Soif food and wine matched dinner mar9 [General]

2016 Mar 9
With the cancellation I end up taking a reservation myself and asked to seat at the bar. Here is the menu

2016 Mar 9
Fried Turnip, parsley salad, aioli, zatar. With an Austrian sparking wine..

It is fine but I could not taste the zaatar

2016 Mar 9
Smoked mackerel with spicy crawfish hollandaise sauce.

2 whites an alsace one and a Chilean and surprising for me I really like the Muscat Viejas Tinajas 2014 from de Martino and I like very few whites these days.

The muscat was aged in 100 year old amphoras / clay urns, like how they made wines centuries ago

2016 Mar 9
House made toulouse sausage with grilled cress lentils and bacon.

Again 2 reds an gringo lino d"Asti from piedmont and I liked the Cotes de Province Tiburon 2014 Clos Cibonne.

The toulouse sausage was excellent and I asked if they made cassoulet. Unfortunately they did it specially for this dinner

2016 Mar 9
Maple tart with blue cheese and iced cider.

I forgot the name of that blue cheese but it was really good.

2016 Mar 10
Before dessert I tried a tasting glass of Cinsault Viejas Tinajas from de Martino. Surprisingly I liked the rare white Chilean Muscat more than the red Cinsault.

2016 Mar 10
Overall, my favourite wines of the night were
* Muscat Viejas Tinajas 2014 from de Martino
* Cotes de Province Tiburon 2014 Clos Cibonne
Both were very tasty and worked well with the food they were paired with.

I really liked the house made Toulouse sausage, the house smoked Mackerel and the blue cheese.

The breakdown of the wine dinner was $45 for the food (4 courses rather than the description of 5 courses on website) and $40 for the 6 tasting glasses of wine. With additional tasting 2oz glass of wine and a coffee, it came to $108 plus tip.

I am glad I did it since I really like Soif the wine bar and talked a little with Veronique Rivest at the bar when she was pouring wine for myself once and a couple of times for the people next to me. They were just doing wine tasting off the wine menu and Veronique is very knowledgeable and there are some unusual offerings. But I am not sure a blind tasting menu would suit everyone or even me all the time. At that price point, I would probably like to know in broad strokes what I will be eating and drinking beforehand lol The tasting menu as well as their normal small plates menu were offered to people there for casual wine tasting at the bar but the restaurant/ tables were fully booked with people for the food and wine matched dinner.

I would definitely go back again for the frequently changing wine selection and the food either for lunch or small plates in the evenings.

If there is another similar event, I might just try to make a reservation for the bar for some wine tasting or just show up (maybe early lol) and then decide if I would get a few small plates or go for the wine and food dinner after seeing the menu.

2016 Mar 10
I think the blue cheese was Fleuron

2016 Mar 10
Nice photos:) The turnip fries plate looks beautiful, pie looks yummy too:)

2016 Mar 10
The turnip was tasty but I expected it to pop more when I saw the zatar since I had that za'atar steak from Chef's plate which I liked..

2016 Mar 10
i was going to say it looks like fleuron. one of my favourite cheeses.

2016 Mar 11
Yeah it was very tasty. I also had some blue benedictine at a wine tasting not long ago and that was nice too.