The Trailside, Music Cafe & Inn

Went with family and friends to hear Kevin Kane (Grapes of Wrath) and Brian Potvin (Northern Pikes) in their duo adventure. Enjoyed them last year when Loyal Thieves opened. This year the opener was The Royal North. They did a stand up job with a reduced acoustic set. Thoroughly enjoyed the entire evening. The food was good. Mussels were awesome. Great service.

Saw this place on Instagram. Went for Sunday Brunch with live Gospel (restaurant only, did not stay at the Inn, but it looked really cool). Just awesome. Seemed like lots of locals there, plus a few tourists like us. Canadian hospitality is unbelievable. Being from the South (US), great live music (Gospel, no less), great breakfasts, good hospitality on a Sunday morning is not something I necessarily expected to find on PEI, but boy, was I pleasantly surprised. This was a highlight of our trip. When you go, plan a little time to walk up the Confederation Trail just behind the Inn to the water.While we went on a Sunday morning, pretty sure any time you go would be a great time. So Good!

Good food, good music. Safer to have a reservation. Not sure where all those people came from in such a small little hamlet.

Based on reviews I had read and looking at the lunch menu on-line, I decided to give the Trailside a try. First, the good: it's a neat, eclectic restaurant in a heritage building in the town of Mt Stewart. I've heard good things about it as a music venue and can see that the bright, airy room with the band situated in front of large windows would make for a great experience. Decor is a mish mash of tables and chairs with wide plank flooring which adds to the charm of the building. Now, the bad: the lunch menu was limited. I get it - serve a smaller number of great items, keep food cost down and focus on quality. The key? Focus on quality. I had the seafood chowder to start which was decent but nothing to write home about. One of the mussels in the bowl was not fully cooked but that can happen. And the flat bread/pita bread it was served with was dry and stale. Oh well. Then the mains arrived - halibut fish tacos and salad for me and spinach quiche and salad for my companion. Both were kind of blah and weren't something that anyone would have cooked up if they'd simply looked for a good recipe on line and followed the directions. Not terrible food but not worth paying for. Salad was a nice colection of greens but the dressing lacked flavour. Then we had dessert - strawberry rhubarb pie which again, was just kind of blah and coconut cheese cake. I had high hopes for this as I had never had coconut cheese cake before. I thought maybe the coconut flavour might be added to the cheesecake. It wasn't. The cheese cake had fallen. It was tough and tasted like someone had just softened some cream cheese and then baked it. The coconut was sprinkled on top of the whipped cream and there was coconut in the crust. I am a dessert person and I ended up eating the whipped cream and leaving half the cake. Disappointing. Overall, I'd say unless you're going to see some live music at a dinner show, don't waste your money until the cooks learn how to cook. Hint - look up a menu on-line and try it out. Decent cooking is easy if you just follow the directions.

This is an overrated place. The only thing good about it would be the performers they have there once in a while. Poor kitchen and worse (and racist) service on the island