The Gehrings went their way and I went mine. Mainly, I took pictures of trees in fall foliage. I've never seen a town with more of it than is here now. We may have come too late for fair weather, but we hit the leaves right in the center.
An errand on my list was to find Vitamin C. I've felt a cold coming on, and I don't want that to depress what little talent I have for th show I will be part of in two days.
Dinner tonight was in Azura, one of the two traditional shipboard dining rooms. The Jewel is different from all other ships in my experience in that these two big rooms are completely different from one another in design. The Tsar's Palace could not be more ornate, very much capturing the style of the Russian aristocracy. Azura, however, was entirely modern, with clean lines and bright colors. I think I prefer it. The food was the same as in the other place, though. Which is to say forgettable. Indeed, I can't recall a thing I ate this night, and I was apparently unmotivated to take photos of it.
Off Broadway. Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada: 125 Sydney St. 902 566-4620.
