Poplar Grove 2007 Pinot Gris and Comox Brie

Last night was another fun dinner at home with friends featuring some BC cheese and wine I thought I’d share. We started off with some Comox Brie (www.naturalpastures.com/awards), pepper pate, and some of the spiced pickled Fraser Valley blueberries I made in the summer (bcfoodandwineadventures.blogspot.com/2008/07/fraser-valley-berries.html). I’ll just come clean and admit I love Comox Brie. I don’t know if it’s because I lived in Comox as a teenager, or because I love good brie. Probably a little bit of both. It’s creamy and rich and was just lovely with the Poplar Grove 2007 Pinot Gris (www.poplargrove.ca) we served to start.

At the table we began with French de puys lentils finished with white wine, shallots, orange, and tarragon and topped with a salad of baby spinach and proscuitto tossed with a tarragon, orange, and white balsamic vinaigrette. This dish was what the Pinot Gris was intended for, and the pairing worked really well. The wine is clean and crisp and yet with what I can only describe as round fullness and body, without the tropic fruit one often gets on the bench. The food and wine were a perfect balance.

We moved on to herb encrusted roast BC beef tenderloin with a beef stock, red wine and shallot reduction, served alongside italian roasted vegetables and roasted garlic mashed Yukon gold potatoes. The meat was purchased from The Butcher on West 10th (www.thebutcher.ca), a local store I can’t say enough about; their quality and service are exceptional. Chris selected a Poliziano 1999 Asinone (Montepulciano) to serve with the main course, which was absolutely delicious, and worked very well with the meal.

Desert was a simple chestnut panna cotta with a chocolate ganache sauce, whipped cream, raspberries, and mint, and a moscato d’asti.

Hopefully this sets your mouth to watering, and your mind to thinking about all the wonderful meals you can make with BC foods and wines.

Blue Water Cafe & Raw Bar

Our anniversary is so close to Christmas that we decided long ago to forgo gifts. Instead, we go out for a nice meal together. This year’s destination was the Blue Water Café and Raw Bar (www.bluewatercafe.net).

Likely due to the weather, we managed to get a last minute reservation there for 8:45 on a Saturday night. (We only called at 6.) The wonderful service started the moment we walked through the door. We were greeted and our coats taken immediately upon arrival. A few moments later we were seated and the waiter arrived shortly thereafter to ask about water, and our water and fresh bread rolls with a chick pea red pepper spread quickly followed.

We had almost decided on dinner, when the waiter came back with Chris’s bubbly (Sumac Ridge Pinnacle Brut) and told us about the specials. This of course caused us some pause. In the end, I went with the Galiano Island Swimming Scallops baked with tomatoes caper compote, lemon beurre blanc as a starter and the Lingcod with warm celeriac panna cotta, beluga lentils, caramelized salsify, and tarragon mustard jus as my main, both from the menu. Chris opted for the mixed ceviche (menu) to start, followed by a scallop special, scallops with a raisin caper sauce, roasted fingerling potato, and cauliflower and broccoli, for his main course.

The first course dishes arrived remarkably quickly. Chris really enjoyed the ceviche. In particular, he thought that the ginger and grapefruit were a unique but wonderfully flavorful twist on a classic dish. And his bubbly was a perfect complement. I was less enthused by the scallops. Some were overcooked, others were undercooked. Some had altogether too much bread crumb, making them dry, and the tomato-caper compote was remarkably bland. I was also a little taken aback that one of the scallops still had the ‘foot’ attached. At a restaurant of this caliber, I don’t expect those sorts of mistakes. So all in all, the dish was disappointing.

Not so with our main courses. The scallop dish that Chris ordered was wonderful. The scallops were perfectly cooked, and the blended raisin caper sauce was so tasty it was hard not to lick the plate! It could have been too sweet, but wasn’t - just wonderfully buttery, with a touch of salty sharpness from the capers, and a soupcon of sweetness from the raisins. The glass of Poplar Grove Pinot Gris he had alongside his meal had just the right amount of citrus and acid to serve as a foil for the buttery richness of the scallops and the sauce. My dish too was very good. The cod had a nice crust on the outside, but was just barely cooked through. The lentils were slightly undercooked in my opinion, but very flavorful. (I love beluga lentils and eat them every chance I get. So I have numerous other lentil experiences to compare with, including last year’s anniversary dinner at West.) When ordering, I was curious rather than enthusiastic about the celeriac panna cotta. But it was creamy and had just the right amount of celery flavor to it, and so ended up being quite a nice accompaniment to the fish. The caramelized salsify and pearl onions were like candy, their natural sweetness brought out perfectly by the roasting. And the tarragon sauce was surprisingly good. I often find tarragon overwhelming, but the chef had an appropriately light hand with the herb in this sauce. We were both very content after our mains.

After our plates were cleared we noticed a dark ring on the tablecloth where my plate had been. It seems that the bottom of my plate was dirty, not with grease, but with dark dust, something I found a surprising, and little off-putting.

After much deliberation, for desert, I opted for the Cassis Crème Brulee with apple fondant and Chris, the Warm Dark Cuban Chocolate Cake with vanilla bean ice cream. He chose to pair the cake with a glass of Mt Boucherie Pinot Noir Ice Wine. I simply had tea. I have never before had a tart tangy crème brulee, and so was a little shocked when I first tasted it, but after the third mouthful I was convinced. It was not what I expected, but it was delicious nonetheless. Likewise, the flavor of the apple fondant was wonderful. However, it was filled with hard apple core bits; there was some in almost every bite. I really hate biting into cooked apple and finding sharp hard bits in my teeth. Again, it seemed that the attention to detail was just not there. Chris found his Chocolate Cake tasty, but not spectacular. The wine he chose paired well with the ice cream, but less so with the cake. Note that this was not the pairing recommended on the menu, however, we have had wonderful experiences with red desert wines and chocolate which influenced his choice. (Pairing of note, anything dark chocolate with Van Der Heyden Late Harvest Cabernet Sauvignon, www.vanderheydenvineyards.com/.) It was, however, very nip to sip by itself, and we will almost certainly look for it

Overall, we were happy with the meal. There were a few things that were somewhat unsatisfactory (the scallops, the dirty underside of my dinner plate, the apple core in the desert), but in the main, the flavors were very good. And the service was consistently exemplary. Despite the few bumps in the road, we would return.

4 thumbs.

Twisted Fork

It was the end of November and we were looking for a place to dine with some foodie friends. After mulling over several options, we decided to try one of Vancouver’s newest restaurants, the Twisted Fork Bistro at 1147 Granville Street.

When we called to confirm their hours, etc., we learned that they don’t take reservations. This proved not to be a problem, as there were two tables large enough available when we arrived. (It was a Sunday night, fairly early.) We were given our choice of a table up near the front, or a booth farther back into the space. We selected the booth which was quite cozy, a little too cozy in fact. I found it a rather awkward layout. It was shaped like an E without the short middle line, and compact enough that knees of people seated on the edges and those in the middle could not help but collide. It would have been perfectly fine for three, but was a little tight for four. Not to worry, we were with friends and celebrating.

The service was consistently good. A server quickly arrived at our table with water, and was very patient with us throughout the evening despite our frequent indecision. We took a long time to decide in full, with orders for different things by different people being placed at different times. And they were very accommodating. Chris wanted to start with a glass of bubbles, something they didn’t actually serve. However, they offered him one anyway, which made him happy. When he later ordered a glass of red wine to go with his meal, they only had 2/3 glass of what he ordered left, so they just gave it to us.

For starters the table shared mussels, an order of Fernie Fries (assorted fried roots and tubers), and a cheese plate. The mussels were the definite favorite of the trio: very tasty, perfectly cooked and not a bad mollusk in the bowl. (I am very sensitive to old seafood.) As promised, the sauce was a must slurp, and they brought plenty of bread for sopping it up. The muscles were topped with frites, which were the same as the Fernie Fries. All in all, they were quite tasty, with the mix of roots and tubers providing nicely varied flavors, although flaccid. Frites should be crisp, either because they are twice fried or very thin cut, neither of which these were. Despite this, however, we (possibly I) did consume most of the fries. The cheese plate was rather pedestrian, a blue, a camembert, and some Oka. All perfectly nice cheeses, but with so much local variety available, why stick with three old favorites?

For mains, Chris ordered the duck (breast and confit served with ratatouille), and I had the game hen with potatoes and roasted vegetables. Our dinner companions ordered the steak frites and oxtail soup. The duck was very tasty. The breast was nicely cooked, and the confit had flavor beyond just the lusciousness imparted by being cooked in duck fat. It really was a nice dish. I was less enthusiastic about my game hen. The skin was not the least bit crispy and the sauce was very salty. The sides were fine, but a little strange – there were mashed and roasted potatoes. As for our friends dishes: the steak was slightly overcooked, and the oxtail soup, while flavorful, was overly salted.

For desert Chris ordered strudel and I had the lemon tart. The strudel pastry was burnt and tough, so much so that a stead knife would have been handy. And the was filling bland. My filling in my lemon tart was nicely tart and tangy, although runny. Again, the pastry was tough, and hard to break through with a fork.

All in all, there were a few hits (the mussels, the duck, the service which was consistently good), but more misses. Chris said he’d be willing to try the place again, but I am less inclined to do so. There are so many restaurants in town, why not try somewhere else? On our way out, we noticed that there was a large ‘bar crowd’ near the front when we left (which made me glad we chose the booth at the back – the table up front where we would have been was surrounded), who all seemed to having a great time. Chris suggested that maybe Twisted Fork should concentrate on smaller plates and build up that side of the business. It’s a thought.

2 thumbs.

Rangoli

Today was a very typical late November day in Vancouver, grey and wet. As usual, the skies couldn’t decide between rain and misty drizzle. Ignoring the weather as Vancouverites do, we headed out to do some shopping. An hour or two later we found ourselves tired and hungry. And too close to Rangoli not to try it for lunch (www.vijsrangoli.ca/).

It’s a perfectly pleasant space, not as rich and opulent as the restaurant next door, but just fine for a quick, casual lunch. Although the covered outdoor space was open, we opted for inside. (I really dislike outdoor spaces that are heated, especially in such a self-professed green-conscious city.) The menu is compact, but with enough variety for vegetarians and meat-eaters alike. We opted to share an order of the Cauliflower, Spinach, Onion and Potato Pakoras with daal to start. The pakoras were tasty, just enough chick-pea flour batter to hold the vegetables together, perfectly crispy and not at all greasy. I don’t know if it was me or the weather or just how hungry we were, but the mint chuntey served alongside was the best I’ve ever had, perfectly fresh mint with slight sweetness and just the right touch of spiciness. The daal (chana, I believe) was topped with fresh spinach which added an unexpected dimension of taste and texture.

For our mains, we both decided on the Tilapia on vegetable rice pilaf. The menu says that it is ‘in a creamy tomato, onion, ginger, and cilantro broth’. I would argue with the use of the word broth to describe the liquid. It was not thin, nor did it (as I imagined) surround the rice in a bowl. Terminology aside, it was delicious. Incredibly rich and creamy. Chris quickly finished his, and I ate until beyond full it was so good. It was a perfect example of the genius of Vij’s cooking. Familiar Indian ingredients and techniques combined in novel ways, often with local products, to produce wonderful dishes beyond anything usually found in South Asian restaurants.

We also thought that the service was quite good. Waters arrived quickly, as did our food, although not so quickly as to make us feel rushed. The only thing time I felt like we were waiting was when we were ready to pay – it took a very long time for anyone to come by and pick up our card. Besides being generally efficient, the staff was friendly and personable. One server spent a great deal of time with the table next to us answering questions about Vij’s operations. It also seems to be a pretty family friendly place. We were seated near a large table with numerous small children. It was the only table available when we were seated, and they did offer us a table around the corner when one became available, but we opted to stay put. Their concern was not only for those seated near the children, however, they also seemed quite attuned to the needs of the diners with children. The children were, well, they were young children, and waiting patiently for long periods of time is generally not a quality they posses. Possibly sensing the potential for impending chaos, a server brought a dish of yucca fries to occupy the children while they were waiting on their food.

In sum: wonderful food, good service, reasonable prices, and a family friendly environment.

4 thumbs!

Joie PTG 2006

I recently received information about the release of three Joie limited release wines. Being the Joie fans we are, we rushed to out to the Broadway International Wine Shop (http://www.broadwaywineshop.ca/) and bought three bottles, two of the 2007 Dedication Pinot Blanc and one of the 2006 PTG (Passetoutgrain), a red. Although we had not planned on opening either right away, our resolve did not last; neither did the PTG.

A combination of Pinot Noir and Gamay, the PTG has the light colour of many pinots. But don’t let the visuals fool you, this wine has more body than you would think. (I was actually surprised to see that it’s 40% Gamay; to my mind it drinks like a Santa Cruz Mountains pinot, although with a bit more levity.) Like most of Joie’s offerings, this wine is very old world in style. It has balance. The berry and cherry are very present, but the fruit does not dominate to the exclusion of all else. Likewise the alcohol content; it is listed at 13%, substantially lower than many pinots from Oregon or California. And there is enough acid to enable food pairing, while not so much that it is not also a very pleasant drinking wine.

Notably, this is the first BC Pinot (or mostly pinot as the case may be) that we have thought was worth the money. Given where I actually live most of the year, we have had access to many incredible (and not so incredible) pinots from all over California and Oregon, and as far as new world pinots go, we’ve never been that impressed by those from BC. Several we have tried have been perfectly drinkable, but highly overpriced relative to comparable wines from down south. Less so the PTG.

They suggest this wine will continue to improve for 3-5 years, but I don’t get that same sense. There aren’t components that need mellowing. The various aspects and flavors are already well integrated. And it didn’t change much over the several hours we had it open and exposed to air. Chris in fact suggested that by 2-3 years this wine will begin to decline, and I would have to agree. (Usually we have very different assessments on a wine’s aging potential.) But then, I’m not a winemaker, I’m a wine drinker, and they know their wine better than I do. From my perspective, however, what this really means is that we plan to buy more soon, and enjoy it.

2006 Coyote Bowl Merlot from Church and State Wines

I needed a red wine to use in a pan sauce for this evening’s dinner, and Chris chose a bottle of 2006 Coyote Bowl Merlot from Church and State (https://www.churchandstatewines.com/wines/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=30). The dinner was a rouladen-inspired meatloaf (ground beef, pork, and pork sausage meat stuffed with dill spears, onion, and mustard, topped with mustard and bacon), served with steamed brussels sprouts with butter and lemon, oven roasted whole carrots, and warm sour cream and mustard potato salad. (The pan sauce was just beef stock and red wine flavored with pickling spice and bay leaf, reduced and strained.)

I found the nose very intriguing – at first pretty much all I could sense was acid (which is something I usually don’t smell), although with time there were hints of fruit as well. The alcohol content is high, but despite that, it was not strong on the nose. In terms of flavor, it was very tight when we first opened it, but it did open up with some air. And it was definitely better with food than without. We could definitely taste what was described on the label, particularly the tobacco, and later the cherry. It is more old world than new in style. However, overall it seemed rather unbalanced, especially in the lack of any real tannins. Chris recently tried the Nk’mip 2006 merlot and really enjoyed it (http://www.nkmipcellars.com/). He found it to be nicely balanced and more complex in flavor, although very identifiably new world and so quite a different style of wine. Despite our lack of enthusiasm for this wine (the Church and State), according to the website, it has won several awards, so we decided to gas it and try it again tomorrow. Although rare, sometimes wines are actually better the next day. We’ll let you know. Otherwise, I sense a rich stew or braise in our near future.

La Quercia – Second Visit

Last weekend I happened to be up in Vancouver for a quick visit and had a yen for some Italian food. So we instantly though of La Quercia (www.laquercia.ca/index.html), but when we called (at about 8 pm on Saturday), they were all booked up for the evening. Undaunted, we decided to try again the next day, and managed to get a table for 8:30.

Our table was ready and waiting for us when we arrived. (We were actually given a choice of tables. Hint: Sunday evenings look like a good time to go to La Quercia.) Water and bread arrived very quickly, which was good, because it gave us something to eat while facing the difficult task of deciding what to eat. Although the menu is diminutive, there are often numerous specials, and everything sounds delicious, making deciding more difficult than one might imagine given so few choices.

In the end, Chris went with one of the specials as a starter and, remembering our first visit (http://bcfoodandwineadventures.blogspot.com/2008/08/la-quercia-restaurant.html), a small dish of one of the pasta specials as his main. I ordered a very rich special as my main, and hence wanted something light and fresh to start. There wasn’t anything fitting that description on the menu, so I asked our server if it would be possible to get a simple salad as a starter. He was happy to accommodate my request, and quickly said yes. He returned a short time later to say that, unfortunately, they could not do a green salad, but would be happy to make some sort of seasonal vegetable salad instead, which was perfectly fine with me. Along with this news, he brought a wine for Chris to sample. I wasn’t drinking, so Chris was having wine by the glass. The server suggested a red wine to go with his meal, but had something else not usually available by the glass that he thought might work well, and so offered Chris a taste. It was indeed a good wine for the food, and if I could remember what it was we might have it again. But unfortunately, I wasn’t paying much attention. I do remember that it was northern Italian.

Our starters arrived shortly thereafter. Mine was a mélange of cut green beans, asparagus, small radishes, and shaved fennel with a light vinaigrette. It was perfect. The vegetables were crisp and the vinaigrette was light. Chris had a special that was highly recommended by the server – very thin slices of veal tongue with a red wine reduction served alongside shaved white onions. Neither of us had ever eaten tongue before, but we like to try new things and so we took our server’s recommendation. (Speaking of which, I loved my recent first taste of sweetbreads at Restaurant Tallent in Bloomington, IN, www.restauranttallent.com/index.html. I highly recommend them, and the restaurant.) We were very glad we did. It was incredibly flavorful. The onion was the perfect (and necessary) foil for the richness of the meat and sauce. The texture was remarkable, tender, yet toothsome. (It was so good I am inspired to try cooking tongue at home, an experiment Chris is heartily behind.)

Mains: Chris’s Tagliatelle Bolognese was as wonderful as we remembered. The fresh pasta was perfectly cooked, kissed with just the right amount of their fabulously rich Bolognese sauce. The portion looked small (it was the appetizer size after all), but it was more than enough. It’s a filling dish. Moreover, I had anticipated that I would need some help finishing mine, and was not wrong about this. I had ordered the veal involtini special - veal scaloppine stuffed with taleggio and proscuitto. It was served with a reduction including a little marsala, some crispy roasted potatoes, chard stem bits, and some thinly sliced quickly sautéed zucchini. All in all it was pretty tasty. I found the potatoes a little too salty, and the meat a little undercooked. (The innermost veal in the roll was barely warm. But the outside was perfectly cooked, meaning that a longer cooking time to accommodate the internal meat would have produced a leathery outer layer of veal, which would have been worse. So I just dealt with it.) On the plus side, the flavors of everything on the plate were great. I have to come clean, I don’t like zucchini. I usually find it bitter. (Strange, given how much I love bitter greens.) But this was not at all bitter, and I enjoyed the few bites of zucchini I had. (Chris pretty much takes it for granted that he gets my zucchini.) I had expected that I would taste the components of the involtini, but this was not the case. The veal, cheese, and ham flavors all melded beautifully. I would definitely order this dish again.

By this point in time, Chris had moved on to another wine. I believe it was the Tenuta del Portal 2005 Aglianico. Much fruitier than the first wine. His assessment was that the second wine was better for drinking, the first was a better accompaniment to the food.

We finished off with a lambrusco-poached pear, stuffed with lemon mascarpone. I believe they used a sweeter lambrusco for poaching, but added little sugar to the poaching liquid, so it was not cloyingly sweet. (For those whose lambrusco experience begins and ends with Ruinite, lambruscos can be incredibly crisp and dry.) And given the lower alcohol content of lambruscos (compared to regular red wine) there was little leftover alcohol flavor. Just the fruitiness of the wine and subtle flavors of warm spices and lemon.

Once again, we left happy, and will return. Next time, however, we might try the tasting menu. I can’t find any mention of it anywhere. But the table next to us was having it, and it looked spectacular. So I’d suggest asking about it when you phone and make reservations. We will.

4 thumbs.