Category: Food / drink

Is it spelled Thirphy? Or Thurphy?

Dan Dickinson2 Comments

Well, that was quite a weekend.

(Again.)

For Nellie’s birthday weekend I had decided to surprise her by flying two of her best friends — the Murphy girls — in from Halifax.  My plan was well-thought-out and probably would have come off cleanly but for two things: a massive snowstorm wreaked havoc with flights into Toronto on Friday, and Nellie started drinking at Bryden’s with co-workers at noon. So now I was dealing with two forces of nature messing with the plan.

Fortunately I steered Nellie (along with half a dozen of her co-workers) to AAA and enlisted their help with the surprise. It wasn’t easy, but we kept her under control and oblivious while, after an epic travel ordeal, the girls arrived. There was an long, amusing moment when Nellie didn’t recognize one lifelong friend but did recognize the older sister, but that was soon overcome. And then the crying started. And lasted for about ten minutes. We finally got ourselves out of there and trudged through the snow back to our place, where we opened wine and listened to music and watched Nellie run and up and down the hallway yelling “Best! Birthday! Ever!” (vraiment?) The co-workers retired shortly after 1AM and we finally let the weary travellers get some sleep.

We dragged our asses up the next morning, not feeling our best but determined to maximize our day together. Some Fahrenheit coffee helped wake us up, and peameal bacon sandwiches from Carousel settled our tummies. We spent the afternoon catching up, napping, watching The Hunger Games, and scratching cat bellies. Eventually Nellie needed a little more nap action, so the Murphy girls and I walked through the quiet downtown to one of their favourites: Chipotle. After eating one of their near-football-sized burritos we were all worried about our ability to take on our big dinner planned for that night at Richmond Station.

We’d been meaning to try this place since it opened — it’s so close to us, and had been getting great reviews. The four of us met up with two more friends, MLK, and decided on the chef’s menu + wine pairings for the table. And manomanoman, were we glad we did. In retrospect it would have been a grand idea to write down the courses, but I was too busy eating. I skipped the oysters but loved the lobster puffs, paired with an Organized Crime Fumé Blanc. There was a great honking pile of a few different salads, replete with fried head cheese, paired with a fantastic Chablis. Then the main course: an enormous platter of pork…pork in all various forms, including kielbasa flowers (which is what I’m naming my band someday) and wild boar loin…it was epic. It was also paired with a truly stellar Rosewood Riesling. We were all about to pop, so luckily the next course was a small but tasty sampling of cheeses, paired with a Gamay. Finally, dessert: and while we didn’t let the kitchen know it was Nellie’s birthday, it was as if they’d customized it to her. De-constructed carrot cake, de-constructed apple pie, and a lemon mousse-ish thing with a crispy camomile foam. We each ordered a glass of Lailey late harvest Vidal. And then we were well and truly done. It was an outstanding meal, and I see us going back a lot from now on.

This morning was a little easier to face, but we were still full from the night before. Finally, around 10:30, hunger drove us down to Hank’s for breakfast. Then it was time for the Murphy girls to return home, thankfully with clearer skies than those which welcomed them here. We were said to see them go, but the whole weekend’s effort might have been worth it just for this moment.

Thurphy girls

Happy birthday, Nellie.

Bachelderannalia

Dan Dickinson1 Comment

About a year ago when Thomas Bachelder released his three 2009 Chardonnays we put one of each away, intending to open them about a year later with our friends Kaylea & Matt.

Last night we opened them, and we called it Bachelderannalia.

We actually started off with a 2008 Benjamin Bridge sparkling rosé. Well, the girls did; Matt and I had beer. Both went with the different cheeses we’d picked up — a cloth-bound cheddar, a triple creme, and something American that tasted like espresso. But then it was time to get into the main event.

We tried each one, made our notes, guessed at which was which, and picked our favourites. In the end, both Kaylea and I picked the three wines correctly. While we disagreed somewhat, the Niagara chard was collectively declared the favourite.

While we finished off the bottles, Matt cooked up a bunch of his homemade sausage, all of which was fucking delicious. We drank Tawse Members Select Chardonnay and Five Rows Pinot Noir, and an ill-advised bottle of Marynissen Cab Franc. The evening ended abruptly when Nellie yelled “Danger!” and stalked off to bed.

It was a fun night, an interesting lesson in terroir, and a perfectly good excuse to eat a huge pile of sausage. Success!

Photo by mrmanc, used under creative commons license

“He’s making all of this up as he goes along. You don’t see that?”

Dan Dickinson1 Comment

While The Master (imdb | rotten tomatoes) featured some of the best acting performances I’ve ever seen, I don’t think I could ever recommend it to anyone. It was…bizarre. Not nearly as good as the original teaser had made me hope. It was interesting (to me, anyway; Nellie began counting lightbulbs in the theatre) as a somewhat critical comparison to Scientology, but drifted badly in the last twenty minutes or so. It certainly looked amazing, in 70mm on the Lightbox screen.

We had dinner after at Luma, right there on the same floor of the Lightbox. It was…fine. Not great. Not bad either, though we did make the mistake of booking dinner during Winterlicious, so the restaurant was somewhat more frantic than usual.

.:.

Photo by mrmanc, used under creative commons license

Photo by moviesinla, used under Cerative Commons license

“You have poor social skills”

Dan Dickinson1 Comment

We’ve been on vacation for a week now, and it’s been a damn good one. I’ve already posted pictures summarizing our time on my family’s farm: basically, it was lots of food, dogs, family, gifts, cribbage (final tally was 11 games for me vs. 6 for my dad), and quiet time.

We ended up returning to Toronto a few hours early on the 26th to get ahead of the storm headed for Ontario and Quebec, and so were well-rested for the 27th. A good thing too, considering how busy it got. We did more cleaning, bought Nellie a Samsung Galaxy S3, had some poor beers and super-hot wings at Les 3 Brasseurs,  watched Silver Linings Playbook (imdb | rotten tomatoes) which was a little better than I was expecting, finalized the sale of our old condo by picking up our cheque from the lawyer, and cracked open a bottle of Moet & Chandon Nectar Imperial before heading to dinner at Jacobs & Co.

Said dinner, by the way, was as exquisite as we’ve come to expect from Jacobs. We split a 20 oz. Wagyu ribeye from Wagyu Sekai right here in Ontario. We’d both had Wagyu beef here before, but this one was a whole other level of buttery richness. Between us we could only eat 7 of the 11 slices of steak; we  had to give up and bring the other four home. The sommelier suggested a nice Barbaresco to complement the beef. I’d never have thought to make that match, but it worked nicely.

And, after all that, we still have a four-day weekend (more or less) coming up. Bitchin’.

.:.

Photo by moviesinla, used under Cerative Commons license

Abdij St. Sixtus

Dan Dickinson1 Comment

Last night: a much-needed break from unpacking, watching the news about carnage in a Connecticut school, and limping around on a broken toe. Our real estate agent sent us off for a meal at Politica, a resto bar off King West, his treat. Except the restaurant didn’t seem to get the memo, so the treat part fell through, but we still had a tasty dinner.

We kept the evening going by skipping over to Crush for a couple of wine flights. Most of what we tried was quite good, but the Eos Cabernet Sauvignon 2008 from Paso Robles was the highlight.

Somewhere between Politica and Crush we hatched a plan for a third stop: Bar Hop. I knew from a tweet earlier in the week that they’d scored some Westvleteren XII in the midst of the mad rush that overtook Toronto this week. We popped in, warmed up with one each (Mill Street Vanilla Porter for me, Sawdust City Lone Pine IPA for Nellie), watched a gaggle of woo-hoo girls come in and order shots, and then dropped the only-moderately-unreasonable $40 on a bottle of Westy. We’d had one while in Amsterdam earlier this year; I’d liked it but not loved it, and Nellie didn’t really remember it. This time around, my assessment was the same — while it’s very good, it’s far from my favourite beer ever — but Nellie really didn’t like it. “Dish soap” was her assessment, I believe. Oh well; it was an adventure (again) and a better bargain than lining up for a six-pack we’d struggle to finish.

We jumped in a cab to get home, a mostly uneventful ride…right up until our cabbie nearly killed a cyclist turning onto our street. Thankfully we’d had all that wine and trappist ale to steady our nerves, and yelled loudly and in time to stop him from creaming the guy.

St. Sixtus: patron saint of cyclists?

Photo by jercraigs, used under Creative Commons license

Morgans on the Danforth

Dan Dickinson1 Comment

Delivering some PEC wine to friends was a good excuse for us to try their new local, Morgans on the Danforth. Sandwiched in between The Only and Sarah’s, both beer places we’d been meaning to try, we’d not heard a lot about the place except what they’d recounted in tweets and such.

They had a very decent looking food menu, though we didn’t end up trying anything beyond a (very good) charcuterie board. Why we were really there, though, was the list of Canadian craft brews. I ended up having a Mad Tom IPA, a (shared) Sawdust City Lone Pine IPA, a Wellington Porter (on cask), a (shared) Hopfenstark saison, a Dieu du Ciel Dernière Volonté, and a Dieu du Ciel Péché Mortel. It was my first crack at a Hopfenstark…very tasty.

Cool place. We’ll be back.

.:.

Photo by jercraigs, used under Creative Commons license

Photo by jp1958, used under Creative Commons license

On the east side

Dan Dickinson1 Comment

Last weekend we introduced four friends to Harlem, a local place with some amazing southern food. We had catfish Lafayette and short ribs and crisps and plantains. We had southern fried chicken (LOTS of southern fried chicken) and jambalaya and Guinness-marinated stewed chicken and jerk meatloaf. We had corn bread and mac-n-cheese and cocktails and Red Stripes. We were all stuffed, but it was so good. Four days later I’m still thinking about it.

We also polished off a bottle or two of Ontario wine back at ours, namely a Bachelder 2009 Niagara Chardonnay, a Daniel Lenko 2007 Signature Chardonnay, a Hidden Bench 2010 Felseck Riesling, a Kacaba 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon, a Norman Hardie 2009 Niagara Pinot Noir, a Southbrook 2009 Whimsy “Renewed Vows” Cabernet Franc, a Stratus 2007 Red, and a Thirty Bench 2008 Cabernet Franc.

God, I need a vegetable and some tap water.

.:.

Photo by jp1958, used under Creative Commons license

Photo by Bill in DC, used under Creative Commons license

"She's a Longhorn, the oldest pure breed cattle in Britain."

Dan Dickinson4 Comments

I’ve been doing a fair amount of travelling for work lately.  Luckily I was able to avoid the pitfall of eating shitty food on the road. Here’s what stood out.

Washington, D.C.

When I first landed in Washington (interesting city, by the way) my hotel wasn’t ready so I needed to kill a couple of hours. I was starving and went looking for a bite. I was about to give up and eat a Starbucks snack, but happened upon Graffiato and took a seat at the bar. I was pretty happy with where I’d landed: cool spot, nice staff, excellent music (Led Zeppelin, Tool, Queens of the Stone Age, White Stripes, Nirvana, old Smashing Pumpkins, etc.) on the speakers, and an interesting beer & wine list — I had a Southern Tier IPA and an Anne Amie Amrita Cuvee 2011 Viognier blend from Oregon. I ended up back there the following night; I had the Brooklyn Oktoberfest and Shipyard Pumpkinhead while listening to The Talking Heads, Rolling Stones, The Pixies, and The Proclaimers.

I got to hang out at the POV Lounge for a while, overlooking the White House and Treasury and other Washington sites, and have dinner at The Hamilton. And when I kind of couldn’t take any more interaction at my conference I went down the street to Brasserie Beck to have some excellent beers: I know I had a Van Eecke Cuvée Watou and a double dry hopped Poperings Hommelbier; after that I stopped keeping track.

Finally, after an airport snafu had me waiting in Dulles airport for several hours, I was lucky to come across Vino Volo, a wine bar in terminal B. I had a Tabali 2011 Reserva Viognier from Chile and an Emerson 2009 Willamette Valley Pinot Noir from Oregon, and a Chardonnay that I forgot to write down. Between that, free wifi, excellent food, and a perfect view of the runway, it was a miraculous find.

London

It’s been seven years since my last visit to England, and unfortunately I didn’t have much time to really enjoy London this time around. However, the company I was visiting had arranged some excellent meals for us…some excellent coffee too, as I was able to have a flat white or three for the first time since our visit to Australia last year, courtesy of Taylor St.

Most impressive was The Hawksmoor, a restaurant with the menu and decor of a classic steakhouse, but with a badass young staff. We ate as a large group, meaning the apps and wine were communal, but the Tamworth belly ribs were the the standout starter. My enormous & rare bone-in sirloin covered in Béarnaise sauce was tremendous, as was the sticky toffee pudding. We all left nearly bursting at the seams…what a great meal.

The next day most of us had lunch at the nearby Jamie’s Italian, but none of us really had much room.  Still, I managed to somehow force down some tagliatelle bolognese before heading to Heathrow for my flight home.

All this travel happened in the span of about nine days, so I was pretty wiped when I arrived home late Friday night. I’m just glad I got to try some decent new places and avoid fast food.

.:.

Photo by Bill in DC, used under Creative Commons license

"It's pronounced verst."

Dan Dickinson1 Comment

 After a very long week, Nellie and I wanted some place to relax, drink a few good pints of beer, and eat some great food. I convinced her that we should take a chance on Wvrst (ratebeer), a place on King West I’ve been wanting to try for a while.

And man, did it pay off. We had a great night. We’re already anxious to go back.

Here’s why we liked it so much:

  1. The space is pretty different: it was a giant beer hall with communal tables, somewhat smaller tables along the side, a long bar, and a kitchen on the south wall. We chose to sit at the bar; everything else seemed to be reserved.
  2. The atmosphere was pretty unlike what I’d expect to find at a newish place on King West. Read: not at all douchey. It was a very young crowd, but there were no popped collars or sunglasses on backs of necks. These, we would discover later, were unofficial house rules of the place. Which made us like it more.
  3. The house speciality, as the name suggests, was sausage. Many, many kinds of sausage. I went basic with a calabrese, but can’t wait to try some of the more advanced options like venison or wild boar or kangaroo. You could also choose whether to eat the sausage on a bun or in a tomato curry sauce; I chose the latter. Nellie, meanwhile, had a pile of Belgian-style fries with chipotle and maple/rosemary dipping sauces. I ended up eating a lot of those too.
  4. The beer selection was very solid indeed. I had a Dieu du Ciel Route des Epices, a Black Oak nut brown, a Central City Red Racer, and a Dieu du Ciel Peche Mortel. Nellie had equally tasty selections. While we both steered toward Canadian offerings, they had some interesting international bottles on offer as well. Definitely worth some return visits.

Throughout the course of the evening we ended up meeting the manager Bram, who gave us a couple of samples and introduced us to Justin from the Beer Academy. Twitter: helping tipsy introverts meet each other since 2009.

If I weren’t still full of turkey (MLK and CBGB had us over last night; we ate their food and they drank our wine…the perfect symbiotic relationship!) I’d be there right now.

Époisse: French for "Your hands will smell like a marathoner's feet for the next several hours"

Dan Dickinson1 Comment

Last Wednesday, as part of Toronto Beer Week, one of our favourite beer places in the city hosted a special dinner. Beerbistro was pairing ten courses with Rogue beer, brought to Ontario on draft for the first time. For serious North American craft beers fans, this was not to be missed.

Good: the Dead Guy ale paired with bacon & eggs; the Yellow Snow IPA paired with duck salad; the Hazelnut Brown Nectar paired with quail; the Double Dead Guy ale paired with bacon-glazed pork tenderloin; the single malt whiskey paired with crême brulée

Not so good: the Brutal IPA paired with the mini wild boar burger (the stinky Époisse cheese ruined it); the Dirtoir Black Lager paired with seafood boil (the seafood was very unpleasant)

Anyway, with all the talk amongst tables of how Rogue draft compared to in-bottle, and of how it stacked up to Dogfish Head and Allagash and the like, by the end of the night I (and everyone around us) probably deserved one of these:

(via Kaylea McCarron, who probably wanted to say this to me many times)