I wanted this post to be about Leaning Post winery’s 10th anniversary party yesterday, about their delicious wines, and Ilya and Nadia and all the nice people who work there, and the amazing library wines (2013 Lowrey Pinot, 2013 Wismer Chardonnay, etc.), the yummy food, and so on. Unfortunately the drive there and back was a nightmare of traffic and we spent twice as long in the car as we did drinking wine. It’s hard to be enthusiastic about these events that are ostensibly under an hour away when you know your soul is going to be crushed by the Gardiner.
Still, it was fun to try that 2013 Pinot again. Pretty sure the last time I had it was eight years ago at Barque along with three other winemakers producing Pinot from the Lowrey fruit.
This morning’s activity was a little closer to home: breakfast at White Lily with Matt & Lisa on a crisp, sunny fall day. Makes me think this whole car thing is a scam.
side stripe shrimp ~ tomato xo, scapes, black olive
kampachi ~ cabbage, yuzu, kombu
smoked fish ~ chips n’ dip
cauliflower ~ maitake, dill, lemon
duck ~ turnips, sweet potato, mustard
bavette ~ potato, cipollini, bordelaise
Drinks
Ardoisières 2022 ‘Silice’ Savoie / Bourbon Old Fashioned to start
bottle of Chateau Phelan Ségur 2014 Saint-Estèphe with most of the food
glasses of Bodegas Toro Albala 1955 Don PX Convento Seleccion for dessert
Apart from how delicious virtually everything was, the other remarkable thing was the guest at the table next (but perpendicular) to ours who kept throwing her body backwards in fits of laughter and very nearly ending up in our food.
I continue to not get Kensington Market though. Never have. Probably never will.
Once again I was back in Moncton this past week. Of note:
I sat next to someone I used to work with on the flight there, and another ex-colleague on the flight back. Last time I saw a former member of a past board of directors. I didn’t expect Moncton flights to be this kind of reunion hub.
Once I arrived I set out for my usual dinner plan: buy two bottles of wine at the Experience store, and get a baseball steak at The Keg. On the walk there I was a murmuration of Starlings just outside the hotel — I didn’t get video, but someone else did.
New places I tried this time: Cinta Ria (very tasty Malaysian), Taj Mahal (very good, even if I forgot to order rice), and the Tide & Boar brewpub, where I drank some very good beer and ate an extremely delicious (if far too big) Detroit-style donair pizza.
No family visits this time — it was a bit last-minute, and I was pretty heads-down whilst there — but there’ll be plenty more chances.
agnolotti di ricotta w/ carrot / yam / brown butter / pumpkin seed tuile
campanelle con salsiccia w/ pecorino and ramp sausage / broccolini / fresh chilli
2020 Capezzana Barco Reale di Carmignano
Dessert
Amaro Nonino
Villa Marone Malvasia Passito
Everything was good, but the fall-inspired agnolotti and zucca fritti were both unbelievable. The zucca might as well have been dessert.
Later in the week I had a work dinner at Blue Blood, the new-ish steak house in Casa Loma. It was fun to take an uber back there, through my old neighbourhood (it occurred to me I moved there 25 years ago because I. Am. Old.) and atop the hill I used to run up most days.
I wasn’t doing most of the ordering, but as best I can remember here’s what we ate:
Three weeks ago Moncton was so hot I was sweating as I walked around. This past week, my first return trip for my new job, started with a day so cold I needed a scarf. It moderated through the week, but still…fall came on quickly.
No visit to the farm this time, but my parents, brother #2 and my s-i-l drove over to have dinner at The Keg, my second visit there in the week, so I ate my weight in baseballs. I also picked up food twice from Red Satay, given how close it was to where I was staying. Brix was similarly close by, thus it was my coffee home base, but I did also have an exceptional cortado down the street at Epoch Chemistry. I also tried quick lunches from Fahda’s (meh) and La Vida (pretty good) during the week.
My wine plan — buy two bottles I’ve never tried before from the EXPÉRIENCE store my first day there and drink them over the course of the week — worked pretty well. I picked up a lovely Garnacha-forward blend, and a 100% Merlot from Saint-Émilion.
My new role has me travelling to Moncton on a pretty regular basis. This past week was my first week with my new company, and it was a good one. I never say much about work here, but in keeping with the main thrust of this blog, I’ll recount the good places I visited whilst in Moncton.
There’s a Carrabba’s (!) near my office, so I ate and drank there a lot, just out of sheer convenience…a habit I hope to break in future visits. I ate meals at St. James’ Gate (decent), the Moncton Gahan House (decent), Monk10 (good), and Red Satay (excellent). I also had coffee at Brix (excellent) and picked up a bottle of wine to to bring to brother #2’s house from the new Experience by ANBL store. It’s a very nice spot with a fun selection; I reckon I’ll make a few trips there in the coming months.
Being so close to the farm, I extended my stay by a couple of days and drove there Friday evening. Brother #1 and his fam drove in Friday night, arriving shortly after I did, so just about the whole gang was here for Thanksgiving dinner yesterday — they moved it up to Saturday to accommodate my flight this afternoon. It’s a quick visit, but any time at the farm feels regenerative. I’ll get to do these more frequently now, and once we settle into a cadence Lindsay will be able to visit too.
Two plays, three excellent meals (plus a bad one), and one off-piste hotel experience later, we’re back from a weekend in Stratford. It’s a trip we planned to do last year for Lindsay’s birthday, but our second bout with COVID derailed that.
Friday
After a work-related award ceremony, we suffered through a long, annoying drive to Stratford. Note to self: these is no good time on a Friday to leave this city. We got there just in time to eat dinner at Lovage, which we loved when we visited earlier this summer. Being there for dinner hit another level though:
bread & butter
cucumber & honeydew salad
fried green tomatoes
oxtail cavatelli
sea bass
bottle of Tawse Tintern Toad Pinot Noir
chocolate mousse
M. Chapoutier Banyuls
espresso
Everything was fucking great, but that oxtail cavatelli…my god. We were so enamored that we canceled our lunch plan for the next day and booked Lavage instead.
Finally, to end the day, we drove to our hotel: The Bruce. It’s a classic Ontario hotel and a Stratford institution. It’s also…very much not our style. I should have known when I booked it. Anyway, the room was big, and our stay was fine, but…yeah. A little old school for us.
Saturday
After a leisurely morning in the room, we drove back over to Lovage for lunch. This time we had a lobster salad, some merguez sausage sandwiches w/ frites, nice glasses of wine, and cappuccinos. We considered walking around the downtown and exploring a bit, but that lunch had other ideas, so we drove back to the room and took a big-ass nap.
Early in the evening we began our theatre-going experience with dinner at The Bruce’s restaurant. What a gong show. I don’t know if they were understaffed, or if they profiled us when we came in, or if it was just a comedy of errors. To wit:
Our reservation was at 6. Ordering took forever, even as tables seated after us had their drinks and starters delivered. Our cocktails, the first things to arrive at our table, came at 6:30.
The kid pouring our water was maximum twelve years old. I shit you not.
The appetizers — Digby scallops w/ caviar and smoked butter; duck raviolo w/ fennel salad and duck vinaigrette — were fine, but the bottle of wine we’d ordered hadn’t arrived yet, so we had them with water.
When the wine — we splashed out on a 2016 Ridge Estate Cab Sauv — arrived, the server broke the cork off in the bottle. He had to call in backup to open it fully. Not a big deal, but it didn’t fill us with confidence.
Lindsay’s grilled ribeye was fine, but my pork loin was sooooooo dry.
While it took 30 minutes to get our first drink, the entire rest of the meal happened in 35 minutes. They brought our mains as Lindsay was still finishing her starter, and they just stood there waiting until she moved it aside.
Oh, and someone sitting next to us was wearing so much bad perfume I got a headache. Let’s just say the crowd skewed somewhat older.
We walked up the street to our first play of the weekend, Les Belles Soeurs, which was very very good. Still plenty topical some 60 years later.
Sunday
Spooked by our dinner experience, we hastily re-planned our meals. Rather than eat brunch at The Bruce’s restaurant, we ordered early room service breakfast. Mercifully, it was quite good. (And very fast!) After getting ready and checking out, we drove into town, parked, and walked along Lake Victoria for a bit.
We’d pivoted our lunch option to Bluebird, and immediately felt redeemed by the decor and overall vibe. The food (big “ploughman’s lunch” salad; fried chicken cutlet w/ fries; fried perch & chips) was excellent, as was our bottle of Anjou Blanc. Our server was cool. An excellent meal, all in all.
Our second and final play of the weekend was a re-telling of Richard II, set in the late-70s New York gay disco scene. It was as fabulous as it sounds.
After that, our drive back to Toronto was surprisingly easy. We’re not here long; we’re off again soon, as the September of Dan continues.
I nearly forgot: a few weekends ago, while out walking, I finally stopped in at East End Vine for a drink. How I’d managed not to visit until now is a mystery. Anyway; it was a hot sunny day, and three glasses of white helped to cool me down.
Pardevalles Albarin Blanco (Spain)
Blue Mountain Pinot Gris (Okanagan)
Elgin Chardonnay (South Africa)
I didn’t have any food, but what I saw go by looked awfully good, and I loved the vibe. I’ll definitely be back.
To celebrate my forty-eighth, we booked a four-day weekend in Prince Edward County. This time Lindsay did pretty much all the planning.
Friday
After a big-ass breakfast at OK OK Diner we jumped in our car and…crawled slowly up the DVP and across the 401. We were so delayed we didn’t even have time to stop at our AirBnB, instead driving straight through Bloomfield to Flame + Smith for an early dinner. It was a big but busy spot, even at 5pm. We had:
artisan sourdough w/ whipped whey butter
a dozen oysters
a non-alc Bellwoods Jelly King for me, a cocktail for Lindsay
We took some desserts to go and drove back to find our AirBnB. It was a cute spot, like a combination of modern + farmhouse. It had a big, private, farmyard view, and a pretty decent sunset.
We woke up early but lazed about a bit before getting a start on our day, which ended up being a mistake. By the time we left it was pouring; by the time we’d driven to the outskirts of Picton, it was a monsoon. We’d hoped to get breakfast at Bailey’s, but we couldn’t line up outside in that weather. We decided to do a bit of our shopping at the Agrarian Market and pick up breakfast stuff whilst there. We got utterly drenched just getting in and out of the car, even with big umbrellas, but we managed to get home and get dry…just as the rain let up. Of course.
We ate a breakfast of bacon, eggs, sourdough toast, and raspberries before resolving to just chill. We watched some TV. We drank coffee and watched the rain. We napped, hard. A right lovely afternoon.
Eventually re rallied, showered, and walked down the road to Darling’s for dinner. We opted to sit outside, and were the only ones on a huge patio. I don’t know whether it was the relative cool (the rain had broken the heat, and it was about 20 degrees), the threat of bugs (none materialized until the very end of the night) or what, but we didn’t mind having the outside to ourselves. Inside seemed loud and frenetic. Outside it was breeze and soul music. The staff were really sweet too, and the food was excellent:
I’d never heard of New Haven style pizza before, but I’m into it.
We walked home, questioning our decision every time a car drove by too close to us, but we made it.
Sunday
After finishing off the bacon & eggs, we set to picking up the groceries for the meal Lindsay planned to cook for dinner. That meant a few stops around Bloomfield and Wellington, but we got it all, dropped it back at the AirBnB, and set out for some wineries.
I’d ordered from Morandin before, but never been there. It was a quiet, pastoral little locale, with picnic tables outside a Quonset hut. We tasted everything, leaving with six bottles.
After leaving there we drove around the corner to By Chadsey’s Cairns, a winery I hadn’t visited since my very first trip to PEC 11 years ago. It was actually the very first country winery I ever visited, and I’d been tipped off by county friend Duarte that they were likely closing up shop soon. Sure enough, when we arrived we saw they were down to only Gewurztraminer (fair enough; that’s what I was looking for anyway) so we bought a half dozen to help speed along the retirement plans. It was lovely chatting with Vida in that barn for a good long while. We left that beautiful farm, bundled our purchases into the car, and drove into Wellington.
Lindsay had booked us lunch at the Drake Devonshire, which I’d somehow never visited. We lucked into a frankly incredible table, on a covered patio looking right at the lake. It was a popular spot, rife with poses and selfies, but we managed to enjoy a perfect day and a pretty great meal nonetheless.
We needed dessert and a final dinner ingredient so we drove to Slicker’s for a pint (dinner) and a couple scoops (immediately). We arrived back at our place to enjoy the remaining afternoon sun. Eventually Lindsay cooked us a great meal, though I ruined the lamb.
tomato + grilled corn + arugula bruschetta
2021 Morandin County Chardonnay
grilled lamb shoulder chops + mint salsa + new potatoes
2020 Closson Chase South Clos Pinot Noir
peach cobbler + Slicker’s apple pie ice cream paired
I’d brought a 2019 Inniskillin Riesling Icewine to go with this, but reconsidered and we decided to just finish the Morandin chard
By this point we were tired, and the ducking in and out to the grill had let in an armada of bugs, so after a mosquito massacre we trudged upstairs to bed.
Monday
We’d originally planned to do a few more wineries on our way out of the county, but by the time we packed up and cleaned the place we just wanted to head home. I have to say, I quite like having nearly a whole afternoon back at home to recover after a trip, even a short one.
I haven’t been writing them up, but it’s occurring to me now how filled with visitors the house & backyard have been since we got home from Ottawa. A full-week visit from N+J. Another full-week visit from the sister-in-law, and a chance to meet her business partner. A full-Sunday throwdown with six friends & a lot of meat a while back. Visits from V and her new gorgeous doggo Xena, including last night when we watched Idiocracy (imdb | rotten tomatoes), a movie I’ve been meaning to watch forever, but which hasn’t aged super-well.
It really is such a luxury & privilege to have that space, postage-stamp-sized as it is. Now we just need to have it tended to.
Skirl | Dan Dickinson 