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.
Well now, THAT was a fun weekend. Lindsay’s brother was in town, and we squeezed a whole lot of fun (and somehow a fair amount of relaxation) into less than two days.
We picked him up at the airport Friday night, and after dropping his stuff at our place, we went straight to White Lily. He’d heard about it. It lived up to his expectations. “Absurd” is what he said, I think. We relaxed at home and introduced him to Fargo (the TV show, not the movie).
The next morning I got a haircut and brought home peameal sandwiches for all some and jumped into the Fargo episode they were watching. After a bit we made our way to Boxcar Social, walking through the first few minutes of Eats & Beats, to sample some cortados and tasty beers.
After that we walked up Broadview to Good Cheese, took a picnic basket of cheese and meat and baguette and cole slaw and some drinks, and walked up to Riverdale Park East where we sat and enjoyed a perfect day.
We left there, grabbed another cortado at Rooster across the street, walked a little further for the full view (best in the city, in my opinion), and then walked home.
After a little more Fargo we got on with the reason for the visit: an Anderson .Paak concert at Echo Beach. We arrived just in time to catch the last 30 seconds of Thundercat‘s set, then watched NoName kill it, and then saw Anderson .Paak absolutely torch the place. I wasn’t expecting much — I was more tagging along than anything, and have never been super into his music, but holy shit what a show. Huge spectacle technically. Amazingly locked-in band. Insane energy. Maybe a little too much “Torontooooooooooo” pandering. Fantastic vibes though. And I had no idea he’s such an amazing drummer. Anyway, it was better than I expected, and actually a pretty fucking remarkable show. Bonus: after days of thunderstorm warnings it barely even rained…there was just got this bad-ass fog that rolled in during the encore. Anyway, we were glad it seemed worth a flight to Toronto — “Absurd Plus” was the assessment, if I recall.
This morning we got ourselves out of bed for some massive replenishing breakfasts at Eastbound (we all got the fork + knife fried chicken sandwich) and then had to have a little nap before heading to the airport. What a fun visit. What a killer concert.
Last night, after a quick drink at Boxcar Social with CBJ, I met Lindsay at The Civic. We hadn’t been back since they switched up their chef, and I was anxious to try it. We demolished the following:
The sommelier picked that bottle, but I’d been eyeing it already. That winery was featured in a book Lindsay got me a while back called Around The World In Eighty Wines (amazon). In it the author talks about Serge Hochar, son of the original winery owner, who produced vintage after vintage even in the face of war and violence in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley. So it was a draw of curiosity for me, but ended up being a goddamn delicious bottle of wine in its own right. Tons of fruit, strong spice. A special wine for sure. Made the dinner, really.
Earlier this week we got back from 10ish days in Europe, with a couple of fun city visits wrapped around a work thing.
THURSDAY / Toronto
We were off to Copenhagen, and had a pretty good flight except when Lindsay’s chair rocketed backward and knocked wine all over the lady sitting behind her. Eep.
FRIDAY / Copenhagen
We landed in Copenhagen early Friday morning, had maybe the easiest customs entry ever, took a short (but expensive! no Uber here) cab ride downtown, and lurked around the bar at the Hotel Danmark until we could get into our AirBnB.
We grabbed a quick lunch at the Brewpub Copenhagen, where we became familiar with the ubiquity of smørrebrød (food piled on a single piece of bread). We had smoked salmon, potato & fried Norwegian lobster, and seasoned lamb. Oh, and their beers which were mostly named after musicians like Van Morrison, Cole Porter (get it?), and Jaco Pastorius.
After a quick nap back at the flat, Tess arrived from Gothenburg. We hung out for a bit, looked up decent places to eat, and settled on Aamanns 1921. We chose well, too, as that might have been the best meal of the whole trip: a tasting menu consisting of a beautiful raw salmon amuse bouche, hake (paired with a local Danish Solaris-based wine), an exquisite steak tartare, pork, lamb, and a lemon dessert. It was all of it fantastic.
SATURDAY / Copenhagen
We decided to go a bit further afield Saturday, catching a train out of town to the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. It’s in a beautiful green seaside spot, and building is as beautiful as the ground. Their collection was very good, but their special exhibitions were great, especially Liu Xiaodong’s Uummannaq. Only the Pipilotti Rist exhibit disappointed.
Giacometti, Danish splendor
After returning to Copenhagen we grabbed snacks and waited for our next meal. This time they indulged me and let me lead us to Øl & Brød, Mikkeller’s food outpost. We each got the tasting menu once again:
a plate of cured meats, celeriac, and some cured duck (paired with a double dry hopped IPA)
danish potatoes with parsley & cavolo nero (paired with a witbier)
bread
braised pork shank, hispi cabbage, wild mushrooms & lingonberries (paired with a brown ale)
chocolate mousse, raspberry sorbet & burned chocolate (paired with stouts for Lindsay and I, and a wild ale named William for Tess)
The pork shanks were Flintstone-esque in size, so we slowly walked home, groaning.
SUNDAY / Copenhagen
We scrounged up some breakfast at a nearby place, then went for a (cold, windy) walk around the city. We sat in the quiet park near the royal library (which was closed, sadly) and walked up the river to the colourful Nyhavn.
We crossed the river, grabbed coffee at The Corner, and sat by the Strandgade watching people and dogs. Especially dogs.
We had lunch booked at Barr, which ended up being a real find. They take their beer very seriously there, and the decor (and view) were gorgeous. We ran through most of their food menu:
lumpfish roe w/ grilled belgian waffle and soured cream
hot smoked herring w/pickled plums, salted rhubarb and wild roses
beef tartare w/ ramson and pickles
danish pork meatball w/ lard, nutmeg and lingonberry compote
free-range pork schnitzel w/ horseradish and anchovies
The stars of the show, though, were the beers. Bokkeryeder is a cult figure in the beer world, and Barr is one of the few places that seems to carry his creations. We split a bottle of 2017 “Vlierbloesem” Lambic w/ elderflower, and it was sublime. We finished our meal with a Brekeriet “fruit salad” Berliner weisse.
One hurried walk back to the AirBnB later and Tess left us, bound for home. We spent a lazy afternoon there, recovering from one meal and thinking about the next. We were booked at Bæst, an Italian place in Nørrebro. We started with Negroni and sparkling, then went with the Bæst Experience Menu which came with pickles, the freshest mozzarella I’ve ever eaten, stracciatella with mushrooms, salads, five kinds of charcuterie, and two slices of pizza each. We paired it all with a killer bottle of Sangiovese. After, we ordered some gelato; my hazelnut was tasty, but Lindsay’s fior de latte gelato seemed to achieve the level of religious experience.
MONDAY / Copenhagen -> The Hague
We had to get up early and roll out of the AirBnB, just as the weather was turning nice. A quick ride back to the airport and a bad lunch (we could not find the Mikkeller bar in CPH) later we walked straight onto our flight to Amsterdam.
The flight was short and easy, and we had a cushy ride from the airport to The Hague, where we checked into the Marriott. We hung out there for a bit, grabbing a drink and quick bite in the bar, before eventually heading into the town for dinner at Oogst. The vibe there was a little weird (it was a quiet Monday, I guess?) but the food made up for it.
a great bottle of Rioja that I forgot to write down
five (!) cheeses each for dessert, and glasses of port
some kind of weird peppermint-y sugar thing
All in all, a pretty good start to our brief stay in The Hague.
TUESDAY / The Hague
After some breakfast in the room and an early meeting for me, we departed the hotel to see a bit more of The Hague. We walked this time, stopped at a random Italian place for lunch (good food; crap service), down to the Binnehof, and eventually to the Maritshuis where we took in the stunning building and a lovely collection of paintings, including a couple of rooms of Rembrandts. We also had to fend off crowds of people only there to take a selfie with Vermeer‘s Girl with a Pearl Earring. Which is lovely, don’t get me wrong, but for the love of god people, at least lookat it before you Instagram it.
After that we traveled to another museum, this one just behind our hotel: the Gemeentemuseum. They have a huge collection of De Stijl works, some remarkable modern pieces (including a few by Louise Bourgeois like this beautiful spider couple), and had on a photography exhibition by Erwin Olaf which started strong but tailed off a bit. Still, a more-than-worthwhile visit.
That evening I had a work thing in a fancy alien greenhouse. Lindsay ordered room service. She won.
WEDNESDAY / The Hague
My conference took up most of the day, and my introversion demanded a quite dinner with Lindsay versus a fancy work event, so we made our way to Bouzy. We’d spotted it on our way to Oogst earlier in the week, and liked the look of it. It wasn’t our best meal, but it was what I needed.
bruschetta tomato, burrata
risotto, pumpkin, pea
gamba, aioli, crémolata
gravad lax, blinis, crème fraiche
insanely good homemade fries (seriously, that’s what they’re called on the menu)
THURSDAY / The Hague -> Amsterdam
I finished my conference shortly after noon, then Linds and I grabbed lunch at Brasserie Berlage behind the hotel before piling into a car for Amsterdam. We had elected to spend our first night in Amsterdam at the Conservatorium Hotel, where we stayed last fall. It remains in an entirely separate class of hotels in our mind, less a hotel than another world where everything is beautiful and just the right level of service — impeccable without being overbearing. We ordered a bottle of Rioja and unwound in the room.
After a while we roused our lazy selves and walked down the street for dinner at Rijks, the Michelin-starred restaurant attached to the Rijksmuseum. The vibe was a little weird, right from the outset. We couldn’t explain it; everything just felt off. It didn’t help that our server would disappear for great tracts of time. Anyway, we tried to rally.
The amuse (apart from the four small pieces of summer sausage sitting on the table) was a slice of pear dusted with pistachio. We had that, and the first course (scallop w/ radish, codium, and seaweed vinaigrette; cabbage points salad) with glasses of Champagne. The food so far was good, not great.
But then, the next two dishes — a millefeuille of beetroot w/ Tomasu 24-month beurre blanc & parsley oil, and a tartelette Rendang made w/ goat, sprouts, and granny smith apple — were both among the best things I’ve eaten all year. We finished with 400g of dry-aged Simmentaler ribeye, aged 4 weeks, and a bottle of Tuscan red.
I think there might have been dessert, but I don’t quite remember so it must not have been remarkable. So: not quite the experience we were hoping for, but I still dream about those two middle dishes.
FRIDAY / Amsterdam
We had another lie-in, determined to make the most out of our time in the room. Eventually we rolled downstairs to the brasserie in the lobby for their brunch. It’s stupidly expensive, but wow what quality. Superb food, but several awful other customers. Entitled finger-snappers, whiny Russians in luxe tracksuits, demanding table-snatchers…maybe the high price is to pay the staff to put up with it. Anyhoo.
We checked out, left our bags, and made our way to the Rijksmuseum. But then, on the way, we saw the lineup for tickets. Then we started doing some research, and realized that the access to the Rembrandt collection (all on display for the first time, apparently) was sold out for weeks. We decided it wasn’t worth it, and instead visited the Stedelik just down the museumplein, which was very worth it. It was filled with modern art, much of which Lindsay knew, and we spent a grand total of five or six hours (!) there across multiple floors, which a yummy lunch just ’round the corner at Blushing in between.
We grabbed our bags from the hotel and (very painfully) acquired an Uber to drive us a little ways across town to our next hotel: The Hoxton. This one had a beautiful view of the Herengracht.
We didn’t have much time to enjoy it though, as we were off to dinner at Envy. I’ve had my eye on this place since my first visit to Amsterdam 7 years ago, and finally booked it. I’m glad we did too: it beat the pants off the Michelin-starred restaurant the night before in both food and atmosphere, even with the awkward couples on either side of us. We got the six-course tasting menu:
an amuse of liquid beetroot inside white chocolate, which was phenomenal
sausage & bread (not part of the menu; just something we wanted)
spicy beef tartare
mussels w/ bacon, dill
cod w/ chanterelles, pumpkin
lamb shoulder w/ parsnip, parsley
yogurt w/ caramel, blueberry
bread pudding
The walk home, in the warm weather we’ve been missing for months, was almost as good as that meal.
SATURDAY / Amsterdam
Again, we were slow getting out of bed, but you know…vacation. We had some breakfast downstairs at Lotti’s, then set out to see more of the city. After a stop at a coffee shop we started with Dan’s agenda: hitting beer places I’d never been to before. We hit Café Brecht, which started out incredibly well because of the delightfully ramshackle decor, but quickly got insanely busy, so we escaped after a piadina and a brezel and some beers.
Next up was Café de Spuyt where drank some excellent beers, chatted with the bartender, and listened to some excellent music. After some time there we walked on to Beer Loves Food, which is owned by the same people as past-visit-favs Beertemple and Craft & Draft. Again, we hit it just before it got really busy, and managed to have some interesting and challenging beers, plus some crazy petatje rendang (fries covered in spicy beef) to fill our soggy bellies.
We walked home the long way, seeing just enough of the Centraal / De Wallen area for Lindsay to know she wanted to get away from the crowds, and home we went. We’d had quite a day so we just went to the room, did some packing, ordered room service burgers and champagne, and called it a night. We were done in.
SUNDAY / Amsterdam -> Toronto
Blah same blah: pack, airport, flight (I watched Widows and then worked for five hours), and then: home. We were gone less than 10 days, but it felt like three weeks.
Last weekend we flew to Washington, DC. Lindsay was speaking at a conference. I tagged along.
THURSDAY
We got an early Porter flight out, arrived at Dulles airport, and Uber’d through a severe rainstorm to the Gaylord National Resort in National Harbor, MD. That town is just down the Potomac River from DC and seemed like some kind of weird manufactured resort town. Literally within sight of downtown. Anyway.
We desperately needed lunch, and walked around the corner to Succotash for some…well, maybe not southern, but southern-inspired food. We had cocktails (Lindsay: mint julep; me: Succotash / Maker’s Mark private select bourbon), oysters, crispy fried okra, hush puppies, a dirty chicken Cobb salad (her), and fried chicken sandwich (me). I also found a tasty Troegs Brewing “Javahead” stout on the bottle list.
Thus sated, we walked back to the hotel, watched some March Madness, and did a bunch of work. With some napping added in.
Eventually we needed dinner, and walked downstairs to Old Hickory, the steakhouse in the resort. We weren’t expecting much, but we were pretty pleasantly surprised. We had some champagne, followed by Lindsay’s lobster bisque w/ sherry reduction, citrus crème, crostini and my butternut squash soup w/ cinnamon & black pepper meringue, paired with a couple of California chards. Our mains came out much more quickly than we expected, so we didn’t quite have room for the 7oz waygu center cut sirloin and 22oz (!) cowboy ribeye we ordered (along with french fries and asparagus), and the bottle of 2015 Trefethen Family cab sauv we ordered barely had time to breathe. Aside: I met the Trefethen family nearly six years ago, while on safari in Botswana. Was never able to try their wine until now.
Mostly work, day two was, within Linds prepping for or at her conference talk, and I working or calling into meetings. As soon as we were done we left that weird little village and took an Uber into DC proper, driving through a crazy rain/sleet storm along the way. Eventually we arrived at our home for the next two nights: The Line DC.
Hotels don’t often blow me away, but this one did. It’s built in a century-old church (which resembled a temple, to my eyes), has style coming out its eaves, and attracted huge crowds of diners and hangers-out. They broadcast/podcast content from their lobby. Their rooms are gorgeous. Their dining options are all superhotspots. Even their coffee shop was killer.
After checking in we had snacks (french fries w/ yuzu aioli, nori; burrata w/ shishito peppers, persimmons) and some cocktails at Brothers & Sisters in the lobby while we waited for Lindsay’s friend Shannon to arrive. Once she got there we had drinks in our room and caught up until it was time for dinner (downstairs, again) at their main restaurant, A Rake’s Progress.
We ate potato gnocchi w/ braised rabbit, glazed roots, shiitake, and winter herbs; lobster tagliatelle w/ shiitake and lobster butter; kilt greens w/ crisped ham, spelt crumb, egg, and hot bacon mustard dressing; an enormous pork blade steak (chopped up) w/ steamed buns and pickled ingredients…basically a bunch of bao ingredients; and a bottle of 2016 Lioco “Estero” Chardonnay from the Russian River valley.
Our server, by the way, was a phenomenon. She guided our choices, she was an utter delight in terms of fun and demeanor, and it actually felt like she took such care of/with us. The three of us told her that our dinner felt like therapy. Anyway, I’m gutted that I can’t remember her name, because she was a goddamn treasure.
From there, Shannon stumbled into an Uber, and we stumbled upstairs to bed.
SATURDAY
We had pre-ordered room service, and it was the best hotel breakfast we’ve had since Champagne. That fit nicely with our leisurely morning, just enjoying the room, until we eventually scooted downtown. We decided to see what was on at the Hirshhorn. Lots of good stuff, as it turned out, including the latest in Rafael Lozano-Hemmer‘s Pulse series. Much of that was lovely, but the experience was ruined for us when two huge families had a get-together followed by a fucking proposal. This they did while whooping and hollering and illuminating the scene with their phones, all in a room where the very exhibit calls for quiet and darkness. What utter trash. Pull it together, morons.
Anyway.
After that (and the rest of the museum, which was all pretty impressive) we grabbed a late lunch at The Partisan, the only nearby place which my beer research had flagged. It’s attached to a butcher shop, so all the meat we had was spot-on. I had a chicken that had been brined, rotisseried, and then deep fried in beef fat; Lindsay had an Italian sandwich the size of her head. We each sampled deeply from their excellent beer list.
Luckily, the National Portrait Gallery is right around the corner, so we had enough energy left to do that. We saw some good work there, like a statue of Gertrude Stein or a brain-breakingly photo-realistic painting of Maya Angelou. We also saw so many more morons…the kind of people who wait in line to take a picture of themselves in front of the presidential portrait of Barack Obama, without ever actually looking at it. Or, more egregiously, the Instagram couple who kept striking poses in front of Nam June Paik‘s Electronic Superhighway (link) to the point where you couldn’t even get close to Florida or Georgia. Picture this type of pose, but much much cheesier and worse:
Back to the hotel, then. Shannon joined us for dinner again, this time meeting us at a used bookstore around the corner, and we decided to try our restaurant — Tail Up Goat — early in case they could seat us.
On the walk there we passed Malcolm Gladwell and a friend. I pointed that out to Shannon and Lindsay, and we proceeded to shit-talk his writing methods. I mean, he’s entertaining, and I love his podcasts, but the way he extrapolates trends out of anecdotes drives me nuts. Lindsay and Shannon had other criticisms. Anyway, we walk around the corner and into the restaurant. I held the door for the people who’d been walking behind us and realize…it’s Malcolm Gladwell. They’d been looking for the same restaurant, and walked behind us for the last hundred feet or so. And, presumably, heard all our comments. Cool. Cool. Ugh.
Sadly, or luckily, they did not have our table ready. Michelin-starred restaurants don’t have much vacancy; who knew? We walked back to our room, drank a little wine, and eventually returned to find our table waiting. And about ten feet from our fellow Canadian. We shook it off, and focused on dinner.
Which. Was. AWESOME, by the way. We started with cocktails (I don’t know what my companions got, but mine was called the Alright Alright Alright and I must have said it twelve times. Anyhoo. Here’s what we ate & drank:
berbere sausage w/ apple mostarda, puffed flax seed
a bottle of Chablis; I don’t remember exactly which, but we bugged the sommelier for some time before arriving on it, and I tried to change her mind about Gewurztraminer by telling her about the Klipfel Clos Zisser Grand Cru.
for dessert Shannon had tea, Lindsay had Madeira, and I had something I’d never tried before: a glass of Keo St. John Commandaria from Cyprus
We closed the joint down. Mercifully, Gladwell was already gone. We stumbled home and tried to watch a bedtime Jeopardy but I was asleep before Johnny had finished welcoming Alex.
I killed more of their beer list until it was time to Uber back to The Line, grab our luggage, get one last coffee at The Cup We All Race 4 in the lobby, call another Uber, pick up Lindsay, and head to the airport. We had a bite and some wine at the Vino Volo there (the first I’d ever seen), found our gate, endured the short-but-felt-long flight home, and crashed into bed.
In short: we like DC. Not National Harbor so much, but definitely DC. Adams-Morgan (where our hotel was) was a strange beast of a neighbourhood, but the city has a lot of green space and great restaurants and sights to see. And a good friend.
Little rest in store for us weary travelers though — we’ll be over the Atlantic by midnight Thursday.
.:.
Cover photo taken inside Rafael Lozano-Hemmer‘s Pulse exhibit at the Hirshhorn. And no, I did not use flash.
SO far behind on recounting things here. Honestly, it’s been a pretty frenetically busy period, so I keep forgetting about stuff. Here, then, a loose collection of a few ways I’ve entertained myself betwixt work & life.
On the flights to/from London I watched five movies: Mission Impossible: Fallout (imdb | rotten tomatoes), Annihilation (imdb | rotten tomatoes), The Old Man & The Gun (imdb | rotten tomatoes), Can You Ever Forgive Me? (imdb | rotten tomatoes), and Somm III (imdb | rotten tomatoes). Annihilation was weird, but the rest were all really good. I mean, Somm III was maybe too inside-baseball for anyone not super into wine, but it was right in my sweet spot.
I’ve been lucky enough to see two Raptors games too, and I think maybe the curse has been broken. I watched them run the Celtics out of the building, and saw them take down LeBron and the Lakers too.
I had a work dinner at Bymark, my first time back there in over a decade, and almost fifteen years after my first visit. For the first time, I did not get the burger.
We also had a reunion-y last weekend, as we had dirty diner breakfast with Brian + Mandy + Charlotte & Brock + Margaret at Fran’s, where I also bumped into wee Jenna McCutchen. That day we did a bunch of work at Boxcar before going next door to Chez Nous. We expected to see Laura there but instead saw Olivia (of Ricky + Olivia) who Lindsay knows from way back. It was good to catch up with everyone. We’ve been so busy for the past six months that we miss…people.
This past weekend we invited Laura from Chez Nous Wine Bar to come by and try some Ontario wine I’d been holding on to. She did, and she brought Descendent Pizza, as if we didn’t already like her enough.
But first! In an Eastward feint, we started with a 2013 Blanc De Blanc Extra Brut Late Disgorged from Lightfoot & Wolfville. It was as lovely as always, and I continue to enjoy watching NS sparkling shock people who don’t know such a thing even exists.
Next up was a…I don’t know what this is technically called, but a horizontal (?) of 2013 Thomas Bachelder Chardonnay, all from vineyards in Niagara: one from the Saunders Vineyard, one from the Wingfield block of the Wismer Vineard, and the Foxcroft block of the Wismer Vineyard. Despite my love of Wismer, the Saunders was the consensus favourite. Beautiful stuff, nicely integrated. The Wismer bottles were good too, but the Saunders won the day.
The final arrangement of the night was a vertical of Thirty Bench Cabernet Franc: the 2010, 2012, 2013, and 2015 vintages. For the sake of our livers we decided to pull the 2013 and focus on the 2010 and 2012 (generally regarded as among the best Niagara red vintages) and the 2015, which has won some fanfare.
Alas, the 2010 — at least, the bottle I opened — has not held up. The fruit and depth is all gone, just leaving behind a vegetal and slightly sour wine.
The 2012 was an enigma…it had much more to it than the 2010, almost bombastic-ly so, and it’s nearly 15% ABV seemed to drown out any complexity. However, leaving the remainder in a mostly-covered decanter overnight seemed to help it, as it seemed eminently more drinkable the next day — hungover though we may have been.
The 2015, on the other hand, might deserve all the hype. With maybe two hours’ decanting it had already opened up beautifully, and powerfully. I have a few more bottles laying down right now and I can’t wait to sample them in the coming years.
I still have a bottle of the 2010, and two of the 2012 put away, so it might be time to dig them out and see how they fare. I don’t hold out much hope for the 2010, but would like to see if I can extract wins from the 2012s. And I’m that much more intrigued by the 2013 now as well.
Skirl | Dan Dickinson 