Category: Food / drink

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)

 

Niagara part II: in which service wins the day

Dan Dickinson3 Comments

Having the Gardiner Expressway closed for repairs is a mixed blessing. It makes the trip west out Toronto much more painful (Lakeshore can just suck it) but it appears to make the QEW less clogged. At least, that was our working hypothesis last Saturday.

And why were we heading west on the Gardiner and QEW last weekend?

Wine.

Obviously.

This wasn’t an overnight trip, this was a day trip. A quick down-and-back to fill the rack, driven in no small part by the release that day of Hidden Bench’s 2009 Tête de Cuvée Chardonnay. We made return trips to 13th Street, Foreign Affair, Hidden Bench, Stratus, Tawse, and Thirty Bench. We also tried three for the first time: Di Profio (which now hosts Nyarai), Marynissen, and Organized Crime. I must say, for all I’ve heard about Marynissen, I wasn’t very impressed. It had a very ‘fire sale’ feel inside, possibly because the new owners have told them to have one. Not sure. None of their wines jumped out at us, but the deal for two cases of Cab Franc — $140 — was decent value.  $5.83/bottle of (admittedly, a very weak) Ontario Cab Franc is a decent option for everyday house wine.

The real highlights of the day were Hidden Bench (where I was selling fellow tasters so hard I might as well have been wearing an “I ♥ Felseck!” tshirt), 13th Street (where the awesome Lindsay looked after us, and whose winery should probably coin the phrase “pastoral cool”), and Tawse (where we expected to run in, grab two bottles, and run out, but instead spent time in the cellar with the delightful Catherine serving us all kinds of interesting pours and eventually up-selling us on their wine club). The service really stood out on this trip, but I expect nothing less of those three locations.

We even managed to squeeze in a lunch at Stone Road Grille. We probably should have stopped at Southbrook for a Treadwell pizza, or had a bite on 13th Street’s deck, but it’s hard to pass up the grille.

Here are the friends we brought home with us to live, less the two cases of Marynissen:

And here it is in word form:

  • 13th Street 2010 ‘Essence’ Syrah
  • 13th Street 2008 Premier Cuvee Sparkling
  • 13th Street 2011 Viognier
  • 13th Street 2010 Sauvignon Blanc
  • Di Profio 2010 Cabernet Sauvignon (x2)
  • Foreign Affair 2009 ‘Abbraccio’ Cabernet Sauvignon
  • Hidden Bench 2010 Felseck Riesling
  • Hidden Bench 2008 Terroir Caché Red Blend
  • Hidden Bench 2009 Tête de Cuvée Chardonnay (x3)
  • Nyarai 2010 ‘Cadence’ Red Blend
  • Nyarai 2011 Viognier
  • Organized Crime 2008 ‘Download’ Red Blend
  • Organized Crime 2011 ‘The Mischief’ White Blend
  • Organized Crime 2010 Fumé Blanc
  • Organized Crime 2008 Syrah
  • Stratus 2008 Sauvignon Blanc
  • Tawse 2003 Bench Reserve Chardonnay
  • Tawse 2009 Laidlaw Pinot Noir
  • Tawse 2010 Laundry Vineyard Cab Franc
  • Tawse 2009 Spark Chardonnay
  • Thirty Bench 2011 Steel Post Riesling
  • Thirty Bench 2011 Triangle Riesling

That should last us a week or two.

Order

Dan Dickinson1 Comment

So, for some reason Nellie was all worried that’d not officially celebrated my birthday this year. Birthdays are a big deal to her, and she had a pretty awesome one this year. Meanwhile, I kind of don’t care about birthdays, and anyway we spent my birthday in Amsterdam, so I don’t feel as if I got robbed somehow. Nonetheless, she was determined to impose at least a minor celebration on me. She asked me to pick out a place for a good dinner. I chose Bestellen.

First though: a drink. Or two. We stopped at Loire, another first-time visit for us, for a little wine. We were actually really impressed with the menu; if we didn’t already have reservations elsewhere we’d have stayed for dinner. But we did, so we didn’t, and instead ordered some charcuterie and a little wine: sparkling rosé and Chablis for Nellie, and Sancerre, Vouvray, and a white Côtes du Rhône. We summoned an Uber car and made plans to return to Loire for dinner some night.

We pulled up to Bestellen right on time, and liked it immediately: laid-back vibe, friendly greetings, good music (Radiohead, Dan Auerbach, Oasis, early Dylan, etc.) and a giant painting of meat on the wall. That’s right: a meat mural.

We settled in to our table and our server Chris began leading us through the evening. We started with cocktails:

  • Nellie: The Scarlet (white wine, elderflower liquor, cucumber, mint, lemon)
  • Dan: The Hunter (Buffalo Trace bourbon, cherry heering, moonshine cherry)

With those gone the first course arrived:

  • Nellie: heirloom tomatoes and watermelon (with purple basil, garlic chips, and chili oil; paired with a a white whine that neither of us can remember)
  • Dan: seared scallops (in parsley root puree, lobster mushrooms, and brown butter; paired with a Muscadet)

Then, the main event: we shared the 32oz côte de bœuf (accompanied by string beans, lentils, shallots, and mint, as well as ontario corn, crispy shallots, and tarragon) which came with two huge bones full of roasted marrow.

Hard to believe we were both vegetarian not so long ago.

Anyway, at Chris’ recommendation we’d decided to pair this with a 2002 Nichols “Whispering Pines” Pinot Noir. Much like the Sea Smoke Pinot we’d had in Arizona, we discovered that an older vintage of tougher, coastal-California could stand up to a hunk of meat like this one. It was a splurge, but it was worth it.

We opted to take much of the steak home, partly so that we could enjoy it again the following day, and partly to leave room for dessert: sticky toffee pudding. Nellie got a glass of Bugey-Cerdon bubbly to go with it; I ordered the barrel-aged Negroni.

We also ordered a menu item we’d only ever seen on Stone Road Grille‘s menu before:a six-pack of beer for the kitchen. Being where we were (on College, but with more of an Ossington feel) it was a sixer of PBR, but the guys in the kitchen gave us a happy wave as they downed their cans.

On my actual birthday we toured Amsterdam, tried some fantastic beer places, and met a crazy/eccentric American ex-Senator, and I thought that made for a pretty goddamn good way to celebrate. But last night was pretty good too.

"If I grew up on a farm, and was retarded, Bruges might impress me but I didn't, so it doesn't."

Dan Dickinson2 Comments

I’ve noticed something: I only remember to blog about movies when I watch a good movie. Hence:

  • In Bruges (imdb | rotten tomatoes), something we’ve been meaning to see since it premiered at TIFF several years ago, was quite funny. Probably more so since we’ve actually been to Bruges and didn’t really care for it.
  • Retreat (imdb | rotten tomatoes) was better than I expected for a film I’d never heard of and found randomly on TMN. I like the Cillian Murphy almost as much as I dislike the Thandie Newton, so it was balanced up until Jamie Bell appeared. On the whole: pretty good.
  • I’ve never seen the original version of The Thing, but we had the remake (imdb | rotten tomatoes) recorded on the PVR and a couple of hours to kill, and so that happened. It was rubbish.

.:.

This weekend was broken up more or less by what we were drinking at the time:

Friday: Foreign Affair Riesling, Fielding Pinot Gris, Norm Hardie Pinot Noir, and Hamelin Bay Rampant Red (which made us regret not getting down to Hamelin Bay last fall whilst in the Margaret River) at REDS; Cattail Creek Four Mile Creek Riesling, Weingut Hirsch Gruner Veltliner, Argiolas Costera Cannonau, Ca del Monte Valpolicella Ripasso, Bilogia  Tempranillo, Indigena Garnaxta, and something else I don’t remember at Midfield

Saturday: Weihenstephaner Kristall, Beau’s Lugtread, Blanche de Chambly, La Trappe Tripel, and a sunburn at Against The Grain Urban Tavern; a bottle of Hidden Bench 2008 Terroir Caché with dinner (after which I felt like crap, though I don’t blame the wine)

Sunday: an ill-advised Rickard’s White on the temporary on-Yonge-Street patio at the Firkin on Yonge (!); bottles of Kacaba 2008 Syrah and Daniel Lenko 2008 Unoaked Chardonnay when our friend Kaylea dropped in for an impromptu visit; a bottle of Norm Hardie 2010 County Chardonnay with dinner.

 

Gimme that nucleated glassware

Dan Dickinson1 Comment

Last Friday Nellie and I finally tried the new beer joint which replaced Duggan’s, the late lamented brewpub at the end of our street. It’s called the Six Pints Specialty Beer Co. Beer Academy (ratebeer). Six Pints is a joint venture between Granville Island Brewery (from BC) and Creemore (from ON), which are in turn owned by Molson Coors. This place has a couple of purposes: to act as a museum about beer (hence the “academy” portion of the name); to test out new potential commercial offerings; and to be a straight-up bar.

We skipped the museum portion of the building and went straight to the bar. First of all, the room is quite nice. Duggan’s always felt awkward and a little cavernous; this room feels intimate and comfortable. I can’t describe it any way other than that. Anyway, we started with two flights of three small glasses. We tried the four standard house brews (Kolsch, Dortmunder, IPA, and porter) and a special altbier, and opted to fill our sixth slot with Creemore’s Kellerbier, which we both quite like. The Kolsch and Dortmunder were excellent; the alt, IPA and porter were all good but not great.

We each picked one for a follow-up glass (Nellie: IPA; me: alt) and called it a night. They also sell cold beer from their retail store, so we took four (the Kolsch and IPA as well as a dunkel weiss and Belgian brown) home to have over the weekend.

Not only will this become a regular stop-in for a pint, it’s become a grocery run on the way home. Killer.