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Archive for the ‘Wine Pairing’ Category

Launched on March 15, 2023, Yaletown’s Provence Marinaside now has a Quelle Surprise menu everyday until April 15. Quelle Surprise translates into “What a Surprise,” and literally, you will come to the restaurant and be surprised! Each morning Chef Jean-Francis Quaglia and his chef team will make a limited number of dishes from a rotating assortment of bistro favourites, and these dishes will be featured in a two-course menu for only $49. This feature will be available during lunch and dinner service.

“Some days we’ll make a dozen orders of a particular appy and main, and other days, depending on the availability of ingredients and what inspires us, we might make two dozen, or only ten,” says Chef Jean-Francis. “I won’t know until that day what we’ll make or how many.”

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Over a five-day winecation in the Okanagan (yes, we have an “official” name for our wine vacation) with our friends B&K, we visited a number of wineries, eateries and attractions in the area. One of which was TIME Winery & Kitchen in Penticton. Back in 2018, we had a tour of the winery prior to its opening, having the opportunity to speak with the late Harry McWatters and his vision for the urban winery. Fast forward to 2022, TIME has changed hands to Ron and Shelley Mayert, with the McWatters sisters continuing to manage the operation. B&K are wine club members there, and there are perks such as a discount on food and complimentary wine tasting. We ended up spending 3 hours at TIME, starting with a lunch.

Food & Wine

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Where have you booked for Dine Out this year? If you are still deciding, I’m going to start sharing my experiences, whether it’s an invited dinner or out of my own pocket. I was invited as a media to preview the menu at PiDGiN. Their food is a fusion of Asian and French cuisines, and they decorate the interior by rotating artworks by local artists.

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They have designed their $45 DOVF menu to be as close to their regular prix fixe menu as possible, which is a 6-course menu shared family style for a minimum of 2 people. You have the option of an omnivore menu, or a vegetarian one. You can also order drink pairing for an additional $40-50 per person. The Dine Out website didn’t include the vegetarian menu, so I suggest you to visit PiDGiN’s website for the menus, and I’m posting them here as well. Note that the following plates are all meant to be shared by 2 people – they will adjust the portion based on party size.

Food

In addition to the 6-course menu, you can also order snacks a la carte. The Beef Tendon Chicharron was addictive. It’s crispy, and it wasn’t greasy. There was just enough seasoning, and the gochugaru citrus spice reminded me of sour plum flavour, with the tiniest hint of heat.

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They use different vegetables to make their Daily Pickles. On this day, it was cucumber, ume-infused daikon and shitake mushrooms. They were just slightly pickled, so they weren’t overly briny or vinegary.

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Even though the theme region for this year’s Vancouver International Wine Festival was California, there were many events featuring other wine-making countries/regions. Lucky for me I was able to attend the Gusto Latinoamericano wine lunch at Lift Bar Grill View. As you may have guessed already, this wine lunch highlighted wines from Argentina and Chile.

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Event guests were treated to a 3-course lunch here, along with wine pairing. But before that, there was the amuse Argentinean Prawn with Chimichurri. The prawn was sweet and plump, and the chimichurri brought bright acidity. It was paired with the Domaine Bousquet Organic Brut NV — a dry, crisp, easy-drinking bubbly with 25% pinot noir and 75% chardonnay.

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For our appetizer, it was a Chilled Seafood Salad, with a mix of wine braised octopus, mussels, clams and squid, along with some chorizo chips and warm garlic bread. (more…)

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Having done Dine Out Vancouver for so many years now, frankly I’m feeling burnout. To me, a lot of the menus are not very inspiring; or I question the value for the money. So this year, I set out to try to discover gems that don’t require you to pay $40 yet still feel hungry afterwards.

I was invited to bring a guest (guess whom I brought?) to sample the Dine Out menu of a Donnelly Group restaurant of my choice, including wine pairings. They are all $20 menus. After perusing them, I decided on the Granville Room. Why? I will get to that in a moment.

Food

There are two choices for appetizer. Naturally, we ordered one of each. The Coconut Fried Prawns were nice and crunchy. Mr. (ding-ding!) thought the coating was too thick to taste the prawns but I thought it’s okay. The prawns had good texture, a bit bouncy and not mushy. What’s intriguing is the dipping sauce. It’s a coconut hoisin sauce. When it said hoisin I expected the sauce to be darker in colour, but it’s just a tinted creamy white colour. It had a lot of coconut flavour but it’s not too sweet thanks to the subtle use of hoisin sauce. The prawns themselves did not have any coconut; it’s all in the sauce.

Wine pairing: Desert Hills Viognier – The fried prawns actually mellowed out the acidity in the viognier.

Coconut Fried Prawns

Beef Rib Empanada was also a hand-held appy. There were two pieces on the plate, served with a mole sauce. The sauce was rich, thick, and had some smokey flavour that didn’t overpower everything. (more…)

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