TNs: TWEC (TM) Tasting Menu at BOSK in the Shangri-La: Cali Syrah, Spanish Albarino, and Tokaji

Berserkers,

The Toronto Wine Elitist Cabal ™ paid its first-ever visit to BOSK restaurant located in the Shangri-La hotel in Toronto. Board members Jay Shampur and myself, along with honorary American member Judge Bernard Schwartz visiting from sunny California and their mutual friend Mac, dined on a spectacular tasting menu prepared at BOSK restaurant in the Shangri-La hotel downtown by Chef de Cuisine Richard Singh, who graciously joined us for dessert and Tokaji wine at the end of the meal and regaled us with his background.

Naturally, Bernie brought a California wine while I brought the dessert wine, leaving Jay to supply the other table wine. French wine lovers beware – my love of California reds keeps growing but Jay also brought a specific surprise I’ll get to which blew us away.

RAUL PEREZ 2010 MUTI ALBARINO – Jay’s first contrib. This spectacular Albarino based white from Spanish winemaker Raul Perez rivals the complexity of your best white Burgundy. Creamy melon flavors with a touch of lees and an extremely smooth mouthfeel is enhanced by slight touches of both flintiness and salinity that act as subtle spices to the wine, not dominant flavors. Truly a terroirist wine lover’s dream, you can actually tell it came from someplace. Literally matched every dish I touched it with.

COS 2014 RAMI – Ordered off of the list. This lovely biodynamic Italian white wine is made from indiginous Greciano and Insolia. Very floral, much more so than the Albarino, with similar melon flavors and a nice smooth mouthfeel. Unfortunately for it, it was standing in the shadow fo the Raul Perez the entire night.

CRAGGY RANGE 2006 SOPHIA – A New Zealand Bordeaux blend of 85% Merlot, 4% Sauv and 11% Cab Franc. Jay’s second contribution was absolutely stunning. In no way shape or form did any of us ever peg this for anything less than a Bordeaux from France via the nose, which is quite an accomplishment. Full of red fruit, oak and cedar. On the palate, classic Bordeaux flavors of ripe cherry, tobacco and cedar give way to a tell-tale smooth mouthfeel and acidity I typically associate with NZ Chardonnay that gives away that this is New World. If you’ve had a NZ Chardonnay, Pinot Gris or Gewurztraminer before you know what I am referring to. Regardless, this is an incredible accomplishment for a new world wine.

CAMPESINO 2014 “Las Madres” SYRAH – This was Bernie’s contrib, a more restrained wine specifically chosen to please Jay’s palate due to his aversion to “fruit bombs.” (Pfft to that, I’m with Bernie and Jay Hack!) A Syrah from the Las Madres Vineyard in Los Carneros. True to his word, this was a beautiful smooth Syrah that pulled back on the typical Cali fruit bomb aspects and was much more elegant and restrained, despite still being very full-bodied. I believe this restraint comes from using only 1/3 new oak in the maturation process. Fully forward blackberry and black raspberry flavors complemented by low tannins, typical but subtle black pepper spice on the finish and a smooth but full body. This is a Cali red for French wine drinkers, honestly. I do seriously enjoy power bombs like the Milk & Honey Tempranillo that Bernie brought last time but this wine is also beautiful and does make me see Jay’s POV on proper restraint in a wine. It has all that I love about Cali wine but dials it back nicely.

PATRICIUS 2000 TOKAJI 5 PUTTONYOS – This well aged Tokaji is just starting to brown ever so slightly from maderization but is still a strong golden yellow, indicating it’s in a perfect place to me as secondary characteristics are going to be prevalent. Indeed, this is all sweet fruity apricot for the majority of the rich full body, but a nice seam of acidity along with some caramel tofee and slight tobacco leaf on the finish enriches it. Noticeably missing botrytis glycerin tingle but honestly that would have been icing on the cake for this wine and did not distract with its absence. This is a good Tokaji from a lesser known producer but I must also say that I would rank some others I have had, particulary from Dereszla and Royal, quite a bit higher. Still, a very good finish to the meal.

Now on to the fabulous food. We began with a housemade multigrain bread and truffled butter before moving on to a trio of amouse-bouches: a beet sphere with an egg yolk-like consistency topped with cheese; an octopus croquette; and a corn custard pot de crème.

The first course was sea urchin mousse topped with Northern Divine caviar and crispy bacon. This was followed by fresh Hamachi sashimi topped with herbs and an herb vinaigrette.

Next came a grilled diver scallop course with foie gras sauce and a vegetable medley.

After this came the dish we all raved about as the absolute four-star dish of the evening, a lobster gnocchi with truffle cream sauce and mushroom ragu. Oh man, this was so good. Incredibly rich dish.

Next was a halibut course with cauliflower coulis. The guys felt this was a tad overdone and a bit dry but I tend to have more sympathy when it comes to serving halibut. It’s a tender fish that will literally continue cooking itself after you pull it off of the pan our out of the oven and dry itself out as you wait to serve it. I enjoyed this despite. Personally I think restaurants should stay away from halibut in general and serve a fattier fish on their menus.

The last main was an astonishing fermented and dry-aged sous-vide ribeye. This was an incredible main dish and it had the texture of butter. In fact, this was so well-made that it seemed more like ribeye flavored butter than actual meat. I loved this. Jay had a salmon dish in place of the red meat.

The intermezze before dessert was a palate cleanser of licorice yogurt sorbet and pink grapefruit granite. The sorbet had more of an ice cream texture than sorbet like icy mouthfeel thanks to the thick Greek yogurt used to make it and the granite was a refreshing complement.

The final dessert course was a Japanese cheesecake served with white chocolate matcha mousse. Chef Singh joined us for dessert and Tokaji and informed us that Japanese cheesecake, unlike the North American version, is aerated with nitrous oxide and lightened even further with whipped egg white meringue which gives it a very light and airy texture compared to the dense New York style most North Americans are familiar with. Chef Singh told us he first studied and graduated from Ontario before perfecting his craft around the world including previous stints at Per Se in New York and The Fat Duck in the UK.

Our ending mignardise was a blood orange marshmallow topped with a milk chocolate disk.

This was a fantastic tasting menu and an amazing first-ever experience at BOSK. The TWEC ™ and our special guests Mac and Bernie are grateful to chef de cuisine Richard Singh and his staff as well as the waitstaff at BOSK. We shall return!