A Non-traditional Thanksgiving

We took off from the Chicago area, late afternoon on Wednesday heading for Detroit to visit family for Thanksgiving. The sun was already setting as we put the Chicago skyline behind us and the roads were packed with holiday travelers as expected. An uneventful drive saw us pull up to our family's house about ten o'clock. We sat up talking around the kitchen table until about midnight when we all decided to call in an evening.

Sleeping in instead of catching the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade was the choice of everyone in the house, but we did have a fun-filled, busy weekend ahead of us. For Thanksgiving we decided to have a non-traditional, Asian lunch at one of our favorite places in the Detroit area, Hong Hua.

Hong Hua is an authentic Chinese restaurant where we go to enjoy the best Peking Duck in Michigan, at least according to our family who lives there. To be transparent, I haven't sampled all of the duck dishes across the state of Michigan, but I can confidently say that it is my favorite Peking Duck out of all the ones I've ever tried. We always get the special order of duck, prepared into either two or three dishes. This time, we decided on the two-dish option which included the crispy, honey-glazed duck. It was sliced tableside and served with soft Chinese crepes, pickled daikon, scallions, and Hoi-Sen sauce. The remaining meat, we had prepared into Duck Taro Rice, which may or may not be the official name of the dish. We usually heavily rely on my wife's mother to translate Mandarin, so it may have an alternate English name. The dish itself is a cheesy, rice casserole with a hint of sweetness from the taro and covered in cheese, which seems weird for Chinese cuisine, but trust me it works and is delicious. Since it was Thanksgiving, we went all out and also had lobster fried rice and some abalone with rice noodles and xo sauce, both were daily specials which we found to be tasty and excellently prepared.

Although we all ate Chinese food until we were about to pop, we somehow were able to squeeze in a little turkey and ham with traditional sides for Thanksgiving dinner. While slipping into a mild food coma, we enjoyed watching football before calling it a night.

Friday morning, we got up early and took off for my first visit to Canada and Niagara Falls. We drove about an hour north of Detroit to the Sarnia border crossing, where we quickly passed through the check point. After a stop for coffee and to change the car settings over to metric, we were on our way across Ontario. Traveling east along the 402, 401, & 403 we made our way to Hamilton before turning southeast and following Queen Elizabeth Way along the coast of Lake Ontario down to Niagara Falls.

As we neared our destination, we came to the realization that the monstrous blizzard that dropped nearly six feet of snow in the area earlier in the week was mostly melted in the mid-40 degree temperatures. Making a spur of the moment decision, we decided to cross the border back into the U.S. in search of the origin of the Buffalo wing. After a little research, we concluded that the consensus of the people of Buffalo was the origin of the first Buffalo Wing was Anchor Bar. We stopped by for lunch to give it a try. What we found was a surprisingly large dive bar covered in license plates, motorcycles, and Buffalo sports memorabilia. We wandered inside to catch some of the Black Friday early window college football games while we grabbed some wings.

We sat down and were quickly enjoying perfectly crispy wings with creamy ranch and crunchy celery. After devouring a twenty count of hot and chipotle BBQ wings, we decided we better mosey on back across the border to Canada, but en route we found ourselves admiring the beautiful old buildings and architecture. We ended up finding a spot to park and walked around to stretch our legs, help our food settle, and see the sites. We even tried to take a look at the Teddy Roosevelt presidential inauguration site, but were unable to time the guided tour with our stop.

Our unexpected detour to Buffalo for a few hours did nothing justice, but warrants a follow-up trip to do some more exploring.

After our U.S. pit stop we made our way back into Ontario, this time with a slightly longer wait to cross the border, but not an unbearable one. We checked into our hotel which sat perched above the falls. After a quick five-minute walk, we found ourselves at the Falls Incline Railway. We purchased two round trip tickets and proceeded down to the Table Rock Welcome Centre. The building was beautifully decorated for Christmas and was filled with visitors venturing towards the falls. Making our way down to the lower level, we arrived atop the western side of Horseshoe Falls. From here you can gain a real appreciation for the power, speed, and sheer size of the falls. The roar of the water cascading over the rock precipice was something we did not anticipate but was impressive in volume.

After admiring Horseshoe Falls, we walked north along the river where we found other good vantage points to view the falls. We were impressed at how loud the falls were from a distance. We continued our walk to American Falls and enjoyed the view of that waterfall with Rainbow International Bridge in the background. By that time, the sun had set, and dusk was upon us. We meandered back towards the lift enjoying the abundance of Christmas lights along the river walk as well as the light show now displayed on both waterfalls.

After catching the lift back to the top of the hill, we began to look for something to eat. Not finding anything we were interested in, we made our way back to the hotel to retrieve our car. A few minutes' drive found us outside of a local Irish Pub, Doc Magilligan's, known for their Irish pies. We decided on the Shepherd's Pie and the Tour of Ireland, which were both good; however, the former was our favorite by far.

We finished the night by exploring the Ferry Street/Clifton Hill tourist area, but not wanting to deal with the crowds, we made our way back down to the falls and enjoyed the firework show and then Christmas lights at Dufferin Islands Nature Area.

The next morning, we got up early and walked the dogs from the hotel and down past the Fallsview casino to get some exercise and a morning glimpse of the falls. The late November sun was in a brutal spot in the sky for morning waterfall viewing and it was especially difficult to snag any good photos. The wind resulted in extremely misty conditions which got the dogs soaked but was still an enjoyable walk.

Late morning, we started to make our way back to Detroit, stopping on the way out to grab some of the famous Canadian butter tarts from Sweet Oven, winner of the best butter tart in Canada a few years back. We also stopped at the Konzelmann Estate Winery to grab some iced wine for our family. There we learned that the Niagara area of Ontario produces more iced wine than all other countries combined. We then proceeded back by our previous route, stopping at the duty free store in Sarnia to grab a few more treats before coming back into the U.S. Getting back late, we scrapped plans for Korean BBQ and decided on a relatively new ramen place, Ginza Ramen in Rochester Hills. Their ramen-katsu combos were delicious and if you are in the area, we highly recommend it.

From there, we proceeded to downtown Rochester Hills to check out the Christmas lights draping the Main Street buildings in swathes of colors, marking the beginning of the Christmas holiday season.

On Sunday morning, our trip coming to an end, we packed the car and got ready to leave. On the way out of town, we stopped in Madison Heights at Liang's Oriental BBQ and QQ Asian bakery. Both are conveniently located next door to each other, but don't let their "hole in the wall" appearance fool you. They are the best spot to grab all of our favorite buns and some delicious pork BBQ for the ride home.

After leaving Detroit, we braved the brutal traffic and bad weather all the way back to Chicago. Although, it was a lot squeezed in a few days, we really enjoyed our non-traditional Thanksgiving, my first trip to Canada, and a lot of good Asian food.