After a long day at work yesterday and it being warm enough to want to take a drive to get dinner, we decided to check out a place friends and family had told us about several times. So we took the drive out to Erieville to the Blue Canoe Grill. There’s something about hole-in-the-wall, off-the-beaten-path local places that makes them a strange mixture of generic and unique at the same time. The Blue Canoe Grill seems like a generic tavern/pub/restaurant/diner, but for us it was a completely hidden gem.
Every single person we interacted with inside the Blue Canoe, from staff to the locals and regulars we didn’t meet but were sitting near us, were so happy and pleasant. The staff were so upbeat and the place was almost packed, so everyone was busy and there was a lot going on at once. Without a reservation, we were seeted immediately as we seemed to get there right before several parties walked in at once. We had a bit of a wait before our server was able to stop and get drink and food orders but it was understandable with how many tables all seemed to be either packing up to leave or getting their food all at once.
We started off with the potato and cheese pierogis, which the menu states are made at a local Polish deli. The pierogi were cooked great and clearly handmade with the dough varying in thickness between pierogi, but they could have used a touch of seasoning while cooking. A quick dash of table salt and pepper solved the issue but they were still very good.
For her entrée, Chelsea got the Southern Fried Chicken dinner (breaded bone-in breast, thigh, wing and drum), which came with mashed potatoes and gravy. The mashed potatoes left a lot to be desired and once again needed some seasoning or butter even with the delicious brown gravy, but the chicken was out of this world. The chicken was very well marinated in buttermilk and seasoning and was perfectly breaded and crispy. Juicy, flavorful, crunchy, it was absolutely flawless chicken.
I got the Fried Haddock Dinner, which came with french fries, coleslaw and house-made tartar sauce. The fries followed suit with the mashed potatoes in that they needed some seasoning, but they were fine. The coleslaw was sweet and was made with finely chopped cabbage instead of julienned, and had a really gentle flavor compared to the overpowering dressing some places use. The tartar was divine and had a lot of sweet relish and wasn’t tart at all. It went perfectly with the haddock, which was cooked flawlessly and had a really nice and crunchy breading. The haddock was massive and clearly fresh, not a frozen and fried Filet.
For dessert, Chelsea heard the words “tart cherry pie” and nothing else existed on the dessert list. The pie, offered warm or cold, was insane. We went with warmed and it came out just gently heated which was perfect. The crust was buttery and smooth and just ever-so-lightly flaky and perfectly cooked. The pie filling was tart but not sour and the cherries were delicious.
Overall, dinner was well worth the drive. Would we drive out there just to get dinner again? Maybe. It was an hour from our house, but the food was a solid 9/10 with the only detractors being the lack of seasoning on the potatoes all-around. During the summer it would be a lovely drive with the windows down to go get a great meal, but the only thing that would stop us is that hour to get there. Great food, extremely friendly staff and patrons, be prepared to use a touch of salt on some things, get the cherry pie if they have it.
