This last weekend in the Okanagan we hit the foodie nirvana jackpot -- the Terrace at Mission Hill. It was the last day of their open-air dining season, and the weather couldn't have been more beautiful.
Please excuse me for not describing the flavours in these dishes more fully. We were too busy expiring from the deliciousness to write down specifics. God, it was brilliant. The photos will have to make up for the lack of description. Take it as a given that everything was even more delish than it looks.
They started us out with a little pork loin amuse bouche. It wasn't on the menu so I didn't get a full description of the dish but it was a tasty little munch with wonderful contrasting textures: crispy pork and grainy corn bread.
My honey had the marinated moonstruck feta and antique tomatoes, with sungold 'ketchup' and tarragon. I'm not usually a fan of foam in food presentation, but they do it very well here. Gorgeous!
Here's my starter, duck prosciutto with a leek and Alpine Gold tart, with estate country pears and brown butter. In the poached pear cup are icewine pearls, which they make with icewine, verjus, and agar agar, and they're sitting on brown butter foam. The combination of textures and flavours on this plate were brilliant: chewy, buttery prosciutto and flaky, melt-in-the-mouth savoury tart. The icewine pearls with the pear was utterly surprising -- slippery-crunchy!
With these dishes I had a glass of Mission Hill's Reserve Pinot Gris, crisp, pear-apricot and intense with a long finish.
Now to the mains... my honey had the braised venison shank, calimyrna figs, sundried olive gremolata, and pappardelle. Yes, it's Bambi. Bambi died for our delight. It was brilliant.
And my main was the roasted beef striploin, with roasted sweet corn, chantarelle mushrooms, confit potatoes and mustard jus. Very seasonal: the corn, the roasted peppers, the carrot puree all mellow harvest flavours. And surprisingly, the rare beef was cold and crusted with salt on the underside. Completely delicious, especially accompanied by Mission Hill's Quatrain with its intense plum and chocolate notes.
It didn't take long for my plate to turn to this (and yes, I did swipe the plate with my fingers)...
I also ate every one of those little spicy garnish flowers.
We had to stop and catch our breath for a while before dessert. We watched people explore the winery grounds:
And we watched the hills change colour across the lake:
We even saw a helicopter land on the grounds. We overheard some of the staff say that it was bringing in some people for lunch, and I think it may have been the gentlemen a few tables over, who were celebrating a friend's 50th birthday.
The Terrace is long and thin, and it seems small and intimate but I counted about 80 covers. The service? Warm, friendly, and extremely attentive.
For dessert, my honey had the raspberry and white chocolate daquoise with chai hot chocolate. I believe those are sugared pistachios for garnish. So fresh, so carefully spiced!
I had the sugarpie pumpkin pie, with ginger corn gelato and popcorn. And no, you can't have any. Nobody can have any of this, it's all mine forever. My god. Even my Auntie Amy can't make pumpkin pie like this, and I need a bathtub full of the ginger pumpkin spiced popcorn!
I don't know about you, but when I go to a fine restaurant I go to feel spoiled. I want to be transported from my mundane life into a dream of being a pampered, coddled rich person -- someone who gets the best of everything -- just for a few hours, just to pretend. Mission Hill did that -- they made us feel like the most important people in the universe.
And the food. Having thought it over, I can honestly say that this truly was the highest foodie experience of my life so far. The presentation was artful, the textures playful, the flavours fully integrated and intelligently chosen.
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