Easter is all about… fine dining?

That’s not right, is it? The foods of Easter are homey ham and scalloped potatoes and cheap chocolate. Good Friday is fish. Restaurants are not full to bursting for Easter; in fact, some close for the holiday.

So I’m not sure how we came to mark the start of Easter weekend by going out to not one but two of the area’s finest restaurants. It was as spur of the moment as can be for places that require reservations.

First up, Thursday night before the long weekend, was Verses. We just… Hadn’t been there in a while. We’d hoped to have one final crack at their fine fall / winter menu, but we were just too late for that. Upside was: First crack at their fine spring / summer menu.

The place was fairly quiet this Thursday night, and being there just felt nice. As restorative as a visit to the spa.

A lovely place to be after a busy work week

We were hungry, and it was a bit difficult deciding what to choose on the new menu, most of which sounded delicious. Jean made it easy on himself appetizer-wise by going for his standby foie gras, this time served with “saffron, vanilla waffle, slow poached orange supremes, and Vin Cotto”.

Le foie gras

And I suppose I also went for the somewhat habitual: They usually have some kind of seafood trio as an appetizer, which I usually can’t resist. This time it was scallops:

Sake Kombu cured on arame salad in toasted sesame rice wine vinaigrette
Ceviche, layered with pico de gallo and avocado croutons
Fennel wrapped pan seared on champagne vinegar dressed fennel fronds

Why have scallops one way when you can have them three ways?

Jean favored the tart ceviche style; I thought it was hard to beat the traditional pan seared, but we both agreed the avocado croutons were just the coolest!

We had a heck of a time selecting our wine, partly because I somehow wanted white despite have selected duck as my main course. But we finally settled on a very lovely French Gewurtz. It arrived just after our appetizers, which may be a first (for this restaurant)! (And by after I mean, like, 30 seconds after.)

Andrew suggested this wine

It certainly suited Jean’s main course of three kinds of seafood: tempura shrimp with aioli, grilled octopus salad, and crab and lobster cannelloni with mushrooms and broccoli.

Why have one kind of seafood when you can have four?

The octopus salad had a pleasant smoky taste and very nice texture. The cannelloni were rich and delicious. But perhaps the best were the crispy shrimp, which did not suffer the fate that large shrimp often seem to, of ending up kind of tasteless.

My main was seared duck breast served with a mole sauce. The duck was perfectly prepared, and I loved the chocolate spiciness of the mole, served in its own mound. The dish was called Duck Duck Goose, and the goose was in the form of a quesadilla, which was crispy and rich. The sides were “dirty” rice—wild rice with black beans—and a Brussels sprout slaw.

We resolved to share a dessert, a plan that was complicated a bit when we didn’t agree on which one. Finally Jean just agreed to go with my choice, the maple mousse.

Maple mousse

Of course, this wasn’t just maple mousse in a little dish. It was served in delicious dark chocolate, and accented with a fleur de sel tuile and caramel “dust” that tasted rather like the inside of those Crunchie bars. Everything was quite exquisite.

The Friday outing came about because Langdon Hall somehow put me back on their email list, though I haven’t been there in years. And the email mentioned they were doing an oyster and wine tasting on Good Friday, in Wilk’s Bar. Wilk’s Bar is the somewhat less formal, and somewhat less expensive, dining area at this luxury hotel. We didn’t have any particular plans for the holiday Friday, and most things were closed, so trying that out seemed like a nice afternoon outing.

We didn’t want to have another full three-course meal, but we figured that three oysters likely wouldn’t be enough to sustain us til dinner, either. So we each went with another appetizer. I ordered the squash soup with morels, duck confit, and foie gras. Jean ordered the terrine. We received the 2 oz servings of the white wines that were to suit the three oysters to come: a very dry Chablis, a good sparkling Reisling from Tawse winery, and a delicious oaky Chardonnay.

Why have just one kind of wine when you can have three?

And then we waited. The warm bread basket served with butter made in-house topped with sea salt helped, but it still seemed a long wait for just soup and paté.

When the food did arrive, it came with apologies for the delay; clearly something had gone awry. And they were forgiven when we tasted everything. Hmm. Some of the best examples of squash soup and terrine ever.

Yay! The food is here!

The rest of the meal proceeded at the expected pace. The three kinds of oysters—raw, crispy, and baked—were each just amazingly delicious, and it was fun to have a matching wine for each.

Oyster trio. (It’s high time I drop the “why have one” “joke”)

And we again indulged in dessert: One each this time! Jean had the so-called “ice cream sandwich” while I went with cranberry fritters and “hot chocolate”, which turned out to be warm chocolate mousse. And yes, I dipped the fritters.

Walnut ice cream and daquoise

The least pleasant part of these types of meals—paying the bill—wasn’t quite as bad this day. They gave us the desserts on the house to compensate for the delay in serving our appetizers.

On Saturday, we gathered with extended family. Interestingly, that was also more of gourmet Easter dinner than one might expect: baked lamb, two kinds of potatoes (neither scalloped, exactly), French green beans, asparagus and mushrooms. And fancy chocolate mousse pastries for dessert, along with fruit salad.

The food was delicious. And the company was even better.

Birthday dinners

Jean was away for my birthday, but my friends kindly stepped in, and I wound up with more than the usual allotment of birthday outings.

First up was a dinner at Masala Bay. This was on a freezing cold Wednesday, and two of us could not resist having the mulligatawny soup, which was indeed very warming and delicious. But also very filling, making it difficult to finish our main course curries and naan. But hey, Indian leftovers are good.

The day after my birthday, I was taken out for both lunch and dinner. Lunch was at Bauer Kitchen, a place I tend to avoid because it’s so noisy. But it wasn’t so bad this day. We arrived earlier so the initially smaller number of people helped; but even as it filled up, because we were sitting against a wood backing. it wasn’t as loud as it can be at more central tables. I made a meal of two appetizers: mussels and duck confit wings—both very tasty, though the mussels really would have been enough. Well, the duck confit wings were pretty good leftovers, also.

Dinner was at a new place to me, but one that people speak pretty highly of: Redhouse, on the site of the former Yukiko’s. Quite a nice meal here, too. I, like several others, started with the Iron Horse Trail salad, in which the greens are topped with various nuts and dried fruit. And my main course was the Boneless Cornish Hen: Porcini-dusted & pan-roasted, truffled wild mushroom ragout, wilted blonde frisee, goat cheese & lemon potato croquettes, tarragon puree. (Did I remember all those details? Of course not. I just copied it from their online menu.) It was just about as good as that description made it sound.

Oh, and I got a free birthday dessert at both of those meals as well.

I have no photographic proof of any of those meals [so how do we know they really happened?], but this was made up for last night at Jean’s birthday dinner. We went to 39 Carden Street restaurant in Guelph, which I got interested in after its rather good review in The Record.

It’s a small place, and seems rather popular, so we had some concerns about the noise level here also, but it wasn’t that bad. They change their menu frequently, so instead of printed menus, we had to select everything from chalk boards on the wall. Not crazy about that, particularly as the far ones at an angle are rather hard to read. And it means you spend the first part of your meal turning away from each other, staring at the wall.

But the chalk boards did contain many interesting-sounding items. They call their appetizers “snacks”. For these, we finally settled on six raw East Coast oysters (to share), to which I added deep-fried oysters (mysteriously called chicken-fried oysters, though I do not believe any meat was involved). In all its forms, the oysters were just perfectly delicious.

And Jean tried potatoes croquette with salt code aioli, which was also a mighty fine dish. Crispy and not too salty.

We were a bit disappointed that it seemed they had no white wines by the glass (as our main courses were definitely red wine fare), but when we asked, he said they did have a Sauvignon Blanc available. And that was perfect with this.

But while we were on the track of thinking that we had to pick a red that would work with everything, we settled on a Pinot Noir from Chile. Then we didn’t change that when we found out we could start with white after all. That turned out to be a mistake, as the Pinot was a 2013, so really quite young and thin. It wasn’t bad, on its own, but it didn’t stand up to the food that well.

On the other hand, it was only $30, which is quite good in a restaurant, and we just corked the remainder to bring home. (After informing the waiter that, yes, it is legal to do that in Ontario, even with screw-top wines.)

Jean had roast duck over risotto as his main course, while I went with lamb sirloin with lentil cassoulet. All the meat was prepared very well, tasty, with good texture. I also found the lentils were very well flavored. Jean wasn’t bowled over by the risotto, but it was a reasonable presentation.

For dessert we had: A cheese tray! (Well, it was Jean’s birthday, and that is his favorite food.) The best of that lot was the blue, which wasn’t too strong. One of the cheeses, a raclette, was just so-so. Nonetheless, we took the leftover of that home along with the wine.

Given that it’s a 45-minute drive to Guelph, I’m not sure how often we’ll get to 39 Carden Street again, but overall they acquitted themselves well. It was a nice evening out.

———————

And more related to my last post: It reminded me that the last (only) time I’d previously seen Brian May and Roger Taylor perform live also involved the “Idol” franchise—Canadian version. As with Adam’s year, one of the non-winners is the one who ended up with the big career: Carly Rae Jepsen. Yep.Jean was too busy at the time to join me, so my younger sister stepped in. It was nearly seven years ago, and I wrote about it here: An Ironic Night at the Rock Opera.

Post-Valentine activities

We don’t go out to restaurants on or around Valentine’s Day, as it’s just unpleasant. The next day Valentine’s we did go out ballroom dancing, though. Sufficiently romantic, and considerably more enjoyable!

The following day was the “Family Day” stat holiday in Ontario, so we went with a small group for our second snowshoe outing of the year. As with our first time, about a week earlier, we had lovely winter weather and tons of snow to walk on. You could almost forget you were still in the city.

Wait! .. don't leave me in the cold! — Off we go…

Yesterday got warmer and rainier, then icier, so I’m not sure how the snow will be now. But we decided to have a dinner out then, at Verses. While we’d had a couple special dinners there semi recently, we hadn’t had a chance to try their regular winter menu before now.

Verses - a lovely refuge on a stormy night — We actually had the place to ourselves, to start… Not something you’d experience February 14th.

The appetizer list always has many amazing-sounding options on it, but I quickly settled on the oysters five ways: poached, cripsy, Rockefeller, steamed, and of course, raw. Each with its own distinct accompaniments, from smoked bacon to tomato sorbet shooter. My goodness, each one was fantastic.

Jean managed with the foie gras, this time served with foie gras custard brûleé, brioche, and cranberry and bluberry. That was rather sublime as well.

We were both tempted by the roast duck served with kale, squash batons, and chestnut ravioli, but Jean let me order it.

It was quite delectable, but he probably did even better with the tender pork shank braised in cider and beer, served with rutabaga, Brussels sprouts, and beets.

He wasn’t able to finish it all, but declared it made a rather good breakfast as well. (The wine, by the way—which he did not have for breakfast—was a very lovely 2010 Cote du Rhone, one of their feature wines.)

For dessert, I went chocolate, with a flourless chocolate cake served with chantilly, apricot foam, and passion fruit popsicle. All at a quite manageable serving size.

Jean had the cheese plate, which was downsized somewhat compared with past menus, but still fairly large (better for sharing, only I didn’t, so he left some). He included a manchego, Sauvagine, and goat cheese. It was served with dried wild blueberry bread, spiced almonds, port fig jam, and honey comb.

Hmm. Maybe we should make this a tradition… Post-Valentine weekday dinner out…

Weekend in Tranna

Why Toronto in February, when the weather, much more often than not, is abysmal? Two words: free hotel. Jean goes there for a work-related conference; hotels don’t charge extra for another person staying in the room.

Considering how bad this winter has been in general, the weather picture wasn’t so bad. The temperature had been in deep freeze all week, but rose for that weekend. KW was expecting a lot of snow Saturday (and that materialized), but Toronto, not quite as much (also materialized).

The main issue was that the snow they did get was very wet, as it was near the freezing mark, and we did do a ton of walking outside in it on Saturday afternoon. Tiring of the wet hair, I bought a hat with a brim, but there wasn’t much to be done about the wet coat collar, or the wet pant bottoms. And the “waterproof” boots eventually caved in under the pressure, allowing water in at the seams. Squish, squish!

I had no other footwear with me, so while I could and did change into dry pants and socks for dinner, the best I think of boot-wise was putting the feet in plastic bags in the wet boots. That did keep the feet dry when I was outside. Once sitting inside, though, eventually, there was a bit of a perspiration issue…

But hey, it really was nice to get away. Friday night Jean had a conference dinner, so I went out with my sister and her husband to Bangkok Garden, where they were offering a Winterlicious menu that was, in fact, quite delicious, along with being a good deal. My sister and I both had the options of mussels in lemongrass and beer sauce, rainbow trout with pineapple red curry, and chocolate chai mousse for dessert.

Jean remained occupied Saturday morning, so after breakfast (really good waffles with walnuts and banana), I decided to go check out the Bata Shoe Museum for the first time.

It had four floors of exhibits. The basement presented shoes though history, including the very oldest pair of shoes ever found:

The next floor showed footwear of famous people, such Elvis Presley, Elton John, John Lennon, and Justin Beiber. (Beiber’s “Baby, Baby, oh” song proved to be the biggest earworm.) The second floor covered traditional shoemaking, a somewhat endangered endeavour. And the top floor was for special exhibits. Currently it’s on sneaker culture, something I previously knew nothing about. Like, people spend big money on sneakers. They riot over particular limited editions of them. They build up huge collections, so they never have to repeat the same pair. One dude had enough to cover the next three years—new pair every day.

We had been thinking of going to the ROM Saturday afternoon, but I felt museumed-out, and Jean was somewhat stir-crazy from all the hotel time, so that become our soggy walk afternoon.

For supper we went to George on Queen, a restaurant with a good reputation. It’s a nice room with notably well-dressed patrons and excellent service. They specialize in multi-course meals, but we went for just three (rather than five or seven).

We were quite blown away by the first course, which was centered around duck for me, and smoked trout for Jean.

All the elements on the plate really worked, and were creative and fun.

The next two courses, of tuna and lobster, then seabass and arctic char, were very good. But they couldn’t quite match up to the standard of the first, so you couldn’t help feeling a bit let down. For dessert, we just shared some cheese, and I had an ice wine while Jean had an Italian sweet sparkling.

On the walk back from George

Sunday we met up with sister and husband again, this time at a dim sum restaurant, the Crown Princess. This one is fancier than most and doesn’t feature the usual little carts; instead you have to order from a menu. The items were of a very high standard, definitely above the average dim sum place (though I also like that). And it wasn’t really that expensive.

Good job that we aimed to arrive by 11:00, because it got busier and busier as we were sitting, until there was quite a lineup. We had the table right by the door, where the hungry people in line could watch us eat. A bit awkward!

We’ll weather the weather, whatever the weather

Compared with people spending Christmas in unheated, unlit homes or stuck in airports, I can’t really complain about our Christmas travel.

We had more time this year, and therefore decided to drive north, figuring we could then adjust our own itinerary as weather demanded rather than be dependent on the airline’s.

We left the weekend of the ice storm, after the smaller Friday night one ended, before the bigger Saturday one started. The roads weren’t fantastic at the start of that trip, and some bits were quite foggy. So it was slow, but we didn’t really have any problems. Eventually we drove out of the storm zone and were driving on bare pavement. We even got a bit of sun.

We decided to lay over in North Bay despite their predicted 25 cm of snow the next day. The usual 4.5 hour drive took us 6 hours, so it was nice to have a break. We also quite enjoyed our first dinner at Churchill’s, a restaurant listed in Where to Eat in Canada. It’s an older place with a warm atmosphere and an impressive wine list. We enjoyed a bottle of Malbec with appetizers of gnochi and asparagus, and calamari and tomato, both excellent. For mains I had the roast duck with potatoes and salad, while Jean had wagu (a type of beef) ribs. I found the duck a little overdone, but everything else was good. For dessert, I had three tastings of creme brulee (coconut, chocolate and sambuca, and maple), while Jean had a Greek-style dessert.

Dessert at Churchill's — Dessert at Churchill’s

The next day it was back on the road, indeed in snow. It was fairly blowy not long after taking off, but it gradually lessened as we moved north, and finally ended completely. Back to driving on pavement.

Timmins was cold this year. Highs of -20C, maybe -18C most of the time we were there. Dropping to -30 something overnight. Nevertheless, we did get out to do stuff. We went snow shoeing one day; by far the worst part was putting on the snowshoes in the windy parking lot. Once on the trails, it was actually fine. (Of course, we were well bundled up.) We went for a decent length walk the next day, and survived.

It finally warmed up some on Christmas day, to -11 or so—balmy! But with the hustle and bustle of visitors that day, I barely got outside.

Mostly anyway, we were spending time with family indoors, at somebody’s house or another’s. Always nice to celebrate together.

Me at Christmas — Not sure my family wants their photos posted here, so won’t, but here’s me…

Part of the indoor entertainment at my parents’ is watching the activity at the outdoor bird feeder. Northern birds have such nice colors! Jean spent one morning gathering pictures of them. I wish I could remember all of their names, as Dad reported them to me. (Even when it comes to birds, I’m bad with names.)

Woodpecker preparing to eat — This large woodpecker is too big to just perch on the edge of the feeder

Woodpecker at feeder — So he (or she) has to hang on from underneath, balance with the tail, and reach in for the peanuts

Blue jay at feeder — This smaller bird (blue jay?) has it easier

Bird flying to feeder — Action shot! Love this one

(Our drive back was largely unremarkable, weather-wise. One brief bit of blowing snow, and that’s all.)

More food porn!

I’m actually puttering away on a serious, wordy post that many of you won’t read (because wordy and serious), but in the meantime… We ate fancy food! And I have pictures!

(To complete the shallow-ness, I also got my hair done and bought an adorable new dress. Hair featured in the photos; dress is not.)

There was no “occasion” for it, but a friend of mine organized a “Chef’s Table” night at Verses, and we were among the invitees. This is when you get the restaurant sous chef to prepare a six-course menu surprise just for you, optionally with matching wines. It ain’t cheap, but it is a nice experience.

Group at Chef's table — For those about to eat vicariously, we salute you

The amuse was a seared scallop topped with pepper and a side coulis of what looks like corn and red pepper, perhaps? (I’m afraid I didn’t take notes.) They always do well with scallops.

Scallop with coulis — Seared scallop with some other delicious stuff

Next up was our first wine, a glass of Sauternes, which kind of gave away what the next course would be: Seared foie gras on toast served with hollandaise sauce, quail egg, and orange. (Hey, I remembered that one not bad.) Both newcomers to and veterans of this item were happy with the very rich take on it.

A dry California rosé followed. It tasted somewhat like a Tavel, and led to a discussion of how we’d probably be getting something light next.

This turned out to frog legs and escargot, with bacon, tomato, and… Well, whatever that green sauce in the picture is (peas, maybe?). Frogs are actually one of those animals I prefer not to eat, as they are a species at risk. But I didn’t think to mention that in advance, so didn’t kick up a fuss. These ones, as they say, taste rather like chicken. And it was nice to get plainer escargot, instead of the usual cheese and garlic-soaked ones. And a touch of bacon is always appreciated.

Next up was a French Gewurtz, slightly off-dry. That made us guess we’d be getting something spicy or Asian. But it was neither, really, but rather a local delicacy: Lake Erie pickerel with delicious beets on—I think that was rice? And greens atop (as you can see for yourself).

The Pinot Noir that came out next had most of us, me included, raving. One person, though, traded it in for something else. I guess it’s fair to say it was a distinctive wine?

The dish with that was rabbit three ways: a small rack of rabbit, something else, and tiny rabbit kidneys. Those were amongst mushrooms, and were actually just fine. We got other rabbit food with it, too: carrots and greens.

Rabbit with carrots and greens — Rabbit with either the best or the worst wine of the night, depending on your taste…

Thanks to a photo (not included here), I can be more definitive that our main course wine was California Redemption Zin Zinfandel. It accompanied a meat none of us had ever had before: Camel. From Australia. Served on lentils with pomegranate and… possibly Jerusalem artichoke.

Camel does not taste like chicken. It does not really taste like beef, either. It has something of a spicy quality to it. Tastes like itself, I guess. Really not bad…

The dessert wine caused some squeals of excitement (you know how Jean is—kidding!) as it was a sparkling sweet Italian Moscato D’Asti. Don’t know that I’d had that before, but it is quite nice.

Dessert itself was something of a work of art, a deconstructed apple crumble with sorbet, ice cream, cookie, cranberry, tapioca pearls (I think?), melon, edible flowers… As lovely to look at as to eat.

The portions and pacing made it such that while I was most definitely not hungry by the end, I didn’t feel uncomfortably stuffed, either. We concluded the meal variously with tea, decaf, and port (not for us, though). Cheers!

Ottawa and Finger Lakes area dining

Somewhat of a continuation of my last post, this one focusing on notable dining experiences.

The Tuesday evening we arrived in Ottawa, we met with some friends and went to a very new restaurant called Das Lokal, down on Dalhousie street, below the Market. We all commented that we didn’t think we had ever seen that part of Dalhousie before, but it had some interesting shops and such.

The place was a bit noisy and the service seemed somewhat rushed or something, like persistently asking us about drinks when we first arrived and were still perusing the wine list. And we got bread, but no bread plates. “I find that very odd,” commented one of our friends. Maybe just opening-month kinks they need to work out?

Food-wise, everyone seemed happy with their appetizers, which in Jean and my case was a shared charcuterie plate, with very nice patés and such. As mains everyone but me ordered the rabbit with spatzle; I had the Cornish hen. Jean reported that the rabbit wasn’t as flavorful as he’d hoped, but I found the hen very good. For dessert each couple shared apple crisp, which was fine but not outstanding.

Cornish hen at Das Lokal — The Cornish hen

Rabbit at Das Lokal — And the less-successful rabbit with spatzle

Always good catching up with friends.

Dinner was just the two of us at Whalesbone on Wednesday. We started with some raw oysters, as per usual, but I was really struck by the special appetizer of the day, which included mussels in a spicy broth, fried clams, and smoked oysters on a creamy sauce of some kind. Everything was just amazing; maybe the best food of the trip.

Seafood appetizer at Whalesbone — All these items were just fabulous

The waitress recommended a bottle of Nautilus Sauvignon Blanc, from New Zealand, to have with this. It was more than others on the menu, but still only $52. It was indeed very nice and well-suited to the food.

Nautilus Sauvignon Blanc with bread — Le vin

(And all their fish and seafood, by the way, is sustainably fished.)

As our main courses, I went with BC trout while Jean had Ontario walleye. These were quite fine, with good vegetables to accompany.

Our first day in the Finger Lakes area, we didn’t feel like driving more, so we had dinner at an Italian restaurant down the road from our B&B in Montour Falls, called Mura Bella’s. They were very nice there, even giving us an umbrella for the walk home, as it was quite rainy by then (after a very nice day). It was our first taste of the local wine there, which wasn’t bad, but wasn’t terribly interesting, either. The food was good, except for Jean getting frozen veggies with his main. (I mean, heated frozen veggies. They weren’t still frozen.)

Tomato and bocconcini — Nice tomato and bocconcini appetizer at Mura Bella’s

On the Friday after our hike, we had lunch at the Wildflower Cafe in the town of Watkins Glen, which focused on the local and sustainable. It was attached to a brewery and had recommended beers for most items. I couldn’t resist, so I ordered the recommend Blonde beer, which wasn’t bad, as beers go. Jean went with a glass of local wine, which tasted rather nouveau.

I had catfish tacos that were just delicious, really, with a side salad of corn and black beans. Jean had a jambalaya that he enjoyed. He also had room for an apple crumble dessert that I just tasted.

Our dinner that night was at Suzanne’s Fine Regional Cuisine, and it was very enjoyable. They specialize in set menus of varying numbers of courses. We went for the three-course rather than five. I started with a nice salad of pear, pecan, and blue cheese, while Jean had the corn chowder with bacon and basil oil. For mains we both had the duck with potato Galette and broccoli. The local wines we had here acquitted themselves better than previous; I started with a nice blanc de blanc (Chardonnay) sparkling, while Jean had a decent Pinot. And we both enjoyed the recommended Syrah with the duck; it was quite smooth, with vanilla notes.

(Jean seems to not have selected any pictures from this meal, for some reason… I was all dressed up for it, too.)

For dessert he had a Panna cotta in Concord grape sauce, while I had very delicious profiteroles with chocolate chip ice cream and brownies. I also ordered a local Port which was, very clearly, not Portuguese. 🙂 (That is, maybe don’t try Finger Lakes port.)

Lunch on Saturday was at Bully Hill winery, where we sat with on a patio with a lovely view (the drive in these parts was probably the best of the trip). The food was quite good. We shared grape-leaf wrapped meat appetizers, then I had a grilled goat cheese and portebello sandwich while Jean had chili. I drank a red blend from the winery and Jean had an off-dry red, which seems a bit weird, but is common with the wines here. We enjoyed both of those.

We also had dinner at a winery that day: Glenora. This was a disappointing meal, with service whose timing seemed a bit “off” all evening, and Jean’s main course of duck apparently suffered from having sat under heat lamp too long. Both our appetizers were good, mind you: I had fried calamari (a bit too big a serving, though), and Jean had squash soup. And my main of venison, mashed potatoes, and green beans was well-done, though would have been better if my red (a good Cabernet Franc) had arrived before I was nearly done with the food.

Mashed potatoes and venison at Glenora — This venison dish was good, but would have been more enjoyable with the red I’d ordered

On the drive home we had lunch in Jordan Station, Ontario, in a restaurant called Zooma Zooma cafe. That was very good; a nice capper to our trip.

Bandalooping, fundraising, and local dining

Did not spend the whole weekend configuring my computer. In fact, we did a number of other activities, starting with attending Centre in the Square’s season opener event, featuring dance troupe Bandaloop. They specialize in what they call “vertical dance”, meaning they perform dangling from wires, off the sides of buildings.

So this free Centre in the Square event was outdoors. The weather was definitely nippy that day, which none of us were used to, particularly after the record-breaking heat earlier in the week (hottest day of the summer). But we coped, thanks to scarves and such. And it was pretty neat seeing the performance off the edge of the building. They did four numbers:

A couple performing a swing dance (of sorts)
A trio of women in red doing somewhat balletic moves
A solo piece to very modern music
A finale of six dancers, three on each wall (a piece normally done on one wall, but adapted for this space)

We then decamped for dinner at Sole Restaurant, where they were featuring (yet another) local food menu, this time a four-course, with matching wines—all from Vineland Estates.

It started with a smoked trout salad with green beans and almonds, served with Pinot Grigio. The fish had very nice texture but not a strong smokey flavor (not sure if that’s good or bad); the beans were just delicious in slightly sweet glaze.

The next appetizer was a roasted tomato tart with goat cheese, tapenade, and basil, served with semi-dry Riesling. The crust here was a little tougher than ideal. Jean found the filling a bit salty, but I don’t know; tapenade is meant to be salty—I don’t think they overdid it. I wouldn’t have picked out a semi-dry white with this, but it actually went very well. Nice balance.

The main course was duck confit, with banana bread, cherry compote, and sugar snap peas, served with Elevation Cabernet. The duck confit was fantastic—great texture and flavor. The sweetness of the banana bread was intriguing, though the texture was a little too dry in parts. The Cabernet was impressively delicious, with chocolate notes.

Dessert was a peach trio of crème brulée, mini pie, and cheesecake lollipop, served with Cabernet ice wine. Best was definitely the crème brulée, all nice and creamy. The tart was fine. The lollipop was just kind of strange in texture.

Then Sunday morning, we participated in the Terry Fox Run for the first time, though “Run” should be in quotes, because we walked. But we walked briskly and made pretty good time, I think; not that it’s a race. I’ve just always wanted to participate in the Terry Fox Run, as he’s a hero of mine, so it was nice to finely do it. Especially as we didn’t get rained on.

Sunday afternoon, 2-4, we had yet another food event! For the first time in a few years, we went to Foodlink’s Taste Local event, whereby restaurants partner with a local food producer and create an appetizer. For $60, you get 19 items. Don’t worry; we didn’t take pictures of them all, nor will I describe them all.

Taste Local event at Steckle Farm — A look at the Taste Local event. Despite the threatening sky, we didn’t get rained on here, either.

I will note a few of the highlights, though:

Pulled duck (from Top Market Meats) with red onion preserve and chèvre on potato rosti, by Little Mushroom Catering. Mmm, duck.
Cured trout from Caudle’s Catch with radish and cucumber salad, on tortilla, by Marisol Restaurant (a favorite of ours). Doesn’t sound that good, but tasted amazing. Perfect texture, great flavoring.
Nick and Nat’s chicken liver pate on toasted with fruit relish preserve. So rich and creamy, to me it tasted almost like foie gras.
Tomato milk shake with basil foam and balsamic reduction by Solé (them again!). As long as you like tomato, pretty nice.
Taco Farm taking Herrle’s corn and adding a Mexican touch of lime, cilantro, and cream. Really good. (And served to us by Lydia Herrle, which was nice to see.)
Waterloo Inn using OK eggs to make an egg tower: Frittata with pickled egg and bacon aioli. Great idea, well executed, quite delicious.

But really, everything was good.

The main problem with the event was the odd timing, meal-wise. We had breakfast but no lunch in anticipation, resulting in Jean initially rushing through the booths at breakneck speed, because he was really hungry! We did get him to slow down after the first five or so.

And after two hours of this, we were all really full. (A lot of meat involved in these.) We attended with Kristi, who commented that we seem to be making a habit of marathon eating together (like Verses 20 courses), which maybe isn’t such a good thing. Anyway.

So clearly we didn’t have dinner after that, and facing a fairly long evening ahead, we went out to a movie. But I’ll save that for another post.

Going local: Buskers opener and Solé summer dishes

This region has a Twitter hashtag, #kwawesome, that seems a little needy to me. Places that are truly awesome don’t need to proclaim that fact.

Still, they truly do some things well. The initial, widespread criticism over uptown Waterloo’s public square has long since died down. While certainly not as pretty as downtown Kitchener’s City Hall site, it has proven itself as a great location to hold a wide variety of public events that do bring uptown. This weekend, it’s the Waterloo Buskers Festival.

It’s the 25th year of the event, so the city sponsored a special opening event: a free concert by Steven Page, formerly of the Barenaked Ladies. I got on the iExpress right from my office door to uptown (you see I was determined to fully partake of regional services) to take it in, on what turned into a beautiful summer day.

Mr Page played with one other musician, a cellist who also sang backup. He naturally did some of his solo material, which I admit I didn’t know, but that did demonstrate he hasn’t lost his ability to write catchy songs with clever lyrics. But he also offered a generous dose of Barenaked Ladies material as well, including “The Old Apartment”, “Enid”, “What a Good Boy”, “Jane”, “It’s All Been Done”, and of course, “Brian Wilson”, the closer (before an encore). In between, he offered amusing commentary. He played for about an hour, which is quite reasonable for a free show!

Why Steven Page, a Toronto guy, for this? Because—and while I think I’ve heard this before, I’d forgotten—the Barenaked Ladies played at the Waterloo Buskers Festival way back in 1990, when no one knew who they were. Not only that, but while they arrived a trio, they left a quartet, because they met drummer Tyler Stewart at the Festival. Unlike Page, he remains in the band to this day.

Jean joined me for only the last part of the show (work!), then we walked over to Solé Restaurant to try this year’s Summer Dishes menu: three courses for $33, using local ingredients.

There was no going wrong with the first course: Tomatoes and feta with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and fresh basil. Lovely. For the main, I talked Jean into taking the pork with apple and sausage stuffing, sweet potato mash, and sugar snap peas, while I stuck with the trout with potatoes and corn that we’d both been eying at first. Lucky for him, as that turned out to be the better offering—really delicious all around. As for the trout, it was nicely cooked, corn is amazing this time of year, and potatoes are pretty decent, too. The problem, to me, was the remoulade on the fish, which just seemed too heavy, disguising the fish too much.

They weren’t offering wine pairings this year, so we figured it out ourselves. I started with a glass of Cave Spring rosé (local, local!), while Jean had a French sparkling of Blanquette (not Champagne). For the main, we shared a half bottle of Tawse 2010 Pinot Noir. It wasn’t as rich as we thought it might be, given that 2010 was a pretty warm summer, but it was still a nice wine.

For dessert, we both opted for blueberry yogurt from Whole Lot-A Gelata, another local restaurant, and it was just delicious. (Maybe even awesome.)

Lake Erie wine region

Mainly, we wanted a little getaway. Lots of advantages to travelling in the off-season, which is why we do, but it also kind of bites when everyone else is taking vacation and you’re not. So we thought we’d at least go somewhere on the long weekend in August.

Only we left that decision kind of late, which definitely limited our options on where to go. We looked into the Finger Lakes region of New York State—not the cheapest area—but even though it wasn’t a long weekend there, we couldn’t get the accommodations we wanted. Port Stanley had availability on Sunday night, but not Saturday. Other Ontario inns were a similar story.

So, we ended up at the Pelee Motor Inn in Leamington. The name of it sort of played on our mind, and we got worried we’d be staying at some semi-dive. But it turned out to be a perfectly nice hotel. We had a big room with a king size bed, sitting area, fridge, microwave (which we didn’t use, but there it was!). It also had this huge swimming pool and games area, with water slides, and badminton courts, and whatnot (which we didn’t use either, because it always seemed rather full of kids, but there it was!)

We didn’t have big ambitions for the trip. We planned to visit some wineries, do some hiking in the parks, try to find some decent places to eat, despite nothing much being listed for the area in Where to Eat in Canada. And Jean hoped to get some photos.

On the way down we stopped in Port Stanley, going to the always good Me and Suzies for lunch. We ate on their patio. We shared Lake Erie smelts to start, which were great. Jean followed up with perch, while I had chicken tagine. His was better. From their all-Ontario wine list, we tried a glass of sparkling wine from 20 Bees, which was very drinkable, along with an interesting (in a good way) white blend from Organized Crime, called Mischief. (I think both must be restaurant wines, as neither seems available for sale from those wineries.)

Another stop on the way, just on a whim, was at Smith and Wilson winery. This proved a good thing, as we really enjoyed their wines. They had a nice, drinkable sparkling called Pearl that we bought a couple bottles of. I also tasted a black cherry wine which was very nice—and not so sweet as to be un-pairable with food. But the best, though, was their 2007 Gallantry Syrah/Cabernet Sauvignon blend, a truly lovely red wine for only $18 a bottle. We bought a couple of those also.

On arrival in Leamington, we went for a little walk around the harbour, and for some reason stopped to read about each and every one of the many shipwrecks that had occurred in these waters.

We had dinner reservations at Oxley Estate Winery. It’s an interesting location, in a converted barn. A lot of people were sitting outdoors to dine, but we were warned that the bugs were coming out, so we sat inside. But it was freezing in there! Way over-air conditioned; I had to fetch a jacket from the car.

Lamb lollipops — (c) Oxley Estate Winery

Except for that, it was a pretty pleasant meal. The highlights were definitely the appetizers: Really delicious little lamb chops that I started with, and shrimp over Thai vegetables that Jean had. For mains I had perch, which was maybe slightly over-breaded, and Jean had pork chops with delicious beans. As wines we tried their Riesling and Pinot Noir. Both were fine, but not impressive enough that we felt a need to purchase a bottle of either.

The next morning we headed to Point Pelee, having concluded it would be too complicated to navigate ferries to get to Pelee Island. It was a very nice day again, so we did some hiking. Though always pleasant to walk in the woods, and though always kind of neat to look at the Great Lakes (so much water! so little salty sea scent!), we did not find it particularly spectacular. It’s quite flat, does not have especially interesting vegetation, and we did not see much wildlife.

Spider web — We were impressed by this spider web in the park. There were “Spider Control” ads all over Leamington. We weren’t sure if that was about controlling spider infestations, or about using spiders to control insects…

They did have an exhibit of various Ontario snakes there, that you could touch and everything, but Jean did well just to go near them; he wasn’t up to taking photos. (I offered to, but he didn’t seem to want that, either.)

We also took the shuttle to the Tip, so now we’ve been at the southern-most point of Canada.

Our lunch this day isn’t worth going on about; that was our one bad meal.

But on happier note, we then visited more wineries! Viewpointe Estates we visited partly for the view, but we did also try some wines. We weren’t bowled over by them, but we did leave with their refreshing 2008 Sauvignon Blanc, along with their rather smooth 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon—pretty well aged for an Ontario wine.

Viewpointe Estates winery — The grounds at Viewpointe Estates. We did walk around, but did not have a drink on their patio.

We next visited a newer one called Cooper’s Hawk. They did particularly well with off-dry whites, and Jean seemed particularly in the mood for those, so we left with Pinot Grigio, a Chardonnay Musque, and a really interesting, effervescent Riesling / Gewurtz blend called Touché.

Though we’d originally planned to stop at two, we ended up also visited Black Bear Farms Winery, which had been recommended to us by the Smith and Wilson folks. They do only fruit wines (and here Jean would point out that grapes are a fruit, so OK, they make wines only with fruits other than grapes). And everything tasted pretty darn delicious—sweet, but not too sweet, not ice wine sweet. So the key was not trying too many types, or you’d whole cases of the stuff. As it was, we left with a blueberry, a red raspberry, a red / purple raspberry, and an elderberry (blended with some strawberry and raspberry).

I did some serious research afterward, in an effort to find a decent place for dinner. We ended up at Mettawas Station in Kingsville. It’s in an old train station, which was neat.

Mettawas Station restaurant — Side view of Mettawas Station Restaurant in Kingsville

Service was unsophisticated, but good, and most importantly, food was quite delicious. I had the escargot in portobello mushrooms, which was nice; very moderate in cheese. Jean had tomato, basil, and bocconcini—hard to go wrong. We both had pasta mains: Jean the gnocchi, me the “Athena” with olives, roasted red peppers, feta, white wine sauce. They do very well with pasta. After much debate, we had a Pellee Island red blend (2010 Vinedressers) that we quite enjoyed.

Main courses at Mettawas Station — Very good pasta

There was a bit of confusion over our taking home the leftover wine, but it was sorted, and we left with the corked bottle.

Monday was mostly travel, but after breakfast and checkout, we did visit Mastronardi wines, in Kingsville (and bought some peaches from a stand along the way). We weren’t too bowled over by their wines, but did get the 2008 Cabernet Merlot. We stopped in Port Stanley for lunch again on the way back, this time dining at the Windjammer Inn. Quite a pleasant outdoor lunch there, of baked goods followed by more Lake Erie fish.

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