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Food

Local businesses offer sweets and treats at the Dartmouth Food Crawl

The food crawl wants to show what downtown Dartmouth has to offer

3 min read
caption Valentine's day cake pop's featured at last year's food crawl.
Bodega Boutique
caption Valentine’s Day cake pops were featured at last year’s food crawl.
Bodega Boutique

Food lovers are prowling the streets to fill their bellies Thursday evening during the 2017 Dartmouth Food Crawl.

The crawl is hosted by Bodega Boutique and includes 19 stops throughout downtown Dartmouth. At each location, participants are encouraged to purchase featured items for under $10 and dig in, before walking to their next destination.

“It’s an opportunity to introduce new people to our delicious food,” said Mike Toulany, owner of Jacob’s Lounge, the 10th stop on the crawl, as he prepared for the event.

Jacob’s is serving a new menu item that they are certain will impress crawlers – the “Buffalo Chicken Pizz-App.” The appetizer consists of pizza dough topped with chicken, drizzled with buffalo sauce and ranch dressing and cut into perfectly bite-sized squares.

Other foods at the event include sweet potato corn chowder and loaded mac n’ cheese.

Abby van der Jagt, an Ontario native now living in Dartmouth, said before the event that this would be her third food crawl and adds that these events are a great way to get comfortable with the downtown area. “It’s the perfect combination of eating and walking around so you don’t feel too guilty about eating so much.”
A map is provided to participants and features each business and the dish they will be serving, so that people can hop around from stop to stop tasting anything that piques their interest. “It’s really nice to have the map to hop around to places you may have never been before,” she says.

It’s not just restaurants who are getting in on the fun — some non-food, local hot-spots also host other Dartmouth businesses that aren’t usually based in the downtown area.

This is Trainyard General Store’s first time being a part of the Dartmouth Food Crawl. While the store typically sells the art products of local makers, rather than food, owners Kimberly Dares and Jason MacDonald say they are excited to host Pop Culture Brew and Made With Local who will be serving Kombucha and Dartmouth-made bars from their storefront.

“We love the downtown Dartmouth community and our neighbouring businesses, so for us this is another way to connect,” says Dares.

The treats available include everything from wings and beef wellington bites, to cannolis and Valentine’s Day cookies, with the hopes that participants can satisfy almost any food craving during their trek.

Music Nova Scotia country album of the year winner Jen Miller is performing at Humble Pie, a pie shop which uses local ingredients, which owner Shauna MacLean tells The Signal is to add to the “atmosphere and excitement” of the night.

Owners from several of the businesses involved in the crawl all had one comment in common — they are excited to be a part of something that encourages people to support local businesses.

The crawl, featuring the slogan “wear your stretchy pants” begins at 5 p.m. and ends when all of the treats have run out.

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