Walking the plank

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As I have pointed out before, our dog Jovi who is no longer with us had a lot of anxiety. It was something we could never seem to help her with. She loved to come camping with us, but since we could never really safely leave her alone in the trailer, we often simply stayed at our campsite all weekend. There were rare occasions where we would board her for the weekend or she would stay at my inlaws, but typically, we just had lazy weekends around the campsite with her.

Now that she is gone, @mrsbozz and I tend to find a good mix of relaxing at the campsite and traveling out exploring the local area.

After our early morning hike a couple of weekends ago, we headed back to the campground to shower and then get ready to go out for lunch.

There are a lot of options for dining in St. Ignace and the surrounding area. The original plan had been to visit a distillery in Cedarville on our way back to the campground, but we would have had to wait an hour or more for them to open.

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Instead, by some fortunate stroke of luck, we found ourselves at The Gangplank Pub and Grub. This little gem sits across the road from one of the harbors off the main strip that runs through downtown St. Ignace. We had to park in a public lot across the street and walk the short distance to the restaurant.

We could tell the place was packed from the patio, but we hoped there was maybe a table available inside where we could sit. Turns out, there is no indoor seating, the small interior is taken up by the kitchen and the only seating is on an outdoor covered patio.

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The entire establishment is made up of only 11 to 12 tables and the maximum capacity of the restaurant is 55 patrons according to a sign @mrsbozz saw. I'm not kidding when I say this place was absolutely packed. We arrived just a bit before 1 PM and we had a short ten minute wait before a small two top bench table opened up for us.

We had to sit next to each other like a young couple of kids on their first date, but it gave us a view of the whole seating area and allowed us a lot of people watching opportunities.

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Being a coastal town and given the fact that the name of the place was called "The Gangplank", they had a definite nautical theme with the decor. You can see in the photo above they had these little airplane hanging all through the place that they made out of old beer cans. Speaking of beer, they had a pretty decent selection of craft brews available to choose from. They had no taps, but everything came in a can.

I forgot to mention that they also had a magic 8 ball at each table you could play with if you wanted. We weren't sure how regularly they wipe those down, so we just let ours sit...

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But back to the beer. After having a couple beers that we felt just so-so about, we decided to get something different for our second round. @mrsbozz got the Mango Cart you see in the bottom photo and she absolutely loved it. It had a pretty amazing flavor and I don't believe I have ever heard of Golden Road Brewing before. Perhaps @cryptictruth has.

I went with the Founders "On Cloud Lime" which was better than my first beer (I can't even remember what I got for the first round, my wife got a blueberry lemon shandy she said didn't have enough flavor). The lime infused beer was good, but honestly, I was kind of wishing I had also gotten the Mango Cart. It was that fantastic.

The whole time we were here there was never and empty table and there was constantly a line of people waiting to get seated. I think that speaks volumes for this place.

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We started out during our first round with an order of this fried cheese stuff that was absolutely amazing. It came with a flavorful dipping sauce and it basically melted right in your mouth. I've only ever had fried cheese like this one other time and it really stands apart from your traditional mozzarella stick or fried cheese curds.

I forgot to point out, our waitress was very attentive, but we were having a hard time getting read on her. We couldn't tell if she was just stressed from the place being so busy or if she was naturally "gruff". She treated us fine, but there were times we weren't sure if she was annoyed by someone else or not.

In fact, there was one point while we were people watching that she seemed a bit ticked that a table was just sitting and drinking and not ordering food. Given the fact that the place is so small, I can understand why they want to turn over tables as quickly as possible, but you also have to appreciate that some people just want to sit and relax and enjoy the view. As long as they tip good, does it really matter?

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Personally, I got the fried whitefish appetizer for my meal. Compared to my last camping trip fish dinner that was over-fried, this was cooked perfectly. You can tell just by looking at it that they really know what they are doing here when it comes to fried whitefish. For those of you in the UK looking to critique it, you can't really even compare this to what you are used to over there. The fish itself is a bit more delicate and the batter is totally different. This is a lighter batter that just gives the fish a bit of crunch.

They paired it with their take on a nice tartar sauce that was pretty phenomenal. They called it a garlic dill mayo, and my only regret was that they didn't give you more of it.

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@mrsbozz went with the chicken pita wrap which was pretty much just like a gyro but with grilled chicken instead of lamb. She couldn't stop raving about how good it was, which made me pretty happy that we had picked a good place for lunch.

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We shared the hand cut fries that came with her meal since I got the appetizer and mine didn't come with any. They were a bit soggy, but that's kind of the style for this sort of fry. I'd actually kind of compare these fries to the ones you used to be able to get at the county fair where they leave the skins on. The fries were pretty good, but they didn't hold a candle to how good the fish was for me. I think if they would have had onion rings as an option on the menu, my wife would have been just as happy with those.

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After the appetizer, four beers, my fish "fingers" and the chicken pita wrap, we walked out the door of the Gangplank with a little over $100 less in our bank account. I do think that is a bit expensive, but there are a couple things to consider. First, alcohol increases your bill right of the bat usually to the tune of $30 to $40. Second, it's a tourist town, so the prices are going to be a bit higher anyway. This is the main source of income for many of the residents.

Finally, the food was amazing, and I'm not opposed to paying a premium for good food.

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My Sports Account - @bozz.sports

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All pictures/screenshots taken by myself or @mrsbozz unless otherwise sourced