winederlust

Restaurants: Sooke Harbour House: Canadian food fresh from the garden

Sooke, Vancouver Island / September 4, 2009 / dinner

Winederlust Rating (details below): 9.0 out of 10 / Winderlust Worthy: Yes

The view from the back patio onto Sooke Harbour.

In preparation for the Winederlust trip to Victoria/Vancouver/the Okanagan Valley in a few weeks, I’m doing an anniversary blog post on our trip last September to Sooke Harbour House on Vancouver Island, widely regarded as one of Canada’s best restaurants.

After our European culinary extravaganza last July for our 10^th anniversary, we could hardly bare to eat out for a while, even at our beloved restaurants in NYC. But after lots of gym-going and light eating, our stomachs had sufficiently recovered to let my parents treat us to an anniversary dinner at Sooke Harbour, about an hour’s drive west of Victoria, where they live.

The Sooke Harbour House is in a beautiful location right on the water on the romantically named Whiffen Spit Beach, and we sat next to the large windows to better appreciate the view. (In fact, while we were eating, a family of otters appeared almost right outside our windows, investigating the sculptures out there.)

Before dinner, the sommelier took us down to the wine cellar to check out his wares. He had a large selection of wines from around the world -- 15,000 bottles, in fact -- with British Columbia more than adequately represented.

Vincent showed us around the Sooke Harbour House wine cellar.

We opted for the tasting menu with all-Canadian wine pairings. Sooke Harbour is known for growing most of its ingredients on the property and obtaining the rest from places nearby, making everything extremely seasonal and fresh – in fact, the menu changes every day.

We started with the Spiced Roasted Carrot Soup, garnished with a couscous and smoked salmon phyllo bundle, geranium seed oil, toasted walnuts, and minted green fennel seed yogurt – tangy upfront and turning flowery with the last bites. The soup was paired with a Blue Mountain Brut from the Okanagan Valley, a Pinot Noir/Chardonnay/Pinot Gris blend that tasted of sparkly apple juice.

Spiced roasted carrot soup.

Blue Mountain Brut

The next dish was the Prophyra Crusted Weathervane Scallop in a dashi broth with braised watermelon radish, romano beans, shallot, squid, herring roe, and a mild chili tamari oil. The scallop was nice and tender and the vegetables delicate, though the flavor of the sauce was a little overpowering. It was served with a garden salad with chanterelle mushrooms, hazelnuts, and tamari balls. These dishes were paired with the 2008 Joie Noble Blend from the Okanagan Valley, a blend of Gewurtztraminer, Kerner, Pinot Gris,  Pinot Blanc, and Hhrenfelser that sounds a little crazy, but had a refreshing peachy taste.

  Prophyra crusted weathervane scallop.

Garden salad with chanterelles and hazelnuts.

Joie Noble Blend.

The third dish was the Seared Smoked Sablefish garnished with a tomato and basil flower salad, Hilary's St. Clair cow's milk cheese from the nearby Cowachan Valley, chickweed horseradish sour cream, and nasturtium oil. The fish was delicious (though I'm also a sucker for any smoked fish) and the accompaniments good matches, except perhaps for the cheese, which didn't blend so well with the rest of the dish. It was paired with a 2008 Fairview Cellars Sauvignon Blanc from the Okanagan, bright and mineral with sulphur on the nose and a taste of pineapples.

Seared smoked sablefish.

Next came my main course, the Roasted Big Eye Rockfish served in a miso lemon-verbena emulsion on chanterelle mushrooms and potato phyllo terrine with sautéed kale and Red Ace beets. The monkfish had a nice meaty texture and wasn't too fishy, while the sauce added a pleasant tangy note. It was served with a 2006 Averill Creek Pinot Gris from the Cowichan Valley on Vancouver Island. We thought this wine was only ok, maybe a bit too mild-tasting to do much for the heavy fish.

 
Roasted big eye rockfish.

Averill Creek Pinot Gris.

I also started itching to try some red wines, so I asked if they could pour a red that might work with the fish instead. Our server brought over a 2007 Blue Mountain Gamay Noir from the Okanagan, a delicious biodynamic wine that tasted of red cherries.

Blue Mountain Gamay Noir. 

Jay had Slow-Braised Leg of Silverspray Lamb glazed with a Damson plum, purple basil, and sweet cicely root, with a lamb stock and port reduction served with sautéed corn, pepper, tomato, and barley on roasted pearl onions and Sonnleiten Farm's green beans. The lamb was very tender and the vegetable and plum combo worked really well. It was paired with a 2007 Herder Merlot from the Okanagan, which was our favorite wine yet – complex with flavors of cherry, chocolate, and vanilla.

Slow-braised leg of silverspray lamb.

Herder Merlot.

Though we were pretty full, we had to sample the plate of local artisan cheeses: Belle Ann goat cheese from Hilary's Cheese in Cowichan Valley; ash-ripened goat camembert from David Wood's Cheeses on Salt Spring Island; and Baby Blue and White Grace cow's milk cheeses from Moonstruck Cheese, also on Salt Spring. Though unfortunately I didn't take very good notes on the cheeses, we were enthralled by the wine pairing: a 2006 Venturi-Schulze Brandenberg No. 3, from just up the road in the Cowichan Valley. It was a blend of Madeleine and Sylvaner grapes and unlike anything we'd ever tasted – almost like a cross between a port and balsamic vinegar. It was so good and different that we picked up two bottles from a Vancouver wine shop to bring back to NYC.

Local artisan cheeses.

Venturi-Shulze Brandenberg No. 3.

Dessert was unfortunately the weakest part of the meal: a sort of Apricot Crepe Souffle, lavender crepes filled with apricot custard and poached apricots, broiled with apricot cream, and served with "tuberous begonia buttermilk ice cream." What it really was was a soupy mess. The wine it was served with wasn't much better: the 2006 Tugwell Creek Solstice Metheglin from Sooke (one of the restaurant's neighbors). It was apparently made from honey and tasted strangely like bubble gum, adding a much too sweet flavor on top of the already sweet dessert.

Apricot crepe souffle.

Tugwell Creek Soltice Metheglin.

We finished with petits fours, served on a slab of marble, which we were too full and drunk to appreciate properly. But they looked nice.

Petits fours.

Besides the unfortunate dessert, we really enjoyed our meal at Sooke Harbour House. It wasn't the best meal we'd ever had – the sauces and balance of flavors in some dishes were just a little bit off, and both Jay and I agreed that many of the dishes were overly complicated and the kitchen could have cut down on an ingredient or two. But everything was beautifully presented, and we definitely appreciated their commitment to using local, seasonal, and organic products. Combined with the beautiful views and interesting Canadian wines, it made for a very memorable meal.

- by Liz Humphreys, Winederlust Eater in Chief

Winederlust Rating Details (out of 10):

Food: 8.0 (preparation, presentation & taste)
Wine: 9.0 (selection, recommendations, pairings & taste)
Service: 9.0 (helpfulness, attentiveness, knowledge & pacing)
Place: 9.5 (location, view, decor & vibe)

Price Range: $$$ (Expensive)

Essential Information:

Sooke Harbour House / 1528 Whiffen Spit Rd., Sooke, British Columbia, Canada [map]

Direct Line: 1-800-889-9688 / 250-642-3421

Email: info@sookeharbourhouse.com

Website: http://www.sookeharbourhouse.com/

Wineries: O' Canadian Wine!

That's right. Canada has wine. Gallons of the stuff. And not just Inniskillin Ice Wine found at better boutique wine shops - like Duty Free at JFK. I'm talking some amazing Cabs, Pinots, Zweigelts, Merlots, and Blaufrankischs that rival the best of the US west, Germany and Austria.

Liz and I will be taking our annual pilgrimage to British Columbia in a couple of weeks to visit her family - they had the good sense of mind to move to Vancouver and Victoria far away from the frigid oil fields of Calgary. We'll be spending two days on Vancouver Island - visiting wineries up and down the west coast near Duncan, Salt Spring Island and Saturna Island. The latter half of the week we'll spend in the Okanagan Valley just four hours east of Vancouver and considered to be the Napa of the North. 

I've been talking to friends in the biz about becoming an importer of Canadian wines. I've got to figure out why there's no visibility to these great wines in the US. Nobody knows about them other than that darned Ice Wine. Try to find a bottle of Southbrook Vineyard's Poetica Label Cab-Merlot from Niagara-on-the-Lake or Venturi-Schulze's Brandenberg No.3 from Vancouver Island and you'll be quick out of luck. It will be a fact-finding mission to see (a) why aren't these world-class wineries selling in the states and (b) how can we get them into the restaurants and shops in NYC?

Does anyone have experience with Canadian wines or importing in general? Let's chat.

- J F Grossen, Chief Executive Oenophile

Wines we drink: Averill Creek 2005 Merlot & Chocolate Cheerios

If you haven't tried the new Chocolate Cheerios you are missing out on one of the great breakfast pleasures. Sure, they taste like Cocoa Pebbles or the delicious crunchy parts of Count Chocula. They must be healthier...and would you believe they work just as well with a nice merlot from Vancouver Island as they do with cold milk.

With one hand clenched full of those little chocolate delights I unscrewed a nice bottle that we picked up at winery near the town of Duncan on Vancouver Island, BC. There are quite a few new wineries up the eastern coast of the island. Averill Creek sits back from the main highway a bit off of a dusty pot-holed road. The winery is a modern structure with an amazing view of the valley floor below and Cowichan Bay in the backdrop. Andy Johnston followed his passions for the grape and built this winery nearly 10 years ago and makes some of the most luscious Pinot Noirs and Merlots on the island. This 2005 Merlot is smooth and round with hints of chocolate.....mmmmm....chocolate Cheerios!! Yes, I have to say that I think the wine worked with the cereal because they kind of taste alike.  - J F Grossen, Chief Executive Oenophile