A food hangover? Yes, but it was SO very worth it. Feast your eyes on the best 9 course meal of 2008!
What happens when entrepreneur, bon vivant, and king of hospitality Rudy Guo gets some of the best and brightest Canadian culinary talent together in one kitchen for one night? You get the Savour the Spirit Dinner- All Canadian Chef Team fund-raising night, in support of Guo’s not-for-profit, Spirit of Hospitality Scholarship program. The Scholarship program was created to help Ontario-based high school grads get into the culinary and hospitality program of their choice. The dinner is designed to help raise the much-needed funds, and this year, it was held at The Air Canada Centre’s Platinum Room helmed by Chef Brad Long (he of the BMO multi-culti stadium food offerings).
Starfish Restaurant Dishes up Fresh Scallops & Oysters
The evening commenced with a few fresh scallops and raw oysters compliments of Patrick McMurray (of Starfish Restaurant in Toronto), and a flute of Louis Roderer’s Brut Champagne.
Then things got seriously delicious with Massimo Capra’s black truffle raviolini filled with ricotta and elegantly dressed with a chestnut cream and a trifolata of porcini mushrooms. Michael Blackie’s (of Perspectives in Ottawa’s Brookstreet Hotel) Lobster and Speck Bacon Cassoulet in a walnut brioche chapeau with a white truffle sage cream was melt-in-your-mouth fantastic. The whole table, including Chef Cam Dobranski from Calgary’s much-lauded Muse Restaurant even had seconds of this gustatory symphony. It was one of the night’s best dishes by all accounts.
Chef Normand Laprise Does Foie Gras
Another hands-down favourite was Chef Normand Laprise’s whimsical take on Foie Gras. Laprise (of Toqué! Restaurant in Montreal and yes, mentor to culinary bad boy Martin Picard), offered diners what he called a Dry Salad of Fruit and Vegetables with a Jerez and Honey Vinaigrette surrounding a perfect lobe of Palmex Farm Foie Gras. “Dry salad” refers to Laprise’s technique of reducing seasonally fresh, at the peak of ripeness fruits and vegetables into flavourful coulis that he then slow dries until a sheet of say raspberries, strawberries or peppers is crafted into a thin wafer. Unique yes, maybe even unorthodox- but clearly delicious and not overbearingly sweet; a perfect foil to the richness of the foie. It was one of the evening’s most inventive and imaginative dishes. Perfectly paired with a 2005 Henry of Pelham Reisling from Niagara, this was a dish to linger over.
Lynn Crawford From Four Seasons NYC Offers Organic Black Cod
Lynn Crawford (Four Seasons Hotel, NYC) and sous-chef Lora Kirk (Allen & Delancey, NYC) crafted the subtle and fork-tender Smoked Organic Black Cod dish with market mushrooms, marcona almonds and a marscarpone sabayon. A crisp and clean 2005 Chardonnay from Martin Ray in Russian River Valley (Sonoma) capped off this winning course with smiles all round. Lynn, ever the gracious cook looked sincerely pleased when she passed by our table and then interjected with her signature brand of humour, “I’ve got a few more up my sleeve!” No doubt!
The second wow-factor dish award in this writer’s estimation goes to Chef Robert Clark and sous-chef Quang Dang (of C Restaurant in Vancouver- Clark is also one of the founders of Ocean Wise) for their inspired Octopus Bacon Wrapped Bayne Sound Scallop with a confit of Sloping Hill pork, Pinot Noir and Truffle Gastrique. In a word- WOW! Never before have my taste buds sampled octopus bacon- smoked just the way you would pork bacon, only you get the briny goodness of the sea in two ways here. Inventive, fantastic flavours and all very sustainable and seasonal- mantras Clark is known for upholding. Worth the flight to Vancouver alone for these scallops! (carbon emission offset friendly travelling of course).
Stadtlander of Eigensinn Farm Wow with Caribou Loin
Michael Stadtlander (legendary farmer/chef of Eigensinn Farm in Singhampton, ON) and handsome son Jonas painstakingly crafted a red beet and Jerusalem artichoke crusted caribou loin with blue potato-wild leek gnocchi. A 2004 Tignanello from Tuscany was big and bold enough to stand up to the caribou and by now, all of our pants were feeling just a wee bit snugger than anticipated. But we soldiered on and happily so because Anthony Walsh’s (Canoe, Toronto) terrific Spring Creek Natrually Raised crossrib & tenderloin of beef with Cinnamon Cap Tatin, Thunder Oaks Gouda and Winter Mustards blew us all away. 30 hours of braising meant this meat melted on the tongue! Diners were overheard saying: "I can’t believe I’m actually eating everything on my plate- I’m sooooo full and this is so good.”
Our cheese course/dessert was made by the talented Brad Long and Walter Arruda (Platinum Room at the ACC) where a pyramid of Upper Canada Comfort Cream Cheesecake was crowned with a Cloudberry Marmalade and paired with a 2007 Moscato d’Asti Nivole from Piedmoonte, Italy. Must make a mental note to get some of that AMAZING Moscato and more Upper Canada Comfort Cream Cheese – it is spectacular.
A heart-felt standing ovation to all of the chefs and talented sommeliers (Jennifer Huether-Vranjes of the ACC, her colleague Mellissa Stunden, Sara d’Amato of the Four Seasons Hotel, Bruce Wallner of Splendido in Toronto and the uber-friendly Rene Wallis of Brookstreet Hotel in Ottawa) for their time, passion, and commitment to crafting the very best food and for supporting such a worth-while cause.
As Chef John Higgins pointed out a few days later, “It’s like I had a food hangover,” he joked.
