Category: Food

A Taste of Canada in Ottawa

For the Ottawa portion of our trip, we booked a package called Taste of Canada that included hotel accommodations, entry to the War Museum and National Gallery, and $100 off dinner at Signatures Bistro. These were the highlights.

Being car-free

The reason we were car-free despite this being a road trip is that we experienced a broken wheel bearing on the car while in Timmins. And in Timmins, you can’t get Audi parts. So, we booked an appointment for the car in Ottawa and dropped the car off there on arrival, after a rather noisy (and lengthy) trip.

The circumstances weren’t ideal, but you don’t really need a car when being a tourist in Ottawa. Particularly as we were staying at the well-located Lord Elgin Hotel. And though we could have taken advantage of their pretty good bus system, instead, boy did we walk. To the War Museum and back. Along the canal. To Parliament Hill at night, where they were projecting images onto the House of Commons. (Very cool.) And of course, to and around the market.

House of Commons

Supreme Court of Canada

Dining mostly per Where to Eat in Canada

It’s good we were that active, because there may have been eating involved as well.

The first day’s walk was in the rain, so we went to Murray Street. Last time here we’d arrived drenched; this time we were merely damp. Murray Street is very casual, with very friendly service, and has excellent food. We skipped the appetizers, though, and I had the deer fricasse while Jean had the quail. He declared his perfect, but my meat was a little dry. No complaints about the sauce and veggies, though. Or the petit syrah (CA) we drank. I also enjoyed the nanaimo dessert.

For lunch the next day, we tried Play, which was new to us. It specializes in small plates, with glasses of wine suggested with each. I had the gnocchi with peas, endamame, and Parmesan, which was delicious. And the recommended Appleby Pinot. Jean had the mussels with smoked tomato and chorizo, which he also liked, though not as much as my dish. And a Sauvignon Blanc with an unusual taste. For dessert, I had lavendar creme brulee with peach conserve and maple, and a French Muscat, which was very neat tasting—not overly sweet. Jean had a cheese plate with port.

For dinner that day, we tried another new one, Navarra. It specializes in the unusual. It was also remarkably small, with its 20 table packed in tight.

I decided to be daring and order the bone marrow appetizer. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it was indeed a couple large cow leg bones, from which you had to extract the marrow with a little fork. There were also olives, bread, and roasted red peppers. Everything tasted good—even the marrow, which had a mild beef taste. But frankly, it kind of freaked me out.

Jean meanwhile, had ordered the lamb prosciutto. only to find it very heavy on the salad greens, which aren’t really his thing. So, we traded. I founded his Parmesan-laced salad delicious (the lamb was just so-so; I would have preferred it more crispy); and he found the marrow the best part of the whole meal.

On to mains. I had sea scallops, which tasted good, but boy did they seem overcooked. Affected the texture. And Jean had the gnocchi, which he liked, though he found it pretty spicy. So this was an uneven one. (We had a couple glasses of the house wines, which were fine, but not exciting.)

But desserts, we had no complaints about. And the service was very good.

Navarra dessert

Other Navarra dessert

The final meal of note was at Signatures Bistro. It was our first time since it had been transformed into bistro style, and lost a star in Where to Eat in Canada. But the room still looked very grand, with white linens and all. And the food? Pretty damn amazing.

I started with the asparagus soup with gnocchi, which was as a surprise, as I had been expecting more gnocchi, less soup. But the soup was the best part. Just so fresh and delicious. And my main was a duck magret with beet foam, rhubarb, and cherry compote. Oh my, God. Amazing,

Jean seemed pretty happy with his escargot appetizer and pork main, as well. And certainly his cheese plate dessert. Me, I went with chocolate ganache with ice cream.

Though we didn’t have as many people tending our table as before, the service was still excellent. Except at the very end, when our waiter just… disappeared. Very strange, and unlikely to have happened in the old days. (Maybe he was out looking for their missing star rating.)

And the museums?

We did use our two museum entries. The National Gallery was featuring a Caravaggio exhibit that showed his influence on other painters of his time. It was interesting, seeing how different artists inspired each to take on similar themes and styles. In some cases it was difficult to tell one from the other. But on a pure art level, we weren’t totally blown away.

The War Museum had a special exhibit on medicine in wartime. You kind of got a tour through the different types of injuries soldiers suffered, and how these were treated through history. (Much better now!) The whole thing was a bit gruesome, but it was the infections featured near the end that I had the most trouble with. Eew. And the very last part was on psychological injuries, like post-traumatic stress. Oy.

And then we had the rest of the museum to see. We joked that we hoped it was cheerier, like “the lighter side of war”. But by comparison, it actually was. Like to explain the War of 1812, they had a film of French and English Canadian sitting together commenting on a documentary about it. Then partway through their Native friends pipes up. “Jim, when you did get here?” “Me? I’ve always been here!” I thought that was funny.

Wine-ing around Prince Edward County

The finale of our not-very-exotic summer vacation was a visit to Prince Edward County. While we did walk some trails and visit some galleries, mostly, we were there for the wine.

Best wine tasting experience: Karlo Estates

Wines with characterWhich is interesting, because right before going there, we were warned by other visitors that the person doing their wine tasting wasn’t very knowledgeable and, for example, didn’t particularly like red wines.

But we got a very well-informed dude leading through a series of five of their wines, all accompanied by suitable matching food! (Like olives, Cheddar, almonds.) It was challenge for him, as it was busy and he had to manage various groups all at different points in the tasting, but he was up to the task.

So, maybe the advice is to visit the winery in the afternoon rather than the morning.

Another neat thing is that they offer kinds of wines not available elsewhere in Ontario. Their rose, for example, is made with the Frontenac Gris grape, that is not even recognized by the VQA. But it was very good, and as rosé’s often are, quite reasonably priced at $16. Though relatively sweet (sugar level 2), it didn’t seem cloying. “Exuding flavours such as strawberry, citrus with a spicy finish and a hint of cinnamon.” the tasting notes say. That could be about right.

They also work with the Bordeau-style grapes: Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Malbec, and Petit Verdot. (Did you know you could get Malbec in Ontario? I didn’t.) The blend of these is available as a wine they call Quintus ($35). When one of the individual grapes is having a good year, they will bottle and sell that on its own. Currently, the petit verdot is approaching that status. Though not quite ready for bottling, we were able to taste it as well.

And… They make port! And it’s really quite good, very smooth going down. $29 for a 500 ml bottle.

Runner-up: Rosehall Run

It was just a straighforward wine tasting, not a whole guided experience with snacks, but they were very knowledgeable and accommodating here. (Like, printing out a copy of the tasting notes for me.) Our favorite of the wines we tried here was the off-dry Riesling ($17.75), but we also enjoyed the 2008 Pinot Noir ($19.75) and the 2009 Sullyzwic Rosé ($14.75).  The Globe and Mail said “Rosehall makes some of the best-value wines in the County.”

Also worth noting for more unusual wine offerings is The Grange of Prince Edward Vineyards. We restricted our tastings here to three premiums offerings, and ended up purchasing two of them: The nice Champagne-style Brut 2008, a sparkling wine mix of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, $29, and the late harvest Sauvignon Blanc, a pleasantly sweet dessert wine that was made almost accidentally by forgetting some grapes on the vine. It’s $24.75. (I also enjoyed a glass of sparkling rosé—actually, Pinot Noir—from this winery at one of the restaurants. That one may not be available for general purchase.)

Best winery dining: Wapoos Estates

Wapoos logoWe say this despite not being huge fans of the wines, which all struck us as ultra-dry and quite different from the ones made at the other end of the county. But, they were quite food-friendly, and the food was just delicious. We stopped in here for lunch on the way in the way in, so we didn’t have anything too fancy, but everything was super-fresh (like the tomatoes in the gazpacho), made in-house (like the tortilla in the smoked pork sandwich), and with nicely balanced flavors.

Plus, it was just a beautiful day, maybe the best of our vacation, and they have lovely grounds there. So it was nice to be sitting out looking at water and views while sipping some wine and eating good food.

Despite not being too bowled by the vino, we did get one bottle of Baco Noir here.

Runner-up: Norman Hardie

Pretty easy win for Norman, as it’s the only other winery we dined at. All they offer here is wood-burning oven pizzas. I had the special of the day, which was a lemon-scented one. Which seems weird, but was quite nice. However, Jean’s Margherita, which is part of the general menu, was better, thanks to the delicious tomatoes.

It’s quite a casual dining experience on a patio, with communal tables. Fortunately, we had another nice day, so that was perfectly enjoyable.

Norman Hardie makes somewhat expensive wines, so I had thought this was a way to have some without a tasting and feeling the temptation of buying up bottles. That worked out. I had a glass of the Chardonnay, which didn’t taste at all how I expected. Not oaky at all, I guess. I finally concluded that I quite liked it. Jean had a 2009 Pinot Noir. It was also quite enjoyable, but again, that’s not the best of Pinot Noir years, so there it is.

Also worth noting is the East and Main Bistro in Wellington. That’s a restaurant, not a winery, but it’s a very good one, and the wine list is mostly Prince Edward County wines, many available by the glass. We complicated our lives by ordering items that were impossible to find a matching wine for (pickerel for me and osso bucco for Jean), but managing by me starting with a glass of that afore-mentioned sparkling rosé, then switching to join in on the bottle of 2010 Sandbanks Baco Noir, because it was just delicious, whether it really matched fish or not.

Favorite overall winery: Sandbanks

At least if you go by the number of bottles purchased! They are also quite reasonably priced, which doesn’t hurt. The wine tasting experience there is nothing very special, but you get good service. We especially enjoyed the Riesling and the Baco Noir, of which we bought the 2009 Reserve as well as that 2010. (That will be an awesome year in Ontario reds, by the way.) But we also liked the Cabernet-Merlot and the Shoreline, which is a blend of Chardonnay, Rieseling, and Gewurtz.

Yes, we are very well stocked in wine right now. We might have to have a dinner party or something.

You ate out again?

Yes, it’s true; a mere 5 days after our big Chef’s Table dinner at Verses, we found ourselves at Nick and Nat’s Uptown 21 for five-course wine dinner. This one had actually been booked before, and though I noted that it made the proposed timing of the Verses dinner less than ideal, I was overruled. I suppose there are worse fates than having two multi-course gourmet meals close together.

Of course, we weren’t the special guests this time; just three among many at the sold-out dinner featuring wines from Rosewood Estates. As always, the restaurant was too loud, but we were seated nearer to the back, with no table beside us, making that fact less annoying.

The first wine on tap was the 2009 Sémillon, which would prove the favorite for Jean and me. Though I expected a fresh dry style, it actually had a sugar level of 1, and was very pleasant. Our first course was described as:

Raw scallop with sea-buckthorn berries and a green onion tempura and honeycomb vinaigrette

We were presented with a single large spoon of what looked like mixed veggies. Not sure where the scallop was in all that, we concluded it must be mixed in there.

But we were being dumb. That was just the amuse. The first course actually looked like this:

Raw scallop with sea-buckthorn berries

The raw scallops, though it seems as though that should be gross, are quite delicious. The sea-buckthorn berries, a first for all of us, were quite tart, with an interesting texture. The green onion tempura was just delicious; possibly the highlight of the dish. And it included a piece of Rosewood winery honeycomb (they also have bees and honey at that winery), that was soft and blended nicely with the tart berries.

The next wine was the 2009 Natalie’s Sussreserve Riesling. The winemaker was there, and explained the process of making it, which is an unusual one. To quote the website:

Some juice is kept separate and stays unfermented. The rest of the Riesling juice is fermented and made into a finished wine. Just before bottling the unfermented Riesling juice called “süssreserve” is added back to the wine to add complexity, character, structure, natural acidity and of course sweetness.

We’ve really enjoyed other vintages of this one, but we found the 2009 vintage to be merely good, not outstanding. It was served with a composed salad with two warm Quebec cheese, house mustard vinaigrette, and bread crumbs.

Composed salad with cheese

The veggies included radishes, which aren’t normally my favorite, but are improved by proper cooking. It also included asparagus and beans, both which I love. The two cheeses (I don’t think we found out what they were) were very good.

Then on with the duck course, which of course means Pinot Noir—this time, the 2009 vintage. Rosewood’s 2007 Pinot was amazing, and their 2010 should have potential. But 2009 was a cooler summer, which means the much lighter style of Pinot. I like that too, but it doesn’t have the same wow factor.

The food was duck bacon (Ontario duck, who apparently eat sea-buckthorn berries) with pinot and honey-stewed rhubar, braised navy beans, and a barley grass jus.

Duck with rhubarb and navy beans

This wasn’t what I was expecting when I read “duck bacon”; it seemed more like smoked duck. Not that there’s anything wrong that. The navy beans proved a nice accompaniment, and dipping the duck into the sweetened rhubarb worked well.

They had really been building up the next wine, the 2009 Johnny Bower Merlot. Only a small batch is available, very little in restaurants, so it was special that we were all getting some. And there was a whole story behind its making, related to hockey player Johnny Bower (which didn’t mean anything to me, but may to you). The taste? Quite nice, really. Our second favorite. Nice and rich, but not overly so. Pretty smooth.

It was served with a beef ragu with cavatelli dumplings, sweet peas, fried shallots, and pickled green onions.

Beef ragu

I’m not sure what texture cavatelli dumplings are supposed to have, but I really liked the texture of these, with some firmness to them. The Ontario peas were amazing. The meat was extremely tender and in a very nice, slightly sweetened, possibly tomato-based sauce. But, we were still of some opinion that beef is not really the best choice of meats for a foodie dinner. (Neither is chicken, just for the record.)

And on to dessert! The wine was the honey-based mead royale, which is a cool choice. The dish included strawberries (fresh and stewed), honey-goat milk ice cream, and a rosemary sugar-dusted doughnut.

Kristi with dessert

Nick generally makes good doughnuts, and this one was no exception. There’s also no complaining to be done about Ontario strawberries and homemade ice cream.

So all in all, it was a good night out. The meal (including wine) was $85 plus tax and tip.

Dining at the Chef’s Table

For the many times and occasions we’ve been to Verses Restaurant over the years, we’d never tried the Chef’s Table experience. This is where you get a multi-course menu surprise. We were deterred by the cost, and the fact that it requires an eight-person group. We got around the barriers by a) budgeting for it and b) Verses being kind enough to make an exception for us, so we were able to proceed with a group of six.

At a Verses Chef’s table, you actually do sit downstairs, in a little room just outside the kitchen, rather than in the main dining room. It’s very quiet and intimate and you feel very special. Especially given that you also get your own chef and sommelier for the evening, who have a created a menu just for you, with matching wines.

The table looked a bit intimidating at first, with each place set with six forks, six knives, and six glasses of wine, but with the rule of working your cutlery from the outside in, we were ready to go.

When the first item was brought out, the chef joked that while they used to start with the smallest item and proceed to the larger courses, now they were starting with the largest and it would all get smaller from here. Because this was the amuse, which was a single scallop on a sorrel leaf with lime and olive oil garnish (and I’m officially not going to remember all the details of all the garnishings). It was really delicious, and we definitely could have eaten more of those.

Scallop amuse

The wine poured next was a French Sauternes, a sweet wine, which gave us a clue what our appetizer might be: le fois gras. This particular item was inspired by someone at our table (not Jean) who had once ordered foie gras for dessert. So this was kind of foie gras as dessert: the seared meat accompanied by a cone of foie gras ice cream (which you can’t really see in the photo) and local strawberries with pea tendrils. Very exciting for me to have my own foie gras at Verses instead of just tasting Jean’s, I must say!

Foie gras as dessert

Appetizer numéro deux was the Verses version of a Clubhouse sandwich: crisp homemade bread spread with tarragon mayonnaise,  then topped with pancetta bacon, local tomato and lettuce, and rabbit. All quite delicious, with the tomato actually being the highlight! There is simply nothing like tomatoes in season. That was served with a very nice, lighter-style California Pinot Noir.

Verses clubhouse

I should mention here that they would bring the food and pour the wine first, and then explain what it was. So in this time we would amuse ourselves trying to guess what things were. The previous dishes weren’t a huge challenge, but the next meat was a puzzle: Was that duck? Quail? Also a mystery was the white foamy stuff. We could only identify the crisp polenta.

Turned out the mystery meat was “squab”, otherwise known as “pigeon”. Something I’ve never seen on a Verses menu before, though I have eaten it previously. It was delicious. The white foam was fennel-based. And the polenta was so good, I’m thinking I should try making my own. The accompanying wine for this was a Shiraz that was not too over-the-top (meaning, not so big and fruity that it dominated the food).

Squab with fennel foam and polenta

The next wine was a real stumper. It was a bubbly, but definitely not Champagne or prosecco. It was very good and refreshing, but not quite like anything I’d tasted before. Except maybe sake, but that isn’t bubbly, and I’ve never liked sake.

But that was it. It was sparkling sake (served cold). Something I’d definitely try again. And it accompanied our seafood course, which was tuna two ways: Seared and tartar. The dish included some fresh wasabi, which is much tamer than its in paste form (like you get in sushi restaurants). It was served with a sesame seed-crisped rice side that was very interesting (in a good way).

Tuna two ways

We thought we had reached the dessert course, so when this next item came out, it seemed a bit smaller than expected. But it turned out to just be the palette cleanser, a lovely sorbet, more refreshing and citrusy than sweet.

Sorbet

Because then we had our final main course: Wild boar (lamb for one person) with a variety of vegetables, including sweet potato mash and zucchini. Everything was perfectly prepared—and this may have been my first experience eating wild boar—but I have to admit this is the one course I couldn’t quite finish. It was served with a California Zinfandel, a suitably big wine for this food.

Wild board with vegetables

But it’s true what they say: There’s always room for dessert. Especially if you’re me, and the dessert is chocolate. Specifically, a deconstructed black forest cake, with the cake, the whipped cream, the macerated cherries, and a chocolate sauce all served side by side. That, I polished off. It was served with an extremely smooth and delicious port.

Deconstructed black forest cake

And these were the wines. The Zipang is that sparkling sake, and only one of the Shiraz’s were part of the pairings.

Wine pairings

The recipe

4 cups halved or quartered strawberries

(Needless to say, these need to be fresh Ontario strawberries. I got mine at Herrles.)

2 1/2 tsp. balsamic vinegar

(Don’t chintz here. Get the good stuff. I used Balsamico Cotto by John D’Angelo. Available at Brady’s.)

1/4 cup packed light brown sugar

1/8 tsp freshly ground black pepper

3/4 cup low-fat sour cream

(Nothing special here; no-name brand, I think)

1 1/2 Tbs. granulated sugar

2 tsp. grated lemon rind

Sprinkle the strawberries with the vinegar, brown sugar, and pepper, and toss; let stand 15 to 20 minutes. Mix the sour cream, granulated sugar, and lemon rind. Plop on strawberries. Eat.

How’s it taste? To quote DH: “This tastes the way good sex feels.”

Balsamic strawberries and mint

A new appreciation of sage

While I realized that some of the herbs I planted were perennials that would therefore come back the following year, I didn’t realize they’d come back as giants. The oregano and marjoram are sprawling, with much bigger leaves than last year. And the tarragon: I had no idea tarragon could get so tall. I wasn’t even completely sure it was tarragon at that size until I chopped it up for a recipe, which produced the distinct scent and taste of that herb.

But what I still have the most of, again, and now in a much larger size, is sage. It’s a virtual pasture of tall, stately plants with enormous. And as I’ve complained before, there are only so many things, culinarily, one can do with sage. Sage is not the parsely of herbs. Parsley is. (And parsely, sadly, is recently replanted annual that currently looks like a baby plant in there, fighting for a bit of space.)

And then… The sage started to flower. I don’t know if it just didn’t do that last year, or if it was diligently removing the flowers as they appeared in an attempt to get more leaves (not realizing I’d soon be overrun). But this year I let it be and… Wow. Sage is so pretty.

Photo of sage

(The tall leaves in the front-most of the image? The giant tarragon.)

And the bees just love all those flowers, and we’re supposed to encourage the bees. And yes, flowered sage does have fewer leaves, but with that number of plants…. Really not an issue. Plus, after I cut them and use the leaves in a recipe, I have a ready-made centerpiece for the table:

Photo of cut sage in vase

Restaurant review: King Street Trio

King Street Trio has recently moved back to King Street. It’s now right in uptown Waterloo at 40 King Street South, basically across the street from Rude Native. Recently, we had dinner there.

The new space is quite a bit smaller than their old location on University—it’s a very narrow restaurant. They’ve dressed it up nicely, though, with hardwood flooring, wood tabletops, black chairs, making for a modern look overall. And even as it filled up, we didn’t find it got too loud—though still perhaps not your ideal location for a romantic dinner.

Our waitress was professional and friendly. She seemed quite disappointed that we weren’t celebrating any special occasion (making me wonder what they would have done if we were). And she made a point of asking if we had any time limit, which we did. That resulted in the food arriving a little faster than expected, and in one case before the wine, and was the one “bump” in the otherwise great service. But we did get out on time, after having a full meal, and that was definitely the main goal.

The menu didn’t include any daily specials, which apparently will be added later, but we didn’t have much trouble selecting from the main menu. The appetizers included a fair number of seafood offerings, but I couldn’t resist the oysters. Here, unlike at sister restaurant King Crab and Oyster Bar, you get only one type of oyster, but they were delicious. They came with three dipping sauces. I wasn’t crazy about the mango one, but both the ginger and the cucumber were great.

The two gentlemen had the Angus beef flatbread with shitake, goat cheese, and roasted tomatoes. That was also very good (though both my gentlemen and I preferred the oysters). The fourth diner took a chance on the Suppli di Riso, which was a fried risotto balls stuffed with mozarella. The outside was quite crisp—a bit of challenge to cut through—and the inside, naturally, kind of starchy. Though not bad, she said she likely wouldn’t order it again.

As mains, I stuck with the seafood and had the jumbo sea scallops with green beans and risotto. The scallops were delicious, perfectly undercooked, and the beans also had a great snap and taste. The risotte was fine, but nothing special. The gentlemen continued with their paired ordering, each having the rack of lamb with mashed potatoes and vegetables. Both were impressed with the meat and spuds. Apparently the vegetables were a little less successful. And, now I can’t remember the fourth order–maybe the veal? [I was subsequently informed it was indeed the veal! And quite delicious.]

The wine list included quite a few offerings by the glass and half litter as well as by bottle, most at quite reasonable prices. Those having red meat mains shared a bottle of Chilean Merlot that was a hit all around. I started with a glass of delicious Oyster Bay Sauvignon Blanc, then an Italian Pinot Grigio (fine but not exciting).

Though my items seemed fairly light and the portions were not huge, I was still too full for dessert. I just had a decaf mochaccino. But, a couple of us were able to fit in the vanilla creme brulee, and seemed pleased with that.

All told, it was a very pleasant evening out. I would certainly go there again.

A cooking show I like

I like to cook, and I’ve been known to watch a little television, so people are sometimes puzzled that I don’t particularly like watching cooking shows. Some other people who like to cook, I’ve learned, love cooking cooking. In fact, they find themselves becoming somewhat “addicted” (their words) to the Food Network.

Me, not so much. For whatever reason, I don’t particular enjoy sitting there watching celebrity chefs prepare food (that I’m not going to get to eat). So since Food Detectives stopped making new episodes (far as I can tell), there is no Food Network program that I watch regularly.

But over on the W Network, I have recently discovered Anna and Kristina’s Grocery Bags. It’s basically a cooking show. And that one, I may be just a little addicted to.

Photo of Anna and KristinaI had seen their previous show (possibly still on), called Shopping Bags, in which they test various consumer products. It was definitely an entertaining approach to product testing, but the information always seems to whiz by so quickly it wasn’t that useful. Three types of five different products in one half-hour; how are you supposed to remember which to buy afterward?

Whereas each episode of Grocery Bag focuses on one (1) cookbook. That’s what they test: cookbooks. They do this by making a sampling of recipes from the book, within a time limit, to be judged by a chef. Interspersed in there, they do a little pre-taped product testing of both kitchen gadgets and ingredients, to be used on “cook day”.

I like it in part because I can relate to it. Anna and Kristina are competent cooks, but not trained chefs. As the stress mounts of trying to prepare five or more new recipes for a guest who is coming to judge your efforts, they make mistakes. They get annoyed with each other. They swear. They redo. They run off to the grocery store to buy more ingredients. They curse the poor instructions or weird ingredients of the book. They get grossed out trying to deal with octopus tentacles or squid ink.

Then when the food is done and the chef arrives with a bottle of wine, everything seems a little better. And the tasting begins… Will the dishes make the taste buds sing, or stimulate the gag reflex?

It’s drama, man. It’s highly entertaining every time.

Plus, it’s useful. As it’s a test, they try to be real sticklers for following the recipes—like manually chopping all the onions if the book says to, instead of what I would do, which is stick those suckers in the food processor. In the end, they come out with a recommendation to buy or not, but as you’ve seen how and why they came to that conclusion, you can decide if you agree. It’s made me consider cookbooks I otherwise never would have, like Gwyneth Paltrow”s (!)—turns out it’s not just the vegan, raw-food weirdness you might expect—and Gordon Ramsey’s.

Now what I want to know is whether those “addicted to the Food Network” people would (or do) like this show. Or is it just too real?

Niagara-on-the-Lake in March

With joint March birthdays as an excuse, we got away for a long weekend, visiting Toronto and Niagara-on-the-Lake. In Toronto, one of us got to the Tim Burton Exhibit at the TIFF Bell Lighthouse, while another visited MEC. There was definitely a strong Johnny Depp’s presence at the Burton exhibit (like Depp’s outfit from Edward Scissorhands), but most impressive was really Burton’s own paintings and sketches.

Mostly, though, we were there to visit with the sisters and their families, which was nice. We were well fed and had some interesting discussions on topics such as technology, politics, pet ownership, and Canadian wines.

In Niagara-on-the-Lake, we stayed at Harbour House Inn for the first time. We were really impressed with that. We had selected one of their more modest offerings, but it was still quite a large room with fireplace. This was the bathroom:

Bathroom at Harbour house

The rooms also had an iPod dock, big-screen TV, DVD players, and fresh-made cookies. They also offered a very good European-style breakfast; DVD rentals (current movies; DVD player and big-screen TV in the room); a daily wine tasting; and shuttle service to and from restaurants for dinner—all included in the price of the room. Which, because it was low season and we had booked on Expedia, really wasn’t that extravagant. (Apparently, quite a different story in the summer.)

And of course, while there, we visited a number of wineries. Our big discovery, I would say, was Caroline Cellars, which our Harbour House shuttle driver recommended. We had certainly found some nice wines at other wineries, but they were quite often over $20 a bottle. At Caroline’s, we honestly liked everything we tasted, and all were under $20. Some well under. We were particularly impressed with the 2007 Cabernet Franc ($15.50) and the Bradley White (Sauvignon Blanc), at just $11, but we also got the Enchantment (Riesling / Gerwurtz) and 2007 Cab Sauv. None available at LCBO.

In terms of location, Megalomanic (nearer to Beamsville) was the most fun, as it’s up on a hill, and you get a great view. (Maybe I’ll add photographic proof later). We tried three wines there, including a Riesling so cold you couldn’t tell how it tasted (not so useful, that), and bought the Bigmouth Merlot ($25), a fairly bold red.

Other visits (over two days):

  • Tawse Winery, known for good but not cheap wines. We got a Riesling and a 2008 Pinot noir there—at $54, the most we spent on one bottle.
  • Creekside Estates, a source for a 2009 Sauvignon Blanc and 2007 Shiraz.
  • Coyote’s Run, which offers the interesting experience of tasting the same wine grown in two different soils. They’re noticeably different. We bought a Red Paw Chardonnay here ($22) that we’ve been enjoying this week. Full but not overly oaky.

We also tried mostly new (to us) restaurants this time. Stone Road Grille may have impressed us most. Jean had foie gras poutine (!) followed by duck confit. I had the Chef’s salad (which included duck confit, Niagara Gold cheese, and quail’s egg) and a pasta stuffed with sweet potato entree that was just amazing. Each item on the menu had a recommended wine (from all- Canadian list), and each entree was offered in a smaller portion, which was great. Then there was the dessert of chocolate mousse with salted caramel ice cream, chocolate chile sauce, and spiced almonds. Yum. (And not too big a portion, either.)

Our fanciest meal was probably at Hillebrand Winery, where we had a three-course lunch. Can’t complain about the food quality there, either, and they did a very good job of matching the food to the wine. That was a big midday meal, though, so supper that night was at the Old Winery restaurant, which offers more pizza and pasta. All well-prepared, though, with good-quality ingredients.

So the only disappointing meal was at Inn on the Twenty, where we had lunch on the way in. It was mostly good—I was quite happy with my bison and mushroom main—but Jean’s mussels just weren’t fresh enough. Several weren’t open and those that were tasted kind of fishy. A restaurant of a certain caliber shouldn’t serve sub-par mussels.

And between all that eating and drinking, we did a little shopping, some walking, a lot of relaxing. Weather was quite cooperative for March, either sunny but cool or cloudy but warmer. After this week, there’s no complaining about that!

Dining at Bhima’s

The place we were asked to comment on for Where to Eat in Canada was Bhima’s Warung. (Coincidentally, the week we went there, the Record also reviewed them!)

Where to Eat doesn’t publish personal reviews, per se; instead, it compiles and considers all reports received to produce an overall assessment of the establishment. Therefore, when writing about Bhima’s Warung, I didn’t worry too much about massaging the language or whatever. Just said how it was:

Dish from Bhima'sAs requested, we went to Bhima’s Warung this week, and have a bit of mixed response.

But no issues with the starters, which were both oysters, but done different ways. I had the item on the regular menu, which is freshly shucked oyster in a warm lemongrass, ginger, chili, and garlic sauce. The sauce was really nice (spicy!), and really covered up the taste of oyster (such as it is). On the second I deliberately took less sauce to assess the oyster itself better, and they were really nice, seemed very fresh. My husband had a special that day, which was oysters baked with coconut (medium spicy). Haven’t had good baked oyster experiences in the past, but we enjoyed these. The texture does get a little bit can tuna-like, but the coconut flavoring was very nice, and it had nice crispyness to it. In both cases, the price was $4 per oyster, and you could choose how many you wanted.

The restaurant had a good number of wines available by the glass, which we appreciated. I had a NZ Sauvigon Blanc with that, which worked well, and my husband had an ON Gerwurtz.

For the main course, I chose another regular menu item, tandoori-baked Cornish hen stuffed with sticky rice, with a side of pickled vegetables, naan bread, a yogurt and vegetable sauce, and a chutney ($28). My favorite part was actually the vegetables–beets, bok choy, and carrots, pickled. Surprising and nice. The naan bread was also excellent. The Cornish hen was perfectly cooked, but quite moderately seasoned. Perhaps the idea was to dip it in the flavorful chutney or white sauce; certainly it took well to doing that. The sticky rice had exactly the texture you’d expect, but was also not too flavorful.

My husband had a special entree that day, which was duck confit and a side of seared foie gras. The duck confit was really quite delicious. The foie gras was also good, but was seared to the point of having a bit of charcoal taste. It did not ruin the texture, but the charcoal flavor was a bit odd. This dish was a bit lacking in accompaniments; it came with some grilled potatoes.

So while my main was more than I could eat, my husband cleaned off his plate and helped me a bit with mine.

With those, my husband had a glass of a nice CA cabernet sauvignon and I had a German off-dry Riesling.

And, we both tried dessert. I had the baked banana with vanilla ice cream. The ice cream was very nice, freshly made (by someone, if not Bhima’s themselves). The bananas tasted fine but weren’t as crispy as other desserts of this type I’ve had, and which I would have preferred. My husband had the chocolate bread pudding with ice cream, and declared himself satisfied with that. Both desserts came with a really excellent peanut brittle.

We tried a couple teas with that. Mine was Indian spiced, and it was actually hot spicy! Not quite what I was expecting, and couldn’t finish. My husband had ginger and honey tea that was more mellow.

The service was adequate. There was quite a wait for food to arrive, and there wasn’t any refilling of water glasses. My tea arrived after my dessert (and after my husband had received his). It was friendly and reasonably attentive, but not superlative.

So it’s a bit tough to assess overall. I appreciate the creativity of the menu, and most things do turn out well. But it is pretty pricey, and I’m not sure the value proposition is quite there. (Total for the meal was $170 with tax but before tip.)