Early new year?

As in other recent years, plans to go out to dine on New Year’s Eve meant that we couldn’t also do our gourmet cooking thing that day. With Jean working, alternate dates to do that were either this weekend, or the first weekend of January.

While I won’t get into details here, this Christmas required on-the-fly revamping of plans due to unexpected medical issues. Somehow, this persuaded me not to wait. So though we’d only been back from vacation about a day and a half, we did our gourmet dinner yesterday.

Instead of the usual appetizer / main dish / dessert, I decided to try a “small plate” or tapas approach to the meal. We made four appetizers, and two small-serving desserts. And in keeping with that—and also because Jean was on call (fortunately, that did not disrupt things)—we just did tasting portions of wine: one white, one red, one port.

Four appetizers and two wines — Here are the four assembled appetizers and two wines

Unlike the Christmas dinner, most of these were from recipe books (as opposed to online)—three of them from a cookbook published by the Cancer Research Society:

Carpaccio of red tuna with citrus and avocado quenelle: The first item I selected, because I’ve been wanting to try it for ages. Fairly easy, really. You make a vinaigrette of citrus juice, olive oil, and ginger. You mash avocado with lime juice and sesame oil, then add some tabasco. Then you get sushi-grade tuna, slice it thinly, and serve it with the vinaigrette, avocado, orange pieces, and sesame seeds. (Salt and pepper are involved throughout, as well.)
Spring rolls: A bit more involved, but still not too bad. You fry up some red pepper. Then you mix green onion, fresh mint, fresh coriander, watercress (my bean sprout substitute) with sesame oil and salt and pepper. Then you roll the pepper, some enoki mushrooms, and the mixture in hot-water softened rice paper. Jean did all the rolling.
Edamame with Guérande salt: Easiest recipe ever. Boil frozen edamame 10 minutes, drain, and season with sea salt.

I had some boneless lamb loin on hand, and got the idea to try lamb skewers. That recipe I did find online, at Epicurious: Skewered lamb with almond-mint pesto. The pesto involved mixing almonds, Parmesan cheese, garlic, olive, fresh mint, and fresh basil in a food processor. The lamb was cut thin, threaded onto a skewer, brushed with olive oil and salt and pepper, then broiled two minutes per side.

So nothing was that hard, and we were fortunately able to find everything we didn’t already have on hand at our nearby Sobey’s that morning. Of course, things inevitably get a little crazy when you’re trying to finish up four recipes more or less at the same time, but we managed.

And we’re having a good year, because everything was really good. They’d all be “make again”’s (albeit probably not all again on the same day).

The wines were a Cave Spring 2011 Estate Riesling, easily available at your LCBO, and crazy good, really. The hit of the evening. The red was a 2004 (!) Argentina Cabernet Sauvignon. It was very good and smooth, but not as big and showy as we were expecting.

Blueberry pavlova, chocolate, and port — And for dessert…

Desserts were the type you could make ahead, so I did.

The blueberry pavlova was a Gwyneth Paltrow recipe, from her My father’s daughter cookbook. The meringue is made the usual way: Egg whites, sugar, salt, vinegar, beating to stiff peaks, then baking a low temperature for an hour and drying out for another hour. Those are formed into a circle with an indent. In the indent goes some whipped cream with sugar and bluberries, then served with more blueberries on top.

Though it’s certainly not blueberry season, the organic Chilean ones I bought were very good in this rather lovely, light dessert.

The other item was from LCBO Food and Drink Holiday 2009, but it’s not available on their website. For this Festive Bark, you melt 70% chocolate in a bowl over boiling water, then stir in some cashews, candied ginger, apricots, dried cherries, and anise flavor. You spread that out, then you sprinkle sea salt on top, and let it chill.

It’s really hard to go wrong with those ingredients. That was delicious. And went nicely with Fonseca port.

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.)

A very cranberry Christmas

Jean and I have developed a tradition of celebrating with our Christmas morning and dinner the weekend before the stuff with the extended family begins. This year, that pushed it quite early, to this weekend. Even though some of the mail order gifts hadn’t quite made it to our house, yet.

Our Christmas dinner was particularly good this year, for whatever reason. It was a whole set of new recipes (on familiar themes, mind you), and they all turned out really well. Most are available online, and the time I spent organizing recipes in Evernote this year (geek alert!) paid off, as I accessed most of them on my tablet. Bit awkward switching between them, sometimes, but then again, it’s also a bit awkward switching between physical cookbooks.

In the morning I made the cranberry sauce and the pie. The pie was from Fine Cooking Magazine, and it was the very Christmas-sy Ginger-Spice Cranberry-Apple Streusel Pie.

Cranberry-apple pie — My version of the Fine Cooking pie

I followed this recipe pretty much as written, except that I made my usual vodka-based pie crust instead of using their recipe, and I didn’t use quite all the streusel topping. I didn’t find my crust over-browning as the recipe warned it might.

And though I’m jumping to the end of the meal, the pie was really good. It is a nice blend of tart and sweet, and the candied ginger adds a very interesting zing.

The cranberry sauce recipe, courtesy of Cooking Light Magazine, was very basic, essentially just substituting apple cider or juice for the usual water. I went with apple juice, since that’s what I had.

As a not-unusual choice for us, I choose duck as our Christmas meal bird. I had to start that mid-afternoon, following an LCBO recipe created by Jamie Oliver: Slow-roasted duck with sage, ginger, and rhubard sauce. Here I did a few substitutions: I couldn’t find any rhubarb this time of year, so went with cranberry. I added dried sage (from my garden, mind you) instead of fresh. And I used less onion, and white instead of red.

I also couldn’t be bothered with quite as much messing around with the gravy at the end as suggested in this recipe. (Gravy, like jam, is one of those things I don’t have great skills with.) We did create a gravy with the stuffing, defatted drippings, red wine (didn’t have Masala), and chicken broth, but we didn’t do that fried ginger thing. It still made for a nice topping on the meat, and the slow-roasted duck tasted amazing.

For sides, I settled on mashed potatoes and Brussels sprouts. In the mashed potato recipe I followed this time, all cooking was done in the microwave, which was a first. You nuke the potatoes, then you nuke the milk and butter in a bowl, then you add the potatoes to that and mash them, then stir in buttermilk, Parmesan, salt, and pepper. This is buttermilk-Parmesan mashed potatoes from Cooking Light magazine. They tasted really good, and that method made fewer dishes.

Roasted Brussels sprouts with walnuts and dates were courtesy Sobey’s. I was low on walnuts after the pie, so I also used some pecans and pine nuts to make up the amount. I also left out the green onions, and used dried thyme instead of fresh and lemon juice instead of zest. No matter, as they were still quite delicious. Roasting gives Brussels sprouts quite nice flavor and texture.

Put together, the plate looked like this:

For wine, we opened up a 2008 Chateauneuf du pape, which proved highly drinkable. With dessert we had a bit of late harvest Sauvignon Blanc from Prince Edward County, which suited pretty well.

Bottles of French wine — Three French wines, but we drank only one bottle (actually, only part of one bottle) this day

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!

I hate lunch

I have a lunch problem.

Most food-related things, I am rather fond of. Cooking, restaurants, wine matching, food writing, even grocery shopping.

But lunch. Lunch is the most chore-like of meals. Lunch is eaten not for the joy of it, but merely to fill that biological urge. Lunch lacks fun.

At least, my lunches do. Usually.

Breakfast has the issue that occurs in the morning—not my favorite time of day. But it’s pretty much the highlight of the morning. It inevitably includes coffee, that most wondrous of beverages, both drug and hydration and fine flavor and aroma. And while it’s fairly routine in its contents compared with supper, it’s a nice little roster I work my way through:

Berry banana smoothie with side of toast and almond butter
Bob’s muesli, warm, cooked in skim milk, served with banana and berries and brown sugar
Egg, poached or scrambled, served with whole-grain bagel and Spanish olive oil, with tomato or oranges
Granola with yogurt and banana

And on weekends, I sometimes get crepes with fruit and maple, cooked for me.

So, breakfast is a good thing.

And supper… Well, supper is variety and relaxing with a glass of wine and discussing the day and catching up on news. This, after preparing it while singing and dancing around the room to whatever tunes the iPod is serving up that day. Supper is a good thing, also.

By comparison, lunch is a drag.

It features no great beverage

Breakfast gets coffee; supper gets wine. Lunch? Water. Maybe with bubbles, if I’m lucky.

It’s an annoying interruption in the day

But isn’t a nice to have a break in the middle of the day? Sure, it’s OK, but wouldn’t it be nicer to leave just leave work a half hour or hour earlier? Which I could do if I didn’t have to stop for lunch partway through. (I just am not one of those people who can survive from breakfast all the way til dinner. No way, no how.)

Even on vacation… Lunches are generally more pleasant, but still. You’re trying to do stuff during the day. Visit sites and museums and go on hikes and take tours. And always, you have to worry: Where will I be when breakfast wears off. Your activities are limited by proximity to lunch, and the need to spend time on that in the middle of the day.

I suck at menu planning for it

I realize this is my totally own fault, but there it is. I’ve got breakfast down. And I plan my suppers a week at a time, bolstered by recipes indexes, and thereby achieve a weekly menu with variety and (I think) balanced nutrition and great taste.

But lunch… Often it’s just a rerun, either a supper leftover or a heartier reprise of breakfast (an omelet? Just scrambled eggs with an extra egg and maybe some cheese and veggies). But after so many years of cooking for two, we don’t always have supper leftovers, and if at the office, I can’t really be blending up smoothies and frying up eggs (given there’s no blender and no stove top there).

Your “proper” lunch foods are what: soups, sandwiches, salads? I love soup, and for a time attempted to make soups on the weekends to serve as a series of lunches, but I don’t always like devoting time to that. (Interrupts the middle of my day—again!) Sandwiches I’m a bit sick of after getting nothing but that during my schools years (probably where my disdain for lunch began), plus I just don’t like luncheon meat. And salads are as much work as soup, but not as satisfying to eat.

It wrecks my good dietary intentions

Because I’m so bad I’m menu planning for lunch, I end up having to rely on convenience food, like frozen dinners. Apart from being kind of dull, and fairly expensive for what you get, it’s really difficult to get one sufficiently low in sodium, that uses whole-grains and includes vegetables… And forget about organic or “humane-treated” meat. I try to get the best of the lot (Lean Cuisine steamers, and Amy’s organics), but it still sure ain’t homemade.

And so, I kind of hate lunch. And yet, I just can’t get through my day without it. I’m the midst of making a bit of an effort again, buying things like smoked salmon and bean salad and organic soups that are convenient yet nutritional. And I’m bolstering those with Greek yogurt and trail mix.

It’s never going to be my favorite meal, but perhaps I can make peace with it. We’ll see.

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.

Remember that great Fall weather we had?

… because a week later, it’s pretty easy to forget that, what with all the gray and cold and even snow.

Fortunately, we were on vacation the previous week. It did start in Timmins, for the previously blogged-about wedding and funeral.

Timmins had just glorious weather while we were there, with highs around 20. We went for two big walks during our visit, one on the Ski Runners property, another through the “tailings rehabilitation” area at the end of the road my parents live on. Interesting to see how far that went, in an area that was largely off-limits to me when I lived here as a kid. At one point we had “beautiful lake and fall colors” on the left, “ugly open mining pit” on the right. That’s the north for you.

On Tuesday we drove to Ottawa, our biggest day of driving for the trip, as we split up the Timmins trip by stopping in Barrie overnight on the way up. So besides driving, all we had time for of note was dinner with friends, which I’ll write about separately.

Wednesday morning, for the first time on the trip, it was a bit drizzly, so we visited the Museum of Nature. It was our first time there since the exhibits were fully open, and it was fun to see everything. They had a special exhibits on ants, and another one on frogs.

Dinosaur section of Museum of Nature — We stepped into another world

Blue frog at Museum of Nature — With strange creatures

The rain had mostly stopped by noon, so after a sushi lunch we just did some walking around and photo taking, and visited a Bernard Callebaut chocolate store I’d spotted the night before on Dalhousie. Very good.

Bytown, just below Ottawa — The nation’s capital can look grand

War statue in Ottawa — Very grand indeed.

The next day we drove to the Finger Lakes region of New York. (Did we drive too much on this trip? Probably.) Our B&B turned out to be this huge, gorgeous old house in Montour Falls — right beside those falls, in fact, and near a church that had become a private residence. (Would love to know how they converted the interior into living space.) The B&B included a great breakfast with all kinds of fruit, baked beans, eggs, bacon, and on on, and it was interesting talking to the other guests, who were mostly Americans, but there was a young German couple staying there as well.

Cook's Mansion, Montour Falls — Our humble abode for the trip

We didn’t do a whole lot the first day but walk around Montour Falls itself.

But on Friday, we decided to emphasize the hiking, as the forecast threatened possible rain on Saturday. We started with Watkins Glen State Park, which had really nice trails through a canyon going around and even behind waterfalls. It included a fair number of stairs but wasn’t really that arduous; nothing like our Italian walking trip! Things were wet after all that rain, so we were glad of waterproof boots and rain jackets, but the weather was nice.

Watkins Glen State Park hike — On the stairs, in the canyon

Our afternoon hike was to another set of falls in a canyon, but this trail was just flat and didn’t bring you quite as close to the falls as the other had. It was pretty, though.

Hike in Finger Lakes New York — Hike to the falls

Waterfalls in Finger Lakes New York — Overland view of falls

Our dinner reservations were near this set of falls, and we ended up with some time to kill. We visited a few little towns, including one with a chocolate shop, so I stocked up on more of those. (My favorite local chocolate shops seem to keep closing on me.)

Saturday ended up being not so rainy after all. We started with a visit to a big market in Penn Yan, which was fun and provided me with a new purse. We then hit some wineries. Did you know there are about 110 (!) in this region? We got to 3.

The first was the big complex of Bully Hill. It’s very busy, but they do their wine tastings “en masse” here, with two guys providing lively banter as they pour everyone their choice of two options for a total of five tastings. It was fun, and there were two wines we would have bought if we hadn’t been concerned about wine limits when going over the border.

Location of Bully Hill Vineyards — View from Bully Hill

Once we found it, our next stop was Rasta Ranch, which has a real hippie vibe to it, with tie-dyed clothes and Jim Morrison posters for sale. A long-haired dude gave us a free-flowing sample of various options that were unusual, though not necessarily fantastic. Still, Jean was taken with the name of the Ja’maca Me Blush! wine and wanted to buy that. I then noticed Bohemian Raspberry, which they let me taste. Actually pretty good–very raspberry, not too sweet. So we got a bottle of that, too.

Finger Lakes scenery — Driving in Finger Lakes wine country

The best winery, wine-wise, was Chateau LaFayette Renau. We would have bought a bottle of everything we tasted had we, again, not been concerned about wine limits at the border. These included a nice 2007 Pinot, a delicious 2010 Cabernet Sauvignon, a semi-sweet red blend that didn’t come across as that sweet, a very pleasant semisweet Rieseling, and a dessert wine based on the Niagara grape, the same one used in Welch’s grape juice, but here turned into a surprisingly pleasant drink.

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.

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.

A tour of downtown Kitchener restaurants

Since we go to the Electric “Thursdays” series of concerts with friends, we typically go out for dinner first. This year, for whatever reason, each meal has been at a downtown Kitchener restaurant we’ve never been to before. Here’s how they were.

Niko Niko Roll & Sushi, at 20 King Street East, blessedly was not an “all you can eat” type, and did have pretty good sushi. One in our party had the Korean bim bap dish instead (vegetarian version), and also enjoyed that. The lack of wine was a bit disappointing; we tried the saki, but it wasn’t one of the better ones. The service was fine, if unspectacular. And they certainly got us out of there in plenty of time for the show. In fact, we even had time to get some wine from Centre in the Square…

271 West Restaurant, which is in fact at 271 King Street West in Kitchener, has kind of an Italian-focused menu, and brags of everything being made in-house. They also have a wine list, although not a good understanding of Ontario liquor laws: The waiter insisted (pretty adamantly) that we were not allowed to take a leftover bottle of wine with us. He’s wrong about that—here’s the proof—and as a result lost out on the sale of a bottle of a wine (in favor of two glasses).

The food was all right here, but nothing outstanding. But again, they at least did get us out in time.

Caesaria, at 320 King Street West, was selected based on its online menu, and at least some of us were surprised by its bar-like appearance. Our waitress was young, perky, and pretty, but not that well-informed about the menu. We heard “I’ll have to check on that!” quite a bit. But, to be fair, she did.

The meal timing was rather odd, in that our mains arrived very shortly after our starters, so we ended up with this overflow of food on our rather small table. The upside of it was that, at least, ensured that we once again were done in time for the show. The food here, too, was all right, but not outstanding. (Jean and I shared the edamame and hummus appetizers, and I had the chicken skewer main, while Jean had the squash ravioli.)

The final downtown Kitchener restaurant we tried, Marisol, at 30 Ontario Street South, was just me and Jean, before the KW Symphony’s wonderful Tap! pops concert (featuring dance music, complete with dancers). And it was… A really nice experience.

Marisol outside — From their website: Marisol sign

The room is nice-looking and mellow, and as a change from the all the other places described, the waiter was very professional and skilled. He gave great wine suggestions and was clearly knowledgeable about all items on the menu.

The chef here once worked at Langdon Hall, and the menu is Mediterranean, with a lot of seafood items on offer. I started with the grilled calamari, which had a good texture and was in a really good sauce, while Jean enjoyed the grilled sardines in tomato caponata. If sardines can never live up to those we ate in Portugal, they were still well-prepared, and the tomato sauce very flavorful.

As a main, I had the lemon ricotta gnochi with tomato and pine nuts, and that was very nicely done. Jean had the fish special of the day, which was sea bream. We didn’t take the time for dessert on this outing, but if we had, I believe they still would have gotten us out in time for the show. Now, Marisol is more expensive than any of the other places we tried. But you do get what you pay for sometimes, eh?

So the do-overs would be Niko Niko Sushi & Roll and (especially) Marisol. The other two were experiences that were not unpleasant, but don’t particularly need repeating.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

It features no great beverage

It’s an annoying interruption in the day

I suck at menu planning for it

It wrecks my good dietary intentions

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: