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Bigleaf Maple Syrup Festival at the BC Forest Discovery Centre

February 7, 2014 By Korena in the Kitchen 11 Comments

Last Saturday was the Bigleaf Maple Syrup Festival held at the BC Forest Discovery Centre in Duncan. I was pretty excited to go last year, but I got my dates mixed up and missed it by a day. I was so sad. So when I saw this year’s festival advertised, I made sure I had the right date. Nate and I arrived just as the festival opened, and I’m glad we did because by the time we left a few hours later, there were line-ups to get in. Seems like everyone is as excited about maple syrup as I am!

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Filed Under: Miscellaneous Tagged With: BC Forest Discovery Museum, bigleaf maple, Duncan, local food, maple syrup, The Canadian Food Experience Project, Vancouver Island

The Cachagua Store Restaurant

September 3, 2011 By Korena in the Kitchen 8 Comments

Towards the end of my visit to California, my aunt, uncle and I made an epic journey to have dinner at the Cachagua Store. This is a restaurant run out of a general store in the boonies of Cachagua, Carmel Valley. The restaurant is only open on Mondays, and the rest of the time the chef runs a catering company (A Moveable Feast) out of the kitchen. The restaurant receives mixed reviews from people who, after driving for an hour into the sticks on perilously twisty back-country roads, are expecting a fine dining experience, because it is certainly not that – no white table cloths, no white-shirted servers, no sterling silver flatware. But the food was awesome – locally sourced, regional specialties, interesting preparation methods, with a different menu every week – and just being in the restaurant was an experience in itself.

And so was the hour-long journey into the back of beyond to get there. We started the drive with rolling hills and large fields on either side of a wide, straight road, and as we drove further, the hills got closer together, the fields disappeared, the trees got closer and closer, and the road got narrower and windier. Then abruptly we took a right hand turn up the side of one of the hills onto another road full of twists and hairpin turns and bounded on either side by Spanish-moss covered trees. As we reached the top of the hill, the road stayed just as twisty and narrow, and we could see the spines and valleys and tops of other hills – some green with trees, some golden yellow with grass. It was incredibly beautiful.

This picture from the car window doesn’t even come close to doing the view justice.

Eventually the road plunged downward again – still with the death-defying blind corners and 180-degree turns – and finally we found ourselves in a gravel “parking lot” full of pick-up trucks in front of a red painted wooden building with the Cachagua Store sign out front. I half expected to see an old guy with no teeth, wearing overalls, playing a banjo on the front stoop.The restaurant entrance was just a door at one end of the building with a flourescent “Open” sign, and we entered gingerly, not sure what to expect.What we saw was a room full of tables with checkered tablecloths and folding chairs, exposed beams, a moose I mean elk head on the wall (decorated with Christmas lights) at one end, an open kitchen at the other, and paper curtains on the windows.A band consisting of a guitar player and a percussionist were setting up in one corner. A wait staff of mostly young local girls was hanging out around the kitchen entrance. We arrived at 6 pm, and were told that the menu hadn’t even been printed yet – the chef was still finalizing some things. When it did arrive, it was an impressive two pages long – one whole page of starters and another of main courses.At this point the sun started to set, and the candle on our table wasn’t doing very much to help out the dim lighting in the room, so these photos are pretty low quality (I was using my iPhone). For starters, my uncle had beef tartare with tarragon ice cream and the most delicious tomato gazpacho I’ve ever tasted – it was deeply tomato flavoured, with a herby-infused oil drizzled on top. I don’t even like raw tomatoes but this was fantastic. Definitely one of the highlights of the meal.My aunt had a poached egg on top of sauteed greens and trumpet mushrooms that was also surprisingly delicious – she said it wasn’t at all what she expected, but she was really disappointed when it was all gone!I had a starter-size pizza with homemade mascarpone, ham, and caramelized onions.It was good, but not quite what I wanted. This whole meal, actually, was an instance where I did not do a very good job of ordering food for myself, which happens sometimes when there is just too much choice in a menu. It all tasted good and was prepared beautifully, but I felt like I would have enjoyed different dishes more. Oh well, a good excuse to go there again!

My uncle had pork done six ways for his main course: a pork chop, pork chili verde, pork belly, roast pork loin, trotters, and something else – maybe a pork sausage? I can’t remember. It was a lot of pork, to say the least, and he barely got through a third of it.My aunt had the duck – a seared breast and confit leg, which must have been really good because she was not very interested in sharing ;).I had Mesquite grilled skirt steak with a mushroom sauce. The flavours were good but I was really full from my pizza starter and I spent a lot of the meal being a little jealous of my aunt’s duck.My uncle opted out of dessert, but my aunt and I perused the page-long menu and finally decided on a dark chocolate mousse (her) and a white chocolate-berry parfait (me). The mousse came served with a crouton, olive oil drizzle, and two kinds of sea salt around the edge of the plate. Sounds weird, but the flavours of the oil and the salt played off the dark chocolate in an amazing way.Once again I had food envy – my parfait was  okay, but mostly just sweet (but it didn’t stop me from eating all of it!).Throughout the meal, the band played bluegrassy, countrified versions of popular songs with moderate success – they got considerably better after their first beverage break, so I guess they just needed to loosen up.The service was friendly, but slow and intermittent (the various wait staff went back and forth by our table almost non-stop, but paid us very little attention and we had to flag someone down each time we wanted to order). However it meant that there was ample opportunity for people-watching and you could tell everyone was having a good time, appreciating the food and slightly eccentric atmosphere.

So if you ever have the opportunity to drive into the middle-of-nowhere Carmel Valley, I recommend you do it on a Monday night so you can check out the Cachagua Store. If you’re open to an interesting food experience, you’ll enjoy yourself.

Filed Under: Eating Out, Restaurant Reviews Tagged With: Cachagua General Store, California, Carmel Valley, food, local food, restaurant

Second Saturday: Dinner at Pizzeria Prima Strada

May 23, 2011 By Korena in the Kitchen Leave a Comment

I almost didn’t post about this Second Saturday outing, because the pictures I took are so awful (crappy cell phone camera + dark restaurant = baaaaaaad photos), but the pizza was so good that I can’t not share. So here it is. Please excuse the photos!

This edition of Second Saturday actually took place on a Monday, because I was out of town for the second Saturday of May. Katheryn, Lynette, and I met for dinner at Pizzeria Prima Strada in Cook St Village for beautiful, thin-crust, oven-fired, Neapolitan-style pizza. We had all eaten there before, so Second Saturday was just a good excuse to eat there again. One thing I really like about this restaurant is that they use fresh, Vancouver Island ingredients wherever possible, including mozzarella di bufala from Natural Pastures (made with milk from Fairburn Farms, home to the only water buffalo herd in Canada!), pepperoni made by Choux Choux Charcuterie, and house made sausage and salumi. I love food even more knowing that something so delicious is produced or grown nearby!

The menu is pretty small, which I usually find is a good thing, because it means the kitchen is not trying to do a hundred different things; instead they are focused on doing one kind of thing very well, and it usually results in a much better meal. In Prima Strada’s case, there are a few Antipasti and Insalata offered, ten different pizzas to choose from, Dolci (desserts), and some daily specials. They also have a succinct wine list and serve local Driftwood Brewery beer and several Italian liquors. The pizzas range from the cheeseless Marinara to the traditional Margherita to the spicy salame Diavola to the cream-based Panna e Pancetta. We ended up going with the Funghi (porcini cream, roasted mushrooms, roasted onions, fresh thyme, mozzarella, pecorino), the Panna e Pancetta (cream, pancetta, parmigiano, mozzarella, ricotta, scallions), and a special pizza with spicy Calabrese salami, roasted red pepper, arugula pesto, bocconcini, and red onion. We also ordered a bottle of wine, Mezzomondo Rosso, which was good but honestly I can’t remember anything specific about how it tasted. I was concentrating more on the pizza ;)…

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Filed Under: Eating Out, Restaurant Reviews, Second Saturday Tagged With: eating, food, local food, Neapolitan pizza, pizza, restaurant, Victoria BC

Second Saturday: Cider Tasting at Sea Cider Farm & Ciderhouse

February 15, 2011 By Korena in the Kitchen 3 Comments

Please excuse the bad quality of the photos – they were taken with my cell phone!

Second Saturday is a “club” consisting of my friends Lynette, Katheryn, Tangle, and I, where we go out somewhere for drinks and food every second Saturday of the month (hence the name).

This weekend I went on a Second Saturday outing to a cider tasting at Sea Cider Farm & Ciderhouse, a local cidery in Sidney. Tangle was unable to join us – she was busy doing a show with her puppetry troupe, Entangled Puppetry – so it was just Katheryn, Lynette, and myself.
Lynette managed to score a sweet deal on the cider tasting from Groupon.com, which included nine samples of cider, a platter of local cheese, meats, preserves, and bread to compliment the cider samples, hot buttered Rumrunner cider (yum!), and a bottle of your choice of cider. It was awesome, and would still be totally worth going even without the deal – the full flight of nine cider samples is only $16 regularly, and it was enough for all three of us to get a good taste of all nine. And it was delicious, of course!

Honey cured smoked salmon from Sointula, local cheddar and Natural Pastures Comox Camembert, Galloping Goose Co. sausage, blueberry cider preserve, black olive tapenade, bread from The Roost, and dark chocolate

The ciders we tasted can be found here, in order from driest to sweetest. The first two, Flagship and Wild English, were both “ultra dry” and champagne-like, and none of us were big fans – they didn’t have a lot of apple-y flavour (at least not to our uneducated palates!). Kings & Spies and Pippins were slightly sweeter, less dry, and had more cider taste. Katheryn liked Kings & Spies, and I liked Pippins, but again, not our favorites.

Cider is exciting!

Then we had the Bramble Bubbly, a seasonal cider made with apples and blackberries. This was Katheryn’s favorite, although she swore it tasted like cranberries rather than blackberries. I could taste (and smell) blackberry, but not so much the berries themselves as the blackberry canes – you know the smell of blackberry brambles in the hot summer sun? That was what the cider tasted like. Incredible!

Katheryn and the Bramble Bubbly

Next was the Rumrunner, which is aged in rum barrels. It was seriously delicious – it had sort of caramely toffee notes and just enough sweetness. It was the cider used to make the hot buttered cider – Rumrunner, mulling spices, and butter (recipe here). Awesome!! We all had this one down as a favorite, and Lynette ended up taking it home as her free bottle.

Hot buttered Rumrunner – cheers!

The sweetest ciders started with Cyser, fermented with honey. It had almost a buttery, nutty taste that was amazing. Another favorite all round! The last two were more apératif or liqueur-style ciders. Pommeau was 18% alcohol and tasted like apple scotch or whiskey – it had the smoky taste as well as the alcohol taste. I managed to sip it without making a (really bad) face, whereas Lynette and Katheryn both threw this one back, tequila style. Not one of our favorites. The final cider was Pomona, which was like a desert or ice wine. It was delicious and syrupy, and would have been fantastic over ice cream. Again, a favorite for all of us.

Cast iron chandeliers and vaulted ceiling in the tasting room

As I said above, this tasting would be a great way to spend an afternoon, even without the deal. The cider was delicious (and even when it wasn’t to our liking, it was interesting and fun), the food was yummy (and locally sourced), and the tasting room was beautiful: vaulted ceilings, big cast iron chandeliers, long rustic trestle tables, and windows looking out over the fields and water. I will definitely put this on my list of “things to do again”!

Filed Under: Eating Out, Restaurant Reviews, Second Saturday Tagged With: apples, cider, local food, Second Saturday

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I'm Korena: cook, baker, dirty-dishes-maker. My favourite things include flour, butter, sugar, and chocolate. Read More…

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All content © Korena Vezerian and Korena in the Kitchen, 2011 – 2021. Please contact me before duplicating any content, including pictures. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Korena Vezerian and Korena in the Kitchen with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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