Category: Food / drink

Nova Scotia 2021

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

I’ve just spent the week in Nova Scotia, my first time home since December 2019, and my first time anywhere outside of Ontario since January 2020. It was a quiet, chill time…exactly what I needed.

SUNDAY

I waited until Porter was flying from the island again before I flew, to avoid Pearson. I wasn’t sure how messy the check-in experience would be, so I went early. Too early, as it turns out — I had about 45 minutes to kill in the lounge. Oh well.

I expected flying to feel weird, but it didn’t really. The old muscle memories kicked in, and apart from the fact that I had a mask on the whole time and the plane was mostly empty, it felt like the hundred other times I’d taken that flight to Montreal. (And, sometimes, onward to Halifax.)

After landing in Halifax I had to contend with a pretty ferocious rainstorm for most of the drive home. It was tough going, but the sun broke out just before I reached the farm. I hugged my mom and dad (for the first time in 21 months) and my brother and sister-in-law, and scratched their dogs, and immediately felt relaxed. We ate dinner together, and then my mom and dad and I played crib. I finished second both times while they traded wins.

Because I’d been traveling, and because I hadn’t had coffee all day, and because it’s the farm, I fell asleep by 9:00.

MONDAY

Early to bed, early to rise, it seems, so I was up and about by 7am. I felt pretty accomplished until I realized by dad already had an hour of work under his belt by that point. Thus began my day of perfect nothing.

I mean, not nothing, but…pretty close to nothing. Dad and I went for a short drive in the woods, to see a dead tree occupied by bees, and to grumble at a beaver dam. I walked around the farm a bit. I did crosswords and ask my mom a bunch of questions that I got from PostSecret. This was incredibly interesting, and I asked my dad some of them too, learning the amazing story of Rathburn Lovely and his twin daughters Shirley and Lurley. Yeah, it sounded made-up to me too, but I’ve verified it.

The five of us went to dinner in Parrsboro at the Pier restaurant (or whatever it’s called now) at high tide, then retreated home for more crib (I won both games this time) and a Leafs-Habs exhibition game.

TUESDAY

Another day of serious chill: crosswords, more questions for my parents, a couple more walks around the yard, more dog scratches, dinner at home, and a Jays game.

WEDNESDAY

I packed up, said my goodbyes, and started a long drive. I wanted to stop off at some wineries on my way to Halifax…which, if there was a bridge across the Minas Basin, would be exactly what would have happened. Alas, there is not, so I drove 220km around it. But I drove the scenic Glooscap Trail both ways, so it wasn’t all bad.

I had a 2pm tasting appointment at Benjamin Bridge, and pulled in just in time. Kyla led me through a tasting, letting me try some of the newer things that have been released since I left the wine club, showing me the vines and the barrel room (badass barrels too!) and just indulging my wine nerd questions. It was a lovely time…not the warmest, sunniest day, but when there’s no rain or fog, you just shut up and enjoy it.

After that it was on to Halifax, driving downtown and depositing the car at the new Sutton Place Hotel. I unpacked, cleaned up, and went over to brother #1’s place for family dinner. After that we went for an evening constitutional, in which he showed me some of the new developments downtown since I was here last. We ended up having a drink at Lot Six, where a server misheard my request for “Chenin” as “Chambly”, so I drank a Blanche de Chambly for the first time in yonks.

THURSDAY

My suite, and bed, were pretty comfy, so I slept in to the decadent hour of 8ish. I decided to enjoy said suite fully, hanging out, watching TV, doing some work, reading, etc. I picked up a lobster roll from Gahan House and ate it with a bottle of Cab Franc rose I’d snagged from BB the day before. I tried to work more in the afternoon, but ended up watching more TV. Then brother #1 called and said they were heading to an event at the Grand Parade to commemorate the first annual Truth and Reconciliation Day. I joined them, and enjoyed the drum circle, as I always do.

After cancelled (though no one told me) reservations at Obladee, I had a quiet dinner by myself, thinking and making notes, at Barrington Steakhouse. My steak, the veg, and the ratatouille were all quite good, my wine was just okay, and the piano player singing mostly-Canadian classic rock was exceptional.

FRIDAY

I met brother #1 at Cheeky Neighbour Diner for breakfast, an enormous collection of food that I didn’t nearly finish. After almost running over our nephew (!) he dropped me at my hotel where I did my one meeting of the (vacation, mind you) week. After that, I really got to enjoy Halifax: walking down to the waterfront, enjoying the sunshine, checking out all the new developments, sitting down at the Stubborn Goat / Garrison Brewing beer garden for a Hefeweizen and milk stout and currywurst, and grabbing a cappuccino from Weird Harbour on my way back to the hotel.

I met back up with the brother in the late afternoon, strolling around a bit again until visiting Obladee, where I was overjoyed with their wine list. So much stuff to try, so little time. But I did my best, running my way down their list:

  • L’Oiselinière Muscadet Sèvre et Maine Sur Lie
  • Meinklang Burgenlandweiss 2020
  • La Baronne Le Grenache Gris de Jean 2018
  • Caruso & Minini Frappato Nerello Mascalese
  • Lustau Oloroso Don Nuño Sherry

I could have spent all night there, sampling stuff I don’t know well. By a country mile, this is the best wine list in the city.

We walked back to his house, where we ate sushi and just hung out. Halifax, which I’ve always loved fiercely, is made that much better by the family presence here, vs. just university memories. I walked back to my hotel after, enjoying the cool air and dodging the usual Friday night Halifax silliness.

SATURDAY

Bad news to start the day: our flight was cancelled and we (my mom flew back to Toronto with me) were moved to a flight 3 hours later. We had some time to kill so we drove back to Wolfville just for kicks; Lightfoot & Wolfville was packed for a private event, and the downtown was manic for…homecoming, we guessed? Anyway, we had brunch at some non-descript pub, drove back to the airport, checked in, and flew home. I forgot how long Porter flights can feel, and our leg from Halifax to Ottawa was sardine-crammed. We got in late, and crashed. A day, but a wonderfully chill week overall.

Cover photo from the Hidden Bench site

Felseck put Tête de Cuvée in a corner

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Last Sunday we drove down to Beamsville for the latest Hidden Bench wine club release. We made a grave error and ate beforehand — there were grilled cheeses, lobster & shrimp rolls, duck spring rolls, and lamb chops. Harald chastised us for not coming hungry enough.

These were the wines released, in the order we sampled them:

  • 2016 Natur Zero Dosage Traditional Method Sparkling
  • 2019 Nuit Blanche
  • 2018 Tête de Cuvée Chardonnay
  • 2018 Felseck Chardonnay
  • 2018 Locust Lane Pinot Noir
  • 2018 Terroir Caché

All were as amazing as expected, but I finally got to taste the 2018 Felseck Chard that won Best in Show at the Decanter World Wine Awards this June. Verdict: the hype is real.

.:.

Cover photo from the Hidden Bench site

Re-Treadwell

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

We’ve just arrived home from ~48 hours in Niagara on the Lake. It was mostly for work, so we barely got to do anything else except…well, eat and drink. The only meal we’d booked in advance was Treadwell (our go to every time in NotL) for dinner Friday night; we liked it so much we managed to weasel our way into coming back for lunch the next day.

First, though, we had dinner Thursday night at Tiara, the restaurant in the Queen’s Landing hotel, where we were staying. Like every other restaurant in Ontario right now, they were short-staffed and had limited seating, but we got one of the last tables. Our servers were lovely, and we could more or less see the river from our table, which was nice.

We had glasses of Saintly rosé to start, then shared the roasted heritage beet salad w/ micro greens, smoked goats’ cheese & burnt honey dressing and the butter Fried Scallops w/ pork belly “Wellington”, forced rhubarb & celeriac remoulade, all of which we paired with an excellent DIM Riesling.

For our mains I had a grilled medallion and braised short rib of VG Farms Beef w/ parmesan whipped potato, mushrooms, beans & red wine hollandaise. Lindsay had the roasted Ontario lamb rack & saddle w/ rainbow carrots, lamb fat fondant potato & smoked garlic rosemary jus. We paired it all with a bottle of 2014 Chateau des Charmes Equleuus.

I spent most of the next day out doing work stuff while Lindsay chilled in the room (it was too hot to do much else), then I had a nap while she got ready for dinner at Treadwell. It is a go-to every time in NotL, and didn’t disappoint this go round. After a walk along the river we sat down, tucked in, ordered some 13th Street blanc de blancs to sip on while we strategized, and then got into our four courses:

First

  • D: Monforte sheep’s milk fresco cheese, heirloom tomato & peach salad, sherry vinaigrette (Sixteen Mile rosé)
  • L: Chilled peach gazpacho with Quiet Acres peaches and pickled chilies (Sixteen Mile rosé)

Second

  • D: Pan seared east coast scallops, roasted corn, crisphy chicken skin (Arneis)
  • L: Mussels a la Nage, white wine, fresh herbs, grilled bread (Five Rows Sauvignon Blanc)

Main

  • D: Maple glazed Muscovy duck breast, Ohme Farms turnips, Ontario blueberry jus (Nebbiolo)
  • L: Shallot crusted fillet of Ontario beef, Lyonnaise potato, summer mushrooms, shaved truffle, red wine jus (super tuscan)

Dessert

  • D: Lemon & basil tart with honey and fennel pollen ice cream (Big Head botrytis-affected Chenin Blanc)
  • L: Selection of cheeses (Big Head botrytis-affected Chenin Blanc)

Utterly delicious, top to bottom. I think Lindsay was a little jealous of my orders though. Also: since we were in Niagara I didn’t bother taking note of the non-Niagara wines!

Before we left, we asked if they had any space left the next day for lunch. We didn’t have time to do much before leaving the city except eat a good lunch, so rather than hunt for something else we just took a swing. And we connected! They had a table for us. We left, knowing we’d get an encore in ~14 hours. On our walk home we had to scurry away from a family of skunks (!) chowing down on Queen Street tourust leavings.

Unearthing ourselves from the hotel bed Saturday morning wasn’t easy, but we managed it. We arose, cleaned up, packed, checked out, and drove downtown. We found a parking space, helped an elderly gentleman pay for his parking with a QR code (we just paid for it, actually…it was easier than explaining it) before getting a coffee and wandering around a bit. When we arrived at 11:30 we were sat outside, which seemed like a good idea at the time, but ended up being torturously hot. Anyway, that’s hardly their fault.

Still a killer meal though: Lindsay had Chardonnay-steamed PEI mussels w/ fennel pollen cream & grilled bread (paired with a glass of 13th Street blanc de blancs) and a lobster club on duck fat fried sourdough, double-smoked bacon & whipped goat’s cheese w/ local salad greens & summer truffle (paired with a Pearl Morissette Chardonnay). I had roasted summer beets w/ whipped goat’s cheese, toasted hazelnuts & dill vinaigrette, and duck confit w/ summer succotash, frid egg & red wine jus (paired with a Fourth Wall Cabernet Franc).

This time I think Lindsay enjoyed her meal a little more than I did, but it was still a smashing idea to double up. We chatted about wine, and wineries, and winemaking with the staff, and they thanked us for coming back the very next night. I suppose that must be the best compliment for a restaurant.

Thus stuffed, we set out for home, stopping to pick up a wayward case of wine from The Farm, and arriving home to find our cute little bug, lightly traumatized from his first two days alone in the new house. As I write this, though, he’s purring and rubbing against my chair, so I think he’s forgiven us.

Work promises to summon me down to the peninsula more often. Frankly, I couldn’t be happier about that.

.:.

Cover photo from the Sekai Wagyu site

Return of the Black Tajima

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Last night we made our first visit to an all-time fav since before the pandemic: Jacobs & Co. It was…just! so! delicious! Here’s what we had:

  • A dozen oysters
  • Caesar salad
    • Vilmart & Cie “Grand Cellier” 1er Cru Champagne
  • 14oz Canadian Prime Ribeye from Guelph, Ontario, aged 55 days
  • 8oz A5 Black Tajima Wagyu California Cut Striploin from Miyazaki Prefecture, Japan
  • Duck fat french fries, Bok Choy, and mixed mushrooms
    • 2010 Antinori Solaia
  • Ice cream
    • 2009 Chateau Guiraud Sauternes
    • Graham’s 20-year Tawny Port

The highlights were the Wagyu and the Solaia, as well as the service — it seemed such a treat to have someone knowledgeable banter and teach and bring us steak & wine. Not the kind of meal you can snap off regularly, but certainly worthy of coming back from such a long absence.

A note on the neighbourhood: Jacobs is one of the very few reasons we’d actually go to the entertainment district, and MAN were we blown away by how many people were out. Sidewalks were full, patios were full, clubs looked open…it was like a normal Friday night down there. Pretty crazy compared to the relatively sedate east end.

Cover photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Second pandy birthday

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Yesterday was my birthday. I celebrated by having a pretty good day at work, doing a tiny bit of travel planning, watching some Bad Batch, playing a game of Exploding Kittens with Lindsay, drinking a bottle of Armand de Brignac (!) Champagne, opening a couple of very thoughtful gifts, and going out to dinner — for the first time in a year — to Gare de L’est.

Dinner was simple, but also felt wonderful. We sat on the patio and listened to live jazz like the world was normal again. We had oysters, steak tartare, duck (me) and mussels (Linds), wine, and more champagne. They rushed us out before we could get dessert but we went full dirty and got a McCain deep n’ delicious chocolate cake from the convenience store that Lindsay jammed a few candles in, and watched trash TV until we got sleepy.

Not the most glamorous birthday I’ve ever had, but I’ll take it.

.:.

Cover photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

ver photo by iSAW Company on Unsplash

Post-lockdown house guests

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

This morning Lindsay’s old friend N and N’s girlfriend J left for Montreal, having stayed with us the past few days. It was a treat having them here. It felt odd to even have guests in the house again, but the week was just so chill and fun. And they kept cooking for us, which felt pretty luxe.

Last night was especially fun — after drinks & decor ideas and book browsing, they made an amazing dinner of tenderloin steaks wrapped in bacon, Caesar salad, and oven-roasted fresh-cut fries. We had plenty of wine before and during: Muscadet, Albarino, Ontario sparkling, Pet Nat, and Napa Cab. We sat outside in the perfect weather and wolfed it down. The dinner, the day, and really the whole week was just such a joy.

Come back anytime pals.

.:.

Cover photo by iSAW Company on Unsplash

Old Fashioned

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

I’ve never been much of a cocktail guy. I don’t mind the odd one, but I usually can’t be arsed to order one, and certainly not to make one. However, if getting older / more poncey / the lockdown has led me anywhere, it’s to wanting to make a cocktail now and then. That said, I’m still too lazy to make anything fancy, and all my spare kitchen/bar space is taken up with wine and beer paraphernalia, so I have to keep it simple.

To wit: maybe the simplest cocktail of all. The Old Fashioned.

I love bourbon. I like sugar. I got my hands on some angostura bitters. Orange peels: no problem. So I gave it a go.

A note on sugar: rather than use a traditional sugar cube, I put a Dickinson twist on it and used maple sugar. It seems a nice touch, but it’s subtle, so I need to use more (and find a way to muddle it more effectively).

I’ve tried making a couple and they weren’t bad. I can tell I don’t have it nailed just yet, but I was reluctant to practice too much until I had more bourbon in the house. Until today all I had was a lovely bottle of Angel’s Envy my brother sent up from Nova Scotia, and delicious cocktail or not, I’m not wasting it. I grabbed a bottle Knob Creek today, so…let the tuning & tweaking commence!

Jules Bistro

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

At least once each weekend we try to set aside an evening as date night — fancy delivery, dinner table, proper place settings, music, etc. — and our go-to dinner spot lately has been classic French: Jules Bistro. Twice we’ve ordered the Cote de Boeuf for two, and last night we got the Magret de Canard. It’s hard to find places that can deliver high-quality food in a car in the winter (see also: Terroni) so, as long as the pandemic continues, they’ll probably be a mainstay for us. Because let me tell you: damn, the food is good.

Also: these dinners provide an excuse to pull a pretty exciting wine out of the fridge. So far it’s been a 2012 Le Vieux Pin Equinoxe Cabernet Franc (steak), a 2013 El Enemigo Gran Enemigo Gualtallary Single Vineyard Cabernet Franc (steak), and a 2011 Bodegas Raul Perez Bierzo Ultreia Valtuille (duck).

.:.

Cover photo from the Jules Bistro site

Cover photo by Farzad Nazifi on Unsplash

Fun with screens

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

While normally we find it exhausting to look at screens, yesterday they were the underpinnings of a pretty good day.

Somehow yesterday I became aware that Bar Volo, and its College Street sibling Birreria Volo carry Gueuze Tilquin, one of my all-time favourite beers but heretofore extremely hard to find in Ontario. I jumped on the laptop, ordered a bunch from Volo (including the new-to-me wild blueberry Tilquin, and a bottle of the Rullquin stout, and a bottle of Cantillon for good measure), followed by an order from the Birreria of 6 (!) bottles of their standard gueuze and 2 bottles of the cassis. Turns out they can’t deliver it without food, so we grabbed some sausage, manchego, and a baguette too.

After that was all put away, and as I cleaned up the kitchen, we watched two episodes (one from last week, the other live) of Think You Know Wine, the virtual blind tasting by four of the WineAlign wine critics. It was Lindsay’s first time watching, and she could barely stand the humbling the critics took these last few episodes, but I loved it. Made me feel better about my own tasting endeavours. We finished them up as we sat down to dinner.

Not long after said dinner we jumped on a Jitsi call with some friends, and ended up chatting the night away for four hours. I kept the TV on in the background, and watched the Habs blast the Canucks for the second straight night. We finished some wine and tackled some of the excellent new beer. Kramer saw some raccoons walking through the backyard and freaked out. By the time we went to bed we’d been drinking and eating for about 8 hours, so we woke up this morning feeling a little overindulged, but nothing a lie-in, some coffee, and some greasy breakfast couldn’t fix.

.:.

Cover photo by Farzad Nazifi on Unsplash

The switch to repose

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Now, a week after I posted about starting vacation, it feels like we’re probably able to relax. On Sunday of this week we drove out to Oshawa to pick up my niece, as she can’t fly home to NS. The early part of the week was filled with errands and Christmas prep (and a bit of work) but also some games, like Pandemic and crib and Snakes & Ladders / Climb to Emotional Maturity.

On Christmas Eve we made sugar cookies from XO Bisous, then roasted a duck & sides that came in a kit from Avling Brewing. I didn’t get the duck quite right, but the Bouchard Père & Fils 2011 Premier Cru Pinot Noir almost made up for it.

On Christmas Day (a white Christmas, for the first time in recent memory) we baked scones, opened gifts, chatted with our families, played Mario Kart on the niece’s new Nintendo Switch, and roasted up a pretty damn good chicken.

Today we did…nothing. Pretty much, anyway.

Finally.