The Week In Yum - Day Trip to The Bench - Bench Brewing, Dillons and Malivoire

Ice Cask Whiskey from Gretzky was on the menu

What a week in yum people.

We grabbed Absinthe for The Kid and a few bottles of their Negroni for me from Dillon's

It all started with a day trip to Niagara that got sidetracked in Beamsville after a stop at Dillon's Distillery to grab some Absinthe for The Kid. I asked the lovely young man who was helping us with our tasting where we should go eat. He sent us to Bench Brewing, which meant that we were going to be driving right by Malivoire so that sounded like a plan, even though I don't really associate The Bench with beer, but I like good food.

Kew specializes in sparkling wines and is the winery equivalent of a chick flick and I mean that in the best way

We drove past Kew, which is one of the prettiest little vineyards that I wrote about for Auburn Lane , past Malivoire (we decided we would double back after a quick lunch) and found Bench Brewing 

Bench Brewing

Bench Brewing

Wow, the parking lot was slammed, which is always a good sign. Shack dropped us off to grab a table while he found somewhere to park and since it was such a lovely day, we snagged a table out on the big patio. It wasn't until I sat down that I looked up and saw that there was another, smaller patio area up there as well as what looked like an indoor space. I was pleasantly surprised to see how modern and new and shiny this place looked. Again, I kind of thought that beer in the region is just a side thing. I was wrong, okay?? I am not too big to admit that.

Grab some beer to go in their shop upstairs

Instead of a quick lunch, we enjoyed a leisurely nosh of really delicious nachos with brisket, crema, cotija cheese and pickled onion - there was much fork stabbing when those boys tried to grab the last bits on the plate. They both had a tuna poke bowl and did NOT let me taste but judging by the alarming speed that they emptied their bowls, I am going to assume it was pretty good.



Shack and I shared a flight of beers, choosing Balls Falls, a hoppy IPA for me, a Saison because my beer sommelier friend, Heather, would be proud of me and Strawberry Grove, a fermented, sour ale because I wanted Heather to be doubly proud. I loved the IPA and Shack, to my surprise, bought six Strawberry Grove to take home. All in all, a great lunch at a great brewery and a reminder that there is much more to the Niagara Region than wine.

Bench Brewing
3991 King St
Beamsville, Ontario
open daily 11am to 9pm

Malivoire

That said, we did back track to grab some wine and cheese at Malivoire before making another quick stop at  Gretzky Estates for Ice Cask Whiskey. We ended up skipping Niagara on the Lake altogether and will absolutely be back to explore the Bench further in the coming weeks.

Sunday was all about the Raptors and the finale of Game of Thrones so I don't remember if I even ate anything. I have theories about GOT. So many theories.

Middle Eastern Feast for a birthday party

On Wednesday, I cooked for a lovely group celebrating a birthday at The Depanneur, which is always fun for me. If you live in Toronto, don't forget that I am available for private dinners, cannabis infused catering and dinners and private cooking classes in everything from cannabis cuisine to Instant Pot - I cover all the pots lol.

I also snuck in a visit to the newest speakeasy in Parkdale, the Standard - look out for an upcoming piece on Auburn Lane

Thursday and Friday was spent working at Sublime, wearing my catering hat so I missed my Friday Week in Yum as I was busy grilling about 20 lbs of moroccan chicken and then pan searing another 500000 lbs of a different flavour of chicken for another client.

No rest for the wicked.