Foodies,
Last night I went to one of the most unique restos in TO and certainly that I’ve ever been to in my life – Karelia Kitchen which specializes solely in Scandinavian cuisine.
During our meal, Zane Caplansky of the famous Caplansky’s Deli stopped by for dinner. A good sign of any restaurant is when other restauranteurs drop in for dinner. Then you know you’re doing something right.
We four friends and I chose to share several platters and do a family style meal. It was also BYOB night but my friends are not elitists like we are due to both means and wherewithall. Nothing wrong with that. We shared a couple of decent under $20 bottles and of course I brought a high-end dessert wine which I’ll get to at the end.
We shared appetizers first starting with a brie stuffed potato pancake topped with caramelized pears and a smoked salmon tartar with hard boiled quail eggs, hot Swedish mustard, and micro greens.
After these we had three substantial sharing platters. We started with the Herring platter with smoked herring and wine marinated herring.
Next came the Little Piggy Platter with smoked bacon, pork belly rilette topped with Port wine glaze, smoked pork loin, smoked hunter’s sausage, and homemade potato chips. There was a delicious mandarin orange marmalade and plum infused mustard on the side.
Then we had the Smokehouse Platter with lox, chicken breast, pork loin, rainbow trout, pickles and more marmalade.
To go with all this we had several different types of flatbreads, sauteed garlic rapini, cheddar cheese biscuits, and some absolutely amazing potato and herb dumplings as sides.
Desserts are a specialty of this place and we had three orders of white chocolate raspberry tart and one order each of blood orange curd tart topped with lingonberry glaze and a mini pumpkin cheesecake topped with blood orange glaze.
The wine theme we chose was wines picked up during our travels:
Eminence Road 2012 Seneca Lake Chardonnay – This very fresh Chardonnay was lees stirred, saw no malolactic, and was so fresh it was actually a bit frizzante. No filtering or fining done. While it was impossible to have the depth of a good steely French Chablis simply due to how young the Finger Lakes wine region is, the similarity in quality is certainly there. This is a wine made by people who care. Very well done. American Berserkers be proud of this little wine region. RECOMMENDED
Sterling 2012 Vintner’s Collection Cabernet Sauvignon – This Cab had us worried but turned out to be very fruity, a touch sweeter than dry but not quite off-dry, fresh, and thankfully very light on the tannins. Very much an easy-drinking Cabernet Sauvignon that was very good value for the money but more importantly was a great match with the smoked proteins we were indulging.
A perfectly competent wine that goes well with food and does not require any aging and can be drunk right now. We Berserkers often forget that this is the actual criteria 99% of wine consumers want satisfied when they buy a wine. This is not a collection wine, it’s a consumer wine and it does a very good job at being one.
Clos St. Denis 2008 Fine Pomme de Glace – This bottle of oak-aged ice cider is hand-signed and hand-numbered just to let your know this is their top of the line cider.
I’ve let this age a few years now and it’s paid off. The color is a dark amber, it smells of freshly baked apples, and gives an exquisite freshly baked tart apple taste with an undercurrent of vanilla and spices from the oak aging. Then a majorly serious hit of acid follows. An unctuous full body with a very smooth mouthfeel. The single best ice cider I have ever had. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
