The Parrot's Pins
24 August 2011 | Lockeport, NS
Alex, sunny and blue skies
Tuesday morning bright blue skies greeted us as we sadly left Shelbourne and had a wonderful sail all the way into Lockeport, 4 hours later.
Not much to speak of in the town of Lockport, but it was a pretty entrance, with a huge breakaway built there. The Gull Marina boasted of a long couple of fingers, and no marina to be found... A liquor commission greeted us as soon as we walked off the dock, and an RCMP car, in front of the local diner (hmm, logical conclusion to that is that they must not have Tim's), ah the slow life n'est ce pas?
There was a Home Hardware, a very small grocery store where we got some staples (coffee cream and some chips), an artist's boutique (closed), a bunch of kids playing ball at the high school/elemntary school. We enquired at the diner about the marina, and she charged us $0.85/foot and we honestly wondered what would have happened had we not looked "as hard" as we did to pay our dues...
A nice walk through the two streets of town towards Crescent Beach, someone had told us that that was the beach on the old 50$ bill ?? Nice beach, very buggy though. Time of year perhaps ? Water was just as cold as everywhere else, in other words, FREEZING !
The best part was another evening meal out !! We'd heard that THE place to go was The Parrot's Pins and it sure was... a brief conversation with the owners, Keith and Shirley, in trying to arrange a reservation and they sagely suggested we come in at 7:30 as they had another table to prepare for 6:45 nd so we meandered in, had ourselves a little bottle of Penguin, and some giant mussels in dill cream sauce with homemade flax bread, delicious. Next up was the Lamp Chops with Blueberry mint sauce, and Turkey Saltimboca with Duck Prosciutto, both came with a bird's nest of crispy potatoes and the veggies were a beautiful combination (not only tasteful, but colourfl) of brussel sprouts, red peppers and caramelized onions, OMG," to die for".
Dave and I shared (you know we are officially married if Dave is sharing with me ha ha) and we couldn't figure out which one we liked better. Both were beautifully herbed, spiced and prepared with TLC, of that there was no doubt. I loved the fact that you could sit at your table, no matter where, and watch the cook, cook. It was fantastic, as you could truly see the love he put into each and every shake and plate.
We chatted with the owners way past closing who they themselves lived the cruising lifestyle for approx 6 years before settling in Lockeport and operating this restaurant (which was originally a candlepin bowling place, but as with all bowling places, it seems to have gone downhill). They had lots of stories to tell, having crossed the Pacific. We finally staggered out of there and made it back to our boat safe and sound in the pitch dark. What a wonderful visit !!