Tasting Tofino

In the photos: Entrance to the main tasting event; oyster guy, Brent Petkau; Lisa Ahier of Soba. Photos by Jane Mundy.

REGIONAL REPORT - TOFINO

Better late than never? Jane Mundy recaps the recent wine and food festival in Tofino. We gather she had a shuckin' good time.


Fifth Annual Tofino Food & Wine Festival

Tofino never looked nor tasted so good as it did May 31 to June 3 during the 5th Annual Food & Wine Festival. Of course the weather was the feather in the Tofino Botanical Gardens’ cap.

Saturday’s main event got a kick start the night before at Long Beach Lodge (this writer’s favourite place in Tofino) where new executive chef Jeffrey Young and his brigade served delicious seafood canapés, as well as oysters from celebrity oyster guy Brent Petkau -- and all of it accompanied with wine tastings from Hester Creek Estate winery. Of course the backdrop from the Lodge’s Great Room couldn’t have been better —waves crashing onto pristine Cox Bay Lodge, another picturesque sunset …

CONTINUE READING ...



Filed in Regional/Vancouver Island

TODAY'S PRESS RELEASES


It's All Going on at Hainle.


You know you are in trouble when you log onto a website and tinkling piano music pours out of it.

That of Hainle winery/Trepanier Manor's is more like a Hallmark card than most, but the real challenge is getting a leg over everything going on over there. What was once a family-style organic winery has definitely gone Mom and Pop Wins the Lottery upscale.

There's rock-jawed CEO types and their trophy wives enjoying the new Gothic-styled Vine-yard Dining Room. Retirees from Alberta taking cooking classes at the winery and then settling down for a spot of high tea on the veranda. Lots of information about vineyard tours, wine tasting soirees, and spend a day as a chef programs, and last but not least .... Talk of a yee old English Manor that will arise between the vines at the associated Trepanier Manor Resort this summer.

Perhaps Scott Wilshaw says it all in the Trepanier video ... but most interestingly he also pronounces Okanagan in a way we've never heard before, with the third syllable given a hard "A", like the term for an old horse - "NAG".



Meanwhile over in Victoria .... Jack Returns to Bear Mtn.



_________________________________________________________


THE MEDIA HOUND
More Local Ink Flowing into the Media Room

Yeesh, you'd think the way the Province buries the online link to Mark Laba's restaurant column that they didn't want anyone to read him. But here he is reviewing the Punjabi restaurant co-owned by the Grewal brothers (Iqbal and Jazz). Did you know they had one? It's called Desi Junction and it's located in Delta.

Andrew Morrison discovers the Brazilian churrascaria at Samba. But too bad he was experiencing it in BC. Otherwise, he could have also indulged in those little rolling caipirinha stations that the bartenders push around the buffet rooms like so many dim sum trolleys. If you've never overdone it with too many caipirinhas in combination with an obscene amount of red meat, you don't really know the true meaning of regret.

Lots more updates in the Media room today, including reviews from Tim Pawsey, Angela Murrills, Jurgen Gothe, Deana Lancaster, James Nevison, Carolyn Ali, etc.

Filed in MEDIA

_______________________________________________________

PLACES:

1) Players Chophouse & Lounge - Restaurant, Yaletown, Vancouver
2) Flo Tea Room - Restaurant, Marpole, Vancouver
3) So.Cial at Le Magasin - Restaurant, Gastown, Vancouver
4) Salt Tasting Room - Restaurant, Gastown, Vancouver
5) Oswego Hotel - Hotel, Victoria

THINGS:

1) Evian Palace Bottle for restaurants
2) chocolate sculptures
3) Best wines of 2006
4) West Vancouver cooking classes
5) Iberico ham in Canada

MOST INEXPLICABLE CONNECTION:

Why can't pigs be butchered in Saskatchewan?

NUMBER OF COUNTRIES LOOKING IN: 117 LATEST FLAGS: Ghana, U.S. Virgin Islands