Has it been eight months already? Although I’ve never been one to consider an end of year review of my culinary adventures, James gnawed on my arm and said we should write one.

In no particular order, the highlights of what I’ve experienced had to be in consuming more cherry coke and gourmet burgers in the past two years than at any other time.

I still have to rank Connoisseur Catering a great place to hit for packed lunch meals and for opening my taste buds up to the delights of real tasty bison. The mushroom soup I tried from them on another visit was perfect. Which leads me to my still ongoing quest for fries done right and they can be bought locally.

While Kennebac potatoes do make a difference in taste from Red Fish Blue Fish, there’s more than just how they’re cut up and cooked up. There’s a distinction and if the waitress asks for how you like them, that’s a sign of a great diner that cares about its product.

There are three ways to serve them: kettle, fry and chip. Some places fry them up once and not every place double-dips to keep ’em nice and warm.

And there’s plenty of tastes to be found in a soda shop. It’s tough to beat Rogers’ Chocolate Soda Shoppe in that regard. While what I pay here is more than your average can of Cherry Coke bought at Fairway—yes, I’m addicted.

After my road trip and in comparing the tastes between the various ways to serve up my favourite berry, I found the canned product from the UK is a more superior product. My guess is that it’s manufactured using a different type of sugar than what’s found in the Stateside version. Mind you, it didn’t stop me from bringing home a sampler sized 12 pack of Cherry Dr. Pepper, 7-Up and Mountain Dew. If I was to rank which of the four cherry sodas are the best, my vote goes to Dr. Pepper.

But when soda isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, be careful in where you buy huckleberry tea bags. Some come from the same packing plant, and others have the distinction of being from a local operation. The stuff I bought from the tourist shops are pretty much the same type of ceylon tea, but if you can find it loose, there’s a difference that can be tasted. I found myself liking the Organic Huckleberry Red Herbal Tea by Revolution, which is more of a blended tea than pure huckleberry.

Sadly, with my stocks gone of both soda and tea, I’ll have to the States again very soon. En route, or as a side-trip, a revisit to Jake’s Crawfish Restaurant is in order. I haven’t been to enough seafood restaurants in town to give a high praise, but hopefully that’ll change in the new year.

About me
While my road trips have taken me far and wide on this side of the Pacific, from as east as West Edmonton Mall (Café Orleans for some great ‘gator, though I suspect they’re now gone); west as far as Shanghai (for some culinary adventures in my homeland) and southwards, my destinations have been nicely varied. I’ve gone as far down as Anaheim to another similarly named Café Orleans in Disneyland (I enjoyed the Pirates of the Carribean inspired meals there). But my best memory is still the Naked Fish in South Lake Tahoe for sushi. You can find a taste of Philly at Tony’s Cheesesteaks nearby!