Category: Friends

All they needed was a retired shooting guard

Dan Dickinson1 Comment

Another pretty good weekend: the Murphy girls were once again in town. But first I got to see the Raptors game Friday night which, despite the loss to Cleveland, was a pretty momentous game marking the anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s death. Magic Johnson, Charles Barkley, Dikembe Mutombo, and Tracy McGrady were all there.

On Saturday I ran some errands and hit the last couple of days of the Union Station Holiday Market. That night, after the Murphy girls got home we drank some Blue Mountain sparkling and a bottle of Gueuze Tilquin, hit Beerbistro and Triple A and then came home to knock off a few special bottles. This morning we loaded up on breakfast at the Jason George before the ladies left; since then it’s just been a Game Of Thrones marathon. Not a bad weekend.

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Ottaweekend

Dan Dickinson2 Comments

FRIDAY

It’s a universal truism that the Friday afternoon you’re hoping to wrap up early so you can catch a flight is the crazy-busiest stretch of the week. And so it was with us last Friday as we closed everything off as best we could, rushed home, grabbed our bags, and took off to catch a flight.

Even with bad ferry luck we had enough time to enjoy the Porter lounge, and an hour after boarding our flight we landed in Ottawa. We checked in at the Westin downtown and went out in search of food.

After walking through a very raucous Byward Market (a pub crawl of frozen Carlton students was the prime culprit) we tucked in at Vineyards Wine Bar. It was okay, but I can’t understand the long list of Wine Spectator awards. The wine list looked fairly pedestrian. The beer selection was pretty decent though, so we began heading in that direction after our charcuterie board let us down. After a while we were joined by Toronto friends JP+Sue, also in town, for one or two more. I ended up having a Unibroue Raftman, a Saison Dupont, and a Unibroue Maudite.

When Vineyards shut down around midnight we decided to have one more somewhere else. JP suggested Brothers Beer Bistro just down the street, a place high on my must-try list, so off we went. Cool spot. We closed it down around 2:15; I drank and Aventinus and the Mill Street Cobblestone stout from Nellie’s beer flight.

We got off the hotel elevator on the top floor and walked through a crowd of fancily-dressed people spilling out of the big suite across the lobby from our room. Nellie was hungry again so she perused the room service menu while I ran to the bathroom. Just then someone knocked on our door, and for some reason Nellie opened it. A couple stood there. The conversation went something like this:

Couple: “Uh, this isn’t suite 2318.”

Nellie: ” Nope, it’s not. 2318 is over there.” *points*

Couple: “Got it! Hey, we’re having a party over there if you guys want to come over for a drink.”

Nellie: “Oh, no thanks. It’s late. We’re just going to eat something and go to bed.”

Couple: “Are you sure? We’re very open-minded.”

Nellie: “Uh…okay. Nope, we’re good, thanks.”

Couple: “Okay, well, if you change your mind just come on over. We’re very open-minded.”

Nellie: “OK, g’nite!” *closes door, sets night lock*

A few minutes later some room service chicken wings showed up. We scarfed them down and tried not to think too hard about what had just happened. A little after 3am we crashed out.

SATURDAY

We’d had to keep the previous evening’s events quiet on social in order to fulfill a big part of our reason to be in Ottawa: to surprise our friend CB on her birthday weekend. GB had arranged for us to surprise her by meeting them for brunch at the Baker Street Cafe in Westboro. We got out of the cab and crossed the street right in front of her, but she didn’t notice us. We got in line right behind her, and waited for about 20 seconds before she noticed us and freaked out. Mission accomplished!

We had to wait about 20 minutes for a table, but it was worth it. The food was great — especially the sausage I had with my French toast — and there was so much that we left almost an entire breakfast behind. Incroyable. We finished there, did a quick stop at MEC with them, went back to their house for a little bit, and then went back downtown to our hotel.

Nellie was determined to have a nap, but first we went for a stroll around Parliament Hill. The food and fresh air put Nellie down pretty quickly, but I’d had an espresso during our walk so I stayed awake and read in the other room.

A quick word on this Westin: it’s an old hotel which has received a face lift in some spots, like the lobby, but still shows its age in others, like the windows or TVs. Not that we were watching much TV, but the one in the living room didn’t work for most of the weekend. There was also problems with the elevators like long waits and slow rides down at busy times like breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

And so, because we were caught off guard by the wonky elevators, we were (nearly) the last ones to arrive to CB’s birthday dinner at Restaurant 18. About 30 people were assembled to celebrate with her, most of whom we didn’t know, but we made fast friends. Especially once the meal was done and we begin swapping seats.

Speaking of the meal it was fantastic. The beet salad was great, my lamb was some of the best I’ve ever eaten, and the chocolate marquis dessert was perfect. I think GB catered to Nellie and I when picking the wine: an all-Ontario lineup of Redstone Chardonnay and Organized Crime meritage.

With the meal over we decided to relocate. Our first potential stop failed the douchebag test before ever set foot in the door. The second place failed it only after we stepped inside and were told we’d have to do bottle service. Fuck that. JP and I made an executive call and walked down the street to someplace we thought could work: Brothers Beer Bistro. They put together a table for 10 and we drank many, many good beers. Myself, I had the Trois Mousquetaires Gose, a Rodenbach Grand Cru, a St. Bernardus Wit, and a Nickel Brook Cuvee Reserve. By the end of the evening it was once again JP, Sue, Nellie and I who closed the joint down.

We went home and supercrashed, again around 3am. No awkward inquiries from neighbors this night. None that we heard, anyway.

SUNDAY

I managed to get about six hours of sleep. Unfortunately Westin blinds down close completely so by 9am the room was pretty bright and I was fully up. I let Nellie sleep and walked down Elgin to check out The Ministry Of Coffee. I had an amazing cortado and a nutella croissant there before walking home. It was a nice little stroll along the canal on what was turning out to be a mild fall morning.

I got back in time to roust Nellie from bed. We had brunch plans with our friends Mark+Sandra, Dino+Kerry, and their kids. Dino had made brunch plans at…wait for it…Brothers Beer Bistro. So we walked in for the third time in about 36 hours. At this point we were basically employees.

Brunch was excellent. I had fluffy pancakes covered in fruit and crème fraîche, and pork belly bacon. Nellie had a cheese and egg and peameal beacon monstrosity alongside a pound of fries. And a Caesar. The kids gamely assembled suitable meals out of this weird collection of food and quietly read or played games. Next time we have brunch with four kids I’m requesting those ones.

We said our goodbyes, walked back to the hotel to pack up, and got confused by our own timing and got to the airport a little earlier than we meant to, but it worked out — YOW is actually a quiet, relaxing airport.

It’s hard to believe we were only in town for about 43 hours. It felt like we did a lot. And by “did” I mean “ate and drank and laughed”. Must make plans to come back when it’s warm; we have more place to try, and I miss Ottawa when it’s green.

Happy birthday CB!!

Four-boner

Dan Dickinson1 Comment

Between 10:30am yesterday and 10:30am today we (Nellie, myself, and CBJ+M) drove to Niagara, stopped at five wineries (Leaning Post, Hidden Bench, Kew, Tawse, and Southbrook), a brewpub for lunch (Merchant Ale House), a brewery (Silversmith), and a pie place (The Pie Plate) before arriving at our friends’ place in NotL, where demolished a cheese board, drank some excellent wine, ate an enormous roast (the afore-mentioned four-boner), enjoyed a chilly fire, played some Wii tennis (!), slept it all off, ate some breakfast, and drove home.

Hidden Bench is where we did the most damage, but Leaning Post was the big find of the day. None of us had been before, but we all really liked their wines. Also, Ilya and Nadia were incredibly nice. Great first stop on the way into wine country.

Here’s what we brought home, and a few pictures from the day:

  • Hidden Bench 2011 Tete de Cuvee Chardonnay (x3)
  • Hidden Bench 2011 “La Brunante” (x2)
  • Hidden Bench 2012 Nuit Blanche
  • Hidden Bench 2013 Locust Lane Rose
  • Kew Blanc de Noir
  • Leaning Post 2013 “The Fifty” Unoaked Chardonnay
  • Leaning Post 2013 Gamay
  • Leaning Post 2013 Foxcroft Vineyard Riesling
  • Leaning Post 2012 Keczan Vineyard Syrah
  • Southbrook 2009 “Married Young” Cabernet
  • Southbrook 2012 “Minerality” Chardonnay
  • Tawse 2010 David’s Block Cabernet Franc

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Toronto Beer Week

Dan Dickinson1 Comment

It might seem unnecessary for me to say that it was a beer-filled weekend, but it was. More so than usual.

It started a few weeks ago when beer writer Crystal Luxmore held a contest, offering tickets to a Toronto Beer Week event called The Beer Experience for whoever tweeted her the best picture of themselves enjoying a local craft beer. This picture of a Muskoka Detour on the dock at Bat Lake took the prize. As if it was even close.

The event itself was last Thursday at the beautiful Berkeley Church. The usual lineup of local craft breweries was there, but each brought something special: a brew not generally available, or even a one-off made specifically for this event. We bought ten tickets each and made the rounds. Here’s what I had; Nellie had ten completely different ones since our tastes don’t overlap much.

  1. Amsterdam Downtown Brown
  2. Side Launch Pale
  3. Sawdust City Coconut Lime Kolsch
  4. Beau’s Dark Helmet Imperial Black Lager
  5. Oast House Dark Chocolate Cherry
  6. Wellington Cocoa Beware Cocoa Husk Baltic Porter (on cask)
  7. King Monster Mash Dubbelbock
  8. Junction All Aboard Harvest Ale
  9. Beer Academy Vanilla Coconut Chocolate Imperial Stout
  10. Double Trouble Vanilla Stout

All of them were pretty good except the Junction, and that makes two beer festivals in a row where I drank a terrible beer from Junction…I think they’re on my shit list now. The Side Launch, Wellington, and Amsterdam (which wasn’t even a special…not sure why I got that, honestly) were all terrific, but the Oast House dark chocolate cherry was absolutely spectacular. Definitely my favourite of the night. And how about that venue?

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On Saturday, following TIFF film #3 we met a friend for a(nother) mini pub crawl with her, starting at Bar Hop (Sawdust City Golden Beach Pale, Left Field Prospect: Kohatu, and Block Three After Market Mild), then trying to get in at Wvrst but being turned away by the very long (and very fucked) lines before retiring to Beerbistro (samples of Rodenbach Grand Cru, Publican House Square Nail Pale Ale, and Unibroue Maudite, and a glass of Unibroue Fin du Monde) before heading to C’est What for some food. Or so we thought.

We arrived to find C’est What in the throes of its own Beer Week event, with 5 stations set up around the bar pouring dozens of samples, many of which I’d never tried. I’d love to be able to tell you what I drank but somebody threw out the paper we’d used to keep track. However, based on the list I found on twitter and my rather fuzzy memory I think these were the samples I picked:

  1. Ontario 100 Mile Pale Ale (cask)
  2. Garden Piperales smoked/spiced Amber Ale
  3. 5 Paddles Uncle Kev’s Milk Stout
  4. Nickel Brook Pumpkin Porter (cask)
  5. Oast House Old Town Drunkel chocolate/cherry porter
  6. St. Ambroise Oatmeal Stout (nitro)
  7. Sawdust City Skinny Dipping with Chipotle Stout (cask)

Beer week!

Matthew Danger

Dan Dickinson2 Comments

If you’re going to have friends, have friends who know wine and who can cook and who have access to a great cottage and who like to share and who are generally just the best. This was our weekend:

Matt smoked some ribeyes…

…while we opened the vertical of Bachelders Chardonnays we brought: the 2009, 2010, and 2011…

…and brought the last bottle down to the dock…

…to watch the sunset.

Seriously, look at that.

Couldn’t have asked for a better spot to enjoy a special wine.

Sunset turned from yellow to red as our night ended.

The next day we tallied the damage. Beer not included.

Sunset the next evening was almost as spectacular…

…and paired with beer this time…

…as the last of the clouds drifted away.

There was even time for a little fishing before dark…

…and the evening’s campfire.

Day 2’s consumption. Much of this went with a feast of lobster, shrimp, scallops, and squid.

All weekend we were entertained by chipmunks, chickadees, nuthatches, blue jays, and the odd hummingbird. We also did battle with a squirrel.

If there’s a better weekend than relaxing in that place, swimming in that lake, eating that food, drinking that wine, all with those friends, I haven’t found it yet.

.:.

Side note: all of these pictures were taken with our phones, sans filters.

Coney Island Parachute Jump

Dan Dickinson2 Comments

Just got back from a weekend of fun in Halifax to celebrate my birthday. I’m kind of tired, so no prose this time. Just the highlights of places we hit, both new and familiar.

BAR AT THE PRINCE GEORGE HOTEL
Since we stayed at the Prince George hotel we decided to have a lunch at the new bar downstairs. The fried chicken sandwich was pretty tasty, and they had a surprisingly good beer selection; before I started on the locals I had two from Dieu Du Ciel: the Blanche du Paradis and the Aphrodisiaque.

FIELD GUIDE
After meeting up with our friends we tried to hit this place, but they don’t open ’til 6pm. Next time, then.

STILLWELL
This was the one I was really excited about. It’s a new(ish) place modelled after places like Volo and Pony Bar, and I’ve been following their progress and Twitter account since they were under construction. We all started with samplers; I got the PEI Brewing 1772 IPA, North Brewing Belgian IPA, Boxing Rock Sessionista, and Picaroons Dark and Stormy Night. Our entire group then split a stellar bottle of Brooklyn Sorachi Ace — what a treat. I wrapped up with the Uncle Leo’s Smoked Porter, which tasted like bacon. By the time I left this was my new favourite place in Halifax.

AUCTION HOUSE
This was another new stop for us. There’s a gimmick where they raffle off special appetizers and desserts and such, and people bid using paddles at their tables. We only took part in one auction and weren’t quite willing to part with $20 for a dessert, but it was still kind of fun. We split half a dozen appetizers and I had a Hell Bay Dark Cream Ale.

CARLETON
This was another first for me, even though the Carleton has been there for years. See, when I lived in Halifax, the Carleton was a SMU bar, so I didn’t go there. And old habits die hard. Anyway, it’s gotten a bit swankier inside, and the live music was pretty good. Not a great beer list, but they did have Unibroue Blanche de Chambly and cocktails named after local 90s indie bands like Thrush Hermit and Eric’s Trip. So there was that.

MAXWELL’S PLUM
Yet another Halifax institution which had never had the pleasure of my company. We were getting pretty silly by this point. I remember starting with a Boxing Rock Hunky Dory Pale Ale and ending with a Big Spruce Cereal Killer Oatmeal Stout; there may have been another in between those two but I can’t be sure.

STILLWELL
That’s right, we went back. It was that good. And before I left I’d noticed they had bottles of Dieu Du Ciel Péché Mortel in the fridge, which our friend Becky had never tried, so I ordered two (and some delicious Atari fries). After this magnificent reprisal the girls dragged us somewhere awful. I won’t even discuss it here. Awful.

PIZZA CORNER
Aaaaaaaaaaand the evening was back on track. And by “evening” I mean 2am. And by “back on track” I mean covered in donair sauce.

EDNA
After a very slow start to Sunday morning we dragged ourselves over to EDNA for brunch. By the time we left it had joined Stillwell atop my list of favourite Halifax places. The food was outstanding — I had a smoked pork chop, eggs, beans, toasted sourdough baguette, duck fat potatoes, and a cappuccino. The space (rustic, open) felt completely welcoming, the music (folk, blues) was perfect, and the clientele was almost universally happy and attractive. I can’t wait to go back for dinner some day.

TWO IF BY SEA
We braved the drizzela and walked down to the waterfront, stopping at TIBS for some fuel: capp #2. From there we threaded the needle of Buskerfest crowds down the waterfront, past a superyacht, all the way to the market.

GARRISON
The rain had let up and the sun was out now, so we stopped for two wee samples on the Garrison patio. I had the Raspberry Wheat and the Nut Brown.

HENRY HOUSE
Since we were just around the corner and felt we needed just a little more food in our stomachs we visited an old familiar haunt for some spicy calamari and a Granite Brewery Best Bitter on the patio. Nellie got one of her new favourites, the Ringwood.

STUBBORN GOAT
Sunday night’s plan was to have a proper dinner at another new stop, the Stubborn Goat. The Murphy girls rejoined us, and we added three others, but none of us had much in the way of energy. Even Nellie and I had to power through a few drinks, but we couldn’t leave that beer selection untouched. I had a Boxing Rock Sessionista, a Picaroons Best Bitter, and a Dieu du Ciel Pénombre. The menu looked impressive, though it didn’t really blow us away…or maybe that was the service, which was pretty amateurish the whole night. Still, I want to go back — our friends assured us this was out of character for the Goat, so we’ll keep it in mind for next time.

No Pizza Corner on night #2; we all rolled out of there and made for home. I crashed into bed immediately; Nellie insisted on watching The Other Woman, which even Kate Upton in a bikini couldn’t save. Our travel back to Toronto was unremarkable except for the limo driver who had spent his childhood working on a blueberry farm only a few miles from our own. Small world.

Thanks for the 46 hours of fun, Halifax. It was a hoot.

Photo by Peter Kudlacz, used under Creative Commons license

“Mmmm. Gueuzy.”

Dan Dickinson1 Comment

Well, that was a beer-y weekend. It actually started Thursday night when Nellie and I found ourselves near Volo and stopped in for some Great Lakes drinks (Chill Winston for me, Audrey Hopburn for her) before some dinner at Mercatto. At that point we’d momentarily switched to wine, and decided to watch Red Obsession (imdb | rotten tomatoes) while we drank a bottle of the Tawse wine club T-Blend Red.

My Friday afternoon was spent on a boat cruising around Toronto harbour for a work event, during which I consumed quite a few bottles of Steam Whistle. We were dropped off a few minutes away from the Amsterdam Brewhouse, so a few of us secured a table until Nellie and our friends MLK arrived. The food was pretty decent and I kept to the lighter beers (until the one-off Boxer (10 Count) farmhouse ale with Brett) so I could remain more or less coherent. After dinner we retired back to ours where we shared a (spectacular) bottle of Five Rows Sauvignon Blanc.

We took it easy on Saturday, just lying about and running a few errands, before meeting our friends JP + Sue at Triple A for some barbecue. We ate our ribs and steak and brisket and sausage and drank Camerons California Sunshine APA (mostly), then made a quick stop at our place to share a bottle of St. Louis Gueuze Fond Tradition on our balcony before heading to C’est What for a few more. I’m glad I picked up a bottle of that gueuze before the LCBO ran dry.

And now…I need a nap.

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.:.

Photo by Peter Kudlacz, used under Creative Commons license

 

Mischief

Dan Dickinson2 Comments

Last weekend, by the grace of good friends Matt & Kaylea, we made our now-annual pilgrimage up to a cottage in the Kawarthas. We stopped in Barrie on the way up to pick up a passanger and to eat some pizza & charcuterie cured meat, cheese, and Peruvian olives. We made it to the cottage that night, and crashed shortly after.

The next morning I woke up to this:

…met a new friend:

…went for a swim:

…lay in a hammock:

…ate some lunch, with a very special bottle of wine: a Benjamin Bridge 2004 Brut Reserve:

…smoked a pork shoulder (well, watched Matt smoke it):

…and went for another swim:

See how calm the water is there? Yeah, so did the resident mosquito population, and they ate me alive. Could be worse though: I could have gotten as badly sunburned as Nellie.

Friday was a rapid-fire drive north through traffic, and Sunday didn’t amount to much other than rain and buttermilk pancakes, but Saturday…bacon, sunshine, swimming, sparkling wine, swimming, pulled pork, swimming, camp fire…Saturday was glorious.

Cover photo by Thomas Cizauskas, used under Creative Commons license

Crawl II

Dan Dickinson2 Comments

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.

.:.

Cover photo by Thomas Cizauskas, used under Creative Commons license