Foodie Tour Saturday

We spent this past weekend showing our friends from Vancouver around St. John’s, and we tried out something new that we thoroughly enjoyed – the Downtown Foodie Tour!

Eating Freezies made from Newfoundland berries along the way

The tour was put off by a new company called St. John’s Culture Tours, and our guide was one of our instructors on the Wilderness Survival Course we took last May. When we signed up for the Foodie Tour, we didn’t know what to expect. The website doesn’t explicitly list the stops or the food you will be tasting, so we didn’t know what we were going to be eating until the food was already in our mouths. Basically.

The meeting place was Hava Java where we started with our first taste of the tour, a local bison sausage on a freshly made bun. After washing it down with a macchiato, we realized that this tour wasn’t going to be composed of traditional Newfoundland dishes like we had anticipated. It was even better.

We were led around downtown to different restaurants and places of note, eating and learning about the story of St. John’s along the way. We learned about the Great Fire of 1892 that wiped out the entire downtown area, about the architecture of the famous colourful row houses and the cod fishery, and even touched on the difficulties of the Chinese population in Newfoundland before Confederation.

The tour was less about traditional Newfoundland food and more about locally grown food prepared by local businesses. We sampled Freezies made from local Newfoundland berries, tasty fish tacos (that we will now be eating on a regular basis), single origin chocolate, as well as dishes made from local vegetables. There are normally 6 stops on the tour, but we were lucky enough to stop at 7 places as part of a trial run. We weren’t complaining, but we shouldn’t have stopped at Chafe’s Landing in Petty Harbour for lunch before the tour. The samples we ate throughout the tour were substantial enough to cover off at least one meal.

After a power nap back at the apartment, we went to hear spooky stories  as part of the Ghosts of Signal Hill show. It is presented by the same group that does the Haunted Hike around downtown St. John’s, but this ghost tour takes you to the former jail in the Queen’s Battery. This sit down show inside the small building was captivating and we were amazed by the quality of the performance. Plus, on the walk back down to the Visitor’s Centre, we had a great view of St. John’s at night.

The day ended with Petra getting Screeched In and successfully becoming an Honorary Newfoundlander! The rest of the weekend was spent hiking Signal Hill and the Torbay Point Trail, visiting Cape Spear and Petty Harbour, checking out local crafts in Quidi Vidi, and spending some time at Ocean Pond to end off the weekend. The weather wasn’t great, but we had a great weekend and at least it didn’t rain (until Monday morning)!
 
Here are a few more pictures from the Downtown Foodie Tour: