Culinaire, Victoria's Premier Annual Food Tasting Experience

[VicHockeyFan]

Welcome to Culinaire, Victoria's Premier Food Tasting Experience.

On Thursday April 22, 2010, join us at The Crystal Garden for Culinaire, where our regions best restaurants and purveyors of fine food will be showcasing their signature items and inspired creations just for you to try. A tantalizing array of bite size offerings from the area's best chefs and specialty food producers will be available for you to sample.

Culinaire will be your opportunity to try new foods and restaurants you were not familiar with before, as well you will likely rediscover an old favorite or two. You will learn the chefs and purveyors background, their food concepts, and if you are lucky they may even share with you a few ingredients that make their food taste so good.

http://culinairevictoria.com/

[julienne]

Is this the reincarnation of Taste, the event from last year with the similar mandate?

[VicHockeyFan]

Originally Posted by julienne

Is this the reincarnation of Taste, the event from last year with the similar mandate?

Not sure.

[julienne]

Or the reconfiguration of Dine Around?

[VicHockeyFan]

Originally Posted by julienne

Or the reconfiguration of Dine Around?

No, Dine Around still happens.

[VicHockeyFan]

Originally Posted by julienne

Or the reconfiguration of Dine Around?

http://www.tourismvictoria.com/dinearound

[VicHockeyFan]

Last check there were only about 50 tickets left for this. If you are going, I guess get them now. It's only $20.

[VicHockeyFan]

Got a last-minute ticket for Culinaire this last Thursday.

It really was awesome, very well done. It was as much a social scene as anything else, like beerfest is.

[Matt R.]

Taste Victoria is run by another person, Kathy McAree and is the metamorphosis of the Victoria Wine Festival. It is in fact a much larger, multi-day/venue location. We will be at the 'Main Event' on July 21, and are also hosting one of the featured events, a dinner in the field at Vantreight Farms on July 24, over looking James Island where we are bringing our kitchen and crew to serve the 60 guests, family style, in the field on their farm. We are very fortunate to be involved in this capacity, as events like this come up almost never in Victoria, and it's sure to be a fantastic evening of food and drink. You won't find a better place to be on a sunny summer evening.

This was Culinaire's second year, and it was wildly successful. It sold out, approximately 1500 tickets, which is much larger than last year, and much larger than Taste or Feast of Fields, or Defending Our Backyard, the other three major food festivals in the city.

I suspect Taste will increase their ticket sales to match this year, now that it's been proven that the facility can handle it. Scott Gurney was very smart about this event, running it with two 'seatings' to allow vendors to reset, building staff to clean bathrooms, etc. Scott is the GM of Darcy's Pub, and you can really see that he's got a high level of education and experience - a real pleasure to work with. The staff at the Crystal Gardens were also wonderful, and from my vantage point the event ran very smoothly.

We were thoroughly impressed with the turnout and overall vibe in the room. You could really tell that everyone was out just to have a great time, and I am sure everyone left happy. We were extremely popular, with elbow room only around our table almost the entire night and went through approx. 1300 portions, but we cheated a little as we brought a bite and a cocktail for the price of one which was sure to be a hit. Having such a wide range of vendors was good to see, from mid to high end, coffee to cider, wholesaler to producer. Pretty unique.

Thanks to all who came out to support the local scene, it's appreciated.

Matt.

[Bernard]

We went and met up with some friends there. The event is like speed dating between foodies and restaurants.

Stand Outs:
Marina Restaurant - deep fried crab in a way that was like a perfect little savory donught - the cocktail was amazing, chocolate bitters, what a concept
Lure - A perfectly done terrine
Copper Rock Grill
Swan's - because of the portion size the decent pull of beer you got
A prawn wrapped in ribbons of phylo pastry and deep fried, I can not remember who did this.
There was also a wonderful braised lamb on lentils that I can not remember who did it.

Down Sides
At two of the places the food was so bad I had to spit it out. One of them should have seen the dish was badly cooked and thrown it out and had an empty table instead offering crap. The other one I do not think could have been rescued.
There was also WAY too much pulled pork and/or sliders and almost all of them done badly - if I can do a lot better in my home oven, you should not be serving the dish to the public
Here is my take on the whole evening.

[Matt R.]

I think it was Aura who had the phyllo wrapped prawns, they looked amazing - we were too busy to sample much, but what I did try was great.

Vic's steakhouse, next to us, had a braised lamb on lentils that was indeed excellent. Perhaps there was another, similar dish.

The point of these events, from a vendors point of view, is to allow guests to put a face to a name, and to showcase what it is you do at your business. I am a believer in 'less is more' and that taking time to purchase the best ingredients you can is time well spent. This philosophy is reflected on my menus and plates every day. You won't find elaborate garnishes on fancy platters, but you will find the best ingredients we can source, handled as little as possible, prepared with care.

Our offering was a simple dungeness crab beignet, with great free range eggs in the batter and hand picked, fresh local dungeness crab produced by our good friend Tim Webster of Crabco in James Bay, served with a traditional (no added pectin) Seville orange marmalade made by me the night before, with some orange thyme from my garden. Both crab and Seville oranges are at their peak this time of year, and they pair wonderfully together so it made lots of sense to me. Simple execution - cooked from raw on site in double deep fryers - made all the difference. Our presentation was simple - spoon, jam, doughnut, cocktail.

Brooke and I collaborated on the cocktail in the days and weeks prior to the event, refining as we went. Tough work! Sherry, especially the white sherry we offered, is perhaps under appreciated, and given the Spanish connection between sherry and Seville oranges, made a good starting point. Seville oranges were soaked with tequila blanco, pairing with the bitterness in the marmalade, with white vermouth added to moderate the alcohol content and round out the flavours. Mole bitters, brought back from Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans last year by Brooke, was the genius addition that surprised many people. Fresh orange juice and a simple star anise and vanilla syrup brought a little more sweetness and earthiness to the cocktail and finished it off. Brooke was the manager at Matisse for many years before joining the team at the Marina, and he's raised the bar at the bar, so to speak, by leaps and bounds. His knowledge of wine and spirits is matched by only a handful of others in the city, and like the white sherry is perhaps under appreciated.

While neither of these items are on the regular menu at the Marina, they both certainly illustrate the attention to detail and thoughtful care for ingredients we strive for every day and I think the pairing of orange, crab and sherry was bang on.

Thanks for stopping to check us out!

Matt.

[Bernard]

Thanks for the names I forgot - I will add them to my blog posting and go eat at each one.

What would be helpful would some sort of map/booklet for all the restaurants and space to make notes. There was so much there and so many to see that it meant by the end of the night I had trouble remembering them all. We debriefed on the way but had already forgotten some of the names.

So how does one make those crab things?

[Matt R.]

It was a simple batter of choux paste (water, butter, flour, eggs) with hand picked crab folded in to it with some salt, pepper and parsley and then dropped from a spoon in to the deep fryer.

Matt.

[Bernard]

Originally Posted by Matt R.

It was a simple batter of choux paste (water, butter, flour, eggs) with hand picked crab folded in to it with some salt, pepper and parsley and then dropped from a spoon in to the deep fryer.

Matt.

That sounds easy enough to do, my wife often makes choux pastry, and so does my 10 year old.

[LJ]

I often chew pastry.

[Matt R.]

Originally Posted by VicHockeyFan

Got a last-minute ticket for Culinaire this last Thursday.

It really was awesome, very well done. It was as much a social scene as anything else, like beerfest is.

Dear VicHockeyFan,

I understand we have a mutual acquaintance, probably more than just the one! Next time be sure to introduce yourself. Any friend of Heather's is a friend of mine!!

Glad you enjoyed yourself at Culinaire!

Matt.

[Bob Fugger]

Originally Posted by Matt R.

Dear VicHockeyFan,

I understand we have a mutual acquaintance, probably more than just the one! Next time be sure to introduce yourself. Any friend of Heather's is a friend of mine!!

Glad you enjoyed yourself at Culinaire!

Matt.

You doing it again this year? We'll be there this year.

[Matt R.]

Indeed we are! I understand he's just about sold out at 1800 tickets, that's a big crowd.

I see in the contract paperwork this year there's an allowance specifically for deep fryers and that any mess left behind is leaves the exhibitor subject to an extra cleaning fee.

Matt.

[Bob Fugger]

Originally Posted by Matt R.

Indeed we are! I understand he's just about sold out at 1800 tickets, that's a big crowd.

I see in the contract paperwork this year there's an allowance specifically for deep fryers and that any mess left behind is leaves the exhibitor subject to an extra cleaning fee.

Matt.

HAHAHA - and what exactly are you implying?? I'll have you know that we only have one deep fryer and our menu reflects that!

[Matt R.]

There were a couple people with deep fryers last year, but we had more than one ... and I think we may have left some presents behind!

Not sure what to do this year, any suggestions?

Matt.

[Bob Fugger]

Hard to think of what will resonate this year - street food, fusion, etc., is kinda so 2011...otherwise I'd say chopped liver burritos? Oh wait, Epstein only died about a week ago, so too soon. Also, no sous vide.

Maybe some kind of ceviche? Bacon candy? Definitely something scaleable so everyone can have a nosh. Not sure what Chef "Top" Jimmy has in mind on our end.

[Matt R.]

It's all about the pairing. We nailed it at Culinaire last year, and aim to do the same this year.

Matt.