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. 😐
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
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I like retronyms. Not quite as much as I like a good portmanteau, but they’re still pretty interesting. It’s been fun to see some emerge in my lifetime (e.g., landline phone or snail mail) while others I used for my whole life without ever thinking about it (e.g., cloth diaper or acoustic guitar).
Lately I’ve been thinking about this article — Coffee Is No Longer The Most Important Part of Coffee by Anna Maria Arriaga (link) — and thinking there’s another retronym around the corner.
The article, as the title suggests, talks about how coffee culture is evolving from its third wave — single origin coffee, pour overs, nerds arguing about burr vs. blade grinders, and so on — is giving way to a fourth wave where the coffee is incidental to the coffee drink, giving way to foams, sweeteners, flavour syrups, etc.
“In short, coffee’s fourth wave is defined by everything other than the coffee itself. Maximalist add-ins, flavor combinations, and iced drinks naturally gain popularity when the coffee industry attempts to appeal to younger generations.”
Given this, I think some retronym will emerge to distinguish third-wave coffee. We already had “regular coffee” to distinguish it from decaf, but I’d argue decaf was and is more of the exception, so I’m not sure I’d count that. “Black coffee” was kind of a retronym I suppose, though I read it as more of a stated option.
We also had “drip coffee” which was meant to distinguish from espresso-based drinks, once those became dominant, so there’s that. But I suspect we’re going to end up with something more broadly representing third wave coffee-forward coffee drinks in all forms — that is, the usual lineup at any third wave coffee shop. (Roughly: drip, espresso, cappuccino, latte, maybe a cortado if they fancy.) What that’ll be, I’m not sure — “third wave” is way too clunky.
Maybe this has already happened and I’m just not inside-coffee enough to know. I just like guessing where retronyms are likely to emerge.
I turned 50 last week. The day itself wasn’t very remarkable — I worked a full day, and we just ordered some dinner. No big blowout trip, and even the little long weekend getaway we planned didn’t start until the next day.
After another full workday we drove crawled to Elora, arriving at the Elora Mill just in time for our dinner reservation. We sat outside and ordered the Celebration menu, which was a four course tasting menu — or rather, two different versions, so we could share. I can’t remember all the details of each course, but here it is to the best of my memory:
Strawberry basil gazpacho amuse bouche
Tomato tart // duck terrine
Lobster in a tomato sauce // sourdough angel hair pasta
Seared scallops // venison
Black forest cake // pistachio cake
Wine pairings
Birthday cannoli
We went for an after-dinner walk, enjoying the temperate evening when such things have been in short supply.
I got back in time for some room service breakfast to arrive. We savored yet another kickass meal from downstairs, and enjoyed the view from our room.
We needed some exercise, so we walked up the hill to Victoria Park, took the stairs down to Irvine Creek, and took in the view of the gorge.
Once we ascended, it had warmed up quite a lot, and a drink was in order. We fancied a cocktail, so we went to The Lobby Bar. I had a pineapple vanilla sour; Lindsay had a hillstone crisp martini. Both were too sweet, and the vibe in there was weird, so we decamped for the Elora Brewing Company up the street. We took a patio table in the shade, and drank beers and ate pretzels and admired patio dogs.
We walked back to the hotel and just relaxed in that palatial room for a few hours. We’d liked dinner so much the night before we booked again for night #2. Our table wasn’t ready when we got there, so we killed time in the bar with glasses of Moet & Chandon Champagne. Once we had our table, we enjoyed yet another outstanding meal:
Grilled Lake Erie Pickerel for two w/ soused tomatoes, frites, watercress aïoli
a bottle of Cremant d’Alsace Blanc de Blancs
No late-night walk this time — it had been a long day, and we were spent.
Saturday
Alas, it was time to leave Elora Mill. Not before another room service breakfast though — their apple cinnamon scones are ridiculous. We cleaned up and packed up and left Elora for part two of the long weekend: Niagara-on-the-Lake.
We headed merrily down highway 6 before getting caught in the predictable misery of QEW traffic. We scrapped lunch plans and picked up our wine order at Five Rows (and there ran into an old Arterra colleague). We stopped for groceries in Virgil and late lunch at Silversmith, then drove to our AirBnB.
See that pool? We dropped our stuff and jumped straight into it.
It was a big beautiful house, so we relaxed, opened a bottle of 2019 Le Clos Jordanne Le Grand Clos Pinot Noir, made nachos, played some trivia, and crashed.
Sunday
Another sleep-in. Another dip in the pool. Coffee & breakfast nachos. A few errands: two nearby fruit stands, more groceries, and a stop at the Pie Plate.
Back at the house we opened a bottle of 2024 Five Rows Pinot Gris, played a round of Pandemic, snacked on fresh local fruit, had a wee nap, and then jumped back into the pool. Over the course of the day we drank a bottle of 2024 Five Rows Sauvignon Blanc while Lindsay made me a big dinner: caprese salad w/ local peaches, shrimp + chorizo fajitas, and peach pie & ice cream. We paired all that with a bottle of 2021 Leaning Post Clone 548 Chardonnay.
We somehow digested all that enough to go for a chilly night swim.
Monday
First order of business: get up, get packed, and get out of the AirBnB. But not before one last swim in the pool. We took the leftover pie & ice cream and ate it in the park across the road.
We’d been wanting some sparkling so we drove to Trius. Not a good experience. We paid $25 for three of their premium wines. The premium sparkling was flat — they acknowledged later it was the end of a bottle that had been opened the day before. The other two wines were meh. Given all that maybe we shouldn’t have bought any, but we didn’t want to leave empty-handed, and I know their top-end sparklings are good, so we held our noses.
We drove back to NotL for lunch at Treadwell, a ritual when we’re leaving town. We still don’t know what was going on in the city, but there was no parking anywhere. We ended up parking ten minutes away – illegally, mind you, but so was everyone else’s parking spot.
Lunch was, surprisingly, just okay: my scallops & pork belly were decent, but Lindsay’s mussels were underwhelming. Then we split a lobster club that did NOT feel worth the $49 price tag. It used to be cheaper and better, TBH.
We walked back to the car and braced ourselves for our commute home. Happily, it went about as perfectly as could be: no traffic jams (other than the Gardiner, where it’s always bad), no accidents…just smooth sailing. We were home in less than two hours, where we were greeted by a yelling cat.
Epilogue
I have heartburn from all the rich food & drink, and my muscles are sore from five swims in 40 hours, but other than that…50 feels pretty great.
Skirl | Dan Dickinson 