Best Restaurant of the Townships: Fulford's La Petite Table Nippone

The amazing La Petite Table Nippone in Fulford has been voted the best restaurant of the Eastern Townships in the first-ever readers' survey of the Best of the Eastern Townships blog. This rustic little hideaway on a back road between Bromont and Foster is probably the cutest sushi spot in Quebec. Apart from delicious, fresh sushi, the chef makes his own samurai swords. How authentic is that. He and his wife are one of the sweetest couples you'll ever meet in charge of a restaurant and are very kid-friendly on top of everything else. (The chef served our kids butterfly-shaped carrots!) They also cater. Address: 256 Fulford Rd., Fulford, tel.: 450-539-4480, website: Sushi-Traiteur.qc.ca.

Second prize goes to Le Relais in Knowlton. Located in a 150-year-old building that houses the oldest continually operating hotel in the Townships, Le Relais focuses on local ingredients (including Brome Lake duck) and is a favourite of locals especially for its weekly specials, which offer some of the best restaurant deals in the region. Address: 286 chemin Knowlton, Knowlton, tel.: 450-242-2232, website: AubergeKnowlton.ca.

Congratulations to the winners, and many thanks to everyone who voted.

Honourable mentions go to:

- The remarkably excellent Royaume du Steak, one of the best steak houses in Quebec. As good as Moishe's, Montreal's finest steak place, but half the price. Go now. The caribou medallions make me crazy. Address: 300 rue Lewis, Waterloo, tel.: 450-539-0811.

- Restaurant Shalimar of Lennoxville, the Townships' only Indian restaurant. Address: 263 rue Queen, Lennoxville, tel.: 819-823-9683, website.

- The delectable Café Massawippi of North Hatley. Try the insanely good foie gras and surprising yellow wine. Address: 3050 rue Capelton, North Hatley, website: CafeMassawippi.com.

- Sutton's Bistro Beaux Lieux. Laid-back Suttonesque gastronomie. Address: 19 rue Principale Nord, Sutton, tel.: 450-538-1444, website: BistroBeauxLieux.com.

- Bistro Olaf of Cowansville. Address: 1105 rue Sud, Cowansville, tel.: 450-260-1105.

Be sure to check my Eats & Drinks listings page for reviews of all of these and many other tasty Townships restos. (Scroll down to my "Restaurants" post.) Your comments and suggestions are welcome!

VOTE OFTEN: Help the kids of Lac Brome get a skatepark. They are applying to Fonds Communautaire Aviva for $10,000 to 50,000 in funds for a skatepark in town - and they need your vote. Please go to Aviva's website, and vote for this great initiative by our young people. The more votes they get, the better their chances. Please take 20 seconds to support them! You can vote again each day - so vote often!

NOTE TO VISITORS TO THIS SITE (YEAH, YOU!): This site (and the listings linked to the right) rely a lot on your contributions and ideas. Please comment on any places mentioned in my listings and share your suggestions for new ones. I'd also love to hear from you on other "Best of the Townships" spots to check out and include (restaurants, bars, farms, spas, B&Bs, stores, services, events, etc.)

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What Could It Be! Mystery Dino Find Has West Bolton Abuzz


My top-secret West Bolton correspondent, Shannon Brown, writes about an amazing paleontological discovery that, I am sure, has all of West Bolton abuzz.

Are those mountain folk on drugs? Look at the photos and see what you think.

Shannon in her own words:

"Our neighbours built a road recently across from us and look what was unearthed... What could it be?

"Thought you might like to post it on your site?

"We're charging $2 a pop to come see it, and I think it might just pay for our beer quota this summer. Ha! Just kidding.

"But check it out - we love it..."

I think we have a winner for Best of the Eastern Townships dino. A special prize (I will pay your $2 entry fee to see it) to the first person to identify what this critter is. And an honourary mention to whoever comes up with the best name for the BOTET dino. (Other than "Botet.")

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Discover the Townships: An Insider's Guide

Thanks to documentary maker Albert Nerenberg for this stunner of a shot of a heart-shaped lake near his home in the Glen, with Owl's Head looming behind.

When my wife Rhonda and I moved with our little girls to the charming village of Knowlton in Quebec's picturesque Eastern Townships, we looked forward to discovering this historic and beautiful region (see road map here). But we were surprised at how hard it was to find many of the gems it has to offer.

Where can we find elk sausages or a good super-fresh cheese? Who sells the best, reasonably priced organic veggies? What's the best spa to recommend to visiting friends? What about a cool mountain stream to take a dip in or a shop for kids' clothes? Where do the locals go?

Amazingly, there doesn't seem to be a resource that lists the best food and drink, lodgings or spas, winter and summer attractions or shopping and services, whether for locals or tourists. It was up to us to find these secret spots.

We turned into detectives as we talked to our new friends and scoured the internet and country backroads looking for those insider locales only the locals know about. We sometimes found even they don't know of some of the greatest secrets of this remarkable region.

One of Quebec's Prettiest Regions

Sure, there are some tourism resources that offer lists of some of these things, but nothing like the insider's guide we were looking for.

That's a shame because the Townships is an amazing place full of spectacular scenery, friendly people, historic sites and fascinating, little-known finds - everything from out-of-the-way vineyards to stunning vistas. So I decided to create the resource we were looking for ourselves.

There's so much to discover in the Townships it'd take us years to track down all its best treasures. Being somewhat lazy people, we also figured a blog would help us learn more about our new home from readers and to share our finds.

This isn't meant as a comprehensive listing (click here for a map of all the places mentioned on this site) but instead a collection of places and attractions we enjoy or value enough to share with you (complete with our highly subjective ratings and those of our friends, neighbours, readers of this blog and the usual whacky guys at the pub). We'll also include a few of the places we didn't like and why. Think of it as a budding insider's guide to one of Canada's most beautiful regions.

This site is still at a beginning phase; we'll update it as we learn more. We'd also like to do a "Best of the Townships" poll, so stay tuned. We invite you to share your discoveries, comments about places and events listed here or not, your ratings, photos and suggestions for this site.

Please let me know if you have any association with the listings you send. We want to keep this site as objective as possible. You can reach me by adding a comment to a post on this website or by emailing me at aroslin1@yahoo.ca.

TAGS: Eastern Townships, Quebec tourism, Knowlton, Sutton, Bromont, Magog, Lac Brome, organic food, gastronomic, shop, food, wine, maple, farm, vineyard, spa, inn, skiing

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