The first day of our trip started by taking the GO train to St. Catharines where we would have lunch at Fat Rabbit. I have been following the restaurant on Instagram for some time and drooling over the photos, so even though we were returning to St. Catherines 2 days later and having dinner at Fat Rabbit, I still wanted to have lunch there as the menu looked so good. We walked to the restaurant from the train station and had a quick look around St. Catharines as neither of us had been there before, other than passing through on our way to Niagara on the Lake for another hiking trip. There seemed to be a lot of cute restaurants and shops and we were excited to return in a couple of days.
At Fat Rabbit I had the best breakfast sandwich ever, and Jon had a burger. It was a great start to a day that wouldn’t involve much hiking, but would still involve quite a lot of walking. The day was very hot and we had some time to kill before our hotel in Crystal Beach would be ready, so we walked back to the area near the train station to visit Cold Break Brewing. The cold beer was appreciated in the extreme heat of the day. We played a game of our go-to game, Five Crowns, and by the time we were done, it was time to take an Uber to Crystal Beach.
In Crystal Beach we were staying at the Hotel Philco in their Garden Room. The room exceeded all expectations and was super cute and comfortable. We dropped off our bags and unpacked a bit before heading out for a walk around the town. The first order of business was of course heading down to the beach!
While this picture doesn’t show it, the beach was actually quite busy, despite the fact that storm clouds were rolling in. We were only able to spend about an hour walking the beach and the surrounding area before a downpour sent us to South Coast Cookhouse for a complimentary beverage care of Hotel Philco. The restaurant/bar was super cute and the customer service was awesome and we would recommend it as a place to go for a bevvy!
When the rain stopped we went back out for a quick walk around town before heading to Rizzo’s House of Parm for dinner.
Rizzo’s played a factor in our decision to start our walking journey in Crystal Beach, as did the easy access to The Friendship Trail to Port Colborne. We were excited to try the Chef’s Menu and let the team at Rizzo’s decide which dishes we should try.
We were seated at the bar at Rizzo’s and it is the perfect spot to enjoy a meal. The restaurant is very busy and has a great atmosphere that we immediately felt comfortable in. We each started off with an Aperol Spritz and placed our order for food. As two people sharing the menu, we could choose one of the available parm options and we went with eggplant.
The meal was coursed out so that we got appetizers first (focaccia, salad and mozzarella sticks) followed by mains and sides (eggplant parm with side spaghetti, penne a la vodka, rapini and potatoes) followed by dessert (tiramisu.) If that sounds like a lot of food, it was, but it was all delicious and we were happy to take the leftovers home to have for breakfast the following day. I wish I had more photos of the food, but I prefer to eat it rather than document it so this one picture will have to do.
After dinner we walked back to our hotel and rested up for our first day of hiking!
