Author: Dan Dickinson

The reluctant tourists

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Yesterday was a very San Francisco (tourist) day. We strolled out the hotel’s back door and down to the waterfront, walking along to the end of the municipal pier for much better shots of Alcatraz than we’d managed the day before, as well as a view of the Golden Gate bridge and back toward Ghirardelli Square. We turned and walked back, through the throngs of walkers, runners, cyclists, dogs and occasional Segway tour, toward Fisherman’s Wharf.

It’s every bit as touristy as you might think (there was a wax museum and a Rainforest Cafe and a slew of cruddy-looking stores selling cheap San Francisco paraphernalia), but at least there were some redeeming features like Boudin (where we picked up a loaf of sourdough) and the sea lions at Pier 39. Still, though, I was anxious to get away from all the crowds.

We started the long walk uphill to Coit Tower, atop Telegraph Hill. The views from the top of the hill were pretty good, and at the top of the tower they were even better.


We were getting pretty hungry by this point so we descended the steep-ass hill and found ourselves at the Rogue meeting hall. Nellie started with the Rogue Morimoto Imperial Pilsner and finished with a Northwestern Red IPA. I had a Dogfish Head (!?) Punkin and wrapped up with a Rogue Chammemellow. In between we had two Rogue samplers  (#1: American Amber, Eugune Triple Jump Ale, Northwestern Red IPA and Chipotle Ale; #2: Hazelnut Brown, Mocha Porter, Dry Hop Red and Chocolate Stout) along with some really excellent food…my pulled pork sliders were amazing.

Finally, since it was on our way home, we decided to join the throngs of people taking pictures of Lombard Street. Or, rather, the bizarrely twisty stretch starting at the top of Russian Hill. Even walking up to that stretch was tough…it’s steep enough that cars have to park at a 90-degree angle lest they roll downhill. But we got our pictures with a minimum of wives having to be pulled up the hill, and then made the short walk home to our hotel. We reckoned that San Francisco is like Halifax on steroids. That must be why we love it so much.

Rather than go out for dinner last night we just picked up some meat, cheese and wine to go along with the sourdough and chocolates we already had. We sat outside on the terrace enjoying the fire pit and views and fresh air. We met more Canadians (seriously, they’re everywhere…so far we’ve met an employee from Toronto, another employee from Vancouver and his wife from Dartmouth, and guests from Calgary, Missisauga and Brantford) and scammed a hot dog and loved our vacation and enjoyed our dinner inside only after the drizzle started. There might have been some wine spilled on the floor. Might.

Today: Alcatraz!

California: getting started

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First of all, easiest 5.5 hour flight ever. A weekend Globe, a bad movie (Robin Hood), an EnRoute magazine and a few episodes of Modern Family and there we were in San Francisco. One crazy-ass cabbie later and we were at our hotel, the amazing Fairmont Heritage Place at Ghirardelli Square. Our room…well, it’s actually quite ridiculous to call it a room. It’s a two-bedroom suite, twice the size of our condo and twice and nice inside. I’m not kidding when I say that I would happily live here. We had just enough time to drop our stuff, take pictures of our swish new spread and poke around Ghirardhelli Square a bit before the daily wine and cheese tasting. That’s right: the daily wine and cheese tasting. We sat around the fire pit (it was getting a little chilly outside) and savoured the feeling of not giving a shit about anything.

For dinner we hit the first of several (reportedly) great beer places we’d  picked out, La Trappe. It was a tiny little basement bar…Nellie called it a cross between Smokeless Joe and C’est What, which will only make sense to Toronto beer drinkers. There was a 49-page beer menu but, quite frankly, we never made it off the first page draft list. There was more than enough there to occupy us. I had a St Feuillien Grisette Blanche, a Bavik wittekerke and a Caracole Nostradamus. Nellie had a La Chouffe golden ale, a St Feuillien tripel and a Brugse Zot dubbel. They were all good, though my Nostradamus was a little harsh. Nellie’s dubbel was better, and I could see why they were pouring them for half the people in the bar. Our frites were good (wasabi mayo and curry ketchup…tasty!) and my sliders were excellent with a little leftover wasabi mayo added in, but Nellie’s mussels were a little disappointing. Still, it was a great find for our first meal, and wasn’t the slightest bit touristy. Actually, one other interesting point: drinking beer seems to actually be a trendy thing in this city. There were groups of girls there last night you’d expect to see dancing in a club, but instead were sitting in this basement bar drinking Chimay all night. Weird, but awesome.

We hit the hay pretty early since we were still on Toronto time, and slept like the dead. Even though we’re at street level, noise doesn’t bother us and the blackout curtains made our gigantic home like a cave. We’ve been up long enough to have some breakfast, watch a little Freaks and Geeks, write this, shower and get ready for our first proper day of exploring San Francisco. Now let’s hope the rain holds off!

…rdelli

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We’re here. Our hotel is amazing, and our room ridiculous. Too bad the weather went to shit just as we got off the plane, but still…it’s been a pretty awesome first few hours of drinking wine and exporing nearby Ghirardelli Square. Next up: Belgian beer.

At long last

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As I type this my wife is packing her suitcase. My new Blu-ray copy of Last Of The Mohicans is playing. I have a glass of Fielding Chardonnay Musqué. And I am on vacation.

One year ago today we were wrapping up our trip to France. That’s the last time (save a random day here or there) I was on vacation. And with all the hours I’ve been putting in, believe me when I say that I need one.

So, I shall spend the coming week enjoying northern California and all the craft beer and delicious wine therein.

Oh, speaking of: I drank Project FiftyBrew #31 earlier this week: a can of Hockley Dark. Tres bien.

Taste Ontario

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Sandwiched in between all these Project FiftyBrew excursions Nellie and I found ourselves on a wine mission last week: the Taste Ontario event at the Art Gallery of Ontario. It was three hours in which to sample a few wines from more than 30 of Ontario’s producers.

By the time we arrived the crowd was at full throng, making my tasting experience somewhat more claustrophobic than I’m used to. Luckily there was food…piles and piles of food. We filled our plates with meats and veggies and sausages (mostly sausages), and didn’t even make it over to whatever risotto they had cooking, and whatever was making that lobster smell (lobster risotto??) as it was too crowded. Anyway, we were there to sip wine, not eat.

We’d already planned out what we were going to do (of course we did!): in the limited time we would ignore the wineries we knew and loved (Fielding, Hidden Bench, Tawse, Southbrook, Stratus) as well as the wineries who’ve just never impressed us (e.g., Jackson-Triggs, Colio, Angel’s Gate) and those which offend our snob sensibilities (Wayne Gretzky, Mike Weir). This was our chance to try something new. It was also a good chance to try some wines from Prince Edward County, which we’d not had much exposure to yet.

Our favourites on the night were:

  • Château Des Charmes Old Vines Riesling 2007 and Equuleus 2007
  • Creekside Estate Laura Red 2007
  • Konzelmann Late Harvest Gewurztraminer 2008 and Reserve Pinot Grigio 2009
  • Megalomaniac Cabernet Franc 2007 (surprising, since I didn’t like anything I tried at the winery)
  • Reif Estate Gewürztraminer 2008
  • Norman Hardie County Pinot Noir 2008
  • Closson Chase S. Kocsis Vineyard Chardonnay 2007 and South Clos Chardonnay 2008

Nellie also liked the Reif Estate Silver Meritage 2007, the Malivoire Musqué 2009 and the Grange Of Prince Edward Sparkling Brut 2007, but none were really my thing.

We ordered a bunch of those, and planned to buy a few more in the LCBO when they hit the shelves.

All in all, a pretty enjoyable event. We eventually ran out of a) wine to try, and b) patience the crowds, and decided to get a proper meal. We stopped at reds on the way home, pleaded with the sommelier to let us have the Norm Hardie County Pinot by the glass (no dice) and got some advice on a New Zealand side trip when we visit Australia next year.

Right, that’s done. Back to beer then.

30/50

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Over the past few nights I’ve knocked off six (!) Project FiftyBrew entries. Volo has been, as expected, a goldmine of Canadian beer. Over two visits I had:

  • Dieu du Ciel Route des Epices
  • Scotch Irish Sgt Major IPA
  • Scotch Irish John By Imperial Stout
  • Dieu du Ciel Dernière Volonté
  • Central City Red Racer IPA
  • St. Ambroise 20th Anniversary Vintage Ale

Lots of interesting stuff in there. I don’t like IPAs that much, but I’m developing a taste for them, and especially liked the Sgt Major. The Route des Epices was as advertised (like there was cayenne in it) and the Dernière Volonté was pretty normal (but tasty) by comparison. The St. Ambroise Vintage Ale was, unfortunately, a barley wine and not to my liking. But I have a job to do, so I drank it down. Hopefully I’ll gain some kind of taste for them; I believe there are two or three more on the list.

Happily, I’ll be back at Volo this Monday. They have at least six more that I have to hit.

13 Assassins

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On Sunday we saw our fifth and final TIFF film, 13 Assassins. I won’t say much about it other than that if you like Samurai movies, even a litle bit, you should go see it when it comes out. Seriously, people, it was directed by Takashi Miike and it ends with a 45-minute battle scene. What other incentive do you need?!?

A-

"Just kidding."

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I didn’t survive this week at work so much as I climbed out of it. Pushing through this cold (again? seriously? dammit!) I suggested a pub near the Ryerson before our second-last TIFF film. Much to my surprise they had several Unibroue bottles behind the bar, including #9 on the Project FiftyBrew list: Don de Dieu! Kickass. It was very nice, by the way…tasted much smoother than a 9% beer should.

We had time to kill and full bellies, so we walked home, dropped our stuff and then walked back to the Ryerson. I was so wiped that I needed coffee; our barista at Starbucks mistook my ‘sticks of shame’ t-shirt for an indication that I actually speak Japanese and tried to converse with me. My blank stare pretty much answered that question for her. We strolled up to the Ryerson and the oh-so-familiar line-up spot: the concrete wall running along church, a tired movie-goer’s best friend. Oddly enough we were shown in to the theatre 35 minutes before the scheduled start time. That never happens.

Speaking of Japanese, many of the people in the audience spoke it. That’s because we were there to see Confessions (tiff | imdb), aka Kokuhaku, Japan’s submission for best foreign film Oscar. I think I like it more now than immediately after I watched it…it felt a little long at the time, but now I appreciate all the story threads it had to pull together. The filtered slo-mo was beautiful for a while, as was the droning soundtrack, but it wore a little thin in the second hour. Still, very good. It deserves a B, says I.

Tonight is all about relaxing. I could only get about 3 hours of coherent work in at the office today, and tonight — while Nellie is off doing girly things with other girlies — I plan to do nothing more strenuous than write this blog post to the following soundtrack:

  • Ida Maria . “Oh My God”
  • DevotchKa . “How It Ends”
  • Uncle Tupelo . “Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down”
  • We Are Scientists . “Pittsburgh”
  • The Tallest Man On Earth . “Graceland”
  • FemBots . “Count Down Our Days”
  • Vampire Weekend . “Ottoman”
  • Rogue Wave . “Electro-Socket Blues”

Those last two were from the closing credits of Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist, playing in the other room, and about as highbrow as it’s gonna get around here tonight. Peace.

"I'm a lot stronger than you think I am."

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I’ve been so busy all week I’ve not had a chance to write about TIFF films #2 and #3: Blame and Let Me In.

Blame (tiff | imdb) was a decent, uncomplicated little thriller from Western Australia, filled with pretty young actors in fancy clothes (for reasons explained as the film goes along). Thankfully never falling back on the crutch of a hidden twist, instead slowly revealing hints about who and how and why we are where we are. Unfortunately the ending just felt forced, which poisoned the whole thing. C+

Let Me In (tiff | imdb) was the North American remake of Let The Right One In (imdb | rotten tomatoes), which I admit sounded like a recipe for disaster. I saw the Swedish original last year and loved it, as did many other people, and we all assumed a North American remake would rob it of everything that made the story great: the sweetness of children mixed with the savagery of a desperately hungry vampire (not some sparkling moon-eyed twat), the atmosphere of the housing block, the feathery snow, the brilliant swimming pool scene. But then I read that it had been programmed at the festival by Colin Geddes, he of midnight madness. There’s no way he’d pick a shit remake of a film he must have loved as much as the rest of us. So we picked it. And we got it. And it was amazing. A scene-by-scene, nearly shot-for-shot remake, as true to the book (apparently) as the original Swedish film was. The biggest difference was that the violence was more brutal, more effect-laden; it didn’t hurt the film, it just made the schism between the sweet 12-year-old girl and the vicious monster seem all the more jarring, and interesting. It’s not just me who liked it, either; early reviews on Rotten Tomatoes are running at 100%. Highly recommended. A

Corne du Diable / Noire de Chambly

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I’m making a surprising amount of progress on Project FiftyBrew. Last night I met some colleagues in town from Chicago and took them to Volo. Both big beer fans, luckily for me, as that place is a FiftyBrew gold mine.

I started with a Noire de Chambly, #39 on the list. A nice light dark (if that makes any sense), if not quite the equal of their Blanche.

My second glass was a Dieu du Ciel Corne du Diable, #10 on the list. As I’ve said before, I’m not the biggest fan of IPAs, and this one was no different. Drinkable, but not something I’d order again.