Cabot Links Opens

[Don Hyslop]

There is a seafood industry and although not as large as in the past still is important to many. Saltwater fish like haddock, mackeral and halibut are important but the most important catch from the sea I believe is lobster.
Along route 19 from the Canso Causeway to Inverness you will know you are in an area with deep Scottish roots and the fiddle and bagpipe still rule the roost at the local gatherings. The fact that all town names on the Island also have their Gaelic names on the signposts add to the sense of things Scottish.

[Greg Beaulieu]

Is there a robust local seafood industry?  Do they have a local style of favorite, most prevalent fish cuisine? 

Or is it really Celtic,; ai dee diddeley dai dee day... podatoes! 

A bit of both, I'd say.

In the video noted above, the pub where the step-dancing and fiddle playing happens is The Red Shoe, just up the road a bit in Mabou. Here is a review of their food from earlier in the week:

If you can’t enjoy yourself at the Red Shoe Pub, you might as well just stay home.

I thought I was in a commercial for Cape Breton tourism when we stopped in on Sunday at the Mabou pub, owned by the Rankin sisters. The 100-seat pub was packed and people were lined up out the door and down the steps for the weekly ceilidh, and a fiddler, piano player and a guy playing the spoons had the whole place clapping and cheering.

When we got a seat at the bar while we waited for a table, a young woman stood up and started step-dancing next to the piano. She got a big round of applause, and when she sat down I asked her how often she worked here, expecting her to tell me she was Mary Kate Morrison from Orangedale, or something like that. Turns out she was from Quebec and was waiting for a table, like us.

Customers spontaneously getting up to step dance! That’s how much fun the Red Shoe is. It’s a grand time, as they say.

The Red Shoe has a lot of character, and one of the people in our party speculated that three older guys at the next table, drinking Oland’s from the bottle and making observations, had been placed there to add local flavour for the tourists, but he was just kidding.

Besides, there’s plenty of colour here. The old hardwood floor is scuffed from people tapping their feet, black and white photos of local scenes decorate the walls, along with a long sign from Beaton’s clothing store, one of the building’s previous incarnations.

While we waited for someone to leave, I had a chance to check out the food coming out of the kitchen, carried by busy waitresses all wearing red shoes. The fish and chips, wings and wide bowls of chowder looked especially good.

Three of us had just finished a very onerous day of work, and we split a pitcher of Propeller Pilsner, which was very fresh, very cold and very quickly gone. Our server, the charming Katelyn, is at the Red Shoe for her fifth summer and knows what she’s doing, so we followed her advice.

My appetizer was one of the specials, a fish cake made with haddock and halibut, and topped with a corn and black bean salsa. The salsa added a level of spice I don’t normally associate with fish, but the cake had a wonderfully crisp crust, and a side salad included tomatoes that couldn’t have been picked more than 24 hours previously. An excellent start.

My colleague Jayson was just as pleased with his Mabou seafood chowder, made with big chunks of seafood and potatoes, and was especially impressed with the biscuit that came with the chowder, which he placed on a plane with those made by his wife, which are apparently the best in the world.

The biscuits at the Red Shoe are made with chunks of chilled butter, and are flaky and delicious.

The chowder is also dotted with house-made leek oil, and when a kitchen goes to the lengths of making their own flavoured oils, you know care is being taken with your food.

Being of delicate appetite, I had a second appetizer for my main, the BBQ pork fries, sweet potato fries topped with slow-cooked pulled pork, cheddar curds and a little pickled coleslaw. Not complex, but delicious.

Katelyn’s recommendation of the thick cut pork chop was bang on. If this big piece of pork had been cooked 30 seconds less, it would have been underdone, but it was perfect, tender and full of flavour, made even better by a topping of whisky apple chutney.

She also recommend the chicken pot pie, which is sort of open-faced, made with herbed chicken and served in a flaky pastry bowl, with lots of gravy. Not exactly hot weather food, to my mind, but very good.

We ran out of time for dessert, so went back the next night, having been told the gingerbread was worth it. Fresh ginger is put through a juicer to intensify its flavour in this dish, which is served with ice cream and a rum butterscotch sauce, and it is certainly very gingery.

I liked a strawberry galette even better, but the fresh berries are coming to an end. On that second visit, we made, in retrospect, the unwise decision to have dessert, then a bunch of wings, then another dessert. I think the spoons player was a bad influence on me.

Over two nights at the Shoe, I spent about $100, but lots of that was in beer and rum. The most expensive thing on the menu is $18.

I was impressed that the Rankin sisters have insisted on such high-quality food, when their fame would have made it easy to just serve over-priced fish and chips to tourists. Raylene Rankin was having supper in the pub with her family on the night we were there, and went out of her way to strike up a conversation with a family from Ottawa.

As my Cape Breton mother-in-law would say, Raylene’s a "beautyfull" person. And the Red Shoe Pub is a "beautyfull" place to eat.

( bspurr@herald.ca)

Bill Spurr is a features writer at The Chronicle Herald.

http://www.thechronicleherald.ca/ArtsLife/1254353.html


Lobster is the top-dollar item, but my favorite are the scallops. And the oysters. And the mussels...

[Don Hyslop]

There is no doubt that the Red Shoe Pub is a great place to eat and enjoy fine traditional music. You can check out their website:
http://www.redshoepub.com/index.htm  It is approx 22 km from Inverness. On the other hand there are several eateries within the town of Inverness. Not too fancy but good grub.
The nearby Glenora Inn, the home of North America's only single malt whiskey offers a good place to eat as well as some rooms.


http://www.glenoradistillery.com/

[David_Tepper]

"The nearby Glenora Inn, the home of North America's only single malt whiskey offers a good place to eat as well as some rooms."

Don Hyslop -

At the risk of hijacking this thread, I do not believe your assertion about Glenora Distillery making the only single-malt whisky in North America is correct. I know St. George Spirits in Alameda, CA has been making a single-malt whisky (and other potions as well) for more than a decade.

http://www.stgeorgespirits.com/st-george-single-malt/

P.S. The Glenora website describes their single-malt as the first made in North America (not the only ).

DT
 

[Gary Slatter]

Great video....Kudos to Ben and everyone involved......Why the "barber poles" in the fairways?....In my humble opinion this detracts from the authentic links concept.

it's evolution, as a public course the markers tend to help people without local knowledge

[RJ_Daley]

The 100-seat pub was packed and people were lined up out the door and down the steps for the weekly ceilidh, and a fiddler, piano player and a guy playing the spoons had the whole place clapping and cheering.

That sounds just like the Sunday 'Fais do do' at Mulate's in NOLA.  Well I guess those Cajuns did come from those Arcadians originating from this neck of the woods...   

I am strangely allergic to lobster, but oddly and fortunately enough, I can go after everything else mentioned in that write-up.  Take note of this thread, McBride.  I'll give you your rematch from Longshadow.  Loser picks up the the pub and grub stub! 

[Don Hyslop]

Thanks David for the correction. Here is an interesting little video on the course and the town of Inverness. Even some scenes from the Red Shoe.


http://thechronicleherald.ca/Travel/1254732.html

[Ronald Montesano]

David and Don,

News travels slowly from Alameda to Inverness, I guess.

Salud

[Greg Beaulieu]

The view from the dining room in the clubhouse - that is the 18th green seen through the windows in the background.



Edit: I cannot get the image to load inline. Here is the direct URL:

http://yfrog.com/h2gp4ahj

[Bill_McBride]

"Why the "barber poles" in the fairways?....In my humble opinion this detracts from the authentic links concept."

Andy Sills -

Barber poles are not at all uncommon on the links courses I have played, especially on holes with blind shots.

DT

Blind holes are the only places I have seen marker posts.  The lovely Elie has four or five.

[Matt_Cohn]

For the record is it CAB-o or CAB-ut? Or ca-BOT? Or ca-BO?

[Will MacEwen]

I would say CAB-ut. 

[Kalen Braley]

From Dictionary.com

Cab·ot   [kab-uht]

[Guy Nicholson]

Like rabbit.

[Greg Tallman]

I thought the T was silent? 

[henrye]

While many are likely already aware, Cabot comes from John Cabot, the explorer for England, who was actually an Italian by nationality.  His proper name was Zuan (Giovanni) Cabotto, as in "Cab-Auto".

[Eric Smith]

Like where Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury) lived in Murder She Wrote.

[Kalen Braley]

Like where Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury) lived in Murder She Wrote.

Except that Cabot Cove was in Maine, not Canada eh!

P.S.  Who would ever want to live there anyways.  For such a small town, it sure had a massive number of peeps dying.  I'll bet the murder rate in Cabot Cove was worse than New York City!! 

[Peter Pallotta]

ha ha - I could never watch that show, Kalen, on account of the fact that Landsbury had played the scheming-wasp-communist-tyrant mother-turncoat in "The Manchurian Candidate", and so I could never trust her gentle (yet annoyingly insistent) Jessica Fletcher routine. Sort of like Grandpa on "The Waltons"...

[Kalen Braley]

ha ha - I could never watch that show, Kalen, on account of the fact that Landsbury had played the scheming-wasp-communist-tyrant mother-turncoat in "The Manchurian Candidate", and so I could never trust her gentle (yet annoyingly insistent) Jessica Fletcher routine. Sort of like Grandpa on "The Waltons"...

My mother was a huge fan of hers...so back then, only having one TV in the house, we watched it or went to our room.   

It wasn't spoiled for me because Murder She Wrote was my 1st exposure to Angela Landsbury.

Even back then as a young teenager, I remember asking my Mom, "Why would anyone ever want to live there when so many people die all the time"

[Eric Smith]

ha ha - I could never watch that show, Kalen, on account of the fact that Landsbury had played the scheming-wasp-communist-tyrant mother-turncoat in "The Manchurian Candidate", and so I could never trust her gentle (yet annoyingly insistent) Jessica Fletcher routine. Sort of like Grandpa on "The Waltons"...

You shoud've seen her in Bedknobs and Broomsticks! A real witch she was. Flew on her broom even!

[Tim Martin]

ha ha - I could never watch that show, Kalen, on account of the fact that Landsbury had played the scheming-wasp-communist-tyrant mother-turncoat in "The Manchurian Candidate", and so I could never trust her gentle (yet annoyingly insistent) Jessica Fletcher routine. Sort of like Grandpa on "The Waltons"...

PP-I never trusted Grandpa Walton either. You have to figure he spent most of his life trying to get even for being named Zebulon.

[Adam Clayman]

Peter, That's fascinating. I figured out that when an actor made me hate them, they did their job very well.

[Don Hyslop]

Just to get back on course so to speak, heard Mike Keiser being interviewed last Friday on CBC Radio Cape Breton. You can listen to the interviewwhere:
http://www.cbc.ca/informationmorningcb/2011/07/21/cabot-links/

It is interesting that he talks of a new Motel/hotel being ready for next summer.

Also if  you are in the area this weekend, nearby is the 55th Annual Broad Cove Scottish Concert feauturing some of North America's top traditional performers.
I did not have a camera with me when I played last Saturday, hoping someone did and can post some pictures. All I can offer is a word description of the 10 holes that are part of the course preview. I will do that shortly.

[Adam Clayman]

Don, I'm most interested in hearing about the 2nd hole. Before completion, it looked like one of the best par 5's built since BN's 8th. 

Reminiscent of the 6th at Pebble Beach with it's gateway aspect to the meat of the course.