San Francisco Treats
On Saturday, March 26, Michael Mina is making food for a wine-pairing class at Bell Harbor conference center. Yup, you read that right.
Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Mar 07, 2011 at 12:44PM
Michael Mina cooks wine friendly fare at Taste Washington’s seminar series on Saturday, March 26.
Photo courtesy michaelmina.net
Taste Washington takes place on March 26 and 27 with seminars on Saturday at Bell Harbor convention center and the Grand Tasting event Sunday at Qwest Field.
Among the seminars this year: a food and wine pairing class with his famousness Michael Mina. Originally from Ellensburg, Washington, Mina is planning a Seattle version of his San Francisco wine bar RN74, scheduled to open this Spring at Fourth and Pike downtown.
That will be his 19th restaurant, by my count, and yet he has found the time to come cook several dishes for the Taste seminar. Bruce Schoenfeld of Travel and Leisure magazine will lead a panel of sommeliers (Canlis’s Nelson Daquip and three Michael Mina soms) to determine which wines pair best with which dishes, and why.
Your job is to eat and drink alongside them and see if you agree with their picks. I can’t help thinking this sounds like the best Taste Washington seminar ever. The class costs $50, reserve here.
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Taste Washington 2011
Get piggy with it on February 20.
Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Jan 24, 2011 at 01:32PM
Pork lovers go crazy at Cochon 555.
Every year, the Cochon 555 hog fest rolls into Seattle. There are 10 stops total, it seems the pig tour is skipping Portland this time. That’s no surprise after last year, when—paging Fred Armisen —Cochon’s founder wound up in a street brawl with a McMinnville chef.
The chef was upset that one of the pigs cooked that day had been raised in Iowa.
Moving on. At each event, five chefs have their way with, by which I mean prepare dishes using, one 150-pound heritage hog. The dishes are paired with wines from five different winemakers.
This year’s list of chefs is pretty great, I must say. It’s Lark’s Johnathan Sundstrom, Holly Smith of Cafe Juanita, Rachel Yang from Joule and Revel, Ethan Stowell from Staple and Fancy, and Jason Stratton of Spinasse.
Wineries include Syncline, Elk Cove Vineyards, K Vinters, and Scott Paul.
Cochon 555 tickets cost $125 for general admission (begins at 5pm) and $175 for VIP (begins at 3:30pm).
The event takes place at the Westin Hotel on February 20.
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Pigs,
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Seattle Chefs
The Ballard restaurant holds its 24th annual dinner on January 28, 2011. Reserve now.
Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Jan 07, 2011 at 01:20PM
Ray’s showcases top-scoring Northwest wines on January 28.
This week I had the opportunity to participate in Ray’s annual retrospective of Northwest wines. For two days, the boathouse is full of sommeliers, wine shop owners, and writers all tasting through hundreds of Northwest wines and evaluating them based on nose, palate, and finish. (Once the winners are announced I’ll write about my findings—we tasted the wines blind, but at the end the staff gave us a key and a copy of our notes.)
Anyway on Friday, January 28 at 6:30pm, Ray’s is holding a dinner featuring the top-scoring wines, and the winning winemakers will be there. It’s a multi-course meal created by executive chef Peter Birk to pair with the wines, and it costs $75. Seems like a good opportunity to taste wines that are pouring really well right now, and meet the people who make them. You know, if you’re into that sort of thing.
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Dept of WooHoo
Food’s pretty good, too.
Posted by: Kathryn Robinson on May 04, 2010 at 01:30PM
So harmonic convergence time: The Local Vine has picked up top honors from Luxist readers as Best Wine Bar in the USA.
And the lauded wine bar’s high-rise apartment building landed on the front page of The Seattle Times today. Riddled with defects, the whole building will be razed next month. Which makes TLV one of the many tenants forced to move. (This, after being wrapped in scaffolding for months. Sheesh.) This it will do, by fall, to a spot (formerly held by the now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t joint Pizza Fusion, which lasted four months) in the Pike-Pine Triangle of Capitol Hill.
Here’s some of what Luxist said about TLV: “Founded in 2007 by Harvard Business School graduates Allison Nelson and Sarah Munson, The Local Vine boasts both an air of sleek sophistication and a refreshing accessibility. Free wireless internet, down-to-earth advice on wine, and a casual atmosphere complete with a fully functional fireplace make it more like a coffee house than a strict wine bar.”
It goes on to discuss TLV’s auspicious bottle selection, its monthly wine clubs, its shipping program, even its heavy wooden doors. But no mention of its food! So I guess we’ll have to tell you: Duck fat frites. White truffled popcorn. French cut lamb lollipops. Fried goat cheese. Plenty of charcuterie. Higher ambitions than you might expect from a wine bar—without a whiff of pretension.
In short: the food at TLV has always been better than it had to be, with fresh and local and very intentional preparations thoughtfully conceived to go with the wine. And created by none other than chef Jason Wilson of Crush, who, in the final harmonic convergence of the day, also finds himself in the news this morning.
The young buck picked up a James Beard Award for best chef in the Northwest.
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