Last night, for a friend’s birthday, we took part in a fun thing: a blind beer tasting (on Zoom, naturally) between people over five households. Each person bought five beers, wrapped them to obscure what they were, and safe-dropped them with the coordinator who then distributed them to each of the households.
So, last night we signed on, and tasted all twelve beers one by one, each time guessing what they were. There were, as we’d guessed, a lot of sours. Lindsay picked a smoked lavender stout from Avling; I picked up a seasonal east coast IPA from Radical Road. Both were hits.
Lindsay and I tied for the most accurate guessing. All in all, it was a really fun night, and a cool way to celebrate a friend’s birthday, even if she did try to kill us all with Delirium Tremens.
Earlier this week I traveled to the east end (even east-er than me) to catch up with my friend Andrea. We grabbed a table at Xola (I’d never been; she had) and caught up and had a pretty goddamn fantastic meal.
cocktails: traditional margarita; El Mayor Extra Anejo Old Fashioned
traditional guacamole
pulpo asado: grilled octopus w/ reduction of balsamic vinegar, artisanal chorizo, sweet potato mash, refried beans, and roasted grasshoppers (!)
duck confit tacos: moulard duck leg confit w/ pear & guajillo pepper sauce, salsa, and corn tortillas
I dragged my ass out of bed this morning to get to the first class in my next wine course, only to find the college had cancelled the course and just not told me. Great. Cool.
I didn’t have much left in me for today, so we just sat on the couch and watched Booksmart (imdb | rotten tomatoes) which was extremely funny.
We fêted the final hour of 2019 (and the first few hours of 2020) at a private event at Chez Nous last night. Copious wine, copious cheese, and some new friends. Good start to the decade, all in all.
We just got back from ten-ish days in Nova Scotia. We’d intended to skip Christmas this year in favour of a summer visit, but Lindsay’s broken ankle saw to that.
We got in plenty of family & pet time, both in Halifax and on the farm. We pied. We nogged. We saw friends. We played some crib. I drove around a lot. We had a weird night of singing 80s songs at brother #2’s house.
The (non-turkey-related) culinary highlight for me came early in the trip. Lindsay went out with her friends for dinner at EDNA, while brother #1 and I went to The Ostrich Club in the Hydrostone. It was really excellent food, and a fun time. I even got to try a wine varietal for the first time.
Pan-seared halibut, chimichurri, vegetable pave (Grosjean Vigne Rovettaz Petite Arvine)
Chocolate tart, pine nut caramel, cultured cream sorbet (Port)
Already trying to figure out when I can slot in a return visit.
I already miss the family, but we’re back in Toronto for a quiet week, which we both sorely need. Kramer clearly missed us too; he hasn’t stopped silent-meowing at us since we got home.
Last Saturday Lindsay and I and our friend Sarah, after drinks at our place, made an impromptu trip up the street to Ruby Watchco. We hadn’t been in quite a while, and my last experience there wasn’t the best, but we were hungry and the menu looked good and Lindsay could limp there, so.
Stupidly I forgot to write down what we ate, and it was of course gone from the website the next day, so to the best of my memory here’s what we had:
cocktails
a salad that I can’t really remember at all
smoked trout rillette
rosé, which I think was the 2018 ‘Beausoleil’ St. John’s from Languedoc
Thai lemongrass-marinated steak
butternut squash & ricotta dumplings
uh, some red…honestly, I can’t remember what for the life of me
Ontario cheddar
Chardonnay, which I’m relatively sure was the 2016 Rickshaw from Santa Barbara
We were overdue for a wine-vertical-hangout with Laura like the one we did in February. This time we moved just down the road from Thirty Bench to Hidden Bench, and three vintages of their top-end Bordeaux blend: La Brunante.
The 2010 (33% Merlot, 31% Cabernet Franc, 19% Cabernet Sauvignon, 17% Malbec) got better in the glass as we drank it, but was just beginning to give over to vegetal characteristics.
The 2012 (80% Merlot, 12% Cabernet Franc, 4% Cabernet Sauvignon, 4% Malbec) packed a wallop. I’d have sworn there was more Cab Sauv in there, but Laura called the blend early. It tasted like chocolate fudge cake, though the fruit still showed through. Merlot, you’re slowly but surely changing my mind.
It was probably too early to open the 2015 (50% Merlot, 26% Malbec, 21% Cabernet Franc, 3% Cabernet Sauvignon) as it just didn’t have the depth or power of the other two, but you can sense it coming, with the flavour bubbling under the structure. Here’s hoping, anyway.
So the star of the show was the 2012, with the 2015 showing lots of promise. Luckily I have another bottle of each stashed away.
Last week CBGB were in town, and we managed to catch up for a bit, despite Lindsay still being out of commission due to her ankle. I directed them to Wynona, near where their old house was. To be sure, this quality of restaurant was not in business at that corner when they lived there.
We shared grilled house focaccia, Albacore tuna crudo w/ mixed citrus + compressed melon + pine nuts, burrata w/ fig + ham + honey + almond + fennel pollen, a 25oz bone-in ribeye, and two desserts: a lemon posset and a meringue. All with a bottle of Fusco Mencia, and Stratus botrytis-affected Semillon for dessert. I also remember starting with a rather cloudy, tart Sperling skin contact Pinot Gris to start.
I miss them. I wish they still lived here, especially now that I’m nearby, but I’m glad they’re happy in Ottawa.
We’re fresh off a hybrid work/fun trip to BC — Tofino and Vancouver, specifically — and have yet to come to grips with the fact that we can’t smell salt air. That aside, here’s how it went:
SAT 15
We had a fairly early flight, but timed it perfectly so that we walked right on to the plane with no waiting. After some screen issues I watched Captain Marvel (imdb | rotten tomatoes) and did some work while Lindsay fended off a brutally entitled family who crawled everywhere and kept their seats in her face the entire flight, poor thing.
We landed in Vancouver and had a few hours to kill before our transfer. We did the apparently very traditional BC thing of visiting White Spot for burgers, a milkshake, and some local wine. After that, we shuttled over to the south terminal and took a very tiny Pacific Coastal flight (the plane held 16 people, maybe?) to our destination for the next few days: Tofino.
I’d heard about Tofino — all rugged beauty and beaches and ocean surf and trees leaning into coastline — but I’d never been. Nor had Lindsay. Anyway, a few minutes out of the airport we saw what all the fuss was about.
A few more km down the road we pulled into our temporary home, the Wickaninnish Inn. After a brief orientation we settled into our room, and were immediately greeted with a jaw-dropping view.
We didn’t do much for the rest of the afternoon except enjoy that view and the smell of the sea, and wait for dinner at the in-house restaurant: The Pointe. Turns out the restaurant is pretty g-d spectacular.
We willed ourselves out of the perfect bed to get breakfast (smoked salmon rosti; fresh fruit crepes) and enjoy the view from the dining room now that it was light out. (If a little foggy.)
We were determined to do as little as possible that day, so we went for a stroll on that very beach (which is called Chesterman Beach, FYI), chilled back in the room for a bit re-watching Fargo, then took a bit of work down to the bar & lounge.
We had some lunch (west coast clam chowder; fish & chips) in the bar, ogled their new wine cellar, and did…nothing, basically? Like, aggressively did nothing. Not until dinner, when we drove in to Tofino for dinner at Wolf in the Fog.
It was a cool space — we were sat right next to a wolf sculpture made out of driftwood, which is the most Tofino thing ever — and the food was as good as we’d heard. Here’s what we consumed:
Cocktails
Dan: The Sun Has Reached The Yard Arm (Nicaraguan rum, apricot, allspice, ginger, honey, lime, sparkling wine, black walnut bitters)
Lindsay: Nocino Negroni (Wayward Distillation House ‘Unruly’ gin, Odd Society bittersweet vermouth, Ampersand green walnut nocino)
Apps
potato crusted oyster w/ leek, truffle
seafood gemelli w/ pacific shrimp (special)
Main
baked Tofino halibut (for two) w/ clams, white beans, fennel sausage, spring onions
After having some breakfast in bed sent up, we got ourselves ready for our one and only activity (other than eating) whilst in Tofino: whale watching. We drove into town and geared up at Jamie’s Whaling, completely swaddling ourselves in orange flotation suits.
The trip, though very foggy, was even better than we’d hoped. We saw:
grey whales — lots of them, including a young whale named Lasso who swam right by our boat;
sea lions, including a giant male who our guide said was the biggest he’d ever seen;
sea otters, all floating on their backs wrapped up in kelp, including a few babies with pups on their chests, all of which made me completely melt (I’m obsessed with otters);
harbour porpoises, which appeared to us only as fins swooping in and out of the water.
Then, as if Tofino was just showing off, on our way to lunch we saw a bald eagle just hanging out on a telephone pole. WHERE WERE WE?
I mean.
Anyway, we grabbed a surprisingly excellent lunch of burgers (chicken; tuna) and beer at The Shed before driving home, stopping along the way for some beer courtesy of Tofino Brewing. After all that adventure, food, and drink, we had a hard nap in the room right up until the very last minute to get to the very last reservation at The Pointe. Our server assured us it wasn’t too late to order the tasting menu, and we trusted him. Thank goodness we did; it was one of the culinary highlights of the trip.
It was all superb, but the salmon w/ clam beignets was phenomenal, and the ribeye w/ black garlic jus will 100% be on the list of the best things I ate in 2019.
TUE 18
The weather was kind enough to clear for our last morning in Tofino, so we enjoyed one last coffee on the patio.
We went for one last long walk on the beach, which is just a spectacular place, full of sea life and surfers and romping dogs and digging kids. It’s as beautiful place as exists in Canada, which is saying something.
Finally, we got one last breakfast in at The Pointe (Rosti again for Lindsay; shrimp n’ eggs for Dan) before packing and heading back to the airport. Our flight back was a little more picturesque (and slightly less nerve-wracking for Lindsay) than on the flight out, and our cab ride into downtown Vancouver was uneventful. We arrived at the Sheraton Wall Centre to find NHL Draft posters everywhere. Apparently this was the home hotel for the NHL draft prospects, their families, and to some degree the NHL teams interested in them.
Anyway, while our room felt very old-Sheraton, the view was pretty solid: we could see all the way from False Creek to the mountains.
We didn’t hang around long though — the weather was too beautiful. We jumped in a cab and got ourselves to The Alibi Room. I hadn’t been in years, and it was Lindsay’s first time, but worthwhile given it’s the best beer joint in Vancouver (as far as my limited knowledge goes, anyway). We sat next to their open windows, sampled BC beer we’ve never tried, and ate charcuterie.
Salmon and scallop pie, leeks, potatoes & Bercy sauce
Bernard Defaix Bourgogne 2017
We didn’t have much left in us after that, except to take a cab back to the hotel and crash.
WED 19
My two days of meetings started Wednesday, so we grabbed an early breakfast around the corner at The Twisted Fork, where we found portions so big as to be terrifying.
Poached eggs and ratatouille served with honey lager pork sausage, green salad, sourdough toast and house made jam (Dan)
Croque Monsieur with brioche, smoked gouda, cheddar and ham served with fresh greens and house tomato sauce (Lindsay)
After we walked that off, the rest of my day was taken up with meetings and a work dinner at Ancora overlooking False Creek. Lindsay met up with a friend and then, weirdly, got rather ill for about 24 hours.
THU 20
After another long day of meetings I grabbed a drink at the hotel bar, surrounded by hockey families and NHL personnel (example: Barry Trotz ordered a Stella Artois next to me at the bar), before Lindsay — now mostly on the mend — and I walked down to Sunset Beach and then back to the hotel for a few local beers in the room. Later that night we met up with friends at Hawksworth, one of my all-time Vancity favs. Here’s what we got:
Various cocktails and sparkling drinks
I don’t remember what everyone got, but I do know that five years after having a Dalhousie #2 here, I ordered a Dalhousie #3: Lot 40 rye, pineapple, Montenegro, Ginger of the Indies)
Afterward we went for a drink at UVA, which had somehow shown up on my list of places to try, even though it turned to be really fucking weird. Weird decor, hinky service, long-but-strangely-empty cocktail list, etc. We had one and left.
FRI 21
We liked Twisted Fork so much we went back for breakfast again, and left equally stuffed.
Well done house-smoked Gouda baked eggs w/ sourdough toast, bacon, tomato, rösti and baked beans (Dan)
Eggs Benny with toasted brioche, poached eggs, hollandaise, roasted tomato, and avocado salsa w/ sautéed spinach, rösti and baked beans (Lindsay)
We did some work in the room for a while before decamping for Gastown, finding Six Acres a good place to sit and drink craft beer and watch the neighbourhood pass by while getting some shit done.
After leaving there and walking a ways (and taxiing the rest) we got back to the room to do more work and get ready for dinner, while killing a bottle of Blue Mountain sparkling Lindsay’d bought the day before.
Dinner was at Black + Blue, since we were looking for a simple (simple as in easy choices, not simple as in not-nice) dinner, and were tapped out on seafood. So, steak it was. And what a steak!
App
Caesar salad for two w/ crisp romaine, lemon & anchovy dressing, Parmigiano-Reggiano
Two glasses of Chardonnay (the exact one escapes me now)
Let it be known that the Wagyu was fucking unreal. Every bite was like butter. Maybe the best Wagyu I’ve ever had, and I’ve had lots. Another entry on the ‘best things I ate this year’ list come December, I’ll bet.
SAT 22
And that was it. BC. Tofino, Vancouver. All done. One last breakfast in the room and all that was left to do was pack up, head to the airport, fly home — no annoying families or busted screens this time; I watched They Shall Not Grow Old (imdb | rotten tomatoes) — coo at Kramer, and unpack.
Epilogue
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: BC is the prettiest province. Now that I’ve seen Tofino, I know that’s even more true.
Skirl | Dan Dickinson 