Tomorrow is about catching up on work. But today…today was all about the market, and coffee, and carsharing, and plants for our balcony, and summer wine, and patio beers at Beerbistro and Bier Markt, and World Cup action, and NXNE in the park across the street, and barbecue (probably).
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Cover photo by deeplifequotes, used under Creative Commons license
Yesterday we attended the fifth annual Session beer festival, for our fourth straight year. This year it was in a significantly more convenient location for us: Yonge Dundas Square. More on that later.
First, the important stuff. Here’s what we tried:
For the second year in a row my favourite was a milk stout. Last year it was the Beau’s/Tom Green collaboration, and this year it was my final beer: the Wellington chocolate milk stout. Speaking of Tom Green, he made an appearance, still promoting (and drinking) said milk stout.
There were 18 other breweries that we didn’t hit, mostly because we’d either already tried everything they offered or the one-off produced for Session didn’t grab us. Or because we just didn’t want more cider. We did consume our annual Sassy Lamb cupcake though.
Overall, I enjoyed this year’s festival far more than last year…actually, it’s probably my favourite Session that we’ve been to overall. Last year’s location was further away, much more cramped, and it didn’t help that the weather was scorching. This year the weather was beautiful but temperate, and the bathroom situation was entirely civilized. The crowds were also much more reasonable..I think splitting it across two days allowed everyone to have some elbow room…you didn’t have to fight through a crowd to get another beer, and there were plenty of places to stand and drink. Well done, Session organizers.
We walked home after that last one, or rather, we walked straight to dinner at Triple A. A huge plate of nachos was exactly what we needed before heading home and splitting a bottle of — naturally — the Session Saison.
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Cover photo from sessiontoronto.com
This past Monday we attended a dinner at Parts & Labour, put on by WineAlign and WOSA Canada — the local PR arm of the South African wine industry. The focus of the evening was, obviously, South African wine. We were up for that, and for trying a new place, so boom. Done.
The evening certainly did nothing to dull the affection we gained for South African while visiting the country last fall. I agree with host David Lawrason: it may be the best value wine on the market right now. None of the wines we tried blew our minds, but they were very solid for bottles which (mostly) run $15 at the LCBO. The whites got too warm while we waited for our food so I’m not sure I got the full effect there.
Here’s what we drank:
I’m not sure what the reception wines were paired with, because the seniors who made up 95% of the attendees would swarm any server with a tray before they got ten feet from the kitchen. Some of them were taking 3 or 4 hors d’oeuvres at a time. It was weird. The food was okay…good steak but otherwise nothing special. We felt a little underwhelmed by the evening and, frankly, in need of a proper full glass of wine. This event was okay, but it was no Tawse wine members dinner.
Just before we left I had a chance to meet Will Predhomme for the first time. He’d been sitting behind us at dinner, so I thanked him for co-making the delicious North Shore Project Syrah and talked Nova Scotia sparkling for a bit. After that we jumped on the streetcar, jumping off again at Yonge and hitting Richmond Station for a goddamn full pour. I had Norm Hardie cab franc; she had Tawse Pinot. When in South Africa, drink South African. When in Ontario…
Three weeks after doing a mini craft beer pub crawl (Volo, Bellwoods, Bar Hop) with our friend Amanda, we did another yesterday with her visiting sister Becky. This time we hit Bryden’s, Indie Ale House, Bellwoods again, and Wvrst.
Bryden’s was unremarkable, except in that it introduced the ladies to the Local 7 Session Saison. Bellwoods was fairly disappointing this time; my Wizard Wolf was fine but the No Rest For The Wicked sour stout just wasn’t enjoyable. And Wvrst was great, both for the sausage and for our drinks — I had a Silversmith Funzover Dunkel and a Péché Mortel, which Becky also tried and loved.
But the real star of the day was Indie Ale House. Somehow Nellie and I had never been, despite its reputation. It certainly lived up to the rep, and more: the beer was fantastic (especially the Fallen Idol Belgian sour), our food (especially the fried chicken) was outstanding, and we loved the feel and décor of the place. If we lived closer this place would be our new local. We’ll need to find an excuse to return to the Junction, I guess.
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Cover photo by Thomas Cizauskas, used under Creative Commons license
I was in Miami for a few days earlier this week, for work. Rough job, I know. To be honest, I’d been unofficially trying to go my whole life without ever setting foot in Florida, what with it being…you know, fucked. Still, I was invited to a conference, so I went.
I wasn’t really staying in Miami, at least not the Miami most of us think about. The conference was out in Doral at the Trump Hotel. There were no signs of it being a douchey Trump property, except that when you turned on the TV it would auto-play a random Trump speech. So I got to know the location of the mute button on the remote real quick.
Still, the weather was nice and they had a bar by the pool, so I spent a fair amount of off-conference time hanging out there and drinking Cigar City Jai Alai IPAs with friends. Related: our server didn’t know what Jai Alai is, or how to pronounce it, so I had to teach her. Related to related: I am old.
One other highlight: a vendor took a bunch of us out to dinner in South Beach, at Bazaar in the SLS hotel. We had a private room (which people kept sneaking up to, thinking there were celebrities inside…once they saw it was just a bunch of nerds they looked disappointed and slunk away) for dinner, which was pretty damn great. A quick scan of the menu produced some of the tapas dishes we shared, but not all: chinese buns w/ pork belly; cones full of salmon roe and dill cream cheese; hamachi w/ pickled onions, sour orange; dragon fruit ceviche w/ tuna, pecans, lime, hibiscus; brussels sprouts w/ “lemon air”; bone marrow w/ Caribbean white truffles, florida citrus, capers; Cuban coffee-rubbed churrasco; endives w/ goat cheese, oranges, marcona almonds, orange dressing; sautéed shrimp w/ garlic, parsley, lemon, guindilla pepper; croquetas de pollo; tacos made of jamón ibérico and caviar; and for dessert, some amazing churros with peanut butter.
The night was marred only by the fact that our transportation from the hotel to the restaurant was a Ford Hummer Killer, an enormous stretch SUV limo, which poisoned my very soul. I also got into it a bit with a Republican (or, more likely, Tea Partier) on the drive home re: the relative merits of socialized healthcare. Or, in my more aggressive moments, the “fucking travesty” of the US healthcare system. So, there was that. Oh, and Jamie Foxx ate dinner at the restaurant just as we were leaving, so people were all agog and agape.
All in all, though, it was a good trip. Though I am in no way attractive enough to hang out in South Beach, I’d be willing to visit Miami again. Not the rest of Florida though; that state is messed up.
Oh, for the love of Pete.
For those who don’t live in Ontario, here’s the background: the Beer Store, a foreign-owned monopoly on beer sales (outside of the provincially regulated LCBO) is worried that public sentiment has turned against them and toward a more open market for alcohol sales. One of the proposals has been to allow booze in convenience stores, as in several other provinces. So this ad is what their marketing geniuses has produced. Not surprisingly, the predominant reaction to the ad has been strong criticism and even outright mocking.
I believe the technical term for this kind of flailing is “death throes”.
So, I met my friend Bina for a drink last night. She also wanted to try this new Speakeasy 21 place near where we live, but it was stupid-rammed. We went elsewhere. It was cold out, so we ducked into the nearest place. Unfortunately for us the nearest place was the Suits bar in the Trump Tower. Yes, that Trump Tower. Neither of us had been before; I’d only tried Stock, the upstairs restaurant/hooker pavilion.
So we sit down and order a glass of wine from one the lady server, who corrects my (correct) pronunciation of Bachelder. We also order a charcuterie board, which arrives a while later. It’s a very nice array of meats and mustards and vegetables flourishes, so we ask what each of the meats are just to be sure. The gentleman server tells us he doesn’t know what they are, but says he’ll find out. A little odd, but no matter. He’s back in a minute and…doesn’t really have any more information. He points at the prosciutto and tells us it’s prosciutto. He points at a different meat and says that’s also prosciutto. He points at what’s clearly chorizo and says it’s salami. And he doesn’t know what the fourth one is. (It’s salami). We figure it’s his first day and thank him anyway and he’s off. So, more than a little odd, but whatever. It’s all tasty.
At some point I finish my glass of Chardonnay and want to move on to a red. When the gentleman server returns and asks if I’d like more wine, I say I’d like a glass of the Tempranillo — I remember there being one on the by-the-glass list. No problem, says he, and he heads back to the bar. A few minutes later the lady server stops at our table and, before I even register what’s happening, pours another Bachelder Chardonnay in my glass. By the time we process what’s just happened the lady server’s moved on to another table. We wait for her to finish with them, then point out that I’d asked for a glass of Tempranillo. She’s surprised by this and begins to explain how she thinks our signals got crossed, but then stops and smartly says, “No matter, I’ll take care of it.” Great. She’s off and I’m getting thirsty from all this cured meat.
A few minutes later the gentleman server comes by and delivers my glass of wine. Except…it’s white. It’s another glass of white. To his credit, at least it’s not another Bachelder Chardonnay, but it’s sure as shit not Tempranillo. We can’t even hold it together at this point; we both start laughing. I stop the server before he gets too far, and tell him it’s still not right. I offer to point out the specific glass on the menu if he’d like, but he says he’s got it. Okay then. He walks away. Bina can’t stop laughing.
Finally, the lady server comes over — at least 10 minutes after I’d originally ordered my second glass — and with a pained “Third time’s the charm!” delivers a glass of what appears to be Tempranillo. At that point I didn’t even care; if it was red I was calling it a victory. Bina ordered another glass of exactly the same wine; she was having none of my adventure. We finished the board and ordered the bill. The lady server apologized as we split the $100 tab for our bits of meat and four glasses of wine. That’s right, four glasses –the thrice-ordered Tempranillo was not comped. I still tipped her; none of the mishegas was her fault. But I wished there was an option to delegate 100% of the tip to one server and one server only.
So, the moral of the story: never, ever set foot in the Trump Tower.
I got home from those drinks around the same time as Nellie, and we decided to get some dinner at Carisma. We’ve had great experiences both times we’ve been there, and I was hoping to wash the stink of #TrumpFail off me. Happily, Carisma came through in the clutch: our starters (shrimp pasta and burrata) and mains (steak and lamb) were amazing, the wine guru (who recognizes us now…score!) brought us a killer 2005 La Spinetta Pin Barbera/Nebbiolo, and the service was like a precision drill team. And that’s how it’s done.
Thanks for saving our evening, Carisma.
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Cover photo by Derek Law, used under Creative Commons
Nothing like a quick down-and-back to Niagara on the eve of spring, amirite? CBJ+M drove us to our friends’ place in Niagara-on-the-Lake, stopping at a few wineries (Rosewood, Hidden Bench, Kew, Kacaba, and Stratus), a brewery (Silversmith, which was excellent), the Pie Plate, and The Merchant Alehouse in St. Catherines for lunch.
Our friends laid out a huge cheese & charcuterie board, and green salad, and chicken tagine with couscous, and many bottles of wine. Pie and cocktails (Avaiations, Boulevardiers) served as dessert, and then we crashed. This morning we woke up with coffee, bagels, and a fry-up of bacon and eggs.
Here’s what followed us home from the wineries:
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Cover photo by Crystal Luxmore, used under Creative Commons license
Membership does have its privileges.
The lone wine club to which we belong — Tawse — netted us an invite to a special event last night: a 6-course tasting menu at Campagnolo restaurant, long on my to-hit list, in which the food would be paired with wines from the new Tawse offshoot winery, Redstone. We sat at the tasting bar with another couple, and shared cooking tips and winery recommendations, and watched the kitchen do their thing. Here’s what the kitchen hit us with:
Daisy Bay oysters
2012 Limestone South Riesling
Scallops and saffron with carrot butter and sicilian lemon
2011 Redstone Chardonnay
60-day aged beef tartare with truffle sauce and brioche
2010 Redstone Vineyard Syrah
Celeriac agnolotti with chanterelle mushrooms and tallegio
2010 Redstone Vineyard Merlot
Roasted Ontario lamb rack and braised lamb neck with swiss chard and toasted farro
2010 Meritage
Rhubarb zeppole
2010 Cabernet Franc Icewine
The food was spectacular, and the wines were VERY good. I think Redstone will be a great compliment to the Tawse lineup, adding varietals like Pinot Gris, Sauvignon Blanc, and Cabernet Sauvignon, and a very different Riesling. Both winemakers — Paul Pender from Tawse and Rene Van Ede from Redstone — were on hand to talk about the wines, and I’m looking forward to where this could go. Side note: it turns out Paul Pender has (had?) ties to Springhill, NS, near where I’m from.
Here’s hoping Tawse and Redstone throw more shindigs like this.
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Cover photo by Ken Lewis, used under Creative Commons license
Last year beer writer Ben Johnson started a series on his blog called “The best beer I’ve ever had“, starting with his own story of the first beer he drank while holding his newborn son, in the days after his son’s traumatic birth. He then put out the call for other industry people to submit their stories:
This experience has inspired me to explore the emotional component that sometimes accompanies a great beer and I’ve asked a handful of “beer folks”–brewers, writers, and industry folks–to detail their best beer experience in a series aptly titled “The best beer I’ve ever had.” I’ll share their stories with you here in the coming weeks.
Now, I’m not really a beer folk. I don’t work in the industry or have any real expertise, I’m just a punter. I loved the idea though, and felt like the sharing my story even if no one asked. Hey, you came to my blog, pal. Anyway, here it is.
In October 2010 we were travelling around Napa and Sonoma for a few days. In the couple of years leading up to that we had really begun to get into wine. I suppose Nellie was always there, but now I was attacking the topic voraciously the way I do when I decide I need to get up the learning curve. I’d always been more of a beer guy — in fact, we spent the first half of the trip tackling a number of top beer places back in San Francisco — but when in Napa one drinks wine. At restaurants, at wineries, at the B&B…one definitely drinks wine.
To be honest, we might’ve overdone it the first few days. Nellie was definitely worse for wear after one epic day of sampling followed by an early-morning hot air balloon ride, after which we drove over the mountains into Sonoma and I fell in a ditch. The trip felt like it was going off the rails, so we decided to take it easy the next day. Also, I was getting a little tired of wine — we hadn’t yet learned how to pace ourselves when sampling 15% monster cabs and the like, and it was wearing on me. Frankly, by the time we grabbed lunch on our last day in wine country, all I wanted was a beer.
We pulled into a little roadside restaurant called Café Citti, a regular stopover point for people on the wine trail, where we picked up some pasta dishes to go with a bottle of wine we’d picked up that morning. Just before our food was ready I noticed a few bottles of beer on display, and not just any beers: they were from the Russian River Brewing Company, a nearby world-class producer. A server walking past told me they also had Pliny The Elder, Russian River’s flagship Double IPA and 16th-highest-rated beer in the world (at the time of this writing, according to ratebeer.com) on tap. Our food was due to arrive any minute so I didn’t have time for a full pint, but the gentleman pulled me a small glass and I stood there drinking it, waiting in line for takeout Italian food. Double IPAs aren’t usually my thing, but that fortuitous sample at that exact moment tasted like the best beer I’d ever had.
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Cover photo by Vince Bossi , used under Creative Commons license
Skirl | Dan Dickinson 