Here I am in Toronto again, on union business again, but with slightly better food this time. Fellow food writer Chris Johns and I visited La Fenice on King Street West. This tastefully-appointed Italian resto is right in the middle of all the restaurants that serve the city’s Theatre District. Sadly, there are more bad restaurants than good ones in this area. Happily, La Fenice doesn’t fit the tourist trap mold. Highlights of our dinner included a creamy risotto topped with grilled quail, and very tender veal scallopine sauced with wild mushrooms. A definite recommendation!
Earlier in September I devoured a couple of other dinners of note. One at Raincity Grill where chef Sean Cousins was doing wonders with vine-ripened tomatoes from Kelowna that survived the wicked fires of August. One dish included a tomato stuffed with duck confit and eggplant, another well-executed dish was wild salmon finished with a glaze of smoked peach. Cousins will smoke almost any ingredient, and earlier in the day showed me how to smoke tomatoes to use in a curry-crusted venison dish that will be featured in a profile I’m writing about Sean for the January-February 2004 issue of Northwest Palate magazine.
I was also invited to a Mission Hill Winemakers Dinner at the Delta Ocean Pointe Resort in Victoria. Ingo Grady of Mission Hill was a cheerful and informative master of ceremonies, and the kitchen crew at the hotel really pulled off a great meal for a full house in the restaurant. One of my favourite dishes was the cedar-smoked ostrich tenderloin, and the meal was capped off with a pear cobbler and lemon-buttermilk ice cream dessert. The evening view of the Inner Harbour from the Ocean Point Resort is beautiful, and Willie’s Bakery at 537 Johnson Street is rapidly becoming my top choice for breakfast in Victoria, with flaky baked goods and savoury omelets at reasonable prices.
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