Wine and Dine in Waterloo

Pre-Cooking Snack

We were too hungry to cook before we ate.

Smoked salmon:
I've never had bad smoked salmon before. It's all good.

And slices from the Sobey's baguette:

Drinks

The first bottle of wine was a Jackson-Triggs Merlot.
Casey was unimpressed with the taste, so we decided to make wine coolers with it. We used some random online recipe that included minimal ingredients.
It was a novelty drink, but I liked it better than the wine by itself.

The second bottle of wine came from California. I can't quite describe the Mirassou Riesling anymore, but I remember that I liked it.

Bread
Of course, if we're eating bread with Casey, it has to be garlic bread.

Left: roasted garlic. Right: butter!

Pre-oven:
Post-oven:
Casey's garlic bread is always so tasty. The butter soaks right into it and makes it so moist.

Meat
The whole chunk just fit the cutting board.


This is how we do it: stab and shove garlic.

Finally, some oven-roasted meat!

We lost track of time as we were watching online videos while making this and left the roast in the oven for a bit too long. The vegetables were a bit burnt, and the meat was on the dry side.

The beef still had pretty good flavour.


Dessert

Yet another chocolate mousse attempt. Again, we used PC dark chocolate.

It either has too much chocolate in it, or it's the chocolate itself that's making it into mousse with weirdo density.

I think my favourites of the day were the garlic bread, the smoked salmon, and the Californian wine.

I am getting super hungry just going through all these pictures.

Inniskillin Winery

Inniskillin (1499 Line 3, Niagara Parkway, Niagara-on-the-Lake)

A road trip led us to Niagara Falls. Well, we've all seen running water, so we decided to visit the Inniskillin winery. For $5 (tax included), the tour of the winery included a tasting of three of their wines.

While Renée was trying to find the phone number in some sort of Niagara fun book to reserve our spots for a tour, she found a coupon for a sample of their award winning ice wine. (There were coupons for other wineries in the Niagara area as well.) You can sample several of the wines for about $5-7 per glass. All things considered, the visit was pretty cost efficient (for me). 

Our sommelier pouring the white wine:

I have no idea which white wine that is, but that's okay because Inniskillin is mostly known for their ice wines.

A French oak barrel: 
There were Canadian and American barrels too. They say the wines that come from the Canadian ones have a maple syrupy taste. 

Random cellar picture:
It is definitely not as ominous as the Concha y Toro cellar in Chile. 
The white wine:
We also tried a red wine, but to be perfectly honest, it really stank. Literally. I wasn't the only one who thought it tasted terrible and smelled weird. Dorothy noted a scent of vinegar. I think it went bad. From that experience, I'll probably never buy a red wine from this winery. I was so eager to dump it out that I forgot to take a picture of it. 

The last sample was the (award winning) 2006 Oak Aged Vidal Icewine. Check out the golden yellow colour.
It was the same wine that we had sampled earlier with our coupon. The glass we got with the coupon was much more filled. 

Simon poses with our favourite wine:

The grapes can only be harvested once every three years. Also, very little liquid comes out of pressing frozen grapes. This explains the prices of ice wines compared to regular table wines.
Get the one on the left! It's delicious! Even the people who don't drink wine liked it. 

We also sampled the 2006 Sparkling Vidal Icewine (courtesy of Jess), which is on the right side of the picture above. Jess quite liked it. I thought it was nice, but it had nothing on the non-sparkling 2006 Vidal Icewine. I also thought the sparkling part made it taste a bit like ginger ale. I guess it's great for people who want a wine that doesn't taste like wine.

It looks like we all purchased a bottle of something, but they're all Casey's. 

Total damage: $5 for the tour. Go coupons! 

After this trip, I think that attending the Niagara Icewine Festival would be very exciting.

Hot House Cafe

Hot House Cafe (35 Church Street, Toronto)

I decided to check out their award winning brunch buffet, and see what all the fuss was about. There was a live jazz band, which was pretty cool; too bad we were on the other side of the restaurant.

The buffet was pretty comprehensive. There's the standard eggs, sausages, bacon, and croissants, but there were also things that we didn't expect. I was pretty impressed with the variety.

Plate #1: chipotle mussels, lasagna, rice pilaf, some sort of tortellini, salmon, and roast beef.
The salmon was a bit dry, but I quite liked the lasagna and roast beef. The lasagna was very cheesy on top.

Plate #2: cheese and mushrooms omelette and crab salad.
There was a bit of a line to get to the omelette station, but it was pretty worth it. You pick whatever you want in it, and one of two friendly guys makes it for you. For me, cheese is a must. Berta said that hers wasn't salty enough. I think that's because she didn't ask for cheese.

The crab salad was pretty tasty.

Plate #3: cantaloupe slices, pineapple slices, apple crumble, and half a croissant. 
I didn't just pick up half a croissant; I split one with Berta. I liked the fact that the apple crumble was heated, but I would have preferred more crunch in the crumble. 

I wanted to try the giant waffle pieces and cakes, but alas, my stomach could take no more. The cakes looked pretty good though.

Random:

"This tastes plasticky," Berta said several times of the cantaloupe chunks, as she kept eating them until there were no more on her plate. I had no such issue with my cantaloupe slices.

Berta thought that the orange juice wasn't concentrated enough, and she does not recommend the Thai noodles. 

There was virtually no lineup when we arrived at the restaurant at a bit past 11 A.M, but the front entrance seemed packed about thirty minutes later. 

Total damage for the buffet brunch and juice: $30. The buffet alone is $18.95 per person, plus tax and tip.

Boston Pizza

Boston Pizza (7020 Warden Avenue, Markham)

My baked seven cheese ravioli with bolognese sauce:
I didn't actually taste seven different types of cheeses, but it was a nice meal.

Marianne's crispy chicken pecan salad:
It looked nice, but I thought it was a bit weird that none of the ingredients were mixed together. I guess it's good for compulsive people who must eat everything separately. 

 There was chocolate cake at the end since birthday celebrations were in order. Nice!

Total damage for my pasta dish: $17.

Richmond Court

Richmond Court Take-out (328 Highway 7 East, Richmond Hill)

Rolls with meat, street style "siu mai," and a bowl of mixed vegetarian "jai." 

Everything in the picture fed two hungry people. It fed us well.

I've never had street style "siu mai" before, but it was pretty good. I liked the rolls as well. 

Total damage: $9, I think. I can't really remember anymore.