A warning to my vegetarian friends don't read to the end of this post

I know there are at least three vegetarians reading this post (Linda, Elaine and Robin), so look away before the end.

Friday was yet another lovely day, we drove to Torbay and I went to Mass at 10.00 while Drew went around taking pictures. When we got back to Pouch Cove Drew went on another of Elke's hikes, this one along the coast from Pouch Cove to Cape St. Francis. Drew has some brilliant photos of the walk, some I've added here others are on Flickr. I love the names of the places - Horrid Gulch, Anvil Rocks, Pigeon Island, Biscayne Islands etc.

The view from Points East

I sat in the garden of Points East enjoying the weather (with my hat on of course) and reading my novel - how blissful and relaxing. Drew got back at around 4.00. We showered and dressed-up for tonight and head out to treat ourselves to one of the real specialities of the island:

The Woodstock Colonial Restaurant, Paradise - as its logo goes: 'Come dine with us in Paradise'

The menu, though it had a range of 'normal' dishes, highlighted its Newfoundland specialities with the pink, white and green 'old' Newfoundland flag. We had travelled the 25 miles from Pouch Cove for the specialities, which Drew had read about even before we left home.

The meal started well, the bread rolls they brought were really small loaves, fresh and crusty on the outside, soft in the middle. We ended up having two each. I then started with Cod Tongues, only the second lot I've had but definitely my favourite Newfoundland delicacy, they were perfectly cooked here and the scrunchions were crisp and tasty, they were served with tartar sauce and a thai chilli sauce. Drew opted for another dish called a local delicacy: Cod au gratin, well the cod must be local, but I think the French would claim the gratin. Still he loved it and commented on the creamy cheesiness of it. The cheddar type cheese was melted over large flakes of cod in a cheesy sauce. 

The main courses were the star items. I had Seal Flipper Pie and Drew had Caribou Pie. Both of these local delicacies were delicious, the seal flipper had the bones in, so you needed a long pie dish for it to fit - hence the shape. The pies both had lovely flaky puff pastry on top, which helped mop up the gravy in the pies. Apparently cooking seal flipper is a real art, as all the blubber has to be rendered before it becomes in anyway edible. Interesting the flavour and texture were like some old stewing steak that had been left braising for 5 hours, rather than anything fishy. Nice, but a surprise to the palette  Again, I'm told that if the blubber is not extracted properly or the meat not cooked for long enough it can taste like rotted fish!! The Caribou tasted like horse meat, indeed the closest taste I could associate with it was some Zebra meat I had at the Carnivore restaurant in Nairobi back in 1985. Both pies had strong gravies (I could taste bay. rosemary and black pepper) made from the meat juices, they were served with roasted red potatoes, carrots, broccoli, red pepper, courgette and asparagus. And were delightful, as the final picture shows.