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Canada’s Best New Restaurants 20061 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | CBNR Mission Statement & Index | Home 
03. DAYBOAT 5033 Rustico Rd., Hunter River, PEI, 902-963-3833, dayboat.ca Outside Hunter River (pop. 354), where farmland meets water, an unassuming grey building serves some of Canada’s most exciting food. Toss the menu. Put yourself in the hands of chef Gordon Bailey and his five-course tasting menu. Simply discuss with your server what sort of things you might like. Maybe a refreshing cocktail (Lynchburg Lemonade: bourbon, triple sec and fresh citrus). Likely a chowder. (Notice the vegetable brunoise, cut to exactly 1/16 inch – a detail that pays off in a soup alive with freshness, texture and complex flavour.) Perhaps some locally smoked salmon with thin slices of red onion and pineapple. Simple and delicious. Yet this is not a rustic kitchen. The bubbles in a foamy truffled mousse clone the shape of some tiny couscous pearls, cooked in lobster stock and spiked with lobster meat; impeccable seared sea scallops circle the plate. The kitchen’s surf is matched by its turf: a Flintstonian beef rib with a sweet, hot sauce. Finish with a down-home Nut Pie (like a really good ice cream cone) and a crème caramel (like the best butterscotch pudding). With the bill arrives a kitschy plastic fortune-teller fish. After a meal like this it curls in the palm to declare, “In Love.” 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | CBNR Mission Statement & Index | Home |
