Gaspé Trip: Day 3 & 4

On the third day of the Gaspé road trip, we had breakfast at our campsite and then drove to Gaspé to do a bit of grocery shopping. While in the grocery store, one of my uncles talked to a local resident and asked him where we should go for lunch.

The gentlemen recommended Dixie Lee, a fried chicken restaurant chain.

The kids wanted poutine. They just couldn’t wait for the better stuff later on. The crinkled fries were soggy without all the gravy. Whoever made this poutine was very generous with their salty gravy. It tasted powdered or canned to me. The cheese curds weren’t very squeaky between our teeth. My younger cousins loved it though. MT especially, but that's because she loves poutine.

Someone ordered fried clams. I didn’t even know it was seafood when I ate it, because I couldn’t taste anything but the breading. AU enjoyed them, but that’s probably because they were deep fried.

As soon as the bucket of chicken arrived at our table, everyone grabbed the dark meat.

I was left with the white meat. It was so dry that I needed to dunk every piece of chicken into the St. Hurbert-like dipping sauce. AU and I shared the plate and cleaned it.

After lunch, we drove back to the Forillon National Park and decided we’d go hiking. But as soon as we got to the start of the trail, dark clouds appeared. We changed our minds and ended up walking along the pebble beach.

The dark clouds disappeared and left an overcast sky. We discovered a few waterfalls near the trail.

Just when I wanted the overcast skies to stay put, the sun came through and lit the waterfalls beautifully. I could’ve spent the rest of the afternoon along the trail and on the pebble beach. It was so peaceful!

People started to get hungry, so we headed back to our campsite and made dinner; bacon-wrapped chicken tournedos, rotini, and a sauce made from a few cans of cream of mushroom soup. It tasted better than you think.

I guess it’s an Asian/Chinese/Cambodian thing, but some people needed to eat rice. No prob. We made some hot dogs and served it with rice.

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It was sunny and cool the next morning. I felt so refreshed and happy after my hot shower. It was free at the comfort station!

We made some hot dogs and toast over the campfire. Garlic bread, too. My aunt was so surprised when I said that I had never had garlic bread for breakfast. Have you had garlic bread for breakfast before?

My aunt made some eggs using the pan and portable gas stove.

My idea was making french toast for breakfast. Brilliant, huh? Why haven’t I thought of this before? It’s a perfect way of using baguettes when they're fresh or a day old. My aunt mixed a few eggs with sugar and a bit of water. She took the fresh slices of baguettes and lightly dipped them into the egg mixture. If the slices of fresh baguettes were left in the egg mixture for even a second, they'd get all soggy and gross. We enjoyed the beauties with syrup we had bought the previous day. I have a feeling that this will become part of our breakfast rotation while camping.

And of course, how can you have breakfast without some instant coffee? Crunch, crunch, crunch! Just kidding. We mixed it with hot water, sugar, and coffee whitener – of course.

We headed to Percé, Quebec, once we packed everything up and cleaned the campsites. On the way, we picked up more groceries in Gaspé.

Unfortunately, we got a bit lost and missed our next campsite. We ended up driving past the little tourist town of Percé and stopped at a picnic area for lunch.

Rotisserie chicken was on the menu. Yum!

This was my uncle’s plate. Starting from the top and going clockwise, he had sliced cucumbers, gapit pao, green coleslaw, St. Hubert coleslaw (it was in the grocery store *shrug*), rotisserie chicken, and steamed rice. That’s typical of our family when we go out on picnics.

We asked for directions and finally found our campsite – with my help, of course. We set up our campsites and then walked across the road to take a boat tour around Percé Rock and Bonaventure Island.

Percé Rock (top) and Bonaventure Island (bottom) were both amazing! Percé was a gorgeous town. You definitely have to visit if you get a chance! Trust me.

Behind the Bonaventure Island, there were over 200,000 birds that called the island home. Most of them were northern gannets.

These two northern gannets had just come up from the waters. They began to fly up into the skies, where they dove back down to catch some fish. It was amazing to watch!

Some people were hungry after the boat ride, so we headed to a small restaurant that, I thought at the time, served the best poutine. I remember I had tasted the best poutine when I was last in Percé. The gravy tasted like a pot roast gravy – very meaty and rich – and the cheese curds were cold and squeaky.

This was a let down. They must've made the gravy from scratch last time. Maybe we were just lucky. This poutine was still better than the one we had at Dixie Lee, but it didn’t come close to what I had thought it would taste. That’s what I get for having expectations. Do I never learn?

My uncle ordered the poutine with hot dogs. It was an extra $3. I didn’t think it was worth it.

Anyway, we had thought of having dinner there but some people, who shall not be named, didn’t want to pay for seafood. Come on, you can’t expect fresh seafood to be cheap – especially in a tourist town like Percé. That’s all I have to say about that. (On a side note, Dad still says that he had the best fish and chips here. I guess we need to come back. Heheee!)

Since our snack wasn’t very light, we walked down the highway and just took in all the sights and sounds. We debated over what to have for dinner. One person wanted lobster, another person wanted lap (a Cambodian dish that I’ll blog about later), and someone else wanted to eat rice. Combine it all together and the plan was to have lobster lap with rice. I jokingly told my aunt that if that was dinner, I’ll go have pizza because I’m picky like that. That would’ve made those three people happy, but no one wanted to put in any effort to make it.

Instead, we walked back down the street and bought two large pepperoni pizzas for dinner from the Resto Village. The place was packed when we returned. In fact, there was a small line up. We didn't feel like waiting around, and since our campsite was nearby, we got the pizzas to go.

It looked like all the families eating their pizza on the patio were enjoying themselves. The smell coming off of the pizzas on their tables was unbelievable! I knew these pizzas would be decent. The pepperoni were curled and crisp. If the pizzas didn't taste that great, at least I could enjoy the yummy pepperoni.

Hold onto your pants pizza lovers...

There was so much pepperoni on the pizza. It weighed down the bottom crust. Actually, the bottom crust was super thin and couldn’t even hold up if it was a plain cheese pizza. I'd be very happy if I had this pizza parlour nearby. The crispy crust protected the fluffy pizza dough. Quite tasty.

In the end, everyone was pretty happy. My uncle joked that it was the best pizza he’s ever had while camping. We never have pizza when we go camping.

There was a very happy feeling in the air after dinner. It was the first time that I felt that everyone was enjoying the road trip. People were laughing, enjoying games of bocce, and happily digesting food by the fire pit. It all worked out in the end.