If it’s Thursday, it must be Edmonton – and look over there: the Gold Medal Plates touring team is standing in Edmonton airport by the special carousel for large and fragile items. Jim Cuddy, Barnie Bentall and Alan Doyle of Great Big Sea are waiting for various guitar cases (Anne Lindsay already has her violin case slung onto her back). David Lawrason and I are looking at eight huge and heavy boxes of very fine wines destined for the silent auction. All of us are looking forward to an evening of fun and games in the friendly but always spectacular confines of the Shaw Conference Centre. Gold Medal Plates has a special place in this city’s heart and the crowd of 730 highly enthusiastic connoisseurs were totally involved in the proceedings. Marnie McBean was our MC, chatting on stage with dozens of inspiring Olympian and Paralympian athletes before handing over to the fast-talking local auctioneer and then the musicians. Energy levels were through the roof!
Some of us were in town to work, however. Our roster of judges performed as valiantly as ever. A huge thank you to Senior Judge, Chef Instructor Clayton Folkers; wine, food and travel writer, Mary Bailey; gastronomic consultant and educator, Gail Hall; food writer and style guru Liane Faulder; chef and gastronome Chris Wood; and last year’s Edmonton GMP champion, chef Andrew Fung (who provided an awesome take on Scotch eggs for the VIP reception – miniature pucks of beautifully seasoned duck sausage topped by a slice of hard boiled quail egg over a tangy slaw).
The quality and imagination of the dishes the chefs offer in Edmonton has grown with every passing year. Last night, with five out of ten of our competitors new to the show, the city once again surpassed itself. The scores were very close between the top four. Taking the bronze medal was Paul Campbell of Café de Ville who worked with Alberta lamb shoulder, braising the meat for eight hours in duck fat then forking it apart, adding basil and rosemary then rolling it in bacon before slow-baking it again. It ended up as a savoury, lamby, densely textured drum folded in the bacon, set over an incredibly smooth, velvety parsnip purée. Perfect little sage and porcini gnocchi hid under a porcini crisp (if Chef Campbell ever decided to mass-produce and market those chips he would be a millionaire) and the sauce was a rich glace de viande reduced from lamb, chicken and beef stocks. The wine match was one of the evening’s most successful – a bold red called Night, vintage 2007, from Ex Nihilo winery in the Okanagan.
Our silver medallist was Deependra Singh from Guru Restaurant & Bar. South Asian cuisine has taken Edmonton by storm in recent years and the quality of the restaurants is very high – perhaps the best in the country. Chef Singh presented a trio of delights on his plate, starting with a juicy, tender prawn dusted with a subtle clove-and-cardamom garam masala spice mix then lightly battered in chickpea batter and swiftly fried. Beside that was a tiny skewer of exceptionally tender beef tenderloin and sweet pepper, invisibly spiced but beautifully judged so that a tongue-tingling heat slowly grew on the palate. The third element was a bulging little purse of crisp, unexpectedly light pastry, dyed green with spinach, that held gorgeous, finely chopped butter chicken, set in a pool of rich, buttery, tangy makhni sauce. The judges admired the distinct variety and deft levels of spicing, the several textures, the fact that the butter chicken “potli” was served hot. Chef Singh paired his dish with a 2008 Pinot Rosé from Little Straw Vineyards in the Okanagan, a merry mouthful of off-dry fruit that made its own contribution to the experience.
Our gold medallist was a chef who has competed at Gold Medal Plates several times in the past and always impressed. Last night he aced it – Jan Trittenbach from Packrat Louie. Meat was front and centre on his dish. He began by braising beef chuck flat in red wine for four hours until the meat was so tender and juicy it could be pulled apart at the touch of a fork. Then he used this beef as a filling for a rolled venison tenderloin, cooked for an hour sous vide to leave it deep crimson and delectably moist and tender. Small purple pools of blackberry gastrique and beet purée were perfect condiments as were tiny mounds of shaved purple and green cauliflower, a refreshing watercress salad in a lemon vinaigrette and a fried sage leaf. The other major presence on the plate was a super little canoli – as crisp as could be – filled with a rich cream of smoked goat cheese and berries with a hint of dark chocolate. It was a bold idea, serving the main course alongside the dessert, as one judge opined, but it worked! So did the wine match – a very small production of 2007 Private Reserve Syrah from Peller Estates in the Okanagan, a wine that reached out to the berries and chocolate but had the structure to flatter the heavenly venison.
So we have another worthy champion to send to Kelowna in February for the Canadian Culinary Championship! Tonight, Vancouver awaits…
And now, as an added bonus for diligent readers who have got this far, here is the wine report from Gold Medal Plates National Wine Advisor, David Lawrason:
Edmonton 2011 Wine Report – Night of the Big B.C. Reds
The three-cities-in-three days western leg of Gold Medal Plates touched down at the massive, terraced Shaw Centre in Edmonton, in a city that came out to play, and drink some great red wines. In the previous three cities the chefs had overwhelmingly gone for white wines and brews, but in Edmonton it seems any season is red wine season.
For the Best of Show Wine Award I was joined by two local pillars of the wine community. Gurvinder Bhatia is a wine columnist for The Edmonton Journal, a Canadian Wine Awards judge and manager of Vinomania, leading Edmonton wnie shop. William Bincoletto is another wine institution in Edmonton, the chief wine consultant at Vines Wine Merchant (a long time supporter of Gold Medal Plates) and instructor of the Independent Wine Education Guild programs in the city.
The winner was a shoe-in with two first place votes and a second place vote: the beautifully constructed, firm and cellar worthy Le Vieux Pin 2007 Merlot from B.C.’s Okanagan Valley. Second place went to new, creative and very successful layered and fine Road 13 2009 Merlot Syrah. Third spot went to another iconic B.C. red: Laughing Stock’s 2008 Portfolio – the second time this complex, layered and reserved cellaring red has shown up in the winner’s circle this year.
There were actually many good wines in the room this night – my point spreads were not that far apart. The winning wine wine paired with Gold Medal Chef was Peller Estates 2007 Private Reserve Syrah. Other red candidates included Le Vieux Pin 2008 Pinot Noir, Le Vieux Pin 2008 P’tit Rouge, ExNihilo 2007 Night, Township 7 2007 Merlot, Lake Breeze 2007 Seven Poplars Pinot Noir. Other seelctions included the racy Little Straw 2010 Pinot Rose, La Stella 2010 Leggerio Unoaked Chardonnay and Sumac Ridge Steller’s Jay Brut.