To put it plainly, even the cheapest of wines at the LCBO taste better and save you money in the long run as you have only one wine to buy…one to cook with and the same one to drink.

That all having been said, it still does not give a clear answer to what wine to serve with what meal. The first rule of pairing food and wine is white wine with white meat and red wine with red meat. While this is a good start, it is just that…a start. If you look at wine as an ingredient it will make cooking and pairing much easier. In one of my previous blogs (Grape Varieties 101) I outlined the flavour profiles for the 6 most popular white and red grape varieties. These descriptions should help you to choose what wine to pair with what food. This is just the beginning though. We have to remember to consider all aspects of the meal, the primary flavours, aromas, and the texture as well, not just the meat. The main reason why red wines are suggested to be paired with red meat has to do with texture. The thick tannins in a rich red wine help to cut through the protien and fat of red meat thus complementing the
richness of something like a medium rare prime rib roast while the fat and protein will ease the strength of the tannins making a big bold red smoother and not so stringent.

We finally come back to my favourite saying, “Go out of your comfort zone.”

Wine and food pairing is an ideal time to experiment with wine. While I would generally recommend serving a white wine with chicken, there are times when a red wine works much better. A perfect example of serving red wine with chicken is when making Coq au Vin stew. This is a very hearty and rustic dish with many earthy flavours that lends itself beautifully to red wine. To pair a wine with this dish I always keep in mind the fact that the main flavours are earthy
and include mushrooms, bacon and thyme. I have found that French Cotes du Rhone reds pair perfectly with this and I always include the wine in the broth of my stew. By using the same wine to cook with and to drink with makes pairing a lot easier. Another example of an unusual pairing would be seafood with Pinot Noir.

The first time I ever had this pairing was at Beckta`s a number of years ago when I had just begun studying wine. They had a lobster risotto appetiser and I was feverishly trying to decide if I wanted to go with a Chardonnay or my favourite Riesling when the waiter suggested the Pinot Noir. I was very surprised and questioned him on his reasoning for this pairing and he informed me that the dish included mushroom and truffle oil and the earthyness of this dish would pair best with the pinot. I decided I would follow his suggestion and much to my delight discovered that discovered that it was a perfect pairing. It was the first time I had ever gone out of my fomfort zone with wine and it was fantastic!

So here are a few suggestions that fall into the standard and out of your comfort zones:

• Pepperoni Pizza – Chianti or any red Italian wine
• Hawaiian Pizza – Riesling – the pineapple and ham pair better with riesling and the sweetness
  of the wine balances a slightly spicy sauce
• Pasta with meat sauce – any red – don’t just stick with Italian reds here, this is a perfect
  opportunity to try something new!
• Chicken in a butter sauce – an oaked chardonnay
• Nuts - port, port’s earthiness pairs nicely with nuts and dried fruit – great not only
  with your dessert, but try macerating (marinating) dried fruit in port and pairing, yum!
• Light fish (sole, tilapia etc) – Sauvignon Blanc
• Thai – off dry Riesling – the residual sugar and acidity of riesling cuts through spice wonderfully
• Steak – Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz, Bourdeaux, Merlot…pick something with strong tannins

I would love to hear about your successess and failures with wine and food pairing. You can contact me by email at: sommeliers@rogers.com or tweet me @nancyztaste. Until then, drink well and drink responsibly!

Wine Notes:
F. Martini, $8.90, LCBO #00390187
Trentacinquesimo Parallelo 2008
Italy – Sicilia
Nero D’Avola/Shiraz
Appearance – cherry red
Aromas – red/sweet cherries, red berries/fruit and some spice
Palate – cherries and spice
Body – medium bodied
Finish - medium finish (approx 30 seconds on the palate) with lots of spice

This is a wonderful, economical wine that went well with the pizza we had for dinner. Pair it
with spaghetti, pizza, or any red meat dish.

There are regional differences in cuisine of course and especially highlighted when one sample dishes from the Azores islands, which are part of Portugal even thought they are quite distant from the Continental main land.

The Azores menu is less refined, the islands in general had been poor and relied on the sea as well as good home made food and pork often grown in the back year. Two of the Islands that make up the Azores are more popular from culinary point of view. St George is know for its production and variety of cheeses. For the cheese fanatic in you, a slice of St George is a must, and small pieces can be purchased in Ottawa at Mario’s Portuguese Store on McArthur Road. The other island is St Migule, the largest and more diverse. While its largest city Ponta Del Gada provides you with excellent restaurant choices, its the flavors that are present on the streets and homes of the little towns that are more memorable.

To get a hint of what that is like, you must visit, Casa do Churrasco, 190 Dalhousie Street, the restaurant used to be home to a KFC many years ago.

When you get to the restaurant stick the basics and you will be happy.

Soup: Start with a bowl of Caldo Verde, the traditional Azorian collard and sausage soup

Appetizer: A MUST is the chorizo bombaira, where the sausage is cocked on top of a clay pig table side, the smell and flavors are divine. If you are brave try your hand at a marcella, the Azorian equivalent of a blood sausage (not for the faint at heart)

Dinner. Stick to one of two choices, don’t be fancy, either go for the BBQ chicken or the BBQ Sardines, either is a fine choices.

The restaurant is very well priced all in you should be at about $20 per person. More importantly you get a true taste of the Azores and a great home style treat.

Unless you are in Ottawa!

Ottawa is home to the Zuni Grill, (Perhaps the only Zuni restaurant anywhere in the world) an amazing family restaurant on Greenbank Road at Hunt Club. What I like about the Zuni Grill is the fact that you get a glimpse into a unique lifestyle and diet. The Zuni food is interesting, hard to describe in some ways, a bit of fusion of Mexican, Indian, Italian, American, and Native. The food itself is fresh, tasty, and well priced. The restaurant is quite discrete, you can drive buy it a thousand times and miss it. Inside the atmosphere is just great, the small restaurant is part and parcel with the open kitchen where you get to interact with the bartender, chef, dishwasher and whoever you want.

So do yourself a favour and give this hidden gem a try, you wont be disappointed.

Menu Sample From the Zuni Grill:

Turmeric crusted Portobello and Eggplant
topped with Potato and Chickpea Curry and drizzled with a Cucumber, Coriander and Mint Yogurt Raita

Hot and Sour Tamarind-Glazed Chicken
on a bed of sautéed shredded greens

Coconut-Crusted Chicken Breast
wrapped in shredded Coconut and topped with a sweet Banana Curry Coulis

Phone: 828-3890 for reservations or pick-up orders

Open Monday – Friday from 11:30 AM and Saturdays at 5:00PM

Photo by alles-schlumpf

I live on the border of two Ottawa neigbourhoods, Hintonburg and the Wellington Village. I spend a good amount of my time contributing to food communities on social networks. Imagine my glee when I discovered that the Hintonburg Community Association (HCA) revived the Hintonburg Supper Club. Its purpose, to support local business and promote enjoying good food with good company in a great neighborhood.

Unlike the supper clubs for which Wikipedia has a definition, this one is informal and does not involve a fixed dining establishment. Instead, Hintonburg Supper Club members visit a new restaurant each month. Its organizer, Carol Paschal, arranges the outing with a local restaurant and sends an e-mail to the club’s membership. Each outing regularly hosts 20 guests and the club always welcomes new faces.

Its January outing to Hino’s (1013 Wellington) was actually written up by columnist Dayanti Karunaratne in the Ottawa Citizen. According to the piece by Karunaratne, Hintonburg is “bounded by Scott Street, the Queensway, the O-Train tracks and Holland Avenue.”

To date, the Supper Club has visited many of the locally owned restaurants in the area, starting with a chicken and rib eatery that features home-style desserts, The Foolish Chicken (79 Holland Avenue). Since, it has dined at a vegetarian restaurant, The Table Restaurant (1230 Wellington Street W.); a Persian restaurant, Khatoon’s (991 Wellington Street W.); a Lebanese restaurant, Les Grillades (85 Holland Avenue); a Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Chinese noodles house, Phnom Penh (1100 Wellington Street W.); a Chilean street food style restaurant, Vina Del Mar (1079 Wellington Street W.); a Thai restaurant, Anna Fine Thai Cuisine (91 Holland Avenue); a contemporary Japanese restaurant, Hino’s (1013 Wellington Street W.); and an Ethopian restaurant, Habesha. Habesha recently moved downtown to Rideau Street (574).

The Hintonburg neighbourhood is also blessed with several great bistros, Absinthe (1208 Wellington Street W.), Canvas (65 Holland Avenue), and, my favourite restaurant in Ottawa, Allium (87 Holland Avenue). Allium would be where our Supper Club’s organizer took a picture of members for a piece in the October 8th issue of the Kitchissippi Times, a neighborhood newspaper. foodiePrints’ editor took that picture. Here are others from that evening:

Upon arrival at Allium, we were greeted with warm looking tables in a newly renovated dining room that featured wood accents and soft lights.

Allium’s New Dining Room

Like previous Supper Club dinners, our reservations were for early evening, just before sunset.

For appetizers, my end of the table ordered the scallops and fish cakes.

Scallops on Succotash Vegetables with Bacon

Think expertly seared scallops, served on seasonal vegetables, and strips of crisped double smoked bacon. The diner, who ordered the scallops, exclaimed that Allium puts just as much care into its appetizers as it does its mains. I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment.

In fact, when most restaurants either close or let their sous chefs take over on Mondays, Allium’s Chef Arup Jana and his cooks hold “tapas nights.” Think of a meal consisting entirely of delectable small plates that show case more varieties of textures and flavours than most 3 course meals can permit. With the small plates priced to match, Allum’s tapas nights are rather popular.

Me, I ordered the fish cakes.

Smoked Fish Cakes, accompanied by a mango chutney and Onion Sour Cream

Panko crusted and topped with deep fried young scallions, mine was a great first course.

Here is Jenn’s main, that evening’s “surf and turf” ($30).

Surf and Turf with White Tuna ashimi, Pork Belly, and Beer Battered Perch

It should be noted that the Perch was sourced from the Whalesbone Sustainable Oyster and Fish Supply (I asked). It was line-caught from Lake Erie. To me, cooking up the Perch fillet in a flavourful beer batter and serving it with truffle fries and a house-made tartar sauce is a great way to do justice to sustainable fish.

Knowing how much I enjoy good sashimi, Jenn let me try her tuna. It was carefully cut, fresh, and served at what I feel is the optimal temperature to ensure great texture and flavour. The crisped pork belly was topped with a quail egg and plated over a smattering of jus.

Another diner, ordered the steak-frites ($23), the hallmark dish by which bistros are compared.

Flat Iron Steak-Frites Served with Hand Cut Fries and Smoked Chili Aioli

Allium compares well to any bistro in town. Served to the ordered done-ness, the steak looked medium rare and the fries, fresh, crispy, and not at all oily. Though, I still feel that Absinthe makes a better steak-frites. Many fellow Supper Club members agree with me.

I ordered the duck breast ($27).

Maple Duck Breast with Balsamic Apples, Roasted Fingerling Yukon Gold potatoes, Sauteed Mushrooms, and something slightly controversial

My potatoes were in no way powdery, fresh and sweet, cooked tender, and sauced in duck jus. The duck breast was perfectly cooked, the best I have ever eaten. Crusted, flavorful, and cooked medium rare, it was heavenly. Everyone who joined me in ordering the duck breast each took their first bite, paused to enjoy it, and sighed. My “perfect bites” paired mushroom, apple, and potatoes with duck, mixing earthy, sweet, acidic, and savoury flavours. The potato helped carry the flavours.

At the opposite end of the plate was a corn relish, topped with a contentious food in Ottawa.

Seared Foie Gras

With several restaurants targeted for protest this past summer, I do not want to debate the ethics of serving or eating fattened liver of duck in this space. That said, I found my slice of foie gras singularly flavourful (almost ethereal) and too rich to eat very often.

Considering the care Allium takes to update its menu and serve seasonal, local, and sustainable ingredients, I am more concerned about the animal welfare of intensively-reared chickens served at fast food restaurants. Still, the table I sat at had the “foie gras discussion”, but, unlike the ugly shouting matches I have seen, ours was an open conversation in which many opposing yet thoughtful points of view were shared.

Good conversation happens to be one of the rewards of dining out with the Hintonburg Supper Club. As our organizer wrote in the Kitchissippi Times piece, we have fun. We eat good food. And, we talk about issues that affect the neighbourhood. Past discussions have included how to help businesses weather the past summer’s disruptive road construction, recommendations for where to find good massage and physiotherapists, and where to find “to die for” sticky buns (Answer: 3 Tarts Bakery (1320 Wellington Street W.)).

With great conversation, friendly faces, and good food, there are worse ways to spend a weekday evening.

All Rights Reserved by Creative Commons, photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/spine/

To that end, two restaurants quickly come to mind: Local Heroes and Wild Wings.

Local Heroes has been a fairly consistent restaurant, good wings, great wings actually, come in different sizes, giant mutant sized ones and normal size ones. At Local Heroes you are always greeted with a smile, the game is on, you can even get a shuttle to the game if the Sens are playing in town. Local Heroes puts on a great event on Super Bowl Sunday,  and makes you wanna go there again and again.

Not much can be said about Wild Wings, the selection is HUGE. If you are hungry enough you can even order 1000 wings for about $700, now ain’t THAT a treat? Large selection – nothing tastes that great, everything is frozen, and I can pass on the fried pickles, no thanks. Service? Well if a server rolls her eyes at you, odds are, not great service. That is all I have to say about that place.

Now, where else in Ottawa can you get a good pound of wings? I am gonna tell you where (and its not somewhere you are gonna think off).  The game was on, fans were on edge, asked for a beer, got it FAST, nice and cold.  Looked at the menu, yup, I’ll go for the wings. The wings came  plated with the usual boring salary and carrot and a lump of sour cream, but the wings where well cooked, juicy, the sauce was nice, not over the top, and the price was much better than I  expected.

Where is this place? What is it called? Introducing the Senate Chambers, located on the U.S.side of the Ottawa Airport. Airport food? Good? Yup. Is it worth buying a ticket to the U.S., getting a passport, going through customs just to sample a plate of wings? NOPE, but if you are ever on that side of the airport, give it a shot, you won’t be disappointed.

Where are your favorite Ottawa wings restaurants?

The tickets I bought gave us access to the exhibit area only, so my perspective of this event only reflects what I saw in the area.

As I walked the floor last night, I tried to understand what this event is all about, is it a culinary experience? Is it a bar? Is is an area for aspiring somaliers? what is it? Something was off with the event. Maybe it was the over dressed folks, who are walking not so straight in the halls of the very old and uninspiring Civic Center.

I walked around and sampled some new wines. This in my opinion is what is so great about the food and wine show. Instead of buying a 60 dollars bottle from the LCBO or paying $250 for it at a fancy restaurant, you get to sample a half glass for a few bucks. I tried my hand at a $68 Châteauneuf-du-Pape, it was absolutely amazing. I also got to chat with the rep from Iron Stone, which in my opinion is the best wine ever. We walked the floor, tried a port, a vodka mix and a few more wines. Overall a great selection of wines. For any one new at the wine game, the Food and Wine show is a great way to sample.

But what about the food pairing? I was starving when I got there. I did not eat on purpose as I thought I would be able to enjoy some great food. You can imagine my smile when I walked in, and far into the corner I saw a nice smoke go up in the air. WOW someone must have just taken off the lid on something special. After I picked up my glass of Chateauneuf, I walked over and to my shock, I find a man melting/burning plastic bags in a sauce pan. Since when is non stick a novel idea, where is the food? That should not be the first thing in a pot at the “food” and wine show! After scanning the room, I was worried for a second, maybe there is no food here, I asked, and was comforted that food was on the other side. As we made our way around the hall, our first food encounter came from the restaurant “Trio” and served a mushroom sauce on a 3 micro tarts, The taste was just horrible… However I did see some one walk by with a nice looking plate of antipasto. A few more steps and here we where at Fratelli’s home of the Antipesto which was good, but nothing special. Should chefs not be showing off their best? this is the “food” and wine show, where is the nice food? Next stop was the Sheraton which had made an honest attempt at food. They even offered a 3 course meal, I did not go for the 3 courses which they paired up with Beer, but did try the lamb which was very well done and the beer that went with it was excellent. I had a big smile on my face when I saw that Le Cordon Blue had a booth, which did not last as they served up a bland cheese appitizer. Sigh so far one good meal. Passed by a pasta booth and passed, Algonquin booth and passed. Then in the far corner, I saw a Tirnadadian food booth. Hey I never had that, I went and tried a chickpea salad. Very yummy curry dish, that got me thinking, curry, what do you match this with? curry, Thai food. If I can get me some Thai food now I’d happy and never mind all this pairing business. With that, we packed up and went to Siam Kitchen

From a wine point of view, the show delivers as expected. From a food point of view, I would say, what food? The only real food was paired with beer, not much to be said about the “food  and wine” show.

Over all, where else can you spend an evening for $17, you cant even get popcorn at the movies for that much.

Cheers

It is one week before harvest and the grapes are ripe and plump.

You can follow Nancy on Twitter at @Nancyztaste