Damien's Belgian Waffles

Chatham Street runs one block back from the Steveston waterfront, and it is where the village keeps its smaller and more specific shops. Visitor traffic concentrates on Bayview and Moncton. Chatham is where you end up once you already know what you came for, which makes it a different kind of street entirely.

Liege waffles are a different food from the breakfast waffle most Canadians grew up on, and the difference deserves stating plainly. The dough is enriched and yeasted, studded with pearl sugar that caramelises against the hot iron, and the result is dense and chewy and meant to be eaten in your hand while walking. No syrup. No plate. It is street food in the original sense, which is why it suits this village so well.

Timing matters more than people think. A waffle eaten on the way to the dyke works. A waffle eaten after a full meal does not, and Steveston is best treated as a walking afternoon anyway: the boardwalk, the fishing dock where boats sell off the deck, then west along the trail towards Garry Point with something in your hand. Trade down here thins noticeably outside the summer months, so a February visit finds a far quieter street than the one in the photographs.