Sunday, October 28, 2012

Awesome Craftbeer Dinner and Building Up of Disappointments...

Craftbeer Dinner @ Blue Canoe Restaurant Thursday Oct 24, 2012. 
Last Thursday at the Blue Canoe, they had a limited seating Craft Beer dinner event. Will and I were lucky enough to join them for a wonderful gastronomic experience! There was more than enough food and beer to go around and we certainly left stuffed.

Caramelized pear on a grilled brioche with rocquefort blue cheese and walnuts was the amuse bouche that started the night off.  It was paired with the Common's Brewery Urban Farmhand Ale. This bite size serving packed a lot of flavour. It set the par for what is to be expected for the rest of the night. 

Pumpkin seed crusted scallop on roast squash risotto with orange thyme cream sauce was such a comforting dish on a cold rainy night. It hit the spot! The creaminess with the hint of orange was well complimented with the 8 Wired Company's Saison Sauvon.

Mussels pot steamed in shallots, apples, grape tomatoes, and green curry sauce with crusty house bread served with Alameda Brewing Company's Klickitat Pale Ale was the second course. With all the food consumption and beer, my stomach was nearing full at this point. Despite the filling stomach, I consumed this yummy dish of plump juicy mussels. You can never go wrong with their mussels, no matter how they choose to cook it or what sauce they use, it always comes out spectacular!

Thank goodness they gave us a little bit of a break before the food continued to come out! They must have seen the comatose looks on everyone's faces.The third course was short rib that was slow braised served with baby carrots, local yellow german mash, roasted cipollinni and bacon au jus with 8 Wired Brewing's Hopwired IPA. The meat was a good sized portion that was juicy and tender. I love it when you can eat a piece of meat without using a knife! The vegetables were well prepared, I've never had roasted cipollini before, but it kind of had the same consistency of roasted garlic, flavourful but not too strong and overpowering like garlic.

Dessert was rum, coffee and chocolate mousse cake with vanilla bean cream paired with Evil Twin Brewery's Soft DK Imperial Stout. Rich with chocolate flavour, this dessert was indeed decadent.. However, I had no more space for it so I had to pack it up to go after one bite.

Dinner came to an end with the Pont L'eveque Cheese with Skull Splitter's Strong Ale. I some how found space for this small piece of creamy cheese. It came with sweetest concord grapes. What a fabulous way to end off a night of good eats. I can't wait till have they have another one of these special dinner series. The next one is supposed to be a wine dinner, you can bet that we'll be there!

Notturno Paninoteco (280 Carrall Street)
On our 4th visit to this restaurant, we were finally successful and finally got our chance to eat here. However, there's not a lot to report on this particularly small joint.

This is the Anatra Bruschetta, unlike the kind you would regular see that is topped with tomatoes, this had duck prosciutto. 

We also had the charcuterie, it came with brie, blue cheese and pecorino and as for the meats, i twas sopressata, Italian salami, capicollo and prosciutto.All in all, it wasn't anything that we have never had before. It was a disappointing and very underwhelming.The food and wine seemed some what authentically Italian. The service was sub par. We were ready to spend money, but I guess they just didn't want it. we had two things, waited for more serviced but in the end left hungry searching for more food. Will we come back here for a second try? Most likely not - those positive reviews I've read on other the web clearly don't make up for their lack of attentive service.

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