April 28, 2007
Chester Basin, NS
If you thought your neck of the woods was busy Saturday morning, you should've seen the parking lot of the Chester Basin Legion Hall! We were en route to a veterinarian appointment in the same town, so we thought we'd also stop by the Newfie Breakfast at the local legion hall. Sorry there aren't any pictures, I forgot my camera at home. :-(
To be honest, we were lucky to even find a spot to park, the lot was packed! A benefit ATV (4-wheeler) rally was being held the same morning for a local child who's undergoing some expensive medical treatments in Montreal. But really, I'm sure this happy group of 'off roaders' needs little excuse to gather and tear around the county on those noisy beasts of theirs.
The atmosphere inside the hall was chaotic to say the least. There was a small line forming, and we queued up dilligently. Some impatient fellow kept whining behind us, "this line's too long, why's it taking so long?" It wasn't that bad, I don't know what this guy's problem was...probably because he had a major 'hard-on' for going 'muddin'.
Once we got up to pay for the meal, we were presented with a rapid fire series of menu choices and options: "toast or biscuit? ham or fried bologna (thought they only gave that to prisoners...)? scrambled eggs? baked beans? pancakes? hash browns? fish cakes?" Phew, I felt full after just putting in my order! Volunteers scurried around the hall shrieking out numbers, "NUMBER 25?!! NUMBER 25??!!!" Fellow diners helped out occaisionally, pointing the desperate servers in the right direction.
As full as the hall was, there were plenty of seats available, tables were decked out with stiff, blue vinyl table cloths. Our food arrived suprisingly fast, and it was hot and hit the spot! The biscuits were tiny and yummy, the fish cakes and baked beans were my highlights of the meal. The baked beans were dark from the molasses and tender from hours of cooking. A couple of kids were scooted away from the stage where a nearby crock pot of beans was quietly simmering. Who knows how long they'd been cooking? Long enough to be delicious, that's for sure!
The tea was also great and actually distinguishable from the coffee, which isn't always the case at these functions. ^_^ We savoured our meal, the hall rapidly cleared out of ATV rally participants and all that remained were the locals and folks like us who stopped in for breakfast. If you happen to be in the area, they hold this breakfast on the 4th Saturday of every month and it is well worth the trip to Chester Basin, Nova Scotia!
