(As appeared in the Guardian Newspaper published in Prince Edward Island, July 18, 2008)

Well worth the drive to Georgetown

The word is getting out about the new owners — and the new meals — at the Georgetown Inn


Bob Gray, The Guardian


The Georgetown Inn is under new ownership and has stepped up its meal offerings to a very good level.


Dawn Sadoway and chef Joel Short have emigrated from Alberta and taken over the inn, which is a bed and breakfast just a block or so from the harbour in Georgetown, right on the street you drive in on from the Brudenell direction. It has a dining room open to guests and the general public.


The inn’s dining room seats about 25, and we were there midweek for supper to find it mostly full. Word has gotten around that something good is happening, and a number of people have already recommended it to me even though it has been open for dining only since the start of the summer season.


Short has put together an intriguing menu, loaded with local choices — which thankfully is all the rage these days — and makes a point of noting each food supplier from the Island (Taylor’s meats, Johnny Flynn’s oysters, etc).


The menu is even fun to read, as it’s written in a chatty style, with explanations of everything, and each entrée comes with its own wine recommendation. Even one of the wine suggestions is local (at least as the crow flies): a Jost cabernet sauvignon from across the strait in Malagash, N.S.


Our party of four rolled in for supper in famished mode, very similar, I expect, to a swarm of locusts hitting the fields in Biblical days. For appetizers, the group shared an order of lobster risotto balls with a grapefruit salad. That means that there was a fork war over the two good-sized risotto balls, while the poor grapefruit salad sat there safely undisturbed.


Not bad at all, with lots of lobster in the deep fried risotto balls. I also ordered the soup of the day, which was a chilled gazpacho. The tomato and vegetable mixture was tangy and delicious, as hoped for, but certainly could have been a bit colder — arriving almost at room temperature (of course the humidex was hovering near 40, so we’ll give them the benefit of the doubt).


Main courses were all over the map. Earlene was in a highly experimental mood and ordered ossu bucco, again with fresh risotto. For those of us whose Italian is a bit rusty, that would be slow roasted shank of lamb. She loved it, to the extent that there were no sharing offers for the first time this season. High praise indeed.


One of our friends had champagne poached salmon with a citrus cream sauce, and it was reported as excellent also. Another had the night’s pasta special, a seafood linguine (locally made pasta) which featured shrimp, scallops and mussels. I got to sample one of the perfect scallops. It was superb.


For some reason, I decided that the vegetarian special of the day would be a good decision — a mushroom linguine. It was vegetarian, but it wasn’t special. This one needs a little more work before it appears again, maybe with some fresh garden vegetables in among the chopped mushroom pieces.


One of the features of eating at the Georgetown Inn is that the chef wanders out of the kitchen periodically and checks in with each table. It’s a nice touch. Short answers questions about the food, has a chat and appears genuinely interested in people’s reaction to the food. It’s a great idea and not very common on P.E.I.


He also has some innovative things happening on weekends. Suppers on Friday and Saturday feature, in addition to the regular menu, a Prix Fixe Dinner, where you tell him what you don’t like and leave the rest to him. Sunday nights are home style — platters of food on the table from which you serve yourself.


For dessert, I had a wonderful bread pudding, hands down the best I’ve had this season (and I’ve had a lot — it’s one of my food groups). Very light, with lots of fruit, it had a delicious sweet rum sauce. I highly recommend it — it might be the best on the Island.


The others split a slice of red velvet cake — a bright red raspberry-based cake which looked kind of unnatural to me (whenever I briefly looked up from my serious work on the bread pudding) but apparently tasted heavenly.


The tab for two, including soft drinks, appetizers, main courses, desserts, tea and coffee and taxes, came to $65.84.


Sadoway and Short are doing a good job on the Inn, and it’s a quality place for a meal, albeit a work in progress. Restaurants in rural villages are sometimes recommended only if you happen to already be in the area, but I’d put the Georgetown Inn at a level above that — I think it’s worth the drive just to eat there.




Bob Gray is an enthusiastic eater who frequents P.E.I. restaurants with unrestrained gusto.