Over the course of our trip, whenever anyone asks us about Canadian food, we are always at a bit of a loss on what really constitutes Canadian food? Sushi pizza? We are a country of immigrants that eat fusion so often we have no idea where it actually came from!
So at the beginning of our trip we asked people to help us with Canadian dishes….buttertarts, Nanaimo bars, poutine, tourtiere, maple syrup, peameal bacon to name a few. We tried to think which one would be easy to make/transport as we travelled the world. We decided on the Nanaimo bar and were given a fabulous recipe from our neighbour Gail Lawlor who makes them every Christmas – they are delicious!
Whenever we stayed with people we always made them Nanaimo bars as a dessert from Canada. Now that we have actually arrived in Nanaimo, British Columbia we were amazed to see how this town actually has a Nanaimo Trail! There is the classic/traditional recipe that Mikhaila has shared in her post. But the town has really pushed it and innovated the classic recipe. There are over 30 different places on the Nanaimo Trail where you can try different versions of the bar. All of them of course, claim to be the best!
Of course since this has been our signature dessert, we thought we should try some of the different types.
We had a long ferry ride back from Nanaimo to Vancouver, so we thought it would be the perfect way to spend our ride….taste testing and sharing our results. We raced around town to find a variety of samples and came away with quite an assortment.
We decided to critique them on the base/crust, the custard, the topping, overall appearance, overall taste, and value for the dollar.
Contestant #1 was from Smokin’ George’s BBQ who made their Nanaimo bar with a maple bacon topping and dulche de leche.
Contestant #2 was from Power House Living Foods which was an organic/vegan/raw and gluten free piece of Nanaimo pie.
Contestant #3 was Pirate Chips where they coat the bar in a crispy cinnamon batter and deep fry it.
Contestant #4 was a Nanaimo milkshake from the Living Forest Café (a campground). They make their shakes with Nanaimo ice cream, chocolate milk and traditional Nanaimo bars from Costco all blended together.
Contestant #5 were spring rolls from the Thai Restaurant Noodlebox. The rolls were filled with chocolate and a coconut cream custard was given for dipping sauce.
Contestant #6 was a traditional bar from a generic coffee house called Perkins.
Well, after tasting all 6 – we were pretty full of Nanaimo – in fact, we don’t think we will every eat another one again! But here are our results……
#6 – organic/vegan/raw and gluten free piece of Nanaimo pie….none of us liked the taste at all! Plus it was the most expensive at $10 a slice!! Mikhaila also made the comment – that if it was made of all these types of natural vegan and raw ingredients, how could it taste good? I tend to agree, but at the same time, if you have celiac and cannot eat the other versions…at least you can be part of the group!
#5 – Pirate Chips Deep Fry – Too greasy and too expensive ($6). Zoe liked it…but the rest of us took a pass as it was saturated with oil.
#4 – Spring Rolls – Although a neat idea and great presentation….the rolls were greasy and there was no contrasting Nanaimo flavours, even with the coconut cream dipping sauce.
#3 – Smoking George’s Maple bacon – this was an interesting idea and best value out of all of them ($2.75)….but we found it too sweet! You don’t need to add the dulche de leche to this already sweet recipe and we couldn’t really taste the saltiness of the bacon.
#2 – Perkin’s Traditional – You can’t mess up the traditional recipe…but we all agreed, our recipe is better!
#1 – The milkshake from the campground was the overwhelming winner in our group…how could you go wrong with all this yumminess mixed together:) We will try to see if we can make this at home….only once a year though!
Our Nanaimo Trail taste testing made our ferry ride a fun one and one that we will never forget! But we all feel that Canada needs some more “Canadian foods” that we can call our own.
Any ideas???
We now say goodbye/au revoir to Canada as we head further down the West Coast to Los Angeles and then onto South America for the last leg of our trip.
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