Nanatsu no taizai

August 13, 2018August 13, 2018 Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Last weekend was fun. Busy and delicious and friend-filled. Fun! Camaraderie! Not work!

It started right after we left the office on Friday when we met Joe & Sheila at La Carnita (the downtown one, not the one in our hood) before their Jays game. We got silly on tacos and colourful cocktails. After that we had dinner lined up at White Lily Diner, which is always so chill on Friday nights. We ate stupid-good patty melts and blackberry crumble and took peanut butter doughnuts home for breakfast.

Saturday got a little busy as we headed up to our friends Sarah & Mekki’s place in the northwest corner of the city. I’d never taken the new line 1 extension north of Sheppard West (nee Downsview) so it was an adventure. A long, long adventure. We were there to meet a new friend, who I’ll talk about more next week. We ended up spending several hours at theirs and got into their booze, so rather than face the long transit ride home we took a pricey Uber.

Even so, we were a little late to meet my friend Andrea at Lake Inez. She’d never been, and we hadn’t been since the chef turned over, so it was new-ish for all of us. We did PRETTY WELL, I think:

broccoli charred in chili jam w/ vegan oyster sauce, crispy anchovy & shallots, kohlrabi
za’atar roasted califlower w/ spicy herb sauce, edamame hummus, peanut dukkah
beef tartare w/ sweet soy reduction, slow-cooked egg yolk, calamansi lime, rice crisp
Thai-style curry w/ market fish grilled over Japanese charcoal, zucchini, savoy cabbage, cilantro, peanuts, jasmine rice
Korean-ish short rib w/ kimchi mash, ssamjang mayo, bibb lettuce
Some unusual but terrific Pinot Noir whose name I can’t remember

Afterward we walked around the corner to Godspeed Brewery. Andrea’s not a beer drinker, but I know they keep Tawse on tap, so she was good. Meanwhile Lindsay and I delved into their list, which I must say has improved since our last visit a year ago.

The next morning we weren’t exactly feeling 100%, so we dragged our sorry selves to Eastbound for brunch. God bless that fork-and-knife fried chicken sandwich (which is really a piece of spicy fried chicken, a two-egg omelette, and two bacon-filled pancakes) and some coffee. It all saved me.

Great weekend. I did feel the need to return to work just to slow things down though.

Hope Drone

August 12, 2018 Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Last Tuesday I met Lindsay after work for dinner and some beers at Stout Irish Pub before strolling around the corner to the Phoenix.

We were there to see Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Lindsay for the first time, me for the first time in seven years. We got there late so it was tough to find a good spot, but it’s not like you need to see much of what GY!BE does on stage. They started, as they often do, with “Hope Drone” before moving on to more. We’d eventually hear a lot of their latest album Luciferian Towers (including “Bosses Hang”, to my mind one of their best songs) but I was happily surprised when their second song was “Mladic”, another of my all-time favourites, coming from a few albums back.

Midway through the concert I moved toward the back, which was kind of a mistake, and I drifted away from the show a little. But then they ended with the “Sad Mafioso” section of “East Hastings”, which always reminds me of watching 28 Days Later with Tim in London sixteen years ago, and it was savage and thumping and so amazing to see live when I never thought I would. So for the second time I ended up having a weird, almost offputting experience seeing GY!BE, but they played three of my favourite songs, so it felt worth it.

Of course, it might have been fitting if they’d played “Storm” instead since we exited into an epic deluge which swamped the city and drenched me to the bone trying to get home.

The set list:

“Hope Drone”
“Mladic”
“Bosses Hang”
“Fam/Famine”
“Undoing a Luciferian Towers”
“Monheim” (including Murray Ostril / ‘…They Don’t Sleep Anymore on the Beach…’) from “Sleep”
“The Sad Mafioso” from “East Hastings”

Digital Witnesses

August 4, 2018August 3, 2018 Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

On Tuesday we went to the Sony Centre for one of the best concerts I’ve ever seen: St. Vincent, on her Masseduction tour. The performance was so stylish and sharp and overwhelming, and the music was just as good live as on the albums, and she fucking shreds on guitar. A couple of times it was so good that I actually welled up, just from the sheer awesomeness. It was made all the better by the crowd being so into it (except the two dunces standing next to Lindsay). What an experience.

The set list:

Sugarboy
Los Ageless
Masseduction
Savior
Huey Newton
Year of the Tiger
Marrow
Pills
Cruel
Cheerleader
Digital Witness
Rattlesnake
Hysterical Strength
Young Lover
Fear the Future
Slow Disco
New York
Smoking Section
Happy Birthday, Johnny
Severed Crossed Fingers

Also: before the concert we tried East 36, which used to be Lucien, and it…wasn’t very good. I mean, our cocktails were good, but after that the problems began: our oysters were served without any sauces, my confit duck leg was too fatty (even for confit duck!), and Lindsay’s NY strip was like shoe leather. Lindsay’s Cab was okay, but my Pinot was rubbish. Don’t think we’ll be going back there anytime soon.

Forty-three

August 2, 2018 Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

After a long week in San Francisco I just wanted some time to relax. Lindsay gave me a night. Then the birthday activities started. Pre-birthday, really, since my birthday was Monday, but who wants to celebrate their birthday on a Monday?

First up was a cozy breakfast of griddle cakes at White Lily, followed by an afternoon of beer sampling at Rorschach. It was my/our first time there, and I was pretty psyched. I had a “Syncronicity” Oolong tea & lime saison, a “Malevolent Benevolence – Turtle” pecan coffee & cocoa nib imperial stout, and a “Malevolent Benevolence – French Toast” maple syrup, cinnamon & vanilla imperial stout. All on a rooftop patio amongst trees, by a park. Pretty sweet pre-birthday afternoon, right?

For dinner that night we hit another new place: the Maple Leaf Tavern. I liked the vibe right away: very relaxed, but with a serious (read: meat-heavy) menu. We sampled heavily — to the point where multiple staff members came to our table and told us, “I like what you’re doing here.” We delved deeply:

When we mentioned this was my birthday celebration dinner, they brought over glasses of sparkling, which I’m guessing were the N. Pearce Ward 5 Brut Blanc, but I’m not sure.
They make their own sausages so we got three: French Onion, Jerk Pork, and Arabiki. Each came with a special mustard. I’d go back just for the sausages.
Extra bread
Whole Ontario Burrata w/ extra virgin canola oil, Baco Noir balsamic, and Newfoundland salt
A bottle of Mencia
24oz tomahawk pork chop w/ rosemary apple sauce
7oz Wagyu flat iron steak w/ tarragon butter
Honey & cumin glazed carrots w/ parsley yoghurt
Beets
A bottle of No Name Barolo

The next morning we slept in until…like, 11 or something. Crazily late for me, at any rate. When we finally got up we made our way to Eastbound for brunch where I annihilated a Bo Ssam pulled pork & kimchi sandwich. We spent most of the rest of the day chilling on the couch, ending the day drinking a bottle of Kew Vineyards 2014 Blanc de Blancs and eating a bowl of plain kettle chips.

So: bonne fête à moi, right?

Snozberries

July 29, 2018 Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Last week I was back in San Francisco for the first time in about five years, this time for a conference which would take up the better part of a work week.

Monday

My flight was around noon, so I worked from home and then had a nice easy commute to the airport. Almost too easy, really — my Uber driver and I were both freaked out by how smooth a trip it was.

My flight was similarly simple, and with a little extra leg room in the exit row. I watched The Post and Red Sparrow and landed at SFO in no time. The night before the conference began I spent a night at the Inn at Union Square, which was fine, if a little noisy. It was well-placed, though, to try a good place for lunch: Hogwash, where I had a dirty sausage sandwich and a Little Creatures Juicy Pale Ale.

It was also convenient for that night’s dinner with other conference attendees, at Scala’s Bistro, just a few seconds around the corner. Dinner was fine. Too loud. Too cramped. But gift horses and all that. Afterward I walked up the hill to check out another beer joint, Hopwater Distribution. I unwound from the forced interaction and closed the place down.

Tuesday

The next day I switched to my home base for the remainder of the conference, and spent the day attending session. That night some of us got to attend an event at the SFMOMA, which was showing an interesting Magritte exhibit (and has lots of Cy Twomly pieces that I really liked). There were rare whisky tasting and dessert art stations set up outside, so I…had a good time.

Wednesday

On Wednesday, after the conference day ended, I skipped the planned social event for the 20,000+ (!) attendees and had dinner in the hotel restaurant, Luce. My meal was outstanding, and I got to try Keenan Cab Sauv for my first time since visiting the winery eight years ago.

Pacific blue prawn, roasted with espelette chili + lemon, pistachio & brown butter (+ Château de Brézé Chenin, “Clos du Midi,” Saumur 2016)
New York strip steak w/ , rosemary + garlic Yukon potato “Anna”, Trumpet Royale mushrooms & date marmalade (+ Keenan Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley 2014)
Chateau Laribotte 2011 Sauternes

Thursday

Before the conference started I made my way to the nearest Blue Bottle Coffee for a cappuccino. It was a long wait. It was not worth it.

After the conference ended Thursday I made my way to the Mikkeller Bar SF to have some lunch and do some work. I’d heard good things. I’d read better things. I was immediately overwhelmed. There were at least a dozen beers I wanted to try, most of them stupidly strong.

In the end, in addition to another tasty sausage, I had:

Mikkeller “Blue Hour” gose-style ale brewed w/ pineapple, tart cherry & yerba buena
Mikkeller “Orange Yuzu Glad I Said Porter?” American porter brewed w/ yuzu
Barrel Brothers “The Snozberries Taste Like Snozberries” blonde sour ale with w/ wild berries
Jackie O’s “Oil of Aphrodite” imperial stout brewed w/ black walnuts
Prairie Artisan Ales “Bomb!” imperial stout aged on coffee, cacao nibs, vanilla & chilies

I walked (slowly, carefully; those last few beers were 10% and 14% ABV respectively) back to my hotel and chilled for a bit. I was in the mood for more steak, and made dinner reservations (solo) for Alexander’s. It was a killer meal, and one of the best steaks I’ve ever eaten. And because I was sitting at the chef’s bar they kept sending over little tastes and treats , and the Sommelier led me down a very lovely path indeed.

Hon hamachi w/ avocado, serrano, cilantro, yuzu-soy, garlic & radish
Scallop crudo w/ avocado, fresno chile, honey vinegar, apple & mint (+ their customer Riesling from the Mosel, which had been aged just long enough to be outstandingly petrol-y)
20oz Nebraska-raised prime black Angus ribeye chop w/ yuzu kosho chimichurri, baby corn, Blue Lake green beans, charred lemon miso & crispy shallot (+ Corison 2014 Cabernet Sauvignon)
Dream Weaver goat cheese from Paso Robles (+ 1968 D’Oliveiras Bual Madeira)
Lime cotton candy (!)

Friday

Nothing to do Friday but more work in the morning, and then fly back to Toronto. In the crap bar at the airport I happened upon one last killer beer: the Ballast Point grapefruit “Sculpin” IPA.

The flight home went super-quickly: I was somehow upgraded to premium economy, and watched two movies (Avengers: Infinity War and Detroit) and suddenly I was back in Toronto. Body tired, brain full.

Slight, delicious deviation

July 22, 2018July 26, 2018 Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Our calm new GoodFood routine got thrown off a little last week with some visitors and outings. I/we needed them though.

First was a visit from one of Lindsay’s friends, in from out of town. They came back to our place for a drink after going out for dinner, and we popped a bottle of red.

The next night I had a drink with Matt at Beerbistro, which I haven’t been to in a long time, and we had a great catch-up on work and life and food, and I gave him a recommendation for Lake Inez that he jumped on later in the week. After that I met up with the two of them and had a few glasses of Le Vieux Pin Equinoxe Chardonnay before we all piled into an uber.

Dinner was at Gare de L’est, and it was fantastic as usual. Coq au vin, duck confit, charcuterie, Bordeaux…so, so good. Service was a little…odd? Not our server, but another guy who circled around and just seemed to be trying too hard. We finished our meals and escaped him, stopping at Chez Nous on the way home for one last glass of wine.

We spent a few quiet nights at home, and then Friday slid out of work to meet Mike + Heather at The Wren. There were SO many good beers, and by the time we got there we were into the bottle list. Luckily they’re game to try a lot of the same stuff, and the staff there seems to like it when you try the fun bottles. They stopped back at ours after to see the new kitchen (I used their contractor) and collect their maple syrup for the year. It was good to see them. It’s always good to see them.

Saturday morning we slept the hell in before finally dragging ourselves to Frankie’s Italian, the new incarnation of Lil’ Baci. I pretended nothing had changed and ordered the spicy pork meatballs and eggs.

Le Select

July 15, 2018July 15, 2018 Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Though it’s been an institution in Toronto’s French dining scene for years, I’d never managed to get to Le Select. Until last week.

I had the beet + goat cheese salad with chestnuts, and the smoked duck breast special with celeriac purée. I had a really excellent bottle of 2010 Château St-Georges from St-Émilion, and a glass of 2010 Château Suduirault 1er Grand Cru Classé Sauternes.

I’ll be honest: it made me miss France.

July 7, 2018 Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

A couple months ago I posted pictures of our old busted kitchen, and the interim state in which it existed for a while during renovations:

Finally, a few weeks ago, it was done. Well, more or less. We’re still waiting for the backsplash, but we finally have a functional (and beautiful) kitchen!

More storage, more counter space, new appliances, better design. I love it so much.

To celebrate having a new kitchen we decided to actually put it to use, and signed up for GoodFood. We’ve long contemplated a service like this (where they drop off pre-measured, pre-prepped ingredients and simple instructions) since we have neither the time nor the energy to come up with ideas and recipes. Even shopping for groceries is a stretch, so we end up eating out constantly. From both a health and financial standpoint, this made a ton of sense. I admit to being nervous about the quality of the food though.

However, we prepped our first meals this past week, and I have to say: they were amazing. Like, all three were delicious, and they took 20-25 minutes to prep. So far, a week in, this seems like one of our best ideas ever. Bonus: each meal gave me an excuse to open good bottles of wine from the collection, so:

[Missing: the lovely Domaine Louis Moreau 2016 Chablis we had with our fish.]

50th & 12

July 2, 2018 Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

We arrived back in Toronto last night, ending an awfully busy 5-6 weeks of travel. The last ten days have been pretty intense family time, spread across a few locales.

Last weekend my mom was in town, in the middle of a trip to visit her sister in Guelph, so a bunch of family and a few friends drove into town for dinner before they went to see Come From Away. We all met at Locale Mercatto for an early dinner and had a good old chat, not to mention some good food and nice volcanic wine. Apparently we were also meant to go to the play but we got our wires crossed; in any case I had a work issue in progress, and we had packing to do.

The next day we flew to Halifax, had a quick stop in Bedford, then drove to the Annapolis Valley and met Lindsay’s mom and brothers at the same cottage as last year — but for two nights this time. We played games outside and had a big grilled steak dinner the first night, but spent the second day huddled inside around a fire for warmth on what turned out to be a cold, rainy day. It was still completely relaxing though, and the rain broke long enough for some grilled sausages after our games were complete.

Tuesday morning was much nicer so we squeezed in a last game of washer toss before departing. We stopped at Lightfoot & Wolfville on the way back, having just missed their grand opening last year. We bought a few bottles to bring back, and ate (extremely delicious) pizza and garlic fingers outside. Then it was back to Bedford.

We spent the Tuesday and Wednesday nights at Lindsay’s dad’s place, zipping downtown for a quick dinner Wednesday at Your Father’s Moustache, and on Thursday attending her youngest brother’s graduation. After a big feed of Chinese takeout that night back at their mom’s, we played washer toss ’til it got dark and Yahtzee (seriously) into the wee hours and then crashed.

We took it easy Friday, eventually exiting Bedford and driving to my parents farm. We arrived late that night, just late enough to crash hard in the nice cool basement. The next day we slept in a bit before getting up and getting to work — it was the day of my parents’ 50th anniversary party, and there was an open house from 1-4. A friend of mom’s (the same one who accompanied her to the play the week before) catered, and we were all put to work slicing and setting and placing and cleaning. Nearly a hundred people wandered through the house on a stiflingly hot day, all to congratulate my parents on a pretty remarkable accomplishment.

We did manage to squeeze in a tiny bit of relaxation time at the farm as well, from playing many games of crib, to perpetually scratching the dogs, to lying in a hammock.

Everyone left Sunday morning after things had died down. We got to the airport and had a glass of wine at Vino Volo, which might have been ill-advised since Porter boarded their flight almost instantly, resulting in us actually getting paged as we walked down the terminal. We worked on the flight back, arriving to a moist blanket of heat draped over Toronto, and have scarcely left the loft since.

It was a fun trip, if not terribly relaxing. Frankly, we’re pretty excited to not have plans to fly or drive anywhere the next few weekends.

Penultimate Montreal

June 6, 2018 Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

This week’s been so busy I forgot to talk about our trip to Montreal last weekend. We brought a bunch of Lindsay’s stuff back to Toronto, but mainly just tried to enjoy Montreal for the last time. For a while, anyway.

Our flight was supposed to leave Friday night but got delayed; we ended up just changing it to early Saturday morning. We flew in, dropped our stuff at the apartment, hung out with Sara and Roscoe for a bit, and then went downtown for lunch at Cafe Parvis. We shared a cucumber salad and margherita pizza; I had a nice little soave and a Loire cab franc. All was good.

Just down the street was the MAC (the contemporary art museum) where we checked out the buzzy new Rafael Lozano-Hemmer exhibition, some of which was very cool, and some of which seemed more spectacle than significant. There were other lovely exhibitions too, like Alone Together and That’s How The Light Gets In and especially The Prophets. A worthwhile visit, to be sure.

For dinner last night we obviously had to hit up Maison Publique, where we turned in a top-notch final meal:

Radish, mozzarella, and basil salad
White asparagus
Tagliatelle in garlic & pesto
Fried halibut
- 2014 Burrowing Owl Chardonnay
Spicy lamb tartare
Charlevoix Pork
- 2015 Laughing Stock Portfolio Bordeaux blend
Pot de creme
Ice cream, with a celebratory/goodbye sparkler
- Godfather cocktails, made with local amaretto

Quel send-off.

The next morning required a slow start, so we grabbed picnic ingredients from the nearby Metro and ate and hung out in Parc La Fontaine. We read Fran Lebovitz to each other, just like we did in our early days together, and watched ducks and dogs, and enjoyed the sun (but not too much, as we are so very pale).

We had to spend the afternoon packing, but then ducked out to Brouhaha for a few beers with Sara. We heard very odd music, like this. Twice.

I also walked into the ladies washroom. Slick last few hours in Montreal, I must say.

Our flight back home was delayed too, but only by an hour or so. Still, that was more than enough to start us off exhausted for what would turn out to be a very busy week.

SNORE.

Skirl | Dan Dickinson

Skirl: (skûrl) n. A shrill wailing sound

Category: Food / drink