Category: Trips

Drive it in

Dan Dickinson4 Comments

It’s not often we get out of the city on a weekend to spend time at a cottage. Luckily our friends Kaylea and Matt are awesome and invited us up to their place on a quiet, pretty lake on a near-picture-perfect weekend. We ate a lot of food and drank many, many drinks and swam in Bat Lake and cracked up pretty much the whole time. A few of the highlights:

  • A warm lake, perfect for swimming in and boating on
  • A whole brined+smoked+grilled chicken that melted in our mouths
  • One of the most spectacular sunsets I’ve ever seen
  • Cherry pie
  • Impromptu dance party
  • Lake of Bays mini-keg!
  • Being the only one of the four of us not to drop a bottle or glass…I did, however, accidentally drop myself into the lake
  • “Give me some ringolos, I’m f*cked!”
  • Ten great bottles of wine, including a special treat: the 2001 Closson Chase Chardonnay I bought at auction a few months back — it seemed a little funky at first but ended up being pretty amazing…it was pretty special to share it at sunset, sitting on a dock with great friends

(7 x 7 – 1) = 48 = we need a bigger condo

Dan Dickinson1 Comment

“It’s always exciting for Niagara wineries when you come to town!” –Rick VanSickle

It’s been more than eight months since we last visited the Niagara wine region, and guiding our friends CBJ+M around seemed like a perfectly good excuse. Last weekend we decided to see what kind of fun we could get up to with thirty hours and an Autoshare Prius.

We decided to keep it to a very respectable five or six wineries per day (what?), and give them a mix of small and large wineries. Within reason, mind you; we can’t deal with the crowds at Jackson Triggs or Inniskillin or what have you. We started with Southbrook, then did a tasting at Ravine before eating lunch there (next to Jason Spezza), then moved on to Five Rows and Colaneri.

Five Rows (whose website I would link to except that it seems to be infected with malware) might have been the highlight of the whole trip. It was only our second time there, and it was as every bit good as the first. We had a great chat with Wilma Lowrey; we recounted our first visit and she told us no end of stories while pouring us wine. We learned the history of their labels (best: their ‘Single Press’ ice wine) and bought an 08 and 09 Cab Sauv. She actually gave us bottle #1 of the 09 (they hand-number the labels of all their bottles so customers can record them on their website) and we can’t wait for the day we’re able to open it up.

After that stop we did a 180 and hit Colaneri, the palatial and showy winery a little further west. Sure, it looks like a Disney-fied Tuscan villa from the outside, but we’d heard they were making good wines lately. I thought the wine was okay, but the tasting room rammed with tourists (and Jason Spezza again!) was hard to deal with after the personal, intimate experience we’d had at Five Rows. Nice bathrooms though. We grabbed a bottle or two and moved on.

Our penultimate stop was Kacaba, where they were happy to have interested, paying customers at the counter and not party-goers trying to scam multiple samples. Us, we left with a case. By this point we were running out of afternoon, so we zipped up to Vineland Estates to hit their tasting room. Again, we quickly became staff favourites for not asking bizarre questions or trying to scam free tastings. We delved into the Pinot family: Grigio, Blanc, Meunier.

We figured that was enough wine for one day (we had 24 bottles already; guessing CBJ+M had about 10) so we drove the few clicks to Black Walnut Manor, our B&B. We were greeted warmly, taken to our rooms and prompted to come have wine and cheese and cantaloupe jam by the pool. So we did. We said hi to the other guests and played with their dogs and took long, cooling swims and felt pretty goddamn happy, thank you very much.

For dinner that night we returned to Vineland Estates, and ate on their patio under that huge tree, overlooking the vines and trees and lake in the distance. I had east coast lobster bisque w/ vanilla chantilly; Upper Canada ricotta gnocchi w/ Cumbrae smoked chicken, grilled zucchini and rich cream; and marinated lamb loin w/ sous vide lamb sausage, celeriac and salsa verde. Nellie had the lobster bisque; fresh linguine w/ roasted peppers, sea asparagus, eggplant caviar and Toscano shavings; and Cumbrae beef tenderloin w/ blue haze, smashed mini reds and Shiitake reduction. Most of us split a bottle of Vineland’s 05 Cabernet; alas, I was driving and couldn’t have much. None of us had room for dessert; in any case it’d grown sweltering hot outside around the second course, so I was ready to head home to some air conditioning and chilled wine. We spent a few minutes on CBJ+M’s deck, drinking the Pinot Grigio we’d picked up at Vineland that afternoon and trying not to wake the other guests with our talk of Gordon Lightfoot and Stan Rogers.

The next morning, after another swim, we inhaled Carole’s unbelievable breakfast, featuring sausage and ricotta-stuffed french toast made from a chocolate croissant. Followed by a sticky bun. Even for a guy with an industrial-strength sweet tooth it was pretty rich, but I’d asked for it in a tweet about a month before, so I couldn’t very well back down at the moment of truth. I must say though, my oatmeal this morning was a sad replacement indeed.

We had five more wineries to hit, so we said goodbye and went on our way. We stopped at Tawse so they could ooh and aah at both scenery and wine, and then drove up the hill to Megalomaniac for more scenic views and a tour of the cave. We snapped them back into quiet low-key winery mode with a visit to Daniel Lenko (where we snapped up another case), and finished them off with stops at Hidden Bench and Fielding. By this point the trunk was full to bursting; we either had to come home or start carrying boxes on laps.

We stopped at Good Earth for some lunch — inside, alas, since the fly epidemic remains. After that it was a pretty uneventful ride back to Toronto, except for the last few kilometres when we drove into yesterday’s miniature monsoon season on the Gardiner. There was standing water being shot every which way by speeding cars, waves crashing over the median…it was nuts. It took us a little longer to drop CBJ+M and unload our wine at home than we’d planned, but that’s the joy of Autoshare. A few clicks of the Android and we had an extra hour. Once we dried off we took stock of the new additions, and set about trying to find them a home in the various fridges and racks.

Here was the final haul, not including the bottle we got for Nellie’s mom and a gift for another set of friends:

  • Colaneri 2009 ‘Unita’ Cabernet Franc
  • Colaneri 2010 ‘Cavallone’ Pinot Grigio
  • Daniel Lenko 2007 Signature Chardonnay
  • Daniel Lenko 2007 Old Vines American Oak Chardonnay (x2)
  • Daniel Lenko 2007 Viognier
  • Daniel Lenko 2008 White Cabernet (x4)
  • Daniel Lenko 2008 Unoaked Chardonnay
  • Daniel Lenko 2008 Unoaked Chardonn(g)ay
  • Daniel Lenko 2009 Reserve Riesling (x2)
  • Fielding 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon
  • Fielding 2010 Viognier
  • Fielding 2011 Lot 17 Riesling
  • Fielding 2011 Pinot Gris
  • Fielding 2011 Gamay
  • Five Rows 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon
  • Five Rows 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon
  • Five Rows 2009 ‘Single Press’ Icewine
  • Hidden Bench 2008 Felseck Vineyards Chardonnay
  • Hidden Bench 2009 Felseck Vineyards Pinot Noir
  • Hidden Bench 2009 Nuit Blanche
  • Kacaba 2007 Reserve Meritage
  • Kacaba 2007 Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon
  • Kacaba 2008 Cabernet Franc (x3)
  • Kacaba 2008 Syrah
  • Kacaba 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon (x3)
  • Kacaba 2011 Reserve Riesling (x2)
  • Kacaba 2011 Rosé
  • Megalomaniac 2008 Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon
  • Megalomaniac 2011 ‘Pink Slip’ Rosé (x2)
  • Ravine 2009 Sand & Gravel Sauvignon Blanc
  • Ravine 2010 Piccone Vineyard Reserve Cabernet Franc
  • Southbrook 2010 Triomphe Chardonnay
  • Southbrook 2011 Connect White
  • Tawse 2010 Sketches Riesling
  • Vineland Estates 2008 Pinot Blanc
  • Vineland Estates 2011 Pinot Grigio (which we drank Saturday night)
  • Vineland Estates 2011 Pinot Meunier
High Line and Empire State

Spitzer's & Bayard's & Pony & Mugs

Dan Dickinson1 Comment

I’m not sure why we booked last weekend’s trip to New York, to be honest with you. I think we’d gotten this close to booking an impromptu weekend in California earlier in the year and we were so disappointed when it fell through that we used points to book a trip to NYC instead. In other words: two incomes + no kids (+ no house) = hooray!

Thursday

I met Nellie at the airport, after misleading her about the presence of a new Mill Street Brewpub in Terminal One (it’s there, it’s just on the Canadian side) which forced us both into the {shudder} Molson pub. After a couple of flight delays — not our last on this trip — we were on our way. We landed at LaGuardia and crossed the Williamsburg bridge to our hotel, The Nolitan, a nice little boutique hotel in, uh, Nolita. North of Little Italy, geddit?

Even in the dark we could tell we had a great view of the Manhattan skyline to the north, and we could lean out over our balcony to see the Williamsburg Bridge all lit up. Speaking of that skyline: it doesn’t matter how many times we visit New York, it’s always thrilling to see it for the first time.

We were starving, and a quick look at our handy Google Map told us the nearest spot for a bit and a bite and a drop was the Epistrophy Cafe. We ordered some interesting wine (my first Cannonau; hearty!) and a board of meat & cheese to nosh, and then I spent the rest of the time there being warm and feeling inadequate. I swear, four out of every five people in that place looked like a model or an actor. I don’t know what was going on, but it was too common to be a coincidence. It was like a hot person nexus. Even the hotel described it as the place where the beautiful people dine. I need to lose a bunch of weight and buy some new clothes before I even consider returning to that place.

Friday

Hey, look at that view. Even better than we expected when we rolled out of bed and onto the balcony. Hooray for the almost-top floor.

We didn’t have many plans for Friday. Truth be told, we didn’t have many plans for this trip at all. We went with only a couple of must-sees, and as it turned out we nailed two of them on the first day. After some breakfast we headed west toward Soho.

About two blocks after setting out we were filled with regret for wearing jeans — it was bloody hot. In fact, it would feel north of 40°C the whole weekend. We had some coffee and bacon (vacation!) at Vins et Fleurs on Thompson, bought Nellie some cropped jeans at a 7 store and dropped in at Meg Cohen Design to see if we couldn’t replace the scarf Nellie had picked up last year and since lost. Verdict: no dice, but she wanted to check at the office and would we come back Sunday. Sure, why not? Off we went again to buy some new Converse, namely slip-on Chucks: great for hot summer days + airport security lines.

We circled back to the hotel and dropped off our shopping bags, changed, and left again in search of a cab. We had business on the west side of town. It took us forever to catch a cab; we don’t have our New York cab-fu down pat yet, to be sure. Eventually we grabbed one who took us into the West Village and dropped us near Bayard’s Ale House, the top-rated New York beer place on BeerAdvocate. While Bayard’s was a perfectly good place, it raised some suspicions about those BA ratings, since it was nothing to write home about, and certainly not deserving of a score higher than, say, Volo or The Avenue Pub. Anyway, here’s what we had:

  • Me: Weihenstephan, Sixpoint Sweet Action, Harpoon UFO
  • Nellie: Brooklyn Lager, Sixpoint Bengali Tiger IPA

A few blocks north of Bayard’s was the entrance to the High Line, a park built on an abandoned rail line running up the west side of Manhattan. It was terrific — this crazy green space running over busy downtown streets and through buildings.

There were small cafes, and even (blessedly, given the heat) a wine bar called Terroir! We stopped for a drink of some wine from New York’s Finger Lakes region, and I somehow ended up with a temporary tattoo. More on that later.

We climbed down off the High Line around 20th street and started the long hunt for a cab. At rush hour. On 10th Ave. Not our best idea. We finally flagged one and crawled slowly up 10th. $28 later (bear in mind, in Toronto it would have been $50+) we arrived at the favourite find from our last trip: The Pony Bar. It was just as awesome as last time, and we had the same delicious plates of sausage and pretzel as last time. They’ve updated the system so that the bartenders no longer climb up on the counter to change the draft board, instead updating it via an iPad. But they still ring the bell.

And here’s that temporary tattoo I was talking about:

Alas, I drank a truly awful Stone Smoked Porter which just killed me, so we ended the evening a little earlier than intended, but we still made a pretty good dent:

  • Me: Penn Weizen, Empire White Aphro, Brooklyn Ale (on cask), Stone Smoked Porter (ugh!), Empire White Aphro (again)
  • Nellie: Capt Lawrence Golden Delicious, Peak Organic Summer Session, Magic Hat Elder Betty, Stone IPA

We got out of our cab home a block early and topped off our stomachs with some Asia Dog — basically, small hot dogs with Asian-inspired toppings. For example, mine had scallions, cucumber and pork belly. Dee-lish! We scarfed it and went down for the count.

Saturday

Saturday was all about Brooklyn. All of our past New York trips had actually been Manhattan-only trips, so we decided we’d better see another borough. Or part of another borough. We picked Williamsburg, right across the, um, Williamsburg bridge.

Our first stop was at Mast Brothers chocolate, a must-see tip from our Rather guide. It wasn’t open yet, so we began walking northeast toward some parks. Brooklyn was much quieter than Manhattan, filled with people walking dogs, young parents walking kids, various hipsters on fixie bicycles, and so on. We decided to check out the East River State Park for the views of the Manhattan skyline. We found it, but it was what was happening in the park that made our day: Smorgasburg! It was a big food fair, with tons of vendors selling just about everything you could imagine. We loaded up on food and ate it in the the park next to the fair, looking out over the midtown skyline.

Nellie had empanadas; I had the best pulled pork sandwich I’ve eaten since our lunch at Cochon in NOLA. We shared lemonade and savoured the shade, happy for our good luck at having found the place. Sadly, we couldn’t stay there long because of the spectacularly annoying lady standing near us who kept droning “water water water water water water one dollar one dollar water water one dollar water water…” and on and on and on and barf.

We walked a little further to the northeast to McCarren Park and…did nothing. Seriously. We sat in the grass in the shade of a giant tree and watched a mixed league slo-pitch game. ‘Cause really, what else did we have to do? We were very, very on vacation.

And you know what else we like to do when we’re on vacation? Drink beer. So we walked a couple of blocks to Mugs Alehouse, one of the top-rated places in Williamsburg. We only stayed for two drinks each, but lots of stuff happened in there. We discovered that the bartender grew up in New Brunswick, a few hours away from us. We heard about his recent trip (as in, he got back the day before) to France, Belgium and the Netherlands. We also survived a close encounter with a large, loud gang of home brewing aficionados from Pennsylvania doing a tour of Brooklyn breweries. But most of all we enjoyed their killer beer lineup. Here’s what we tried:

  • Me: Brooklyn Sorachi, Oskar Blues Ten Fiddy
  • Nellie: Blue Point white IPA, Ithaca Flower Power

After leaving Mugs we walked back from whence we’d come, roasting as we went, to Mast Brothers. It was cool (literally and colloquially) in there so we lingered for a bit, sampled some chocolate and bought a bar to bring back with us. It was meant to flavoured with “crown maple”, though I couldn’t taste that at all, and I know from maple. It just tasted like rilly, rilly good dark chocolate to me.

We grabbed a coffee a couple of doors down at Modca and, suspecting it would be difficult to find a cab in Brooklyn, summoned an Uber car. By the way, this is like a whole other blog rant, but Uber costs the same in New York as it does in Toronto. However, in New York Uber trips are 50-100% more than a cab; in Toronto it’s maybe 10%. In short, Toronto cabs are asstastically expensive.

Anyway, it took us a while to crawl back across the bridge, to the point where we just jumped out and walked the final few blocks because it was faster. By this point we were getting a little peckish again, so to tide us over we had some more tiny Asia Dog hot dogs.

Hot? Check. Sweaty? Check. Little bit tired? Check. Therefore, our two tasks for the evening were to a) shower and b) find a decent place for dinner. We didn’t want to go far and we didn’t want something overly fancy. With a little help from the hotel and a little Googling we landed on Barmarché, just up the street from our hotel. It was exactly what we were looking for. It was nice inside, but understated. It felt elegant, but cozy. The host wore a trucker hat and thrift shop tshirt, but the dinner service was of a standard you’d expect from a top-tier place. And the food was excellent: Nellie had an enormous watermelon salad and some seafood pasta; I had a delicious apple/fennel salad and the chicken breast. We again stayed local with our wine choice, but it was even more local than we’d expected: a Chardonnay from Bedell, in Long Island. I didn’t even know they made wine in Long Island. Not only do they make wine, they make good wine if the one we had was any indication. Then we ended up splitting churros for dessert. Zing!

We weren’t quite done for the evening, so just before getting back to the hotel we stopped in for a drink or two at Xicala wine bar. God, what a mistake that was. There was only one person working (the room is tiny though…you could fit twenty people in there, tops) and she greeted us with…something between indifference and a scowl. We just seated ourselves; after a few minutes she took our drink orders. No personality whatsoever, just a nod with our order and plopped two glasses in front of us a few minutes later. We chalked it up to her being busy. We drank our wine — mine went faster than Nellie’s; I blame the heat — and selected our next victim from the menu. We waited for her to come around again. And we waited. And waited. And waited some more. She took orders from everyone else in the room. People ordered food. People got that food. And still we waited. We tried signalling; she never looked over at us. I thought about going up to the bar, but at this point I didn’t even want another drink. Then it just became a curiosity — how long, in a room smaller than our living room, with fewer than fifteen patrons, could we be ignored? The answer turned out to be about forty-five minutes. She asked if we wanted something else; we laughed and said we just wanted the bill. It came to $21.78; we left $22.00. Now, those of you who know us know that a 22-cent tip is an extreme outlier for us. And let’s be clear: we would have been happy to leave no tip whatsoever, but we couldn’t be bothered to wait for change. I can’t remember the last time we tipped that poorly. We leave a tip when we have mediocre service. We leave a tip when we have poor service, just because we give the server the benefit of the doubt, and assume they’re having a bad day or that the kitchen screwed up or whatever. But this was just…wow. At least it was so bad that we could laugh about it, and it didn’t ruin the pretty goddamn awesome day we’d just turned out. Down with Xicala; up with Barmarché and Mugs and Mast Brothers and pulled pork and Brooklyn parks and even the droning one-dollar one-dollar water lady.

Sunday

Happy Canada Day! We celebrated in the ways we each like best: Nellie slept in while I read the Sunday edition of the New York Times.

Nellie had a notion, once she was up and about, to visit the 9/11 memorial. I had no problem with that as I wanted to see the huge new One World Trade Center building. We walked through the stinking hot streets and got on the even stinkinger hot subway and got off at Wall Street. A few blocks later we were at the memorial which, as it turns out, you need tickets to enter. Tickets bought in advance. Tickets we did not have. OK, so never mind then. On the plus side, we had a great view of the new tower, and got to see lots of portly policemen holding machine guns. So there was that.

We took the subway back to Soho with the intention of checking back in with Meg Cohen. On the way to her store we passed a restaurant I’d noticed two days earlier, mainly because of the French name: Le Pescadeux. We noticed a sign in the window saying “Happy Canada Day!” and pointing out their special Canada Day brunch menu. Well, we’d been trying to think of a cool way to do something Canada Day-ish in New York, and this was it! We were forced to sit at the bar because of an incoming wedding rehearsal brunch; little did they know the bar is our preferred spot. I ordered a giant breakfast of Canadian bacon, sausage, eggs, and pancakes and got a Caesar to wash it down. I don’t even like Caesars — I just couldn’t believe they knew how to make one! Nellie had a mimosa and some Montreal smoked meat poutine. It turns out the owner is from Quebec, and we just walked by it on our random way to hunt for a scarf. What an awesome and tasty way to celebrate our country’s 195th birthday.

Anyway, from there: the return visit looking for the scarf was a bust so we walked home. Sunday must have been the hottest day of the whole trip, ’cause we were baked when we got home. Back in the cool shower for us, and then we set out looking for a place a) blasting air conditioning and b) showing the Euro2012 final. Because we were on the very fringe of Little Italy there were no empty seats for the likes of us, so we went hunting up the street away from the “Ita” part of Nolita. Getting very frustrated and very warm, we stumbled into Barbossa, a small Brazilian joint. We took seats at the bar, smack in front of the TV, just before it filled up. I tried to drink a beer but it was just too hot. We ended up drinking mojitos and caipirinhas and micheladas all afternoon. Basically I was just GIVE ME ALL OF YOUR DELICIOUS ICE and I finally managed to cool down while Spain thumped Italy.

This being our last night in New York we had a lot of decisions to make about how we’d spend the time, what with all the options laid out in front of us in the shape of Manhattan oh whatever obviously we found a place that served craft beer. Spitzer’s Corner, to be exact, which ended up being maybe our best find of the trip. We sat on a low bench; our table was the ledge of a large window looking out over Ludlow Street. We drank outstanding and interesting beer, and ate sliders (me) and truffled mac n’ cheese (guess who?), and watched New York’s lower east side happen in front of us. Our sampling lineup:

  • Me: Allagash White, Widmer Dark Saison, Ommegang Rare Vos, Goose Island Sofie
  • Nellie: Ommegang Witte, Peak Organic Summer Session, Southern Tier Hop Sun, Flying Dog Raging Bitch

We had small meals at Spitzer’s mainly because we wanted to leave room for a New York cliché classic: Katz’s Deli. Those of you who haven’t been there will probably know it from this famous movie scene (RIP Nora Ephron) but those who have been there will know it both for its crazy ordering process and for the absolutely immaculate pastrami on rye. We got our orders (seriously) from the security guard (seriously), got our sandwich and got out. We walked home, watched HBO, packed, and scarfed down one of the best sandwiches I’d ever had in my life.

Monday

There wasn’t much up our last day there: have breakfast, finish packing, head to the airport. Simple. We got to LaGuardia with no traffic problems. We’d done web check-in the day before, and cruised through security in mere seconds. We walked down terminal B’s ugly little hallway to our gate, but that gate was already full so we camped out a section away. I had to walk near our gate to get to the washroom, and happened to see on the board that our flight had been canceled. Great! Of course we didn’t hear the announcement since we were sitting far from our gate, so we joined the back of the massive Air Canada counter lineup. We eventually got to the front and found out we’d been booked on a 2:30 flight, so we had a good 3 hours to kill. Luckily we have lounge access courtesy of Priority Pass, so we enjoyed the United lounge’s comfy chairs and open wifi and free drinks and snacks.

Our flight eventually got delayed again, to 3:30 — the same time as another Air Canada flight, also going to Toronto, boarding at the next gate over. You can imagine how smoothly that went. We saw some people snarling at staff and generally forgoing human decency, though if you’ve spent an extended period of time in LaGuardia terminal B that won’t surprise you. Anyway, long story short: we will always, always take Porter to New York from now on. Always.

Luckily we had no pressing need to get back to Toronto early, no timetable we were trying to keep. And really, that was the theme of the whole weekend: no schedule, no agenda, no expectations. Just see and do and eat and drink and explore parts of New York that we hadn’t gotten to on previous visits. In that, I’d say we succeeded nicely.

"Honk if you've come for wine"

Dan Dickinson4 Comments

Sometimes your first trips to a place aren’t great, but you learn enough to make a fantastic repeat visit. Other times your first visit is a great one, and no return trip ever lives up to your first memories. However, once in a blue moon a first trip to a place so good it doesn’t seem repeatable is followed by a second trip that’s very nearly perfect. This past weekend, our second time in Prince Edward County (after a very good first visit in 2010) was just that: very nearly perfect.

Friday

That’s right, kids: we took the day off work to go drink wine. The night before we left we decided to have some extra fun on the way: we met our good friend Kaylea for lunch in Port Hope. She gave us a box of chocolates made right there in Port Hope and treated us to a tasty meal on the patio at Gusto overlooking the river, where we drank some Closson Chase Pinot Noir, gave her a bottle of Benjamin Bridge Nova 7 and her fiancé Matt’s USB charger (which we’ve had for months), and saw a deer run up-river.

We said our goodbyes and returned to our car not ten seconds before it was about to get slapped with a parking ticket. We hadn’t even noticed the meter behind a large sign. Or maybe the cop had seen our rental sticker and given us a break. Either way, it was an early bit of luck, and luck like that is what perfect weekends are made of. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

We drove a little further and entered Prince Edward County at its west end, making our first stop By Chadsey’s Cairns. We’d never been before, and hadn’t planned on going this time either, but a friend’s request via Facebook to pick up a bottle swayed us. We pulled into the farmhouse, met Richard, and walked around the lane to the little apple house where they now sell their wine. We spoke with him a while, picked up a few atypical bottles (like their Gamay/Pinot blend) for ourselves and the friend-requested Chenins, and continued on down the road. Just then, it felt like a switch had been flipped: we’d been in the county less than ten minutes and already we felt right at home at this pace, among this scenery, with these people.

Our next stop was a favourite from the first visit: Keint-He. As we got out of the car we saw a deer, the second that day, on the edge of a field across the road. It stood stock still, and we wondered if it was a decoy the locals put up to make the tourists gawk. Self-conscious, we walked into the tasting room and ran their table, walking out with four bottles. The deer was gone. We sighed with relief and tried to look confident.

A few minutes later we checked in at the Newsroom Suites, our killer lodging find from the previous visit. Seriously: a roomy, convenient, non-frilly suite with free wi-fi situated directly across the street from the best restaurant in PEC. There wasn’t even a question of staying anywhere else. We dropped our bags and turned right back around, though — we had more wineries to hit.

We’d planned to visit Closson Chase next, but realized we’d drive right past The Old Third on the way. This had been a ‘maybe’ on our list, but a tweet from Rick Van Sickle (“Please don’t take all the Old Third Pinot!”) had piqued my curiousity, so in we pulled. And Rick wasn’t kidding about the Pinot…it’s all they sell (the sign outside didn’t say “wine” or “tasting room open”, it said “Pinot Noir”) and they do a magnificent job of it. We walked out with two bottles of their 2010 Pinot, got to the car, then realized we needed to go back in and get one of the few remaining bottles of the 2009. There wasn’t even a label on that one. I loved that.

Then: back toward Closson Chase, as planned. We loved everything we got there on our last visit, and all their wines we’d tried since. We left with four things: three bottles, and their opinion that the 2001 Chardonnay I won at auction a while back should be drinking beautifully right now. Thank heavens; I was worried I’d won some vinegar.

We had one more new winery to visit: Stanners. It was good. Not great, but good. And not expensive either, which is always welcome in PEC. We left with two bottles.

Our final stop of the day was the one most likely to be the busiest: Norman Hardie. We bought four bottles for ourselves and one for a friend, and dished some dirt with the employees about our mutual friend Duarte.

We had an hour or so to unload the car and relax in our suite before dinner at East & Main, definitely our favourite restaurant in the county, and right  across the street. We had a fantastic meal, even if we (okay, I) probably annoyed our server a little. Pro tip: don’t ask the vegetarians where they can buy cured meats. Anyawkward, here’s what we ate:

  • Dan
    • seared scallops w/ double smoked bacon, onion soubise, crispy parsnips
    • breast of moscovy duck w/ frites, fresh berry demi-glaze
    • maple crème brûlée
  • Nellie
    • fresh ravioli w/ braised beef, highline mushroom
    • 10oz grass fed striploin w/ celery root & potato purée, caramelized onion sauce
    • lemon tart w/ fresh fruit
  • Both
    • Biale 2007 “Party Line” Zinfandel from Napa (I know, I know: it was sacrilege to leave the County’s bottle list, but we couldn’t find a Pinot that we thought would hold up to Nellie’s steak. So we went with an old favourite from our Napa trip)

After dinner, relaxing in our room, all we could think was: that was one badass first day of vacation.

Saturday

We slept in a little, despite the bird outside our window that sounded like a car alarm, then got up and had breakfast just down the street at the Tall Poppy Cafe. Nellie had a “Bob”, which was kind of like a McMuffin for grown-ups, while I had some killer French toast. Suitably powered up, we resumed our winery pillaging.

We aimed for the southern part of the county, to some less-frequented but well-regarded wineries. The terrain changed again here: more twisting roads, more rolling hills. It felt a little bit like home…there was even a community named Athol. Along the way we saw yet another deer sitting calmly in a field, with only its head and neck sticking up, looking at us like we were interrupting brunch.

Our first stop in the area was Lighthall, a winery we’d never heard of until Kaylea recommended it earlier in the week. We weren’t expecting much, but…wow. Great find. Glenn, the winemaker, was so friendly, so informative, so helpful, so funny. And the wine was terrific: we left with two bottles of wine and two, ahem, bundles of top-secret material about which we’re sworn to secrecy. We’d thought about picking up a bottle of the 2009 Reserve Pinot Noir, but it was slightly pricey for something we couldn’t taste, especially when we’re already so well-stocked for pricey Pinot.

We finished our time in that part of the county with a visit to Exultet (where we got a nice crisp white and a top-flight Pinot that’s going straight into the wine fridge) and Long Dog (where we found zero dogs, sadly, but one very affectionate cat, a loud and somewhat annoying tour group, and a few nice bottles of plonk) before turning back to the north.

Since Fifth Town Cheese is now out of business we stopped in at Black River Cheese, but — apart from the ice cream-loving biker convention outside — it was pretty disappointing. As was Waupoos, by the way: it certainly offered a pretty venue, but when we parked the car and looked inside the tasting room we just…we couldn’t do it. It was too crowded, too touristy, too much. We started the car and got back on the road. Nearby tourist attraction Lake On The Mountain wasn’t terribly impressive either (looks-wise, at least…it’s still kind of interesting), but the views of the Bay of Quinte from up high were worth the stop.

At this point we were getting hungry, so we stopped for lunch in Picton at Buddha Dog, a magical place where tiny hot dogs come covered in interesting sauces like jerk and red pepper jelly and beef chili. We listened to 80s music (Frankie Goes To Hollywood!) and drank local root beer, and had three dogs each, and it all hit the spot perfectly. Full of mini-dog, we rescued our car from the Giant Tiger parking lot and pressed on.

We stopped briefly at the Marshmallow Room in Bloomfield to arm ourselves for dinner that night: meat, cheese, bread, and preserves to go with the dessert we’d picked up that morning at the Tall Poppy. Our plan was to have a simple meal at our place that night along with some of the wine we picked up that day.

But first, we had three more wineries we wanted to visit. Hinterland was all about sparkling, so not my bag, but certainly right in Nellie’s wheelhouse…and also appealing to the bachelorette party that came in after us. Grange of Prince Edward was disappointing — busy, touristy, and with lacklustre wines. Frankly, when we pulled into Karlo next we were expecting more of the same given all the cars and tour vans, but we were pleasantly surprised — we left with three bottles (though they charged us for only two, for some reason) including a Petit Verdot. And this helpful crowd control tip:

We passed a few hours back at our hotel, snacking and drinking wine on the porch. We watched the staff of East & Main get ready for their dinner service across the street, thinking back to how great our meal had been the night before. We kept thinking about it, and thinking about it, and comparing it to how our compilation-of-the-county dinner was going to be, and before long we said “fuck it” and called East & Main to make a reservation for that evening. That’s right, the same restaurant two nights in a row. Don’t judge us.

Our second dinner there was even better: the food may actually have not been quite as good on the second go-round, but two other things really made the night: first, they had the Lighthall ’09 Reserve Pinot that we’d eyed earlier in the day; second, our server was amazeballs.

Ze lineup:

  • Dan
    • fresh ravioli w/ braised beef, highline mushrooms (yup, we just flipped the apps from the night before)
    • pork loin w/ grilled vegetables and lentils in a mushroom and merlot reduction sauce
    • cinnamon apple pie ice cream
  • Nellie
    • seared scallops w/ double smoked bacon, onion soubise, crispy parsnips
    • fresh rigatoni alfredo w/ shrimp, grilled red onion, highline mushrooms, spinach, garlic white wine cream
    • lemon sorbet (but only because they were out of the lemon tart)
  • Both
    • Lighthall Vineyards 2009 Pinot Noir Réserve (Having visited Lighthall earlier that day and seeing what this bottle cost retail, we knew that it was a STEAL here)

Like I said, our server — Laura — was sweet, and seemed to find us amusing, and really looked after us. At one point we forced her take a bite of my dessert even though it’s against the rules, just because it felt like we should. Years ago we realized you get far more out of being great to the people looking after you in bars and restaurants (sometimes they buy you lunch and give you chocolates and invite you to special occasions) than you do by being mean or bossy, and this was a perfect example of that tenet. Even though the meal didn’t quite measure up to what we’d had the night before, I’d rank it among the best dining experiences we’ve ever had.

Sunday

I let Nellie sleep in Sunday morning while I went for a somewhat greasier breakfast back at the Tall Poppy. Bacon, eggs, toast, cappuccino: everything a growing boy needs. We took our time getting ready, packed, and loaded up the car with our wine purchases (at this point we were pretty close to the three dozen mark) and took off. Our only plans for the day were to visit a lavender farm (seriously), eat some pizza, make one more winery stop on the way out of the county and make haste back to Toronto.

We stopped at PEC Lavender, where they had lots of (brace yourself) lavender, as well as a well-maintained Farmall that reminded me of my youth, even if it wasn’t quite the same model I grew up with.

Not long after that we were sitting outside at Norm Hardie’s winery, eating thin-crust pizza baked in wood-fired ovens, drinking glasses of his Chardonnay, chatting with a lovely British gentleman named John. The pizzas were superb, the weather was perfect, and the wine was — as always — immaculate. We bought a lone bottle of the Melon de Bourgogne, re-packed the trunk to minimize bottle-sliding and bid John and the rest of Hardie adieu.

Nellie did have a few more sips of wine, at Harwood, a winery on the way to the 401. Our main reason for stopping was to pick up a bottle of Pinot Gris for our friend but Nellie also decided to take a bottle of their St. Laurent, something you don’t see every day. I opted not to sample — I was driving, and anyway, I couldn’t think of a better final taste of the county than the Hardie chardonnay I’d paired with lunch.

Our drive home was easy, and we listened to Allo Darlin’ and Sloan, and made fun of other drivers, and talked our next trip. Woofstock caused a minor inconvenience when returning the car, but it was worth it for the rampant cuteness we saw on the way home. And then came the unpacking:

In total, that’s 32 bottles from 13 different wineries:

  1. By Chadsey’s Cairns 2009 Gamay/Pinot Noir
  2. By Chadsey’s Cairns 2011 Muscat
  3. Closson Chase 2009 Churchside Pinot Noir
  4. Closson Chase 2009 S. Kocsis Chardonnay
  5. Closson Chase 2009 K.J. Watson Chardonnay
  6. Exultet 2009 Pinot Noir
  7. Exultet 2011 White Light Vidal/Pinot Noir
  8. Grange of Prince Edward 2007 Victoria Block Chardonnay (which we drank last night)
  9. Harwood 2009 St. Laurent
  10. Hinterland 2009 Rose
  11. Karlo 2010 Choa Chardonnay
  12. Karlo 2010 Cabernet Franc
  13. Karlo 2010 5th Element Petit Verdot
  14. Keint-He 2008 Pinot2 Pinot Noir/Pinot Meunier
  15. Keint-He 2008 Pinot2 Pinot Noir/Pinot Meunier
  16. Keint-He 2009 Little Creek-Benway Pinot Noir
  17. Keint-He 2008 Pineaux Sauvage Pinot Noir (Botrytis-affected)
  18. Lighthall 2009 Cabernet Franc
  19. Lighthall [**REDACTED**]
  20. Lighthall 2011 Progression Vidal
  21. Long Dog 2007 Otto Riserva Pinot Noir
  22. Long Dog 2008 Bella Riserva Chardonnay
  23. Norman Hardie 2008 Cuvee “L” Chardonnay
  24. Norman Hardie 2009 County Pinot Noir
  25. Norman Hardie 2010 County Chardonnay
  26. Norman Hardie 2011 County Melon de Bourgogne
  27. Norman Hardie 2011 County Pinot Gris
  28. The Old Third 2009 Pinot Noir
  29. The Old Third 2010 Pinot Noir
  30. The Old Third 2010 Pinot Noir
  31. Stanners 2010 Cabernet Franc
  32. Stanners 2010 Lincoln Lakeshore Chardonnay (which we drank on our front porch Saturday afternoon)

We also picked up a few bottles for friends: 2010 & 2011 Chenin Blanc from By Chadsey’s Cairns, a Harwood 2010 Pinot Gris, another [**REDACTED**] from Lighthall, and a Norman Hardie 2010 County Chardonnay.

So yeah…this might just have been the perfect weekend getaway. We had amazing weather. We had incredible dining experiences, on and off the table. We picked up plenty of our favourite wines and were surprised with some fantastic new finds. Our car & hotel rentals were problem-free, which is pretty much all you can ask for. We saw beautiful scenery, and felt relaxed practically the moment we arrived. We even managed an impromptu visit with a dear friend. Best of all we returned refreshed, relaxed and loaded down with tasty wine. What the hell else do we need out of a weekend, I ask you?

Rien. Absolument rien.

Arizona

Dan Dickinson2 Comments

It’s unlikely that Arizona ever would have been at the top of our travel priority list. However, since I was invited to speak at a conference last week, we decided we’d make a short trip out of it and booked Nellie a plane ticket.

Friday

Watching a new movie (Chronicle), an old familiar favourite (Almost Famous) and a few episodes of New Girl killed our YYZ-PHX flight pretty easily. Walking out of the Phoenix airport we would learn a truth that would prove itself out over the next few days: Arizona is hot as balls. After a pretty large pain in the ass picking up our car from Hertz we drove away in a pretty badass Chevy Camaro SS convertible. We tried retracting the top but starting cooking within minutes. We put the top back up, and good thing too…within a few minutes of getting on the highway we saw a number of dust devils north of Phoenix and actually drove right through one.

A couple hours later we were in the town of Sedona. Which is beautiful, by the way. We had some time before we could check into our room, so we picked up some supplies (read: #50 sunblock) and grabbed a beer and some gourmet hot dogs at the Oak Creek Brewpub. Oh, and a hat. I realized that driving a convertible in Arizona without one would be epidermal suicide.

Now just feeling the need to relax, unpack and maybe change, we checked into our hotel: the Adobe Grand Villas. It took us all of about six seconds to love it there. We got a little tour, admired the pool, and were shown into our room. I remarked that it smelled like fresh bread in the room; our host explained that, in fact, they had just made fresh bread in the room. For reals; breadmakers in every room, set to finish at 3PM. Amazing! We settled in, unpacked, took pictures of our giant room for Tripadvisor, and then went down to the main building where Nellie had a dip in the pool and I availed myself of the best bruschetta and lemonade I’ve ever had while chatting with three giant German bikers and admiring the mountain view. This vacation was off to a pretty good start.

We’d decided to splurge on our first night in town, booking in at L’Auberge, the consensus pick for top (or at least fanciest) restaurant in Sedona. The restaurant is set right next to Oak Creek itself and And mein gott, what a meal. We started off with lots of lobster (bisque for her; salad for me) and then got into the meat (filet mignon for her; honey roasted duck breast for me; all paired with an outstanding bottle of Sea Smoke “Ten” Pinot Noir) before ordering dessert (tarte tatin with salted caramel gelato for her; some kind of chocolate amazingness for me that I don’t quite recall) and being surprised when the server brought us an extra dessert — a salted caramel pot de crème, which we certainly did not need but went crazy for — simply because Nellie had asked about it earlier.

Damn fine way to end a first day of vacation. By the way, if you ever find yourself in Sedona, get your hotel to call Steve at Swift Rides for you. He’s just a nice dude who’ll drive you anywhere in town for $12 in his luxury car, so you’re free to drink as much Sea Smoke Pinot Noir as you’d like.

Saturday

Our sole plan for day 2 was to visit the Grand Canyon. We’d read on the interwebs that the thing to do was bring a lunch with you and eat it at a rest stop, so we grabbed provisions and a greasydelicious croissant-BLT at the Heartline market and took off north. And by “took off” I mean weaved slowly around cyclists and up switchbacks at 40mph as we traveled up the Oak Creek Canyon. We were rewarded with a pretty sweet view at the top though. Really, the geography of the whole state — at least, the fraction we saw — was very impressive, and impressively varied: desert, green hills, rocky badlands, plateaus, lush canyons, snow-capped mountains and, of course, canyons.

After stopping for gas in Flagstaff and then a long drive north, we turned west to enter the less popular east gate of Grand Canyon National Park. First, though, we stopped at a Little Colorado River Canyon park rest stop to snap some pictures, use the washrooms and eat our lunch. We saw hawks swooping and diving and hovering on thermals as we ate, and admired our surrounding.

A little further west we entered the park itself, and made our first stop along the rim at a point called Desert View…

…then drove further west to Lipan Point…

…and then Grandview Point…

…and finally to the main visitor center from which people view the Grand Canyon. They even had a golden eagle on display there.

Of course, none of these pictures could do the slightest bit of justice to the Grand Canyon. It’s immense. It’s this gorgeous scar on the surface of the earth that you can see from space and still amazes in spite of the hundreds of French tourists standing in the way of it or of all the idiots who lean out over the edge or the asshole who leaves their Starbucks cup next to it. It’s somehow just beyond all of that.

Suitably awed, we began the long drive back to Sedona. We arrived tired from driving and hot from the sun. We went for a dip in the hotel’s pool, had a slider prepared by their amazing chef, chilled in the room for a bit and eventually went for some beer and grub at the other Oak Creek location in town, a somewhat fancier grill. We tried all seven of their beers; the nut brown was my favourite.

Sunday

There was naught to do Sunday morning except treat ourselves to chef Michael’s breakfast (hot cinnamon twist and waffle w/ berry compote: unreal) and get on the road back to Phoenix. It’s only a two hour drive, but it was 25 degrees hotter back down on the desert floor than it was in Sedona.

We checked into the Sheraton Wild Horse Pass resort where my conference was to be held and got in our last few hours of relaxation. We hung out by the pool, availed ourselves of shade and the cooling mist, drank mojitos and local craft beer, and marveled at how willing some people are to cook themselves. We even got to see an annular solar eclipse that night.

Considering how much we felt like we’d seen and done, it was hard to believe we’d landed in Arizona barely 48 hours before. We hadn’t been looking for this trip, but felt very lucky that it had landed in our laps.

Our vacation in New Orleans or: how I came to want to free Sean Payton

Dan Dickinson2 Comments

Well, that was one of our all-time favourite trips. Here’s the play-by-play:

Friday

I’d been dreading our American Airlines flight. The last time I took American (>10 years ago) I told myself I’d never fly with them again, but we didn’t have a choice this time. But it really wasn’t too bad at all…our flight left on time and got us to Dallas in plenty of time to eat a pretzel and tacos, lounge on some recliner-ish airport chairs, and make our connection to New Orleans.

Our hotel, the Avenue Plaza Resort in the Garden District, ended up being bigger than we thought too, and not quite as ugly as the website’s pictures suggested. So the low-expectations part of our trip had both turned out pretty well. So far so good!

It was already pretty late, so our plans that night were simply to try out the Avenue Pub just down St. Charles Avenue. How lucky that our hotel was five blocks from one of the best beer places in North America. CBJ+M — our traveling companions — staked out a little table upstairs, and we drank our fill of excellent beer, ate dump truck fries (waffle fries with pulled pork and cheese) and red-beans-and-rice wontons, admired the cool art and saw our first of many “Free Sean Payton” shirts. If you don’t know who Sean Payton is, this will help.

And then, boom…we crashed.

Saturday

Late to bed, late to rise. We gathered in the morning to test out the Trolley Stop Café, just a few steps from the hotel. It was already busy, and got busier before we left. The place was fairly famous on Tripadvisor for having big portions of yummy, cheap food. And Tripadvisor was not wrong. I had bacon and french toast and country sausage and eggs and grits (for the first time ever) for $6.75. Seriously. We all stuffed ourselves and were well-entertained by our server.

We jumped on the St. Charles Streetcar (don’t call it a trolley, no matter what the cafés tell you) and headed for the Central Business District, and walked from there into the French Quarter. At this point I should point out that Saturday ended up being a near-record high temperature for that time of year in New Orleans. Sunday and (part of) Monday were the same. And I should also point out that all I’d packed were jeans and dark tshirts. So walking around was getting a little toasty. Anyway. We deliberately avoided Bourbon Street; Nellie had never seen it, and we wanted her to experience it in its full glory that night. We did see a bit of Royal Street, Chartres (which is not pronounced how someone might think if they’ve been to Chartres, France…which I have…so I mispronounced it all weekend), Decatur and more. We saw ESPN setting up their analyst studio and walked along Jackson Square before splitting up. Nellie and I walked along the river, cooled down with a pint at the Crescent City Brewhouse and then walked along Royal and Chartres some more and checked out a cool little shop called Idea Factory. If we’d had a little more time we would have checked out Faulkner House Books as well. Both were recommendations from the Rather guide to New Orleans. Seriously, if you’re visiting a city for the first time and want to find interesting places, buy one of these books.

We met back up with CBJ+M for a late lunch at the Napoleon House, a building which, so the story goes, was to be a home for Napoleon if a plot to extricate him to New Orleans had gone off, and has been a bar since prohibition — by the looks of things the decor hasn’t changed much since the 30s. But the food (jambalaya for me, po’boys for everyone else) and drinks (Pimms cups, mainly) were tasty. We sat on the leafy back patio next to the koi pond and thanked the maker for the giant fan blowing directly at us.

At this point it was time to get to our real reason for being in New Orleans: the NCAA finals. Or, more accurately, the semi-finals on that evening. All day we’d seen fans walking around in Kentucky, Louisville, Ohio State and Kansas shirts; on the walk to the Superdome they became the norm and I, wearing a black Crywolf shirt, stood out. It obvious from the mass of humanity headed for the games that the stadium was huge, but I still kind of wasn’t ready for it. I sat down in my seat (after a long, steep climb) and took it all in.

Huge, right? 70,000 people were in those seats by the time the game started. Anyway, the games were fantastic: Kentucky/Louisville is a rivalry that’s hard to explain unless you’ve sat in the middle of it for two hours, while the huge Kansas comeback win over Ohio State was a classic game. At the end of each game, disappointed fans from the losing teams hurled commemorative seat cushions onto the crowd in the lower levels…luckily they hadn’t given out commemorative letter openers, or commemorative D-cell batteries. In retrospect we should have used our seat cushions to smack either the astronomically shrill Kentucky fan behind us (my ears are still ringing a week later) or the drunk Louisville chick in front of CBJ, who insisted on standing for the last seven minutes of the — very tense — game. On the plus side, we sat right behind a guy wearing, of all things, an Expos hat.

Seat cushions or no, our asses were sore after sitting for 6+ hours, so were happy to stand up and walk out of the stadium. We re-joined the mass of humanity and made for the French Quarter. Nellie was very excited to see Bourbon Street; about seconds into our trip down Bourbon Street she was very excited to leave. Seriously, it’s one of the most awful places on earth unless you’re a) an olympic-calibre drunk, b) a bead manufacturer or c) a street preacher.

We fled down Bienville to the corner of Decatur, where we found Industry Bar & Kitchen. It was an oasis in the ridiculous clubland that is the Quarter at night: a calm bar with great beer selection, early 90s alternative music on the speakers (okay, that might be more exciting for me than for others), and pizzas made and sold in the far corner. We stood at a table, drank our craft beers (NOLA Hopitoulas and Delirium Nocturnum for me, if I remember right), watched the hilarity of the quarter unfold outside the bar, and enjoyed the scene of the bartender building a tower plastic of cups on the head of a guy who’d passed out at the bar.

Tossing our beers in go-cups (you can walk around with open liquor, as long as it’s not glass, but even that doesn’t seem to be enforced) we walked over to Canal to catch the streetcar home. When that failed we tried to catch a cab. That wasn’t easy either, but we finally managed to snag one and bombed home.

Sunday

Something we noticed after seeing the omnipresent New Orleans beads strung from every wire and railing on Bourbon Street was that they’re actually strung all over the city…any trees or horizontal edge along a Mardi Gras parade route is strewn with beads.

We didn’t have another giant Trolley Stop breakfast in us, so we grabbed a bite at the nice little Avenue Cafe next door. The food was good, and the wifi password was ‘bestcoffeeever’. I didn’t try the coffee myself, but…cute. Full, we jumped on the streetcar; three of us jumped off at Lee Circle and walked down Andrew Higgins Drive to the National WWII museum. You may recognize Higgins’ name — he was the man who designed the landing craft used during the Normandy landing and throughout WWII. The museum itself was very good: informative, well presented, with a good flow through the sequence of events that led to war, to America’s involvement in Europe and the Pacific, and to the conclusion of each. The end of the Pacific section, with pretty music playing over looping footage of Enola Gay loading and dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, was particularly moving for me. I wish we’d stopped our visit there instead of heading next for Beyond All Boundaries, a 48-minute “4D” film produced by Tom Hanks. It was an interesting concept, what with the fake snow dropped on the audience during the Bastogne scenes, or the guard tower rising from the floor during the prison camp sequence, or the blinding flash of light and rumbling chairs representing the atomic bomb detonation, but…it was also pretty cheesy. Far more jingoistic, too, than the museum proper had been. Museums are meant to educate, not celebrate; the museum did the former, but Beyond All Boundaries felt very much like the latter.

By this point we were getting hungry, so we continued south from the museum to the corner of Tchoupitoulas where we found Cochon. Or rather, Cochon Butcher, the smaller and takeout-ier sister to Cochon, which was closed. The place was rammed with locals, always a good sign. The ladies stuck to salads, while CBJ and I each got a BBQ pulled pork sandwich (so! good!) with potato salad and a beer. I’ve had a lot of pulled pork sammies in my life, but that might have been my favourite…the quality of the meat was so good they didn’t even have to soak it in sauce, they just stuck some cole slaw in it. And the soft egg bun and the OOOOOOOOOOOKAY I’m drooling. Time to stop reminiscing.

The next step in the day’s plan was to walk back over toward the Quarter, and so we took a long shortcut (longcut?) through the Riverwalk, a cheesy indoor mall designed for cruise ship passengers but whatever…it was air-conditioned. Once we spilled out onto Canal we parted ways again, with CBJ+M heading off in search of some shirts and Nellie and I just wandering to the east. We checked out Bourbon Street again, just to see it in the daylight…yup, still awful. We tried some alternate streets, still heading east, and eventually reached the Marigny neighbourhood. We were close enough to Frenchmen Street to stop by another Beeradvocate-recommended bar: D.B.A.. They were temporarily closed for filming (fair enough, it was 4:00 on a Sunday afternoon) so we checked out the upcoming lineups at neighbouring bars (Kermit Ruffins? John Boutté? Clearly Frenchmen Street was a good place to hear live music; alas, not for us that night) and rested our tired feet in Washington Square before returning. And D.B.A.? Such a cool place. Obviously great beer selection, but good vibe with locals (the guy sitting next to me at the bar was named “Barnaby”, because it was New Orleans and of course he was), and swing-dancing class happening in the next room, and a pregnant bartender, and a sign that said “No Miller, Coors or Bud Lite. Get over it!”, and ‘drinkgoodstuff’ for a wifi password. Again…cute!

We were supposed to be meeting up with CBJ+M again soon, back at the Avenue Pub near our hotel, so Nellie put her remaining beer in a go-cup and we went outside to find a cab. As luck would have it one drove by the second we stepped outside. I ran to climb in, while Nellie — conditioned by years of banned public drinking — chugged her remaining beer and ran to the cab. The cabbie calmly informed us that it was perfectly okay to bring a go-cup into the cab, and Nellie cursed her cautious drinking habits (ha!) as we drove west. Through a funny string of conversation (in which Nellie learned where Kansas is) we ended up chatting with our cabbie quite a bit, who advised us on the best time of year to visit New Orleans (about 2 weeks after Easter, says he) and the ridiculous inconsistency of New Orleans street name pronunciation. He dropped us at the Avenue where we staked out a brilliant spot on the balcony and drank cold beer (my ginger-infused Japanese weissbeer was particularly good) in the heat of the late afternoon, waited for CBJ+M to arrive and tried to figure out a way to stay in that very spot forever.

We got cleaned and spiffied a bit before dinner at Coquette, a wine bar in the Garden District. What a find. We started with drinks (a phenomenal bacon-infused bourbon for me, a champagne/gin/lemon French 75 for Nellie) before getting on with the incredible food. My starter was pickled baby beets with burrata and duck ham (which is exactly as kickass as it sounds) and my main was duck breast with fennel & peas. Nellie, meanwhile, had fried gulf oysters paired with a glass of Chardonnay followed by cochon de lait (aka sucking pig), which my forkful or two (or six) told me was outstanding. I honestly can’t remember what CBJ+M got, except that CBJ got a cocktail called the Mutiny (blackstrap rum, spiced rum, lime, Angostura bitters, hot sauce) which was damned tasty. Our mains were paired with a 2008 Emeritus Pinot Noir from the Russian River. Then came an entirely unnecessary dessert of milk chocolate mousse with salted caramel and peanut butter sorbet. Nellie, preferring to drink her desserts, had a glass of Bordeaux instead. It was an incredible meal, one of the best we’ve had in ages, and it cost less than half of what we would have paid in Toronto. Which somehow made it taste even better.

Monday

We started packing Monday morning, knowing we’d have to get up at 3:45AM the next day (boo! hiss!) and not having much time that evening. But by late morning we were on the St. Charles streetcar one more time, this time jammed in like sardines, heading over to Canal. I stopped at one of the dozens of pop-up stores selling team tshirts and made a rare find: a) a Kentucky tshirt (there were only a few left anywhere) which b) wasn’t the same as the generic shirts being sold all over the city and c) fit me and d) was super-thin (which came in handy on a hot day like that). Score! We grabbed a little lunch and cooled off at Crescent City, then walked east along Decatur and west along Royal, stopping in the odd store and art gallery along the way.

Once we’d had enough shopping we decided to finally check out Bracket Town, part of the NCAA celebrations. We walked over to Poydras Street, then walked all the way back through the Riverwalk thingy, and then the whole length of the convention center (which is, like, half a mile long, goddammit) to Bracket Town. We thought there’d be some stuff in there that we’d enjoy. We were wrong. We regrouped after about 10 minutes, long enough for Nellie and I to toss down a couple of free Coke Zero samples, and then decided to go back to the adult part of town. But, uh, in a cab. We got dropped off at Café du Monde, ate some delicious & messy beignets as all good visitors to New Orleans must, and watched with concern as some storm clouds rose on the horizon.

Knowing we’d eventually have to walk toward the Superdome, and having confirmed that the weather forecast called for severe thunderstorms soon, we began walking back toward Canal. We stopped at our old friend Industry just in time; ten minutes after we arrived the rain started, and then it really started. Then came the lightning and thunder, some of which was so loud and so sharp it sounded like a gunshot. Seriously, the bartender came out of the back room when he heard it, ducked low to avoid flying bullets. We stayed out of the rain, drinking and eating pizza until most of it had let up. Still, it was time to go and the rain hadn’t stopped completely, so we knew were going to get wet. We ran to the Canal streetcar which took us most of the way there, but we still had to run the five blocks to the Superdome and…well, yeah. Wet.

The staff ushered us in through the underground parking ramps, high-fiving us as we ran in. You can imagine the humidity in a concrete parking structure during a thunderstorm in New Orleans, so it was pretty sporty in there. But hey, it was dry. We got to our seats in decent time, took in the pre-game excitement, and watched Kentucky storm out to an enormous lead over Kansas. Kansas made it close down the stretch, but Kentucky held on and took the championship. We watched with 70,000+ other people as fireworks exploded and confetti fell, as the team was interviewed and cut down the net, and (more or less) as they played “One Shining Moment” with the video montage. Pretty. Damn. Cool.

The walk home was nearly as wet as the walk there, so when the opportunity came to jump in a cab we took it. It was all-out piracy in the city by then; mysteriously, every cab meter in the city was malfunctioning and they could charge whatever they wanted. Whatever; we were home, and drier than we otherwise would have been. We packed our remaining stuff (including some very wet clothing, unfortunately), watched the ESPN highlights and commentary and tried, post-game high notwithstanding, to go to sleep for a few hours.

Tuesday

Our alarm went off at approximately stupid o’clock AM and we dragged ourselves into action. We’d pre-arranged a cab…or at least we thought we had. We actually ended up squeezing into an SUV with six other people, all bound for the airport. Turns out a lot of the cabs were making so much money into the wee hours of the previous night that no one was reporting for duty on Tuesday morning. Anyway, we thought leaving for the airport at 4:30 for a 6:00 flight would give us enough time, but as it was we just barely made it. My Nexus/Global Entry pass got us into the expedited security line, and from there we walked up to the gate with maybe five minutes to spare. If we’d been stuck in the (enormous!) standard security line we’d have missed our flight. Our flight to Miami was uneventful, apart from being full of Kentucky fans who look like they’d not bothered to go to sleep the night before. Also: wi-fi! I paid for access on both legs, MSY -> MIA and MIA -> YYZ, and will happily do it again if I ever get the chance.

We had originally been scheduled to return via Dallas; when American changed our flight to a 6AM departure via Miami we were pretty pissed but left with no alternative. However, we were pretty thankful when we arrived home and saw that all flights out of DFW — including CBJ+M’s flight, the one we were originally meant to be on — were canceled due to tornadoes in the area. So suddenly an early flight time didn’t seem like such a big deal.

.:.

We’ve been thinking about and planning this trip since last August when CBJ+M found out they’d won the Final Four tickets. Now that it’s over, we’re already thinking about when we’ll go back to New Orleans. We want to enjoy the city when it’s not full of tens of thousands of basketball fans. The food, the drink, the architecture, the friendliness of the people, the history…it all adds up to give the city so much character, and we want more of it. New Orleans, we’ll see you again soon.

Oh, and…Free Sean Payton!

"Rommel, you magnificent bastard…I read your book!"

Dan Dickinson3 Comments

Last week I did a 36-hour trip to San Francisco, one of my very favourite cities. It was for work, alas, and I didn’t get to see or do all — or anything, really —  that I would have liked, but it was still quite nice. Here’s how it went:

  • 5+ hour flight to SFO, during which I watched Se7en (for the quillionth time) and several episodes of Portlandia (for the first time)
  • 6+ hour vendor meeting, which actually went better than you would normally expect with a 6+ hour vendor meeting
  • Dinner at L’Appart, a fantastic French restaurant up in San Anselmo. I had Shrimp Napoleon and cassoulet and crème brûlée, and shared in the flowing bottles of Bordeaux and Cotes du Rhone. It was like being back in Juilley.
  • Heavy, zonked, lights-out sleep at the Intercontinental Mark Hopkins in Nob Hill
  • Relaxing morning, including a walk around the city (and by ‘a walk’ I mean ‘climbing up and down a million hills’), a Starbucks stop and returning to my room to sit in the window, drink my coffee and read the New York Times
  • 5+ hour flight to YYZ, during which I watched Patton (imdb | rotten tomatoes) for the first time. I’ve always put off watching it because it’s so long, but when you have five hours to kill a 182-minute movie comes in handy.

I would have loved to spend more time in the city, or take a side trip up to Napa, but it just wasn’t happening. Still, 24 hours in northern California in February is better than no hours at all.