Chateau Latour for Breakfast?

Well, sort of. Last month I attended the Pebble Beach Food & Wine event and was one of the fortunate few to sit through a tasting of 10 wines from Chateau Latour.

The tasting started at 10 a.m., which, as those oenophiles who read this column will attest to, is the best time to taste wine as your palate is at its freshest and cleanest. The wines — of course — were amazing, but I enjoyed them all the more for tasting them so early in the day. It is most common for people to open great red wines with dinner, once the palate has been numbed with cocktails and other wines.

So for the collectors among you, invite some friends over for a morning tasting. Your wines will taste a whole lot better!

When less really is more

I confess, I'm a sucker for great oysters. And when I see them on a menu I'll typically order some for the table to get a meal started. Everyone seems to have their own favorite way of dressing them — a little Tabasco, a little mignonette, a little grated horseradish. It's all part of the experience.

So why would anyone think of ruining perfectly good oysters by injecting them with mignonette to the point of exploding?

This what I experienced at a restaurant in Miami recently. Great anticipation, big letdown.

Don't get me wrong. Creativity is a great thing with food. But some things are best left untouched!

The 'Mexican' way to drink tequila.

On a recent trip to discover some of the best restaurants in Mexico City, I ate at Quintonil, a small, understated restaurant in Polanco. Chef/Owner Jorge Vallejo, formerly of Pujol, oversees the kitchen, and his food is nothing short of sensational.

However, before I had eaten a thing, I experienced tequila the way it should be consumed — with a shot of sangrita on the side.

Sangrita is a non-alcoholic concoction, blood red in color, which dates back to the 1920s in Jalisco. Traditionally it is made with Seville orange, lime and pomegranate juices with chili powder and hot sauce, though recently tomato juice has been added as an option. The two are sipped together as the sangrita cleanses the palate between each peppery sip of tequila.

On this occasion (and yes, someone has to do this!) we were drinking Don Julio 70.

The sides have it....

We all know creative sides are a great way to build your average check. But how often do you go to a restaurant where a side dish is SO good it becomes a talking point and reason you would return to that restaurant? This happened to me recently in San Francisco at Roka Akor.

The dish in question is innocently called sweet corn with butter and soy. The sweet corn is creatively cut in sticks, cooked sous vide with butter and sweet soy, grilled on the robata and topped with soy butter, togarashi and chives.

Everything else we ate was pretty amazing too, but we couldn't stop taking about this corn. And yes, I'd really go back there just for that dish!

I WAS amused!!

I am not a fan of the amuse bouche. When expertly prepared and served at the start of an appropriate menu, it serves a purpose. But for many years it started popping up everywhere — even at breakfast!

I recently enjoyed a magnificent multiple course dinner at Meadowood in Napa Valley, California. At the start of the meal, Chef Christopher Kostow sent to the table some baby organic vegetables that were grown on the property that had been soaked in Champagne overnight. 

They were crisp, extremely flavorful and set the tone for one of the most creative series of dishes I have eaten in years. Hurrah for thinking differently!

A perfect G and T

One of the many things that impresses me about a great restaurant is when it takes a simple experience and blows it up into something extraordinary.

Nota Bene is one of Toronto's best restaurants. Owner/partner Yannick Bigourdin has taken the simple gin and tonic and turned it into something exceptional. (I first saw this concept at Jaleo, Jose Andres' tapas restaurant in Washington, D.C.) 

At Nota Bene the menu offers multiple gins, multiple tonics and multiple methods of preparation. The one pictured is with Botanist gin from Scotland and Fever Tree tonic. The garnishes are juniper berries and dried hibiscus flowers, which add a tart note to the drink and impart some color when added.

A perfect start to a great meal.