Andrea the Gastronaut

“Citrus”… “grass”… “leafy”… “peppery…” “bitter finish”…. “smooth and soft mouth feel”.

Three guesses to what those adjectives described. If you guessed wine, no prize for you. It’s a different type of tasting that I attended on Monday evening.

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Uncategorized IT Crowd, Olivar, Olive oil, Pimenton, Spain, sustainable agriculture, tapas

This past Wednesday I attended Harvest Wednesdays at the Gladstone Hotel, which this week was part of Taste T.O.’s “Dining With TasteTO” series. I’ve met TasteTO‘s super duo of  Sheryl Kirby and Greg Clow once before and we’ve been familiar with each other online for awhile. Also at the table was Pantry’s Greg Bolton, whom I first mentioned in this blog after meeting him at the inaugural Foodie Tweetup in May. Food blogger Joel of Get the Foodie 411 was Greg’s “+1″ (I’ve never seen Greg and his wife Liz in the same place at the same time because business and family priorities rule). I sat next to writer/blogger Sarah B. Hood and across from Gina of The Cookbook Store (also a pastry student at George Brown College) and her significant other, whose name escapes me (Gina’s escaped me too, but one of the Gregs mentioned it in a tweet).

Being budget conscious I resisted temptation to order the “Fixed Flight of Ontario VQA Wines”, a flight of 3 oz pairings + 1 oz of Henry of Pelham Late Harvest Riesling for dessert. $19 was steep – although I’m sure it was worth it. I’m a fan of Henry of Pelham and their Riesling and a couple of friends who know the family that owns and operates the winery have gotten me into their wine and their story (I had the pleasure of meeting Daniel Speck at last year’s Picnic at the Brickworks when my friend Kerri introduced us).

I ordered a glass of the Flat Rock Chardonnay 2007. It tasted nice and clean with hints of vanilla and apple and went really well with the amuse bouche – although I sipped it slowly to savour through all courses. I’m also a fan of Flat Rock’s line of “Twisted” wines.

The menu:

A bread basket of red fife whole wheat biscuits, petits pains, multi-grain rotis and butter rosettes.

Amuse Bouche: Ruby Beet, Swiss Chard and Goat Cheese Roulade with potato “hay” and pea tendrils.

Appetizer: Summer minestrone soup topped with arugula pesto.

Mains: Choice or “pork or pepper” [Imagine hearing the waitress ask that to each of 8 individuals sitting around the table. It reminded me of a game of "duck duck goose".] The pork: Roast Berkshire Port Loin– Caramelized shallot and apple cider jus. The pepper: Stuffed Red Peppers– Quinoa, pine nuts, apricots and chickpeas, baked with honey and balsamic vinegar, dusted with smoked almond Dukkah.

Sides: All mains were accompanied by crisp potato rosti and “Tian” of zucchini, tomato and herbs.

Dessert: Fresh Blueberry Tart with lemon cream and an edible flower garnish.

Amused:

The potato “hay” on the amuse bouche were crispy potatoes, lightly salted. Reminded me almost of a potato latke flavour. As far as I’m concerned there’s never anything wrong with crispy potatoes. The beet was moist and juicy, sweet, slightly tart from what I think was treatment with vinegar. The swiss chard was wonderfully earthy.

Souped:

The minestrone was a mixture of a tomato base with tomatoes, broccoli, onion, potato, cauliflower, carrots and green beans  topped with arugula pesto and a shredded mild cheese that I couldn’t identify. It gave me a warm fuzzy feeling.

Pepper, Pepper, Pepper, Pepper, PORK!

(In retrospect I should have gotten a photo of the pork. Maybe Sarah or Greg C. or Sheryl got one.)

I was lax on the notes here. I was the only one taking notes (how do the others do it when they blog about meals?) and was getting into the rhythm of conversation, a conversation that included the book and film Julie and Julia (Sheryl, as she’s posted many times, is not a fan of the book), cooking vs. watching cooking shows, the reality of cooking dishes from cookbooks written by current celebrity chefs, the place of the Food Network and Giada De Laurentiis’s rack (well, I’d have referred to it as a “rack” but Sheryl beat me to it with a similar comment while I was waiting my turn). Occasionally non-food topics arose. Foodie 411 at the end of the table was fairly quiet except for a couple of comments about farmer’s markets.

“Crunchy on top” was all I wrote in my notes and Sheryl and I discussed Dukkah. In the last couple of days I’d read reference to it in a post about almonds (I think on Serious Eats: Talk, someone questioning what to do with an abundance of almonds) but I didn’t know what Dukkah was (nor did I really know until right now when I grabbed the link). The dish was quite nice but I wasn’t in love with the potato rosti. There was a flavour that I couldn’t identify nor was pleased with. The vegetables were fresh and flavourful. I pushed aside the green stuff.

Homer was right: Purple IS a fruit… but it’s also a flower

Sarah said that I got the best flower

I liked the light, crispy crust with a slight chewiness and just a hint of oil.

Look at those berries!

Look at those luscious berries! They were juicy and plump. I was reminded of Violet Beauregarde of Charlie And The Chocolate Factory.

I got a lovely surprise when I bit into a piece of lemon zest and found that it was candied.  Crisp and sweet-tart!

The lemon cream was light and fluffy and the texture played well with the juicy berries and crispy crust but wasn’t the highlight and without it the dessert would have been just as good.

A good time was had. All the dishes were great, with most having some components that I liked better than others. The conversation was enjoyable. There were laughs and smiles and a toast. It was a really nice, comfortable evening.

I will go back for more. I’d been for their opening party where I got to speak with farmers and producers and had a lovely chat about food photography with one of the guys from Forbes Wild Foods (I thought that I blogged it and put photos on Flickr, but can’t find either). It’s worth regular visits to see what the chef will do next, and possibly get some inspiration. I’d really like to check out more tastings. The challenge of course, is overcoming the mental barrier of spending the money. Heck, if I’m going to indulge in anything, it will be food. (My comic book graphic novel habit never took off due to financial priority.)

**

About Harvest Wednesdays

Harvest Wednesdays is a weekly event at the Gladstone Hotel. Some weeks offer a three course dinner (+ amuse bouche), some weeks is more of a cocktail party with hors d’oeuvres. Regardless, each week between July and October chef Marc Breton serves up fare made with the contents of that week’s fresh produce harvested and distributed by Chick-a-Biddy Acres CSA. As well, local meats, cheeses, wines and beers are used.Local ingredients are used in the meal as much as possible. To find out more, see the schedule and past menus and buy tickets go to the Gladstone Hotel’s website.

Food, events events

Sensory Adventure and Foodie Show & Tell

On Wednesday I attended the IACP (International Association of Culinary Professionals ) Toronto Grassroots Event, Sensory Adventure and Foodie Show & Tell, hosted by Arlene Stein and Dana McCauley.

Cheese from About Cheese

After some wine and schmoozing, Cole Snell from About Cheese started us out with a little presentation of cheese followed by a tasting. Liking what I was hearing while the cheeses were being presented, I turned to my friend David and joked (well, half joked) that I was having a “cheesegasm”. I enjoyed most of what I tasted but what stood out was the sweet butter (from Thunder Bay?), an aged cheddar, the Figaro and the Celtic Blue- if that’s the cheese I’m thinking of, brie-like with a blue vein.  There was no Red Leicester, Red Windsor, Camembert or Venezuelan Beaver Cheese (in case you didn’t pick up on it, that’s Monty Python’s Cheese Shop sketch).

I wish I’d taken notes because there was a lot of interesting information presented. For example, which cheese you’re not allowed to transport from Quebec to Ontario, artisan cheese makers in Ontario and Quebenc, and pasteurized milk cheeses vs. unpasteurized milk.

Charcuterie

Lots of cheese later, we were schooled on charcuterie by Mario Pingue of Niagara Specialty Meats (Pingue Prosciutti). In an article at Gremolata, Carlos Fuenmayor referrs to Pingue as the “go-to guy for local prosciutto”. Beautiful prosciutto was wrapped around thin bread sticks, and small rounds of three types of salami lay a plate. I didn’t take notes on the varieties, but there were two that I liked, one that I wasn’t crazy about. All three were better than those kosher salamis I ate as a child. Incidentally, I told someone about the prosciutto in an email yesterday and when it ran the spell check, Outlook didn’t recognize “prosciutto” and instead suggested “prostitute”.

Local, fresh ingredients

I had some great conversation and felt inspired. It was great to finally meet Arlene – who I’d exchanged emails with in the past – and Dana. Wish I’d had more time to talk to Dana but she had to fly off to Winnipeg for a day. Met and briefly chatted with Dana’s husband, chef Martin Kouprie of Pangea Restaurant. It’s one of those restaurants that’s close to where I live – about 4 blocks away – but I’ve never been. I guess I should now.

Also chatted with Peter of kalofagas.ca, who brought out a small sample of …?, a thin meat product that had a sheen to it and tasted of cumin, curry, allspice and other spices. “Kalofagas” is greek for “gourmet”.

Cookbook author Margaret Webb told my friends and I (well, mostly my friends) about her new book Apples To Oysters, and made us guess which farmed food product she associated with which Canadian province in her book. Jodi scored admirably. I had recently read something about the book.

The lovely Rebecca LeHeup-Bucknell told me about her organization, The Ontario Culinary Tourism Alliance. What a fantastic organization. Reading the organizaton’s website made me giddy because it is so inline with my interests and speaks to the Ontario government employee in me and the former non-profit professional/professional advocate in me.

As I said, I left inspired. (And with cheese and bread.)

Foodie Tweetup

Oh, the many uses of Twitter. One of my favourite uses is for the planning of social events.

@spotlightcity (Suresh Doss) of Spotlight Toronto and @TOfoodie (Andrea Chiu) recently had the idea for a “foodiemeetup”. What was an idea grew into something big (search “#foodiemeetup” on Twitter). Nearly 100 people, mostly Twitter users, gathered on the patio of Brassaii on what turned out to be a gorgeous day.

Beer tickets were handed out for pints of Steamwhistle beer and raffle prizes were up for grabs: A Day At Elbulli signed by Ferran Adria, two Tea Emporium prize packs, a Nikon digital camera, and a gift basket from Pantry. I was two numbers away from winning that and it’s the prize that I really wanted, filled with fleur de sel, maple syrup, maple vinegar (an upgrade replacement from the cider vinegar), and two other items that I’m forgetting. Suzanne was the lucky winner.

I spoke to Pantry owner Greg Bolton for awhile over at the wine table and promised to come over to his end of College Street some time. It’s an easy streetcar ride away, but it feels far. I’ve been aware of Pantry for awhile and see them represented at food events, where they sometimes sample their products. Greg and I spoke of food blogs, food writing, food writers, running a store and more.

“Wine table”? Oh yes. There was a wine tasting courtesy of @liffordwine & Craggy Range Winery. I tried a half dozen wines- 2 whites and four reds (?) and liked the Sauvignon Blanc the best. A light wine with notes of straw and citrus.

But the food! How about the food?! (Or, this is a food blog, isn’t it?)

I opted for the “pre-theatre” prix fixe menu. Choice of daily soup or Brassaii Salad, choice of main course, choice of White Chocolate Orange Crème Brûlée or flourless chocolate torte.

The soup was a Moroccan chickpea with crème fraiche (at least, I think it was creme fraiche). The Brassai Salad, a lovely mixture of mixed greens, pear, stilton, walnut, and honey lemon vinaigrette.  Among the entree options: The “vegetarian special of the day”, which was mushroom risotto,  seared salmon with lemon crème fraiche with green beans and fingerling potatoes, roasted chicken with piri piri sauce, basmati rice and green beans, and brassaii bistro steak with shallot jus and fries.

Moroccan chickpea soup

I chose the soup and the risotto, although I also considered the salad and the salmon. The risotto came with greens (arugala? I forget) on tops, which is why I chose the soup. Both were excellent. Nice, earthy mushrooms in a creamy risotto. I tasted the salmon. It was cooked more than seared and looked dry but it tasted really good.

The highlight of the meal? The Crème Brûlée. I could smell the burnt sugar before I tasted it, which made it more of a sensory experience. The torched topping always looks beautiful. And then the perfectly creamy interior that contrasts with the crunch of the burnt sugar layer. I’m getting excited thinking about it.

Crème Brûlée

The food was outstanding and the service impeccable. My server, Drew, managed to find me most of the time even though I was flitting about.  Even when there were slight mixed ups with orders they were taken care of promptly and with a smile and sense of humour. No one seemed to mind when the wrong plate was set in front of them.

The restaurant isn’t cheap, with appetizers running from $8 for the soup to $13 for the Crispy Shrimp (though they gave a special price for this event) and mains starting at $13 (for mussels and fries) to $39 for the ribeye. It couldn’t become a regular habit for me. However, as a special treat it was worth it and for those who can afford to go regularly, I say do it.

More photos:

Crab cake

beef tartare

flourless chocolate torte

I look forward to more food events like these.

Eat well, be well.

Food, Uncategorized, events events, foodiemeet