Good luck, bad luck and multi-course dinners with lots of meat – all things that come in threes, apparently, as Greg and I discovered this past week as we tucked in to three very different mighty meaty meals, each amazing in its own way.
On Thursday, November 20th, we joined the brewers at Amsterdam Brewhouse for a fantastic meal that paired each course with both a beer from Amsterdam and a wine from Good Earth Winery. They’ve done a few of these events before and it’s always fun to see which works better with the food – beer or wine. Chef Avaughn Wells sent out some wonderful dishes so we were all happy campers indeed.
Amsterdam does these events with some regularity and at an average of $65 per person, they’re a great deal, especially when you consider the meal included a bottle of Amsterdam’s 2014 Barrel Aged Sour Cherry Imperial Stout to take home.
(Above: Hand-cut fettuccine with brown sage butter, roasted butternut squash, charred collard greens, roasted chestnut and charred lemon. Paired with Amsterdam’s 18 Hands – Rustic Pale Ale and Good Earth’s 2010 Chardonnay.)
After a day in between to recover, we rode the elevator to Canoe on Saturday, November 22nd for their annual Canoe Wild dinner featuring plenty of game meat from across the country. At $100 all in (tax, grat, drinks), this event sells out in less than 24 hours and with good reason. This year Executive Chef John Horne (Canoe) and Corporate Executive Chef Anthony Walsh (Oliver & Bonacini) were joined by Chef Jeremy Charles and his partner and sommelier Jeremy Bonia of Raymonds in St. John’s.
Wines were provided by Pearl Morrisette Estate Winery and beer by Indie Alehouse. Pours were generous and I forgot the good camera so apologies if this series gets a little blurry.
Finally, on Monday November 24th, we congregated in the private room at Tall Boys Craft Beer House on Bloor Street where our pal Jason Rees of Pork Ninjas was doing a pop-up dinner of some of his best-loved Southern BBQ offerings. Jason cooked up so much food, I didn’t get photos of it all; missing are the brisket, baked beans, potato salad, cornbread and the maple bacon ice cream for dessert.
Hope you enjoyed these photos of all the tasty animals. Pop by next week for my upcoming photo-essay featuring salad, prunes and Metamucil.