Author: Dan Dickinson
Blue Ascari
Two excellent meals in Toronto this week, the first at a familiar neighbourhood place, the second at a new (to me) steakhouse in my old neighbourhood.
First up was Ascari. We’ve eaten there many times, but this might have been the best visit yet.
- Cocktails
- Negroni
- 2020 Pra Otto Soave
- Appetizers
- insalata di burrata w/ roast carrot / chestnut / radicchio / endive / orange / roasted garlic vinaigrette
- zucca fritti w/ lemon thyme / spiced honey / amaretti
- Mains
- agnolotti di ricotta w/ carrot / yam / brown butter / pumpkin seed tuile
- campanelle con salsiccia w/ pecorino and ramp sausage / broccolini / fresh chilli
- 2020 Capezzana Barco Reale di Carmignano
- Dessert
- Amaro Nonino
- Villa Marone Malvasia Passito
Everything was good, but the fall-inspired agnolotti and zucca fritti were both unbelievable. The zucca might as well have been dessert.
Later in the week I had a work dinner at Blue Blood, the new-ish steak house in Casa Loma. It was fun to take an uber back there, through my old neighbourhood (it occurred to me I moved there 25 years ago because I. Am. Old.) and atop the hill I used to run up most days.
I wasn’t doing most of the ordering, but as best I can remember here’s what we ate:
- Appetizers
- grilled octopus w/ chorizo sausage, scallion, cherry tomato, aged balsamic
- chilled jumbo prawns w/ housemade lemon + gin cocktail sauce
- oysters
- table-side classic Caesar salads
- Big Head Chenin Blanc, Niagara, Canada
- Mains
- 12oz canadian prime centre cut filet, aged 28 days from Green Bay, PEI
- 18oz bone-in rib eye from Wichita, Kansas
- Wagyu filet tasting: 4oz American Mishima reserve, 4oz Australian MB9+, 4oz Japanese Kagoshima A5
- sautéed broccolini w/ mornay
- creamed Welsh farm corn w/ corn nuts
- sautéed hand-foraged woodland mushrooms
- 2018 Mullineux ‘Schist’ Syrah, Swartland, South Africa
- Dessert
- coconut cream pie: butter graham crust, coconut bavarois, whipped cream w/ toasted coconut, pineapple coulis
- royal cheesecake: west coast black raspberry, white chocolate
- 2013 Château de Suduiraut Sauternes
Back to NB
Three weeks ago Moncton was so hot I was sweating as I walked around. This past week, my first return trip for my new job, started with a day so cold I needed a scarf. It moderated through the week, but still…fall came on quickly.
No visit to the farm this time, but my parents, brother #2 and my s-i-l drove over to have dinner at The Keg, my second visit there in the week, so I ate my weight in baseballs. I also picked up food twice from Red Satay, given how close it was to where I was staying. Brix was similarly close by, thus it was my coffee home base, but I did also have an exceptional cortado down the street at Epoch Chemistry. I also tried quick lunches from Fahda’s (meh) and La Vida (pretty good) during the week.
My wine plan — buy two bottles I’ve never tried before from the EXPÉRIENCE store my first day there and drink them over the course of the week — worked pretty well. I picked up a lovely Garnacha-forward blend, and a 100% Merlot from Saint-Émilion.
“[S]ophistication is a language; you’re either born speaking it, or you’ll always speak it with an accent.”
We did an atypical parallel-y thing this past little while: we took turns reading Fleishman Is In Trouble (indigo) to each other some days, while watching episodes of the show on other days. It was fun to see in near-real-time how the TV adaptation differed (not much), whether the narrative device would work (it did), and how the actors understood the characters even as we were learning them only slightly ahead.
It was fun. I’d do it again, if we find a book we like where we haven’t already watched the show.
“Oh, I don’t pay for suits. My suits are on the house or the house burns down.”
So. Much. Good. TV.
Recently I finished season one of Ahsoka, season three of Only Murders In The Building, season three of Borgen, and the entirety of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Together Lindsay and I watched Deadloch and Painkiller, and we just started Peaky Blinders today.
On the sports-watching front, it was obviously devastating to see the Jays swept out of the wildcard series for the second year in a row, but at least the Canadiens’ season has started (and the Raptors’ season begins soon). Hope springs eternal.
The new job
My new role has me travelling to Moncton on a pretty regular basis. This past week was my first week with my new company, and it was a good one. I never say much about work here, but in keeping with the main thrust of this blog, I’ll recount the good places I visited whilst in Moncton.
There’s a Carrabba’s (!) near my office, so I ate and drank there a lot, just out of sheer convenience…a habit I hope to break in future visits. I ate meals at St. James’ Gate (decent), the Moncton Gahan House (decent), Monk10 (good), and Red Satay (excellent). I also had coffee at Brix (excellent) and picked up a bottle of wine to to bring to brother #2’s house from the new Experience by ANBL store. It’s a very nice spot with a fun selection; I reckon I’ll make a few trips there in the coming months.
Being so close to the farm, I extended my stay by a couple of days and drove there Friday evening. Brother #1 and his fam drove in Friday night, arriving shortly after I did, so just about the whole gang was here for Thanksgiving dinner yesterday — they moved it up to Saturday to accommodate my flight this afternoon. It’s a quick visit, but any time at the farm feels regenerative. I’ll get to do these more frequently now, and once we settle into a cadence Lindsay will be able to visit too.
Latesommar
I have to say, the week or so that we’ve been (prematurely) back from New York have been pretty amazing, weather-wise. Even though Lindsay’s lingering sickness has kept us from fully taking advantage, it’s made for some beautiful days on the back deck, and out and about.
We’ve also had a bunch of (somewhat hurried) friends & family visits, like Lindsay’s friend K, drinks with old colleagues, drinks with new colleagues (patio!), a drive-by with other colleagues, a beer at Beerbistro (patio!) with my friend Matt, and a visit from brother #2 and sis-in-law which has thus far included lunch at Slowhand (patio!), some fun bottles of wine (backyard!), brunch at Avling, and coffee from Maha’s Café.
I start my new job next week, so this September of vacation — ending as beautifully as it has — has felt pretty nice.
New York & (almost) Philadelphia
NEW YORK, PART THE FIRST
We took a noon flight to Newark on Tuesday. After a blown first attempt at taking an Uber, the second driver understood the assignment and we had a pretty easy ride to the Lower East Side. We stayed at the Ludlow Hotel. We got a cool railroad-type room, and used the small anteroom as storage so as to keep our king bed & lounge area nice and tidy. Very nice hotel, cool but chill vibes. We had a drink or three in the lobby lounge while we waited for our room to be readied.
We cleaned ourselves up post-flight, and went for a stroll through SoHo. It was the tail end of New York Fashion Week, and Lindsay figured we’d see some fashionable people out and about, so we picked a random restaurant: Pepolino. We did indeed see many beautiful people on our travels; unfortunately the restaurant wasn’t so glamorous, but whatever. The food was pretty decent, and we had a nice sidewalk venue. Here’s what we had:
- fresh burrata with prosciutto di parma, roasted peppers, tomato and basil
- endive salad with pears, walnuts & pecorino cheese in a lemon dressing
- steamed mussels out of the shell in butter, garlic & parsley
- bottle of falanghina
- spinach & ricotta gnocchi (gnudi) in a butter sage sauce
- farrotto del giorno (w/ sausage)
- glasses of chianti & barbera d’asti
- affogato
We weren’t up for the long walk home, so we called an Uber, and engaged in the time-honored tradition of getting honked at by New York traffic as you try to hurl yourself into the back of a car that’s stopping traffic. We got home and crashed; the city may never sleep, but we really needed to. Lindsay was up early Wednesday morning for her research appointment; I grabbed us coffees from Ludlow Coffee Supply next door while she hailed a cab. I plunked myself back in the lobby lounge to get caught up on a few things.
When she arrived back at the hotel for a late lunch, albeit stressed about how much she had to do, things took a sideways turn: I started getting waves of nausea and lightheadedness as we ate. It was coming and going with some frequency — enough to definitely weird me out. We went back to the room and I laid down on the bed, feeling mostly better…until I stood up rather quickly, and suddenly felt lightheaded again. This, coupled with the fact that I was still coughing after my illness that started at the end of August, was worrying. We decided I should do something that felt heretofore unimaginable: go to a doctor in the US. Or, rather, a nearby urgent care clinic.
The clinic was actually very nice and very fast. 15 minutes and 100USD later I definitely felt reassured that nothing was urgently wrong with me, but also that I should take it easy. The big concern was that we had tickets for a Pavement concert that night in Brooklyn. Being upright in a loud, sweaty environment a 30 minute drive from our bed seemed risky. Still, it was a big deal for Lindsay to see them live, so I was determined to go. I felt better, or at least I did until we tried eating dinner across the street at Taverna di Bacco. Then the nausea and lightheadedness and flop sweats and worry that I might pass out came back as we ate. It felt maybe like it happened when I drank wine, but that would certainly be a new (and unwelcome) development. We left after putting away a few starters, which was a shame, because the food was VERY tasty:
- Bruschette: mozzarella & tomato / gorgonzola, honey & dried apricot
- Polpettine Napoli: beef & pork homemade meatballs, spicy tomato sauce
- Polipo salad: grilled octopus, potato, capers, lemon, parsley
They kindly corked our bottle of Dolcetto so we could bring it back to our room. I felt better once I’d had a chance to lie back down, but not okay enough to go to the concert, which was devastating. I did some ill-advised googling, enough to see that these can be symptoms of an untreated sinus infection, so a trip to the CVS around the corner is in order.
I felt better when we woke up Thursday, and while Lindsay made her return visit to the archives I went downstairs to the lounge, testing my ability to not pass out. Ultimately I felt fine, and further tested my okay-ness by running a couple of nearby errands, and then eating a killer fried chicken sandwich from Sweet Chick. The afternoon passed without much concern, and eventually Lindsay got back from her appointment.
Once she did, we went straight up to the 20th floor rooftop terrace. It was totally empty, and we reveled in the perfect weather and striking panoramas of lower Manhattan. We drank a bottle of German Pinot, talked about everything and nothing, and watched the sun set over the Hudson.
We did need dinner, though: we hadn’t yet tried Dirty French, the hotel restaurant, so we decided to take our chances with a walk-in. Luckily we got a nice big booth, and set up for the night. And what a meal we had:
- some kind of delicious soft flatbread
- six oysters
- glasses of Billecart-Salmon Champagne
- Lamb carpaccio w/ eggplant, sheep’s yogurt, pita
- Montreal short rib w/ horseradish, cole slaw, toast points, sauces
- bottle of 2001 Catherine & Pierre Breton Les Perrieres Bourgueil Cabernet Franc
Everything was, frankly, fucked. The flatbread and whatever dip it came with were unreal. The lamb carpaccio was so delicious and spicy and melted in our mouths. The Montreal short rib was essentially a beautifully deconstructed Schwartz’s smoked meat sandwich. The wine was unreal, even after 20+ years in bottle (and such a steal compared to the other bottles on the list). The servers lost track of us at the end of the night, so we lingered longer than we wanted, but made it out alive. I had, thankfully, suffered no recurrence of the previous day’s symptoms.
We woke up, a little worse for wear, and set about preparing to leave the Ludlow. After a little walk around, we took advantage of their lounge one last time and ordered brunch as we began the transition to the next phase of our New York stay.
NEW YORK, PART THE SECOND
Days 4 through 6 of our time in Manhattan would be spent at the Greenwich Hotel, which confusingly enough is in Tribeca. Lindsay found it and loved the pictures; I’d never stayed in (or even been to) Tribeca before, so I was game. It was only after we’d checked in that we realized it’s partially owned by Robert De Niro. Our room — the whole hotel, really — was gorgeous. Like someone transplanted an Italian villa into downtown Manhattan.
Meanwhile, Lindsay seemed to have caught my cold, so while she rested I took a walk, down to the 9/11 memorial and back, stopping for a coffee at Kaffe Landskap on the way.
We napped in the cozy bed and gathered energy for our dinner downstairs at Locanda Verde. The restaurant was very busy, very loud, very crowded (I was bumped into by servers so many times I lost count) and also VERY good. Lindsay had limited energy, so we ordered right away, and they matched our pace, bringing stuff out super-quickly. We decided to chance it with a bottle of white to see us through all the courses; the sommelier concurred with my instinct to pick Fiano.
- crostini w/ Sardinian sheep’s milk ricotta, sea salt & herbs
- heirloom tomato w/ stone fruit & stracciatella
- octopus alla piastra w/ salsa rossa & ‘nduja
- jersey corn ravioli w/ scallion & pecorino
- orecchiette w/ duck sausage, broccoli rabe, pecorino
- bottle of Bacio delle Tortore Fiano di Avellino DOCG
- glasses of Felsina vin santo 2011 & Dall’ora recioto 2015 for dessert
All of it was tremendous, frankly. And listen: I’ve had that orecchiette dish, or something just like it, dozens of times…but this might have been the best. Truly outstanding. We stepped outside for some fresh air, then retreated to our room and passed straight out.
On Saturday Lindsay woke up worried that she had COVID; I went out and bought rapid tests to set her mind at ease. Result: negative. That settled, we went downstairs for brunch in the courtyard. I had lemon ricotta pancakes w/ blueberries & meyer lemon curd; Lindsay had soft-scrambled farm egg crostino w/ leeks, mushrooms & speck. We shared a fruit plate and a fig danish and a few glasses of wine and cocktails.
After lunch we took a quick walk around the neighbourhood, where I took pictures of the Ghostbusters headquarters to send to my geeky brothers, and went back home to rest. Along the way we decided there was no way we’d be able to make it to Broadway tonight to see Hadestown so we gave our tickets to one of the hotel staff. I spent a little more time downstairs in the courtyard that afternoon, and just fetched us a nice bottle of wine and some food from a nearby takeout place for dinner while we watched comfort TV.
Sunday morning didn’t see much progress — we ordered room service breakfast and kept watching movies. I did hang out and read by the fire in the drawing room for a while though, with a cute dog napping nearby.
We finally summoned the energy to run out and do another errand. As we finished it up, we stood outside a generic New York pizza joint, and…I dunno, it was like the healing smells restored us. We got a couple of slices of Sicilian-style pepperoni and ate them on the sidewalk, and we felt like new again. OK, well, not quite, but we felt better. Better enough that we decided to sit down at Terroir for food (Maine oysters, two types of cheese, and calamari) and many glasses of wine. I can’t remember everything Lindsay ordered, but here’s what I had:
- Spätlese Trocken Riesling, Wallufer Walkenberg J.B. Becker, 2021, Rheingau
- Rkatsiteli, Stori, 2014, Kakheti
- Palo Cortado, 20 Years, Solera Especial Dos Cortados, Williams & Humbert, NV, Jerez de la Frontera
- Tokaji Aszu, 5 Puttonyos, Hétszölö, 2010
Our server (Paula?) was really lovely too. I feel like we’d have gone there every night we spent in Tribeca if Lindsay hadn’t been sick, but I’m so glad we got to go at least the once.
We ended the evening by walking over to the Hudson, enjoying the perfect weather.
Monday morning we were back to the old pre-transition routine: shower, coffee, re-pack. We luxuriated in our room since the weather had turned quite wet, checking out only when finally forced to. The staff suggested Bubby’s for lunch and it didn’t disappoint: sick ol’ Lindsay had tomato soup and grilled cheese; I had fried chicken and pancakes. We each had cocktails and biscuits and Cremant d’Alsace. We left very, very full. After one last cappuccino from Kaffe Landskap, we called an Uber to take us on the final leg of our trip, dodging the paparazzi there to photograph (I think) Peter Gabriel.
PHILADELPHIA, PART THE NEVERHAPPENED
BACK TO TORONTO
Given how sick Lindsay still was, we decided not to continue on to Philly. It broke our hearts, especially considering we had tickets to the Janelle Monae show at The Met that night. But Philly’s not going anywhere, and it doesn’t make sense to spend all that money on hotels and eating out when we can’t really go out or do much. So we spent the night at the Newark airport Marriott and ate a spectacularly mediocre dinner at the lobby bar.
On Tuesday, a week after we started this sickly journey, we woke up very tired (the guy in the room next to us decided to procure his sex worker at 4:30am) and got ready for our flight home. The shuttle to the terminal nearly made us both barf. The security line at the airport was incredibly short & smooth. Our flight left early and arrived early. Our uber ride home was fine. So there we were, a full 3.5 days earlier and 1 city fewer than planned, but thankfully cozy at home with a few unexpected quiet days to recover, and a weeks’ worth of excellent New York memories under our belt.
Stratford
Two plays, three excellent meals (plus a bad one), and one off-piste hotel experience later, we’re back from a weekend in Stratford. It’s a trip we planned to do last year for Lindsay’s birthday, but our second bout with COVID derailed that.
Friday
After a work-related award ceremony, we suffered through a long, annoying drive to Stratford. Note to self: these is no good time on a Friday to leave this city. We got there just in time to eat dinner at Lovage, which we loved when we visited earlier this summer. Being there for dinner hit another level though:
- bread & butter
- cucumber & honeydew salad
- fried green tomatoes
- oxtail cavatelli
- sea bass
- bottle of Tawse Tintern Toad Pinot Noir
- chocolate mousse
- M. Chapoutier Banyuls
- espresso
Everything was fucking great, but that oxtail cavatelli…my god. We were so enamored that we canceled our lunch plan for the next day and booked Lavage instead.
Finally, to end the day, we drove to our hotel: The Bruce. It’s a classic Ontario hotel and a Stratford institution. It’s also…very much not our style. I should have known when I booked it. Anyway, the room was big, and our stay was fine, but…yeah. A little old school for us.
Saturday
After a leisurely morning in the room, we drove back over to Lovage for lunch. This time we had a lobster salad, some merguez sausage sandwiches w/ frites, nice glasses of wine, and cappuccinos. We considered walking around the downtown and exploring a bit, but that lunch had other ideas, so we drove back to the room and took a big-ass nap.
Early in the evening we began our theatre-going experience with dinner at The Bruce’s restaurant. What a gong show. I don’t know if they were understaffed, or if they profiled us when we came in, or if it was just a comedy of errors. To wit:
- Our reservation was at 6. Ordering took forever, even as tables seated after us had their drinks and starters delivered. Our cocktails, the first things to arrive at our table, came at 6:30.
- The kid pouring our water was maximum twelve years old. I shit you not.
- The appetizers — Digby scallops w/ caviar and smoked butter; duck raviolo w/ fennel salad and duck vinaigrette — were fine, but the bottle of wine we’d ordered hadn’t arrived yet, so we had them with water.
- When the wine — we splashed out on a 2016 Ridge Estate Cab Sauv — arrived, the server broke the cork off in the bottle. He had to call in backup to open it fully. Not a big deal, but it didn’t fill us with confidence.
- Lindsay’s grilled ribeye was fine, but my pork loin was sooooooo dry.
- While it took 30 minutes to get our first drink, the entire rest of the meal happened in 35 minutes. They brought our mains as Lindsay was still finishing her starter, and they just stood there waiting until she moved it aside.
- Oh, and someone sitting next to us was wearing so much bad perfume I got a headache. Let’s just say the crowd skewed somewhat older.
We walked up the street to our first play of the weekend, Les Belles Soeurs, which was very very good. Still plenty topical some 60 years later.
Sunday
Spooked by our dinner experience, we hastily re-planned our meals. Rather than eat brunch at The Bruce’s restaurant, we ordered early room service breakfast. Mercifully, it was quite good. (And very fast!) After getting ready and checking out, we drove into town, parked, and walked along Lake Victoria for a bit.
We’d pivoted our lunch option to Bluebird, and immediately felt redeemed by the decor and overall vibe. The food (big “ploughman’s lunch” salad; fried chicken cutlet w/ fries; fried perch & chips) was excellent, as was our bottle of Anjou Blanc. Our server was cool. An excellent meal, all in all.
Our second and final play of the weekend was a re-telling of Richard II, set in the late-70s New York gay disco scene. It was as fabulous as it sounds.
After that, our drive back to Toronto was surprisingly easy. We’re not here long; we’re off again soon, as the September of Dan continues.
The transition phase
Last Thursday was my last day at Arterra. My last working day was the Friday before that, but technically, I was on the books until Aug 31.
I joined the company in July 2021, after more than two decades in and around banking, excited to get behind the scenes at the Canadian wine industry. While it had nothing to do with my day job, I was excited to meet some of the winemakers and viticulture team, the importers and exporters, the masters of wine, the purchasers and supply chain experts…it was a real education, and a chance to understand more of an industry I’ve come to love. And it was fun to be the resident wine nerd among the executives.
There’s another opportunity in the works that I’m hoping comes to pass, but in the meantime, I’m taking September off. I can’t be certain, but I’m pretty sure I haven’t had more than 2.5 consecutive weeks of vacation since I started my working life in 1997. The first couple of weeks were sheer downtime (in part because I’ve been so sick), but we have some fun plans coming up.
So, yeah…as I type this I have four more weeks of vacation, and I have to say: that sounds pretty good.
Skirl | Dan Dickinson 