Jim O’Brien of the Ottawa Senators goes head over heels during a game against the New York Rangers. (Adrian Brijbassi photo)

[This article on my favourite NHL team was a labour of love — and was first published on Vacay.ca on April 16, 2013.]

Marc Dupont takes 20 minutes to put on his game-face. It’s thick black paint that the night would envy. When complete, the soft-spoken government worker looks like a menacing warrior ready to terrorize. Along with the paint, Dupont wears a gladiator outfit that cost $1,200 on eBay, carries a plastic sword and sometimes a giant flag with the emblem of his team, the Ottawa Senators.

His outfit is made of metal and hard plastic, with enough bulk that it makes it hard to do anything but stand. Turns out that’s a good thing, because when Dupont and his fellow gladiators — self-professed “Superfans” — go to a game they don’t have a seat anyway.

“We have an agreement with the team that they give us access to the arena and we come to boost up the crowd, add some spirit to the rink,” he said during a recent game against the New York Rangers, which the Senators won at Scotiabank Place.

Dupont and his friend Jesse Jodoin began the ritual of donning gladiator outfits in 2007, the year the Senators went to the Stanley Cup finals, losing in five games to the Anaheim Mighty Ducks. They and other gladiators attend about 10 games a year each in costume.

Tips for Seeing the NHL Senators

The Sens’ gladiators have become one of the attractions at the NHL rink that seats 19,153. Along with the kid-friendly mascot, Spartacat, the gladiators pump up a crowd that is regarded as too quiet. When theToronto Maple Leafs and Montreal Canadiens play road games in Ottawa, it’s routine to hear fans of the visiting side drown out the home team’s supporters. This year, the Senators asked season-ticket holders to refrain from selling their seats to fans of rival teams, particularly the Leafs and Canadiens. The request was met with snickers from observers around the league, several of whom said the team should focus on getting more out of its own fans rather than thwarting efforts of others trying to reach the rink.

It’s a perplexing situation that has existed since the team’s inception in 1992. Despite the fact the Senators have been one of the NHL’s winningest teams over the past 12 seasons, the rink isn’t always full and it’s not always loud.

One reason is because of location. Scotiabank Place is the only NHL arena in Canada that isn’t within the urban centre of a city. It’s in Kanata, about 20 kilometres from downtown Ottawa, a drive that can be aggravatingly long, which is why most weekday home games start at 7:30 pm rather than 7 o’clock like in other Canadian markets. A downtown rink attracts a boisterous crowd ready to make a night of it, win or lose.

At Scotiabank Place, the overwhelming majority of attendees must drive. That means less drinking, which means less noise — and that’s not a bad thing. Senators fans are among the league’s most polite and respectful. If you’re a fan, you can follow the action without worrying if the hooligan next to you is going to drop his beer on your lap (unless of course your neighbour is wearing a Leafs jersey, in which case you’d be advised to find Dupont or Jodoin to heckle him into an early departure).

Before and after the games, Bert’s is jumping, with live music and sports action on 23 large TV screens. It’s a festive place, with tiki bar decor and other Caribbean touches inspired by Bert’s in Barbados, which Senators owner Eugene Melynk has a stake in. Concession booths at Scotiabank Place are, not surprisingly, overpriced but Bert’s prices and fare are what you would expect to find at any sports bar.

Ottawa Hotel for the NHL Stars

When making your decision on where to stay for the game, your first option should be the Brookstreet Hotel. Besides being extremely comfortable, the Brookstreet is the place where visiting NHL teams choose when they’re in town for a game. The players aren’t off-limits either. I found myself in an elevator with the Rangers’ Rick Nash and dining alongside some of his teammates at Perspectives restaurant.

“All of the teams have very specific menus they want us to create,” chef Clifford Lyness said. “More and more, we’re seeing requests for organic dishes. We work closely with the team’s nutritionists and sometimes the requests can be a challenge, but we always do whatever we can to meet their needs.”

While you likely won’t be eating from the same menu as the NHL stars at the Brookstreet, you’ll still enjoy a good-quality meal and a relaxing atmosphere with a nice view of the property’s golf course in the rear. The jazz lounge features music and local beer on tap, including brews from Ottawa’s Kichesippi Brewing Company and Beau’s.

The rooms are spacious and modern, with outlets for all your gadgets, HDTV, and room-darkening curtains. A minus is the lack of in-room complimentary WiFi (it costs $13.95 for 24 hours), but Options on the lobby level has a connection you can utilize.

Catching the On-Ice Action

The Senators are an admirable team to watch. Under second-year coach Paul MacLean, they compete, stick to their system and move as a unit, limiting the gap between the forward and the defence. (Yes, I’ve watched a few of their games.) With offensive stars Erik Karlsson and Jason Spezza injured, they’ve managed to hold down a playoff spot (they’re currently sixth in the Eastern Conference) with strong team defence, outstanding goaltending and timely goals. Put on red jerseys and move them to Detroit and they might resemble some of the Red Wings teams that MacLean coached as an assistant under Mike Babcock.

The Senators have taken advantage of being underestimated this year. They put up an energetic effort, especially at home where they have a 13-3-3 record entering Tuesday night’s game against Carolina. If you want to see an NHL game and find it difficult or too expensive for a game in Montreal or Toronto, the Senators are a terrific third option in the eastern part of the country.

Ever since Scotiabank Place opened in 1996 as the much-cooler-sounding Palladium it has been graced with some of the best sightlines available in any NHL arena. The front rows of the upper deck will put you on top of the action. Like the Bell Centre in Montreal and Air Canada Centre in Toronto, the back rows don’t have any of the intimacy of the older hockey rinks, but that’s a situation fans have to get used to these days.

The lower-bowl views are outstanding. You’ll get a clear view of the action and because of the hush of the crowd be able to hear every scrape, whack and smack that takes place on the ice.

Read more on Vacay.ca.

[This article and video were first published on Vacay.ca on April 10, 2013.]

The world knows Rene Redzepi can cook, but who knew he could write?

On Monday afternoon, Redzepi stood in front of 500 attendees at the Terroir Symposium in Toronto and read from a manuscript he prepared especially for the conference. Candidly, he detailed his passion for food, the roots of that passion that go back to his childhood in rural Denmark, how being true to his desires propelled his culinary success, and why losing sight of those desires led to standing on a beach in Mexico and contemplating running away from Noma and the mania surrounding it. His words about the dangers of burning out were a generous gift to chefs in the audience striving to attain what Redzepi has accomplished at his Danish restaurant. They were also extremely well thought out sentences, carefully chosen nouns and verbs that resonated with emotion.

Redzepi spoke about how so many people were advising him to go against the ethic of Noma, which has always been about food and flavours first and foremost. The restaurant, which has topped the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list for three straight years, has never had the finest silverware or the most fashionable wait staff, but Redzepi has been encouraged in recent years to add such pretentiousness. Advisors told him to reach for more accolades and that meant more material luxury in his rustic dining space “as if a fucking bowtie would make the food taste better.” On top of those influences was the intense pressure of running a business that has faced more scrutiny in the culinary world than any other restaurant on the planet in the past four years.

“I said, ‘Why am I doing this?’” Redzepi said to the crowd at Terroir, an annual gathering that brings together international food industry professionals to discuss sustainability and better practices.

Afterwards, he told Vacay.ca and other media, “We got very confused at Noma when we first started having success. I went to cooking school to learn to whip a bernaise, not how to deal with the New York Times in a press conference.”

Like many accidental celebrities, Redzepi found himself performing tasks he never endeavoured to perform and, on top of 85-hour work weeks at the restaurant, the demands on his time resulted in a wish to escape. However, his drive to improve overwhelmed any thoughts of quitting. After introspection about how to deal with the stress and what it was doing to him, the 35-year-old said he chose to clutch onto the beliefs that made him so celebrated in the first place.

“I feel more energized than ever,” he said, explaining that any downbeat sentiments in his story were there as a cautionary note to other chefs. He urged them to not lose their vision, or allow it to be circumvented by people who feel they are better at business or public relations or management. “This was a story about memories and also a story about sticking to what you know.”

What Redzepi understands better than just about anyone is how to make the most of the quality of food within your grasp. When speaking about the use of unusual ingredients in his cuisine, he said, “It is all about a search for flavours, it has nothing to do with shock value.”

The ants that he uses in his dishes are “little tiny creatures” that have what he describes as an explosive taste exotic to Scandinavians. “Here we are in cold, grey, shitty, Protestant Denmark with our potatoes and our beet root, and suddenly you have the flavours of ginger and lemongrass to put on your beet root. That is magnificent.”

During his weekend stay in Toronto, Redzepi said he was struck by the togetherness of the city’s culinary community, which reminded him of Copenhagen.

“We came from nothing in Copenhagen. We were fighting for the same 300 guests who dine about in Copenhagen. Suddenly, we have this uprising and people travelling in from all over and we don’t want this to be a novelty,” he said. “You couldn’t have that kind of success without people sharing information.”

The restaurants he visited in Toronto included Edulis, Momofuku’s Noodle Bar and Hopgood’s Foodliner, where he ate a butter-poached snow crab with hand-picked leeks from Niagara that “was probably one of the best mouthfuls I’ve eaten anywhere in North America.”

Despite a well-documented case of food poisoning at Noma in February, the reputation of the restaurant and Redzepi remains high. “It’s like we are playing in the Champions League semifinal every day for lunch and dinner,” Redzepi said about the pressure he and his staff face. “My bones might be aching, but my mind is sharp and as long as that’s the case I’m going to keep doing this.”

Highlights of Terroir 7

Among the experiences at Terroir that I found delightful and noteworthy were:

• In an event filled with celebrating restaurants that cater to people who often drop hundreds of dollars whenever they eat out, Nick Saul of Community Food Centres Canada reminded attendees at the Arcadian Court that the average low-income Canadian — of which there are about 3 million — subsists on just $6 a day.
• Likewise, Toronto chef Joshna Maharaj  was a source of inspiration, detailing how she revamped a hospital food program to include healthier options and did so with a cost increase of only 33 cents per meal.
• Jeremy Charles‘ fried cod tongue sandwich had me wanting to get on a plane and fly back to Newfoundland. The last time I had Charles’s food was at the Roots, Rants & Roars culinary festival in Elliston — about three hours west of St. John’s — and I had to wait 45 minutes for fried cod face and fries. That was delicious and so was this sandwich. Advice: If Charles is cooking, get in line. Any diner will be happy to wait however long to taste cuisine from Raymonds’ chef.
• I watched Langdon Hall pastry chef Sarah Villamere and three of her colleagues lovingly and carefully assemble a charming arrangement of cookies, muffins, macarons and jugs of milk. Everything was just so. (And then it was gone in a hurry as attendees dug in.)
• Atelier‘s Marc Lepine displayed his brilliance in a cooking demonstration that featured a plate of seared tuna accompanied by a beaver tail (and not the pastry kind). “It’s illegal to serve it at the restaurant, but I can do it here,” he said. Ontario law prohibits the sale of many game meats, including beaver, but chefs can cook it for events like Terroir as long as they agree to donate the product they make. The beaver was essentially fat, with the consistency of foie gras. Served with the tuna it was similar to so many of Atelier’s inventive dishes, hard to distinguish from anything you’ve ever eaten before. Oh, and delicious, too.
• Calgary’s Connie DeSousa deboned a pig’s head in 49 seconds (a personal record for her and quite possibly a record for any chef in Canada). Watch for video of that feat by the CHARCUT chef soon on Vacay.ca.
• The conference also featured industry awards. The GE Monogram-Terroir Awards winners were: DeSousa in the outstanding chef category; Jeremy Bonia, owner/sommelier of Raymonds in the outstanding beverage professional category; and Stephen Beckta, proprietor of Ottawa’s Gezellig,Beckta and Play Food & Wine, in the outstanding service professional category.

Tom Wilson put together a stellar lineup during Lee Harvey Osmond’s recent show in Toronto. (Adrian Brijbassi photo)

[This article was originally published on Vacay.ca]

By its nature, roots music makes a statement through understatement. It uses poetry and art and subtlety to snake its way into a groove that listeners find themselves wanting to retrace time and again. If rock ‘n roll and hip hop are the Saturday night club, then roots and folk music are the neighbourhood coffee shop — the place we always wind up when we want to think and gain perspective and sense community.

Tom Wilson may look like Saturday night — and he’s no doubt enjoyed the rock lifestyle — but his songs have always had the elements of folk music, from their melodies to their characters who possess the depth necessary to connect a listener with their struggles.

On “The Folk Sinner,” the sophisticated second album by his Lee Harvey Osmond project, Wilson shows he’s at his finest these days when there is minimal bombast. With the goal of “serving the music first,” Wilson and his bandmates deliver an elegantly produced album with throaty vocals and a touch of First Nations texture in songs like “Big Chief.” It is reminiscent of Robbie Robertson’s brilliant self-titled album from 1987. “The Folk Sinner” also evokes another celebrated Canadian songwriter, Gordon Lightfoot. A cover of his song “Oh Linda” kicks off the album and was a highlight of Friday night’s performance inToronto that featured Wilson and several of his friends, who just happen to be among Canada’s most talented musicians.

Wilson’s Blackie and the Rodeo Kings bandmate Colin Linden performed “Oh Linda” while Michael Timmins of the Cowboy Junkies, Oh Susanna, the Skydiggers‘ Andy Maize, and Paul Reddick were also on stage at the Great Hall for a 90-minute set that showed folk songs have no problem turning into rock music when infused with the energy of a live show and Wilson’s showmanship.

“That configuration has never played together before. They’re all friends of mine and have been for a long time. The idea was to serve the music, to put it first and see where it takes us,” Wilson told me on Tuesday.

A charismatic frontman, Wilson keeps audiences engaged with his humour, some of it self-effacing (“I’ve been on a no-wheat diet and I’m trimmed down and feeling good, but before the show I had a burger for the first time in months and I tell you, I owned that bun, man”), and talents, whether with his vocals or his on-stage antics. On “The Folk Sinner,” “Freedom” is a funky foot-tapping number highlighted by horns and slide guitar, but in concert it smoulders. With a riveting and fiery delivery, Wilson urges anyone within earshot to unshackle themselves and move.

Timmins’ sister, Margo, will be making appearances on upcoming tour dates, Wilson said. Hawksley Workman, who performs on the album’s first single, “Break Your Body Down,” will also join this rambling group of aging and congenial musicians who will show audiences that great concerts are still about great musicianship, not distracting choreography and lip-synching.

“We’re really astonished by the response. To be able to put 470 people into that hall is quite something,” Wilson said about Friday night’s show, which was part of Canadian Music Week festivities. “The album has been No. 1 in Canada already on the Americana Roots charts and we’re getting airplay in the States.”

Tom Wilson’s son, Thompson Wilson, is making a name of his own as the bass player for Harlan Pepper, a Hamilton, Ontario quartet that is poised for big things. Their forthcoming album was produced in Nashville, Tennessee by Colin Linden and their opening set at the Great Hall on Friday showed tremendous maturity and talent.

“They’re born into a tradition of music and living around music, so for them to be good musicians isn’t a surprise. They’re already great writers and already a great band. I wish I was that good when I was 19, 20 years old,” Wilson said.

One of the most intriguing shows during Canadian Music Week occurred at the El Mocambo on Saturday night, when Britain’s Charlotte Church took the stage at the legendary club and belted out a mesmerizing set of songs. Church was once a child prodigy, making the world take notice with her operatic vocals. She sold more than 10 million records before turning her attention to pop music in 2005. She hasn’t gained nearly as much notoriety for her career in that genre, partly because her songs aren’t radio-friendly. They’re entertaining, though, and very good.

Now 27, Church is promoting a new album in North America, and taking people’s breath away with that voice of hers that seems like a miracle with its range and ability to rattle every molecule of a listener’s body when unleashed. Her song “How Not to be Surprised When You’re a Ghost” is an impressive tune that might remind you of something Kate Bush or Siouxsie and the Banshees might sing — except better.

Among the delegates at Terroir will be chef Marc Lepine, who created this inventive dish featuring lobster and crab at his Ottawa restaurant, Atelier.

[This article was originally published on Vacay.ca]

Arlene Stein has tried for three years to line up a date for Rene Redzepi to join Toronto’s food industry at the annual Terroir Symposium. This year the schedules aligned and the executive chef of Noma is the marquee name among a list of culinary stars ready to appear at Monday’s gathering that’s focused on encouraging better practices in the industry and celebrating local food.

“I made a film with Rene last year about Noma’s Saturday night menu, which is pretty significant and pretty fantastic. Getting to know Rene even more than I had before helped to build that relationship. We were trying to get him here for three years but in 2010 he and his wife had just had a baby, and last year our conference was four days away from the World’s 50 Best awards,” Stein, the event’s founder and chairperson, said last week. “This year he decided to come and we are thrilled. We have outstanding international chefs and amazing Canadian chefs.”

The day-long symposium will be held at the Arcadian Court, an Oliver & Bonacini venue at the historic Simpson Tower. It will include seminars that range from appetizing (cooking demonstrations) to thirst-quenching (craft brew workshop) to thought-provoking (a debate on “culinary cannibalism”).

Along with Redzepi, whose Copenhagen restaurant has ranked atop the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list for three straight years, other international chefs at Terroir will include Magnus Nilsson of Sweden’s Faviken, Kobe Desramaults of Michelin-starred In de Wulf in Belgium, and South African Peter Templehoff of The Collection by Liz McGrath.

Among the notable Canadian chefs in attendance are Marc Lepine of Ottawa‘s Atelier, Jeremy Charles ofRaymonds in St. John’s, and Connie DeSousa and John Jackson of CHARCUT in Calgary — all of whom will perform cooking demonstrations.

Terroir will be a more high-profile gathering than culinary events with larger advertising budgets and more prominent histories in Toronto. While it is a gathering for the industry and not for culinary travellers, it is still a tourism driver for the city.

“It’s subtle and very grassroots what we are doing,” Stein said. “We’re not overly swamped with people. You can stand in the halls and have a conversation. I think the chefs like that.”

While Terroir started in Toronto and is in its seventh year, Stein is aiming to expand to “another Canadian city.” The notion of Terroir — which to a great degree depends on the willingness of chefs to share their coveted ideas, practices, recipes, and sources — would not have worked in the 20th century, Stein said.

“We happened to come around just as the local food movement really started to take hold. It was a matter of being in the right place at the right time for us. We filled a gap in the marketplace because all of a sudden everyone needed more information and a way to build real resources around sustainability,” said Stein, who has spent recent months in Europe networking with several of the chefs who will be attending the symposium.

She thought of the idea for the conference while “sitting around in my back patio and talking to friends, those of us who were part of small owner-operated restaurants.” Stein, who worked at Hart House on the University of Toronto campus, saw a need for more community within the city’s food industry and she has built this networking event to facilitate that sense of togetherness.

“It’s done so much for the industry in Canada and in Ontario. We get together and talk about ways to collaborate and make improvements to the industry,” said Scott Vivian, owner and chef at Beast and a participant at this year’s gathering. “We’re really fortunate in Toronto to have a program like this.”

Stein said Toronto’s local food movement — which includes the use of green roofs, urban gardens, farmers markets, and sustainable practices — is ahead of its counterparts in many other cities. Part of the reason, she said, is in the concern the industry has for those issues related to food safety and quality. ”I can tell you we’ve shown more leadership in Toronto in this area than we have seen in other cities, where concern for these methods and ways of doing things can be very superficial. In a lot of places, they’re only now emerging with a serious local food movement, where we have had it here for years.”

More About the 7th Annual Terroir Symposium

Date: April 8, 2013, 7 am-6 pm; after-party at the Drake Hotel
Location: Arcadian Court, 401 Bay Street, Simpson Tower, 9th Floor, Toronto, ON (see map below)
Tickets: $175 (plus tax). To purchase, visit the Terroir Symposium website.
More Coverage of Terroir Symposium 7: See photos of the Terroir launch event in February at Biff’s Bistro. will be covering Terroir on Monday for Vacay.ca; be sure to follow on Twitter (@VacayCanada) for updates.

Jose Bautista and the Jays are poised for a big year. (Owais Qureshi/Vacay.ca)

“It’s designed to break your heart,” A. Bartlett Giamatti wrote about baseball. “The game begins in the spring, when everything is new again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops, and leaves you to face the fall alone.”

Giamatti was one of those tormented Red Sox fans of the 20th century. Their autumns and winters were never warmed by the memories of a championship, only the torturous thoughts of “what if?” He died in 1989, while in office as the commissioner of Major League Baseball, a few weeks before the Red Sox swooned again in September and lost the American League East title to the Toronto Blue Jays.

Back then, the Jays and Red Sox were similar because their fans shared a sense of doom. While what Torontowent through was nowhere near the devilish grief Boston endured for 86 years, the Blue Jays had suffered monumental and historic collapses. In 1985, they led the best-of-seven American League Championship Series against the Kansas City Royals 2-0 and 3-1, but George Brett’s bat blasted the Jays into winter earlier than anyone in Canada wanted, and baseball fans in Toronto became familiar with the meaning of the term “die-hard.” The pain became more intense after the team lost its final seven games in 1987 and missed the playoffs, even though it appeared for months that Canada’s first World Series title was a certainty.

Blue Jays supporters went through a discontented winter waiting for redemption and the sense of hope that flourishes in the sport each April. But 1988 was a failure and 1989 started out terribly and the Oakland A’s had assembled a juggernaut that dispatched the Jays with ease in the playoffs. Even though the Blue Jays owned baseball’s best cumulative record over a six-season period dating to 1984, it seemed like the window of chance had closed like an umpire’s fist on a strikeout call.

The rest you know. On December 5, 1990, the Blue Jays revamped their lineup — and their identity — through trades and free-agent signings. They reached the postseason from 1991-93, and won back-to-back championships, bringing euphoria to the city, as well as an indelible source of pride for all of those who zealously followed the team from spring to fall, season after season.

Fans today may find it hard to believe, but the Blue Jays once were the most successful team in baseball, becoming the first franchise to draw 4 million fans, selling out home games at the SkyDome (now Rogers Centre) at record levels. In recent years, the same stadium has seen its attendance rank among the lowest in baseball, with the Jays averaging just 25,921 fans in their 81 home games in 2012.

As Opening Day arrives, however, change comes with it. In 2013, the Blue Jays are in a position they haven’t been for two decades: They enter the season as World Series favourites.

The addition of three elite starting pitchers — Cy Young Award winner R.A. Dickey, Mark Buehrle and Josh Johnson — as well as All-Star position players Jose Reyes and Melky Cabrera ensure the Blue Jays will be one of the most exciting teams to watch. The offseason moves have rekindled thoughts of the feats former general manager Pat Gillick pulled off in the early 1990s. Whether this team truly can bring the glory days back to Toronto will not be revealed for months. For now, what we do know is the electricity that has been absent during the past 20 years — as the Jays have failed to come within even a warning-track flyball of the postseason — will be back. They are going to be competitive. Game days will be exciting, bars and restaurants will be full, hotels will enjoy a boost with visitors coming in to see the hottest show in town.

If you’re going to see a game, here are tips to enjoying the Blue Jays experience:

WHERE TO PARK IN TORONTO

Mass transit is still the best option for coming into Toronto. Whether it’s by a GO Train from outside the city or a TTC subway ride within it, the Rogers Centre is only a 5-minute walk from Union Station. But if you do drive, expect to pay $20 or more to park within the vicinity of the ’Dome.

You can cut that cost in half and sometimes three-quarters by parking farther away and making a longer walk or shorter subway ride to the game. Unlike cities like Seattle and Baltimore, Toronto doesn’t have a lively pre-game atmosphere for baseball but the city is safe and easy to walk, with plenty of eye-catching architecture and interesting neighbourhoods.

For a $10 flat rate, you can leave your car at the Toronto Bus Terminal parking lot on Elizabeth Street, north of Dundas Street, and walk 30 minutes to the game. In the same area, the parking lot at 38 Elm Street near the corner of Bay Street charges just $6 if you park after 6 pm and exit before 2:30 am on most nights. Check parkopedia.com for more options.

BEST PLACES TO EAT FOR BLUE JAYS GAMES

At the game: Windows restaurant above the outfield has re-opened after a decade. The windows, ironically, are gone, and patrons will be able to walk in during the game to purchase food or buy drinks, watching from a unique, open-air vantage point. Elsewhere, the Roundhouse Carvery and Bar at Section 122 serves roast beef sandwiches and a selection of beers, wines and spirits. Other spots include the Muddy York Market (Section 109) and a Quaker Steak & Lube (Section 134) that’s known in the US for its wings.

Before the game (night): For pub grub, the Irish Embassy is a cut above the crowd. Also, try  the Wine Bar on Church Street for fantastic tapas.

Before the game (day): For matinee games, which are usually on the weekends, you’ll want to hit Canteenat the Toronto International Film Festival Tower for brunch. Reservations are highly recommended.

After the game (nearby): Real Sports Bar, C’est What? and the Bier Markt are popular spots. None will disappoint, although the service at Real Sports is atrocious lately. It does have the largest HDTV screen in North America and was named the best sports bar on the continent in 2011 by ESPN. C’est What?, meanwhile, has outstanding microbrews and a lively atmosphere packed with locals. Although there are a couple of TVs behind the bar, it’s not a sports hangout, which can be a nice change after a game. For something upscale, hit DEQ, the outstanding patio bar at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. Feel like good food with a clubby feel (re: waitresses with long legs)? Then Bloke & 4^th is a hot spot in town for excellent eats and nightlife (reservations recommended).

After the game (farther afield): If you want to explore the city, try the Ballroom for the best sports-bar food in Toronto, as well as plenty of TVs and a bowling alley in the heart of the Entertainment District. For just good beer, trek to Bar Volo, on Yonge Street north of Wellington Street. For cocktails, head to the west end of the city and drop in on Boehmer, also a spot for excellent food. Keep going west and you’ll get to the Roncesvalles neighbourhood, site of two outstanding new restaurants, Barque (named the best barbecue restaurant in Ontario by Vacay.ca) and Hopgood’s Foodliner, which serves east coast-inspired fare.

For great steak, avoid overpriced places like Harbour 60 and Bardi’s, and head to Barberian’s on Elm Street, a steakhouse that’s stood in Toronto since 1959. No-nonsense and amazing. Also, Brant House off of King Street West is outstanding.

WHERE TO STAY IN TORONTO

For baseball fans, it’s hard to beat theRenaissance at the Rogers Centre. You can even get a room overlooking the field. Those suites were made famous in the stadium’s early days when exhibitionists managed to steal attention from the boys of summer on the field.

The Strathcona is the most reasonably priced hotel in walking distance to the ’Dome, but the best value may be the Novotel on the Esplanade, a fine hotel in a terrific location. It often has deals. If you’re going to end up in the west end of the city, try to get a room at the artsy Gladstone Hotel.

OTHER SIGHTS TO CATCH IN WALKING DISTANCE

Hockey Hall of Fame: Sports fans must see the hall, where interactive displays and loads of great history are offered. Fun on weekend mornings prior to the game.

CN Tower: Torontonians don’t get too excited about the tower any more. It’s been around for nearly 40 years and for most residents it serves as a directional landmark more than a place to go. But the tower — the tallest free-standing structure in Canada — is a thrill and visitors won’t be disappointed. The view in any direction you look — but especially facing southeast toward Lake Ontario and beyond — is magnificent. (Here’s a video)

Harbourfront Centre: The Harbourfront area has numerous performances, festivals and entertaining weekly events that are often worth checking out. Visit the website for the schedule when you’re in town.

GETTING BLUE JAYS TICKETS

Until Torontonians really begin to believe there’s a championship-calibre team in their midst, you’ll be able to walk up and get tickets on most game days at the Rogers Centre box office. You can purchase tickets online before you arrive or you could also take your chances with scalpers. But you’ll have to negotiate. Have a seating map handy on your smartphone so you know exactly what seats you’re purchasing from street sellers. Although scalpers have a notorious reputation for selling fraudulent tickets in many other cities, you’ll usually get a fair deal in Toronto.

[Vacay.ca is putting together its second annual list of Canada's Top 50 Restaurants and public voting helps to determine that list. The voters have been incredibly supportive of Atelier, a wonderful restaurant with only 22 seats in an out-of-the-way neighbourhood in Ottawa. I had a chance to dine there and speak to its chef, the talented Marc Lepine. This article was published in Vacay.ca in October.]

OTTAWA, ONTARIO —  Midway through her dinner, Jennifer Swartz looked up to her dining partner and exclaimed, “Hands-down the best meal of my life.”

Swartz had been meaning to make reservations at Atelier for a number of months and wasn’t disappointed in her August visit despite entering Marc Lepine’s restaurant with lofty expectations. “You hear so much about this place in Ottawa but it’s still a little secret outside of the area,” said Swartz, who lives in Canada’s capital and was dining a couple of tables away from me. “The food is like art.”

And that’s not by accident. Lepine began Atelier in 2008 after completing a stage at Alinea, the Chicago restaurant run by Grant Achatz that’s consistently near the top of the annual World’s 50 Best Restaurants List. Alinea is known in North America for popularizing microgastronomy, the cooking technique that involves chemistry and often results in whimsical creations. Numerous chefs have tried to replicate Achatz’s success with microgastronomy and the results are often hit and miss. Lepine is one of those who is on the mark.

In February, Lepine’s team won the Gold Medal Plates competition at the Canadian Culinary Awards in Kelowna, British Columbia, and earlier this year Atelier was named the People’s Choice winner in theVacay.ca Top 50 Restaurants in Canada List, finishing fifth overall.

Knowing Atelier’s reputation, I approached my visit to the restaurant expecting an opulent room laden with crystals and 500-thread-count linen. Like its chef, though, Atelier is understated in every way but the boldness of its cuisine. The restaurant’s exterior on Rochester Street, six kilometres from the frenzy of the Byward Market, is so non-descript it doesn’t even have a sign. It’s a house, not a mansion. The exterior is slate grey and a black grate covers the window, making it seem almost moody when you approach in the night. But that’s not an indication of what’s inside. When you enter, host and sommelier Steve Robinson greets you warmly, inviting you into a 22-seat space that feels like a dinner party.

“It made sense that we didn’t have a sign, because our menu’s blind and we’re reservation-only, and this kind of works for us,” says Lepine, pointing out that Atelier isn’t the sort of place where people decide to go on the spur of the moment, so it wasn’t important to rent a storefront in a well-trafficked area of Ottawa.

People would come searching for the food, if it was good enough, he believed. As Swartz indicated, the word of mouth drew her in.

One of the most likeable chefs you’ll ever meet, Lepine puts his imaginative spin on dishes to make Atelier as creative a kitchen as you’ll find in the country. One of the plates on my visit featured 14 ingredients, another — an octopus salad — was so minimalist it was positioned to occupy only one corner of the white plate; hence its menu name, “In This Corner.”

That’s the other aspect of Atelier and Lepine you will remember: The imagination doesn’t stop with the food. Each dish has a name that attempts to be clever. A cold pea soup puree is called Give Peas a Chance (and you should, it’s delicious), a crab-and-lobster dish is named after characters in both the “Little Mermaid” (Sebastian the Crab) and “The Simpsons” (Pinchy the Lobster), and a peach dessert gets tagged with the title Impeachment. The servers appear chagrined and apologetic when they pronounce some of the names, which only adds to Atelier’s lack of pretentiousness. The music is all Canadian. Imagine dining on Idaho-raised wagyu beef prepared sous vide — meaning sealed in an airtight bag and cooked in water for several hours — while Joel Plaskett plays in the background. It’s not something you’d ever envision, and that ability to surprise and make you look at dining anew is partly what defines Atelier.

As soft-spoken as he is, Lepine is fiercely passionate about food and his idea of it. You can tell from the meticulousness of his restaurant. The service is first rate; the kitchen is smaller than what you’d find in some Toronto condominiums yet it turns out plate after plate of mind-blowing dishes; and Lepine is up for any challenge, even producing a 100-course dinner at a special event in Toronto earlier this year.

From Dishwasher to Award-Winning Ottawa Chef

Formerly from Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Lepine fell into cooking because a high school teacher suggested he pursue culinary arts.

“It was the last day to pick something you wanted to study after high school and I didn’t know what I wanted to do,” Lepine said with a storyteller’s grin. “One of my teachers said, ‘Well do you have a job?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘What do you do?’ I told him I wash dishes at a hotel. He asked, ‘Do you like it?’ I said, ‘It’s awesome. I love it.’ He said, ‘Why don’t you go to school for culinary arts?’”

Like that, a success story was set in motion. Lepine eventually got a gig at Courtyard Restaurant in Ottawa before spending a week working 14-hour days in the Alinea kitchen, which solidified his commitment to start Atelier.

“The vision just became really, really clear after I had the stage in Alinea,” Lepine said. “I thought it would be great if I could have something like that on a smaller scale in Ottawa, where we have the creative freedom in the kitchen.”

He indulges in having “all these toys we can play with,” including liquid nitrogen, a microgastronomy staple that helps develop unique textures and shapes, creating foams and smoke-enhanced concoctions that will stretch your understanding of cuisine. The cost of the 12-course menu is $110 per person — an increase of $35 from when Atelier opened but still a reasonable price, especially when you consider you can’t get a dining experience like this anywhere else in Canada. Toronto’s Colborne Lane probably comes the closest, but even at that restaurant — which also uses liquid nitrogen in many of its dishes — you will find options that are more traditional than avant-garde. At Atelier, the menu flips daily, not seasonally, and you never know what you’re in for until you walk through the heavy grey door.

“One of the drawbacks I think of seasonal menus is that food doesn’t really work that way. Some things have a one-week season, some things have a two-week season, and one of the main reasons I wanted to do a menu that was blind and that was ever-changing was because we can change dishes any time we feel like it or any time we need to,” Lepine said. “We’ve had one person come back here 35 times, some others more than a dozen times. I didn’t know it at first, but I think part of the reason why is because we do change the menu so often that people want to see what’s new.”

They also return because Lepine knows how to cook first, invent second. That shoulder cut of wagyu beef is succulent, the pan-seared quail served atop a bed of corn and couscous melts on the tongue, the foamy desserts are luscious. With anything this artistic, not all the dishes are going to work as envisioned. There’s too much going on in the Undercover Salmon, for example. Although beautifully plated, it didn’t need much beyond pumpernickel and dill to wow, but was loaded with a dozen ingredients. Still, it’s not like anything you’ve ever seen or tasted, and that’s what Atelier is about — a fantastic chef with a rich imagination and desire to push the limits.

He’ll take you on a ride. Don’t be surprised if you want to hop right back on when you’re done.

[This article was first published on Vacay.ca on January 10, 2013 and then syndicated on the Huffington Post Canada.]

HUNTSVILLE, ONTARIO — Michael Smith told me he has built a career out of reminding Canadians that cooking is about the people you share the meal with rather than the perfection of the recipe. He then went about showing what he meant.

In a wildly entertaining weekend at Deerhurst Resort, Smith held court and kitchen in the Muskoka property most famous for hosting Barack Obama, Stephen Harper and the rest of the G8 leaders during their 2010 summit. Smith didn’t have the security detail of those politicians, although he could have used one given the fact his contingent of female fans have a voracious appetite for him as well as his food. Clearly enjoying the attention, Smith hugged, kissed and signed autographs of his latest cookbook, Fast Flavours — 110 Simple Speedy Recipes, for the roughly 200 people who showed up to be in the presence of Canada’s most famous chef.

Standing 6-foot-7, Smith came across as a gentle and affable giant with a great deal of admiration for his adopted country. He was the head of food operations in the Athletes’ Village at the 2010 Winter Olympicsin Vancouver, turning out up to 12,000 plates a day for the competitors and delegates in a role he called the highlight of his career. Currently the only chef on the Food Network Canada with an instructional cooking program, “Chef Michael’s Kitchen,” Smith has lived in Prince Edward Island since immigrating from New York more than 20 years ago. He elevated the Inn at Bay Fortune on PEI to recognition as one of the nation’s finest restaurants before his cookbooks and television shows took off, rocketing him to stardom.

“I miss some aspects about being a chef in a restaurant, but I don’t miss the hours or the lifestyle,” Smith said, reiterating that he has no plans to open an eatery.

What he has been doing is travelling the world, discovering eclectic ingredients and different cooking techniques, and incorporating some of them into his recipes that are designed to be easy to make. By simplifying recipes and the approach to cooking, Smith has underscored that the process isn’t about the food, but those who you invite to the table.

At Deerhurst in October, Smith kept his guests enthralled with an interactive dinner that included everyone at each table performing one duty or another in the preparation of the feast. One person was instructed on a salad dressing, another mixed a cocktail using gin from PEI, others used Playdough to create decorations. Deerhurst’s talented executive chef Rory Golden and his staff worked with Smith on creating several recipes from the cookbook. The main course was prime rib, a giant slab of which was set on each table and sliced up Thanksgiving style by a member of the dinner party.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from Smith or the weekend and was surprised by the inventiveness of the evening. Far, far from a formal affair, it was jovial and communal, which is what the chef wants to see more of in Canadian homes.

“I think the biggest mistake home cooks make is believing that there is such a thing as perfection,” he said. “I really believe that success is when we decide to cook and sit down with our families.”

To read the rest of the article and find out more about the event at Deerhurst Resort, visit Vacay.ca.

[This article was published last month in Vacay.ca as part of its Rock 'n Roll Road Trips series. Diamond Rings has since been nominated for a SiriusXM Canadian Indie Music Award, whose show takes place March 22, 2013 during Canadian Music Week in Toronto.]

Diamond rings, John O’Regan says, are glamorous and tough. That’s why they’re the namesake of his on-stage persona, an act that has busted out of the Toronto music scene to earn superlative-laden reviews across the continent. One reason for the success is the fact diamond rings are mesmerizing too.

It’s difficult not to keep your eyes on O’Regan. For one thing, you have to make up your mind whether his act is an artistic form of self-expression or a schtick. One listen of his hit “I’m Just Me” should convince you he’s much more Ziggy Stardustthan Gary Glitter, which is to say that Diamond Rings has substance and cred. It’s quite possible the persona O’Regan has created is the most interesting act to come out of Canada since Arcade Fire. “I’m Just Me” comes across as a mantra for the sexually uncertain, the androgynous or the transgender, but like any great song it has universality to it, appealing to anyone who embraces their individuality when it clashes with bullies or the sensibilities of the establishment. There’s both a rebelliousness and a sweetness to the song, underscoring the duality O’Regan talks about in himself and his performance.

While most audiences are now hearing about Diamond Rings for the first time, O’Regan isn’t an overnight success. He’s been toiling in Toronto for several years, fronting the electro-pop band The D’urbervilles, recently renamed Matters. In Toronto, the 27-year-old spends his days in Roncesvalles, a historic neighbourhood known for its Polish heritage and proximity to High Park.

“I tend not to leave that neighbourhood when I’m at home. Being away, being in a rock band there is so much stimulation, a lot of long nights, a lot of loud music and loud clubs, and although Toronto is great for all that stuff, when I’m home it’s rarely what I want to do,” O’Regan said during an interview three weeks ago in a suite in the Ritz-Carlton Toronto.

Roncesvalles is beyond West Queen West, an area that’s become a cultural hub for the city, with vintage clothing stores, nightclubs, and a pair of notable boutique hotels, the Gladstone and the Drake, that are a breeding ground for artists of all sorts. O’Regan’s part of town is much more low key, although it does have two of the city’s best new restaurants in Hopgood’s Foodliner and Barque. Despite his flamboyant stage presence, O’Regan struck me as very much an introspective artist devoted to pushing himself and his work as far as he can, and that makes Roncesvalles a fit for him. It lacks the bustle and distractions of other areas of the city, allowing him to hole up and make music.

“Ideally, we’d be in a big place in the suburbs where we could practice all day with big speakers in the basement and really crank it up,” said O’Regan, who is from Oshawa, an industrial town an hour from Toronto.

He studied studio arts at the University of Guelph, an education that comes through in his lyrics, which are taut and thoughtful. The word “baby” is seldom used in the songs on his album Free Dimensional. O’Regan has clearly paid careful attention to the likes of David Bowie, Grace Jones and Lady Gaga, whose theatrical alter-egos became a conduit for their music. A DJ, too, O’Regan began Diamond Rings as a one-man act, but now has a backing band, which allows him to be a more compelling and improvisational frontman.

Read the rest of the article on Vacay.ca

Many hotels, such as the Residence Inn in Kingston, Ontario, now have kitchens in their suites. (Julia Pelish/Vacay.ca)

[These tips were originally published on Vacay.ca]

One of the most costly expenses when you vacation is food. It’s also one of the more difficult purchases for which to budget, even though many restaurant menus are now online to help you pre-plan what you will spend. What tends to happen is we end up becoming more picky about where we eat on the road because we want it to satisfy our hunger both for food and for experience. Will the food be worth it? is a question that takes on greater importance when you only have a few days in a place. How do I stretch my budget and experience the best of local culture? is another question many travellers ask.

Here are tips on how to save on your food budget when you travel, while maintaining your desire for an enjoyable visit.

1. Know your hotel choice. Book a hotel that includes breakfast and pre-pay for the stay, which will reduce your accommodations cost by at least 5 per cent at most lodgings. Hotel breakfasts can often be overpriced but a cost reduction through pre-payment is beneficial for more than just your pocketbook. It saves you time — eliminating a decision on where to eat in the morning — and gives you some peace of mind because you will have paid for this cost before you arrive.

2. Sleep with a kitchen. Better than paying for breakfast (or lunch or dinner) is having the ability to cook it yourself. More and more hotels are providing their own kitchens, a feature that many timeshare owners have long enjoyed. The benefit of having a kitchen — or at least a microwave and fridge — is it gives you the option to further control your food costs. A trip to the grocery store soon after check-in will give you a stockpile of choices for late-night snacks or an all-out gourmet feast if you choose. EXTRA TIP: Pack a few teaspoons of your favourite spices in spice containers made specifically for travelling. You’ll find them in the kitchenware department of many retail stores. It’ll save you from buying full containers of spices once you arrive at your destination.

3. Eat meals prepared at grocery stores. Even if you don’t have a kitchen in your room, you should still go to the grocery store. Some of the best cheap meals you’ll find in any North American city are in the prepared food areas of supermarkets. Whether it’s Whole Foods in New York, Rouses or Langenstein’s in New Orleans, or even Longo’s in Toronto (where a gourmet 10-inch pizza can be had for less than $7), you can find outstanding, freshly prepared food that won’t break your budget. You also won’t need to tip or wait for a table. Although some health experts will tell you that grocery stores tend to cook their prepared meals with meat and fish products that aren’t the freshest in stock, you’re still more likely to get a healthier meal from a grocer than from a fast-food restaurant.

4. Visit the local farmers’ market. Farmers’ markets are booming across North America thanks to the locavore movement and the desire for environmentally friendly community building. The markets offer both a travel experience — because you will find out a lot about a city’s culture through the people who cultivate and consume its local produce — and a fun dining experience as you sample bits and bites from different vendors, many of whom offer samples. Canada is extremely lucky to have thriving farmers’ markets across the country, particularly in Ontario.

5. Adjust your Groupon deals account. Those online coupon companies that just about all of us take advantage of when we’re at home can come in handy on the road too. Adjust your Groupon or Living Social account to show deals in the destination you’re visiting and you’ll find discounts on restaurants, as well as some attractions.

6. Do your fine dining at lunch. The lunch menus at several high-end restaurants are less expensive than what you’ll find at dinner, but the quality of food is just as good and the portion sizes are comparable. Although if you do want to try the best of the best, you will probably have to wait for night time. You’re not going to get lunch at Alinea in Chicago, for example, because chef Grant Achatz only opens that restaurant for dinner. (Also, as of this month, Alinea diners will pre-pay for their meals — which are tasting menus ranging from $210-$265 — upon reservation.)

7. Find credible advice. When I was in Phoenix, Arizona in November, I needed a tip for a place to eat. I turned to Twitter and asked for recommendations from some notable food experts who I follow. Mario Batali was among the ones who responded recommending Pizzeria Bianco. It turned out to be a tremendous dining experience — and not expensive, either. I think one of the worst mistakes travellers make is deciding to eat cheap without knowing where best to do so. That practice leads to some awful experiences that can ruin a vacation. Eating quality food on the cheap can be done but it’s not easy. To do it, find credible advice from sophisticated, well-travelled diners and have a list of their recommendations handy when you journey. Sometimes all you have to do is reach out and ask. (If you need tips, send me an email and I’ll see what I can put together for you, or also contact Vacay.ca food columnist Janine Maclean. Vacay.ca is happy to recommend foodie itineraries for Canada’s cities — just email editors@vacay.ca for free trip-planning advice.)

8. Take advantage of travel apps. Urbanspoon and Foodspotting are just two apps that I’ve found handy when travelling, but neither one beats credible advice from an expert.

9. Know yourself. If you love breakfasts and want to try different places, then make visiting eateries known for their Eggs Benedict or gourmet French Toast part of the attraction of a destination. If you’re a hard-core foodie, you know you’re not going to visit Montreal without dying to try Joe Beef and Les 400 Coups and Au Pied du Cochon and Toque and so many more. Budget appropriately for what will make your trip enjoyable on a personal level.

Fortress Louisbourg celebrates its 300th anniversary in 2013. (Julia Pelish photo)

LOUISBOURG, CAPE BRETON, NOVA SCOTIA — No lawyers were allowed in colonial Louisbourg. Louis XIV wanted to build a utopia on this side of the Atlantic and anyone who was out to practice law could only undermine that dream, the Sun King thought. So rules were enforced by the governor of Île-Royale and an appointed council. But lawyers? They were left to eat cake — or learn to bake it.

Today, Louisbourg still exhibits the spirit and mindset of its founders. Set in 1744, toward the end of French rule of the territory on Cape Breton, the recreated historic village replicates life as it was for the blacksmiths, tavern owners, military personnel, government officials and citizens in the 18th century. To enter the fortified city, visitors must first pass through a gate defended by militia who will test whether you’re a British spy or ne’er-do-well before allowing you to enter. Thoroughly fascinating, Louisbourg is so well done as an attraction you almost lose sight of the beauty of its setting. Almost.

Cape Breton’s natural allure never quite relinquishes its grip and the scenery surrounding Louisbourg is reminiscent of the French coast, with a torrent of waves and swatches of thick, golden reeds that from certain angles appear to mask the fortress as you approach.

“Louisbourg is the jewel of the national parks system,” says Linda Kennedy, who runs Point of View Suites, a sensational property just outside of the entrance to the historic site.

For those who have been to colonial Williamsburg in Virginia, Fortress Louisbourg will seem familiar. But it is much more of a living museum than a commercial enterprise, although you can purchase meals and pay to take part in a murder mystery tour or night-time lantern walk.

In 2013, Louisbourg celebrates its 300th anniversary and will do so with panache, earning it the distinction as the No. 1 place in Canada to visit in 2013 from Vacay.ca.

The Louisbourg300 festivities feature a month-long fête with additional music, cultural attractions and a harbourside market in July. A series of other events and celebrations will take place during the summer, including a much-anticipated regatta on the waters surrounding the fortress. As Louisbourg heralds its tricentennial, it gives Canadians an opportunity to reflect on how important of a place it is to the nation’s history.

“Louisbourg in some ways is a microcosm of what Canada eventually developed into, which is a multicultural, multilingual society,” says Barbara Landry, one of the Parks Canada officers at the fortress.

On any given day in the early 1700s, you could hear five or more languages spoken within the fortified walls. That multiculturalism was due to the fishing industry and the variety of Europeans it employed. Louis XIV was enamoured with the prospects of Île-Royale because of the coveted cod within easy reach. More than 1 million pounds of the fish were exported annually at the height of Louisbourg’s fishing operations. Cod was much more valuable than salmon or any other fish because it shipped well.

However, despite Louis XIV’s wishes, the colony was far from a utopia. The winter cold was relentless and unbearable for many. Even though there were no lawyers, there was plenty of crime, including grisly murders detailed in historical documents. And there was the constant threat of the British, who eventually won control of Louisbourg in 1758 when the French surrendered.

Louisbourg was founded in 1713 by French fishermen displaced from Newfoundland. At its height, more than 6,000 people were living within the walls. More than 750,000 documents were used in the recreation of the park, which is only one-fifth of the original Louisbourg.

“We have 5.5 million artifacts. Those go a long way in determining how people furnished their home and the economy and what their lifestyle would have been like,” Landry says.

There’s more to Louisbourg’s story than what took place inside the walls, though, and that’s where Kennedy comes in.

On the surface, the Beggar’s Banquet that she operates out of the Point of View Suites seems like campy dinner theatre. Guests dress in period costumes provided by he property while Kennedy takes on the persona of Sebean, an 18th-century tavern owner/wench with a knack for turning men red-faced with her wit and flirtatiousness. While she entertains, her staff serve what’s billed as an authentic peasant’s feast, featuring the diners’ choice of lobster, crab, halibut or roasted chicken. (Get the crab.)

“That was what the poor ate back then. Cod is what the upper class in France wanted, it was what the fishing industry here was built on,” says Kennedy, who has also worked as a guide at Fortress Louisbourg and is currently a musket-carrier when not at the Point of View Suites. “Cod, when it was salted, was easier to preserve, and fish was very important because in the Catholic faith there are about 145 days of the year when you can’t eat meat.”

With sailors, soldiers, fishermen and merchants always present, Louisbourg had a lively atmosphere. Kennedy, when she started the dinner theatre three years ago, wanted to augment what the national park was showing about life within the walls with a glimpse at how people existed outside of it. The saucy character named Sebean gave her a way to inject her sense of humour into the project. Each night, the Beggar’s Banquet takes place at the Point of View Suites and the word is spreading that it’s a fun night out.

“It’s all I heard anyone talk about for the past two days,” says Patty Albert, who made the five-hour drive from Halifax.

Visit Vacay.ca to read the rest of the article and see a photo gallery. You will also see the full list of the 20 Best Places to Travel in Canada in 2013.