Author: Dan Dickinson

Elevated

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We were so enamored of the fall colours on our Ottawa trip a few weeks ago that we decided another weekend in the Ottawa countryside was in order. And so it was that we booked a couple nights at Langdon Hall, just outside Cambridge. I’d been there a few times for work functions, but never as a regular guest. Lindsay had never been there at all. So Friday afternoon we packed up the car and drove there.

Friday

After quite an easy drive, we checked in. Our room had a fireplace, which we were pretty excited about, cause fall had definitely arrived outside. Unfortunately the wood in the fireplace had been there a while, with the flue open, so we couldn’t get it to light properly. We gave up, as we had to be downstairs for an early dinner.

We started early because we’d booked something called the Grand Tasting Menu, a 9-course “specially curated selection of dishes you won’t find on [their] à la carte menu. In honour of his 10th anniversary at Langdon Hall, The Grand Tasting Menu is Executive Chef Jason Bangerter’s most elevated and exciting menu.” Elevated is a word we heard a lot that night; the server used it at least three times per course.

Overall, I’d say it was an exceptional meal. Maybe not the most innovative tasting menu we’d ever had, but remarkable in its precision, presentation, and local flavours. The lobster dish and pasta course were exceptional, and foie gras amuse-bouche was one of the best things I’ve eaten all year.

  • Cocktails
    • Hauntwood (wild apples from the Langdon Hall property, quince, Boulard Calvados, Island Diaz spiced rum, Astoria)
    • Closing Remarks (flavors and aromas of the surrounding forest, Reid’s Gin, Vermouth de Forcalquier, Luxardo Del Santo, lime)
  • Grand Tasting Menu
    • snacks: sunchoke and winter truffle; foie gras & grapes
    • greenhouse citrus: buttermilk panna cotta, all the LH citrus plants
    • caviar + onion: blanc de blanc bubbles, onion crème fraîche
    • taste the ocean: golden king crab, scallop, urchin
    • juniper smoked trout: crispy skin, rillettes, cured roe
    • lobster: sweet corn, LH fungi, crustacean velouté
    • Stracciatella Casoncelli: winter truffle, madeira beurre blanc
    • Waygu beef: celery root, brussels, chardonnay vinegar
    • raspberry + rose: heritage rose jelly, berry crémeux
    • pear + hazelnut: poached pear, ginger leaf nage
    • petit fours
      • wine pairings (I did not, unfortunately, write them down)

It’s a good thing we started at 6:00, because we didn’t wrap up until after 10:00, which meant I barely made it back to the room in time to see the Jays lose game six, and then we crashed.

Saturday

Okay, so it’s possible we overindulged the night before. Oy vey.

We got ourselves downstairs for breakfast, ate a lot of it, and then took advantage of their walking trails. We covered pretty much the entire grounds, soaking in the quiet, the scenery, the bird-watching, and the dogs out on the trail. As much as the rest of the grounds are probably better in the summer, I think the trails are perfect in the fall.

On the way back we made a quick stop at their wine shoppe, picking up three bottles to bring home, then went back to the room and ordered room service. While Lindsay showered I figured out a fire strategy and, by the time she emerged, I had it crackling away.

That afternoon we’d booked one activity: a wine tasting. There were supposed to be ten of us; two people showed up, but one person did who wasn’t meant to, so nine it was. It wasn’t exactly a somm exam, so all three wines were pretty easy to guess (Cava, Riesling, Cab Franc), but it’s always fun to taste with nice people. We ended up figuring out that the couple next to us (a) live quite close to us in Toronto, and (b) know some people I worked with at Arterra — in fact, someone that used to work for me now works for her. And there was another guy in the tasting who looked very much like him! Weird, weird coincidence.

We made our way from there another early dinner — this time in the bar instead of the restaurant. We got a simpler meal, but splashed out a bit on the wine. (A small aside: the server sent the somm to talk to us, but she looked at the couple next to us and decided that surely they were the ones looking for a sommelier’s expertise, not us two ruffians. By the time our server tracked the somm back down and sent her round to find us, our apps had arrived. By the time she came back with our bottle, the apps were gone.) Anyway, here’s what we ate:

  • Cocktails
    • Rabbit Season (carrot, macadamia, pecan, cardamom, nutmeg, Redbreast 12 year, Carpano Antica, González Byass, Angostura)
    • Amoxicillin (citrus, honey, lapsang souchong, Espolòn Añejo tequila, Cointreau)
  • Appetizers
    • dressed beets w/ crème fraîche, shallot pickle, greenhouse herbs
    • baby gem leaves w/ creamy garlic dressing, nutritional yeast, toasted sourdough crumb
  • Mains
    • beer battered cod w/ egg gribiche, chubby chips, watercress
    • red wine marinated chicken w/ creamy polenta, sauce coq au vin
      • bottle of 2011 Pommard, 1er Cru, Clos Orgelot, Clos du Moulin aux Moines
  • Dessert
    • sticky toffee date pudding w/ soft caramel, rum raisin ice cream
    • gourmand cookie w/ all the chocolate, fudgy ganache center (which we took to the room)

This time we got back to the room plenty early enough to build another beauty fire and watch nearly all of game seven, which of course ended up in a heart-breaking loss for the Jays. I’ll have more to say about that later, once the sadness wears off.

Sunday

We woke feeling a little extra-refreshed, which I realized later was because of daylight savings time. (The good one.) We grabbed a lighter breakfast, packed up, and drove home.

Pretty sweet country weekend getaway, all in all.

Tipsy

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Last night four east enders — me, Lindsay, Ricky, and Olivia — ventured west. Given all the hype (top bar in Canada on one list; rated one of the best in North America, and the world, on others) we were all excited to try Bar Pompette. Well…excited, but also wary. With those kinds of accolades the potential for douchebaggery was high.

Luckily, it was fantastic. Impeccable vibes. Immaculate cocktails. Even their ice cube game is world class. I had two cocktails, but their menu isn’t online so I can’t really remember them, but one tasted like chicory coffee and the other tasted like a cinnamon roll. Everyone else enjoyed theirs as well, including the two special cocktails that were meant to pair with the jazz trio in the corner. Seriously, cocktails and jazz — Lindsay was beside herself. We had just enough snacks to tide us over, then went out in search of proper dinner.

We thought we could walk into Dailo, but it was full, so we just reversed around the corner to Martine’s. Only when Olivia mentioned that it used to be Woodlot did I remember (I think?) that I’d been there once. Anyway, we had a wonderful meal:

  • Food
    • mortadella butter & anchovy on toast
    • steak tartare, button mushroom, fennel hot sauce
    • smoked mackerel Welsh rarebit
    • cavatelli, fennel sausage, rapini, pecorino
    • roasted eggplant, ezme, red pepper
    • wood fired whole chicken & fries
  • Drinks
    • Fülöp The Phenomenon Dry Tokaji
    • Bodegas Sentencia El Indulto La Fuente Bobal
    • Digestifs: glasses of Madeira, PX sherry, and Vermouth

I know some people (*cough cough Lindsay cough*) think it’s boring to order chicken, but goddamn it was good. I mean, everything was.

A lot of food, a lot of drinks, a lot of good laughs. The kind of night that rejuvenates the soul, even if I am a it too old for it. 😐

Duck duck duck cow

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We just spent a long weekend in Ottawa. It got built around a single concert, but we ended up packing in a wonderful few days.

Friday

What a beautiful drive. There was no traffic to speak of getting out of Toronto, and we had smooth sailing – not to mention some beautiful fall colors – the whole way. Google Maps suggested we take a different route into the city, so we got to drive up the Colonel By and explore a little on the way to meet Lindsay’s brother Patrick.

After a slight detour, we parked and met him at Black Squirrel Books. I left with one book (a novel by Kevin Patterson, whose book The Water In Between was important to me when I read it 25 years ago) while Lindsay left with…well, many. I had a cortado, too, which was served in the right glassware, but fell prey to the same pitfall that most coffee shops do: they made it too hot.

We left there and drove to our hotel, The Metcalfe. A new boutique hotel downtown, I’d never stayed there…except, once I stepped in, I realized I had stayed there. Sixteen years ago, when it was the Indigo. Anyway, it’s much nicer now.

We needed food, so we turned on our heels and went straight to Raphaël, which Patrick picked. We had no reservation but they plopped us at the bar. It was really delicious too:

  • Amuse bouche of some kind of fish consommé with ají limo tiger’s milk
  • Pulpo al Olivo: Pacific Octopus Carpaccio, Botija Olive Sauce, Chimichurri, Capers, Tapioca Crackers
  • Causa Vegetariana: Beets, Peas, Carrots, Avocado Mousse, Ají Amarillo Potato Terrine, Botija Olive Sauce, Ají Amarillo Aioli, Crispy Plantain
  • Tamalito De Pato: Sous Vide Duck Thigh, Mote Corn Tamal, Salsa Criolla, Ají Drizzle
  • Anticuchos: Ají Panca Flank Steak Skewers, Mini Potatoes,
  • Brussels Sprouts, Chimichurri, Rocoto Sauce
  • Dessert: petit fours of some kind of tiny cookie and Peruvian flan

It was all excellent. Nice Ontario-forward wine list too.

Afterward Lindsay and Patrick went to a concert at the NAC; I fell into a protest march up Elgin for a while before wandering back to the hotel and catching the end of the Jays game.

Saturday

Boy, did we have a lazy morning. The room was too big and comfy not to. Eventually I went out for coffee, but found that the local Morning Owl is closed on Saturdays, so I got coffees from the lobby cafe instead, and regretted it almost immediately.

Eventually we walked down Elgin to The Manx for brunch. I had fond memories of it when I used to visit in the…mid-to-late-90s, I guess? It hasn’t changed much, which I loved. I had the banana bread French toast; Lindsay had the eggs benny. We both had a Caesar and a beer.

We walked back along the canal on a perfect fall day, and relaxed in the room for a bit before walking back down Elgin for an early dinner with Patrick & Maeve at TOWN. It was fantastic:

  • Apps
    • house focaccia w/ whipped brown butter
    • butterbean, date and apple salad w/ arugula, toasted walnuts, dried cranberries, herbed goat feta, Greek yogurt dressing, wheatberry
    • glass of Rosehall Run Chardonnay for me, and a cocktail for Lindsay
  • Mains
    • Dan: cumin-honey glazed and grilled pork chop w/ confit carrot and roasted pepper purée, polenta batonettes, shishito peppers, chai pickled peach, charred corn salsa
    • Lindsay: house-made cavatelli w/ saffron, corn and miso cacio e pepe, cornbread pangrattato, pickled jalapeños, pecorino, chives, ½ tare glazed duck breast
    • two glasses of Saumur Cabernet Franc
  • Dessert
    • tiramisu
    • glasses of Frankovic Luna Blanca for Patrick and I

Then, the reason we were in Ottawa: to see a symphony playing music from Stardew Valley, aka Lindsay’s favourite game. I’ve heard her playing the game enough that I recognized some of the music, but wasn’t as in on the jokes as everyone else. But she loved it, and that’s what matters.

Sunday

Up quite a bit earlier, as we were meeting CBGB for brunch. I pre-gamed with cappuccinos from Ministry Of Coffee. Side note: early Sunday morning in downtown Ottawa is an unexpected mix of dead quiet and aggressively weird.

When they texted that they were en route we drove out to Hintonburg and met them at a Bridgehead nearby. After chatting and catching up we walked to Chesterfields. Lindsay had a jerk chicken benny; I had a classic breakfast. Mostly we were just there to catch up with friends, who I miss so much. After brunch we went for a group stroll, then said our goodbyes and headed back to the hotel.

We weren’t there long, though – we had stacked some plans. We walked to Majors Hill Park to meet Patrick and Maeve again, on what had turned into a very sunny and warm late-October day. We had plans to spend it inside though, at the National Gallery of Canada. We NAGged it up for a few hours.

After that we spilled down Sussex to the market and found a table at Beyond The Pale. P+M ate lunch; we snacked on duck drummies and beers and many bottles of water. After sitting and laughing for quite a while we parted ways; Lindsay and I walked back to the hotel, stopping along the way at Little Victories for some fuel to get through the evening.

A teeny rest in the hotel room later and we were ready for our dinner at Arlo, which ended up being fantastic.

  • Starters:
    • Tomatoes + rosamarina w/ fresh coriander, capers
    • Scallop tartare w/ black garlic, kohlrabi, cilantro, mushroom vinegar
    • Dan drank: Crémant de Loire (Les Athletes du Vin “Gardien des Bulles” NV) and Garganega (La Biancara “Masieri Bianco” ’23)
    • Lindsay drank: House Martini (gin, apple eau de vie, dry vermouth, manzanilla sherry) and a Gruner Veltliner that isn’t on their online menu so I can’t remember what it was
  • Main:
    • Porcini Crusted Ribeye For Two w/ frites, marrow, chimichurri-stuffed portobello, arugula
    • a bottle of Sangiovese (Pacina Donesco Toscana Rosso 2020)
  • Dessert:
    • Lemon Posset
    • A glass of not-quite-Tokaji Hungarian Furmint for me

The steak was cooked perfectly, tip to tail. The scallop tartare might have been one of the best things I ate all year. The wines were all delicious. The vibe was loud at first, but pretty great. In a weekend full of outstanding meals, this might have taken the prize.

Monday

Clearly we used up a lot of our driving luck on Friday. After packing and scarfing down some room service breakfast we drove back to Toronto, and the rain started almost immediately. Several times it escalated to the point where we could barely see the car in front of us, which made for some pretty tense driving. Luckily it cleared up around Gananoque, and we had clear weather all the way into Toronto. We arrived home to find a very happy cat.

All in all: pretty awesome weekend. Perfect weather. Time spent with family and old friends. Incredible food. Memorable experiences. Good birthday trip all around!

Thanksgiving25

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After recent friend hangs with Mike & Heather (at Godspeed) and Upasana (at ours) I was off to Moncton for some work time. No new spots visited as I was too busy, but I did manage a quiet beer on the Happy patio and a few coffees from Brix.

After work wrapped up for the week I drove to the farm for plentiful turkey, family, and dog time. The leaves have most definitely changed here.

We even drove to Gilbert Mountain where our maple trees are, drove up some roads I’d never been up before, and saw some of the reddest blueberry fields we’ve ever seen.

I didn’t get pictures, but when we drove up even higher we could see clear across the bay of Chignecto to New Brunswick.

Peak sports hope

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This is probably the highest my team sports hope will get all year.

In a few hours the Blue Jays, who finished atop the American League, will begin the ALDS against the Yankees. When they started the season I didn’t picture them winning the AL and getting a bye into the second round, but they made believers out of many as the season wore on. Oddsmakers have them losing to the Yanks, but I have hope.

In four days the Montreal Canadiens will begin their new NHL season. They surprised many by sneaking into the playoffs last year. The consensus seems to be that they might just sneak in again, but maybe they can take another step forward? I have hope.

Two days after that, the Raptors kick off their exhibition season. I’m under no delusion the Raps will even contend for the playoffs this year, but for growth and development…I have hope.

There’s a pretty good chance that my collective hope for these teams will never be higher than it is today. So I choose to be optimistic, even if cautiously so. For all the long shots out there today.

B(r)unch

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I was thinking today, as we tried Amber Kitchen + Coffee for the first time (it was pretty good — we shared the Merguez skillet and the burrata salad) that most of the places opening near us are breakast-minded. Masa has been an incredible neighbourhood option for breakfast sammies. La Bamboche was once brunch fav Lil’ Baci, and has returned to its breakfast-y roots. Leslieville Pumps (RIP) is apparently being replaced by Ramona’s Kitchen, which seems to have a brunch focus.

Luckily, if we need a serious dinner, we have Ricky + Olivia, which was just honored with a Michelin Bib Gourmand designation.

RIP Robert Redford

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Robert Redford died this week. To be honest, I wouldn’t have guessed he was 89. It struck me when I thought back about his movies how much they were part of my life, but maybe not the ones you’d think.

I never saw Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Never saw Jeremiah Johnson or The Candidate. Never saw The Way We Were or Barefoot In The Park or The Sting or The Natural (except the scenes any sports fan has seen) or Out Of Africa or A River Runs Through It or The Horse Whisperer or Ordinary People, his directorial debut for which he won so many awards.

Of the ones I have watched, many of which were lesser-known, I’m watched them A LOT. I watched Three Days Of The Condor a bunch as a teenager (and since) because my parents had it on VHS. I’ve watched All The President’s Men, Sneakers (another Dickinson household favourite growing up), Spy Game, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier more times than I can count. I watch Quiz Show, which he directed, probably twice a year.

It also JUST occurred to me as I was going through his IMDb listing that both his character in Sneakers and Brad Pitt’s character in Spy Game were named Bishop. Just now, despite having watched them dozens of times. Anyway.

Maybe I think fondly of him in these movies because he’s not really a sex symbol in any of them, except maybe Condor. He’s Bob Woodward. He’s an aging security consultant. He’s an underestimated spy. He’s a scheming bureaucrat. He’s funny. He’s charismatic. He was principled and he let his politics (which I agreed with, as far as I know) and environmentalism come through in his movies.

He was a talent, and he was a beauty, and he was a character, and he stood for something. There won’t be many more like him.

u and me not at home

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Part of Lindsay’s birthday present to me this year was tickets to see Wet Leg at History last night.

First, though: something to eat. We tried Rorschach, but the wait was far too long, so we just started walking. We ended up walking all the way to Godspeed, put ourselves on the waitlist, and finally got seated around 8. We knew we’d miss the opening act, and at this point knew we had to hustle to get there before Wet Leg went on. We had a pretzel and some sausages and duck fat fries and a couple beers (not warm, or in a pack) and made our way down Coxwell. We got there just in time to find a couple spots at…well, at the back.

All in all: great show. I like their albums, but the songs were almost all better live. They played 19 of ’em (which is ~80% of their entire catalogue) but bookended the biggest bangers: crazy strobes and “catch these fists” to open, and then “Chaise Longue”, “mangetout”, and “CPR” to finish. Rhian Teasdale had everyone eating out of her hand all night — that line in the chorus of “mangetout” seems like less a boast and more like an acknowledgment of fact — while Hester Chambers just exuded cool from the back of the stage.

No encore, which I love and respect. Just that big 1-2-3 combination, and they disappeared into a blanket of white light. Primo show.

The National Wine Awards of Canada: analysis

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Back in July WineAlign (to which I subscribe, and have for years) posted the results of the National Wine Awards of Canada. Each day they posted the bottles of one or more varieties which had been awarded Bronze, Silver, Gold (usually), and Platinum (rarely). A bunch of textual information leaking out daily is a hard way to spot any trends, so I did what anyone who loves both wine and spreadsheets would: I loaded it all into Google Sheets.

First, a few notes on how I handled the data:

  • The ‘score’ metric I refer to below is my calculation and not WineAlign’s. For each wine I assigned a score of 1 for a bronze, 2 for a silver, 3 for a gold, and 5 for a platinum.
  • I excluded mead, cider, and fruit wine.
  • They don’t publish how many of each wine type are submitted, just how many win awards, so I can’t determine any kind of efficiency metric per winery or region.

What I noticed:

No surprise: BC and Ontario dominate. BC wines were awarded 432 times, Ontario 423, confirming their position as the premier wine provinces in the country. But Nova Scotia won 15 and Quebec won 13, including in some vinifera categories, which is promising. Plenty of wineries in emerging regions (especially in BC) won awards too, not just the couple biggest in each province.

The same grapes tend to do well nationwide. BC’s top types were Pinot Noir, Red Blends, Chardonnay, Syrah/Shiraz, and Riesling. Ontario’s tops were Chardonnay, Sparkling, Red Blends, Riesling, and Pinot Noir. Sparkling was actually the 6th-most-awarded BC wine too, so apart from Syrah doing well in BC (natch) the most-awarded wines were just about the same. Quebec and Nova Scotia each had Chards and Rieslings awarded as well.

The benches show their strength. For the two largest regions (Niagara, Okanagan) where appellation was sometimes listed on the wine, a few stood out. In BC, the Naramata Bench had nearly 3x the number of winners as Okanagan Falls, the next closest. Meanwhile, in Niagara, the Beamsville Bench had the most awards.

Inniskillin? Inniskillin! When I calculated the total (not average) score by winery, the highest score went to…Inniskillin. I kind of love this; in my two years working at Arterra I told whoever would listen that Inniskillin was our secret weapon, considering most people only know them for icewine. Granted, most of their wines were awarded silver or bronze, but they produced Sauvignon Blanc, Merlot, and Cab Franc which garnered gold, plus a Platinum icewine, so…go check them out.

OK, fine, Mission Hill. Mission Hill had the highest average score among their awarded wines, according to my calculation…which, again, is mine; I don’t know how WineAlign did it. But there must have been something similar in our calculations, since they awarded Mission Hill Winery of the Year.

Platinums. Thirty wines were awarded platinum, across 24 wineries. Six wineries had two platinum wines each: 1 Mill Road, Laughing Stock, Meyer, Mission Hill, SpearHead, and Trius. Seven different kinds of wine were awarded platinum; I will say, I’m shocked that not one Ontario Pinot or Chard was awarded platinum.

  • Cab Franc: BC 3, ON 3
  • Red Blends: BC 2, ON 4
  • Pinot Noir: BC 5, ON 0
  • Chardonnay: BC 4, ON 0
  • Riesling: BC 1, ON 3
  • Syrah: BC 3, ON 0
  • Icewine: BC 0, ON 2

2xCasual

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I was in Moncton earlier this week for the first time since early June. It felt weird to go so long between visits, considering I was going once or twice per month for the first ~20 months of the new job. No new dinner venues whilst there, but the weather was so gorgeous that after work one day I walked down to Happy Craft Brewing in search of a patio seat. It’s a tricky thing, that: I want to be outside, but I don’t want to be in direct sun. Luckily, the sun had dipped behind the building in such a way that some brand new shade presented itself, and I grabbed it. I drank a tropical sour and a NE IPA and enjoyed the moderate warmth. The patio was full of people playing board games, munching on popcorn, chatting and laughing. Next to me was a table of guys, one of whom was playing Jenga with his young son while trying to help his friend track down mental health resources. It was kind of beautiful, in no small part because I can’t imagine that happening in a Moncton pub not very long ago.

Back in Toronto, Lindsay and I also tried a new (to us) place while doing errands this afternoon: Hastings Snack Bar. She had a few pierogies; I ate an absolutely killer pork schnitzel sandwich. We sat outside under a spreading tree and drank Wellington SPAs and thought to ourselves, why have we never come here before? I mean, sure, we were eventually chased away by hornets, but that’s hardly HSB’s fault.