#FoodPornFriday - Our anniversary staycation at The Grove Hotel

Today's #FoodPornFriday I flashback to our Wedding Anniversary back in May. Often we go out of town for our anniversary but this year we decided to stay local for various family reasons and to save some money. We decided on Kingsville for our staycation.

Normally when we go to Kingsville we stay at Jack's Gastropub. More accurately, we stay at INN31, upstairs at Jacks. This wasn't an option this time, but my wife found The Grove Hotel just down the street and we decided to check it out. 

The Grove Hotel is a historic building in Kingsville (it's from 1854) that was recently renovated. A big part of that renovation was adding The Grove Brew House to the side of the existing hotel. The Brew House is a high-end brewpub serving a wide variety of beers, booze, and food. 

My wife managed to get us the Brewmaster Suite, which was an awesome room. Besides being huge, with a nice big sized bed, lots of tables (great for gaming on), it also had one of the coolest features I've ever experienced in a hotel room: a door leading into the brewpub with a private balcony. That's right we had our own private access to the pub, with a cool balcony that was also wide enough to fit some games on. 

We had a lot of beers on that patio and played quite a few games of Azul. It was awesome to be able to sit out there, go back into the room for a bit, use the washroom and go back out. We were even able to bring some drinks back into the room at the end of the night.

About those drinks. Grove currently has 7 beers in their Brewmaster Series, which you can get any time. These include a Blood Orange Hefeweizen, a Lager, Four Ales (Cream, Brown, IPA and APA) and a Stout. They also have seasonal beers they call One Hit Wonders. Right now there are four, including a Sour, a Marzen, an Altbier and a Porter. Of all the beers I tried the Clubhouse Stout, George The Ghost Hefeweizen and the Chocolate Salted Caramel Porter were the best. The fact they are actually a brewery also means that you can get any of their great beers to go. Though we did learn that they often run out of growlers so the One Hit Wonders may not be available for takeout. 

The Grove Brew House also serves food. One night we took advantage of their late night menu and had some flatbread pizza that was rather good. It had chorizo on it, and that's never a bad thing. At some point we plan on going back and getting a full meal, it's just that there are so many amazing places to eat in Kingsville. 

Now the bad news: it's not cheap. Flights of beer cost more here than anywhere else in Kingsville. The Brewmaster Suite was over $200 a night. The flatbread pizza was $18. Now those aren't crazy prices and you get what you pay for, but it's more than we pay to stay and drink down the street at Jack's. 

Overall, we were impressed with both the hotel and the brewpub portion of the new upgraded Grove. I know the shots of our private balcony I shared on social media during the stay were very popular and I know at least one person who called to try to book a wedding reception. It is a rather cool place to stay. 

The best thing I've ever eaten at Jack's Gastropub #FoodPornFriday

This isn't the first time I've featured Jack's Gastropub for #FoodPornFriday and I'm sure it won't be the last. Jack's is our favourite place to eat. The only thing that stops us from going there more often is the fact it's out in Kingsville and not here in Windsor.

I had to share this particular meal this week because it was the best thing I've ever eaten at Jack's. If you follow me on social media you must realize that is saying a lot. We love Jack's, I don't think I've ever had a bad meal and I've had many amazing ones. This dish topped all of them. 

What you see here is Fried Chicken Scaloppine: Cornflake breaded chicken cutlet, summer potato salad, grilled marinated tomato, warm biscuit and sausage gravy. 

Now Jack's changes their menu every season, so I suggest you head out there before this deslish dish disappears. Personally we've already booked a table for next Saturday.

I'm undecided on Koi Sushi

Koi LaSalle

Koi Kingsville

My wife and I really dig Sushi, which is odd to me as I generally don't like any fish besides tuna. That's besides the point though. Pretty much every time I post or talk about eating Sushi someone mentions that we should try Koi Sushi. We finally got around to doing just that, twice, and I'm not sure exactly how I feel about it.

Koi Sushi has two locations locally, neither of which are actually in Windsor. Their first and main location is in Kingsville and their secondary location is out in LaSalle. We tried the LaSalle location first and got to experience one of my biggest restaurant pet peeves: closing early. We showed up at 9:10pm for dinner one night and were turned away due to them being closed. Double checking the hours on the door it said they closed at 10:00pm. Now I sorta get closing up 15 minutes early or even closing down the kitchen half an hour before close and, in these cases, I think you should just set your posted hours to show what time you stop serving so you don't piss people like me off. But closing 50 minutes early, that's too much! It was months before we even considered going back but we eventually did.

Negimaki appetizer

We went nice and early the second try. The place looked great, good atmosphere, clean, lots of room. One of the things we noticed was lots of kids. That's a good sign. Our waitress was very attentive and full of information. We pointed out it was our first time and asked for some recommendations. They strongly suggested the $20 all you can eat dinner. This I found odd, as nothing on their website said this was an all you can eat Sushi place. Since the selection on the all you can eat menu was way smaller than the regular menu we decided on a la Carte. The food came quick enough and looked rather good. We got the following rolls: Firecracker, Koi, Beef Crunch and Crispy Crunch. I apologize for the sub par pictures but all I had on me was my iPod touch.

Normally I really love tempura on and in my sushi. I love the crunchiness. What was really unique here is that instead of tempura they had potato crisps. This was a really odd unique taste. We also got a beef Negimake appetizer which while good wasn't nearly as good as the Beef roll we got. 

Our four rolls at Koi LaSalle

Overall the sushi was good. It wasn't the best we have had but it was no where near the worst. It was pretty far on the fusion style with lots of hot rolls, deep fried items and western toppings like the potatoe. I would say for traditional Sushi it was below my expected average but if I was getting all you can eat it would have beat my expectations. As a nice final touch they gave us a coupon for 20% off for trying the place and to encourage us to come back. 

There was one final piss off though. No debit. This one ranks up there with closing early for me. It's 2013 people, get a debit machine. No the ATM at the front will not do, especially since you are going to make an extra buck or two off me for using it. Yes that's right no Debit but an ATM with a $1.75 stupidity fee. That is just not acceptable to me and left both my wife and I with a rather bad taste for Koi right when we are leaving. Not the final experience you want to leave your guests with.

So a few weeks went by and we plan a weekend date night. We decide to head out to Kingsville for this but decide we don't want to hit Jack's Gastropub for dinner, though we do want to head there after for a few craft beers. Now when we heard that Koi was great it was always in reference to the Kingsville location and not the LaSalle one. So we figured we would give it a shot. We should have just ate at Jack's.

Three of the rolls at Koi Kingsville

The Kingsville Koi was very similar to the LaSalle one in many ways but did have some differences. The place looked very modern and there was very loud techno/dance music playing. The menu was somewhat different. They also offered $20 all you can eat sushi, which my wife and I debated getting for a long time. Eventually though we decided to go a la carte again as there were some rolls that sounded really good that weren't on the other menu. The chairs were hard and uncomfortable and it took over half an hour for them to take our order, we listened to loud annoying Techno while waiting. 

For this trip to Koi we decided to try the following rolls: Slater, Samurai, Rainbow and Volcano, Vampire and Dragon rolls. No appetizer this time around as the rolls were the best part about our LaSalle trip. We also ordered Green Tea and were surprised when we were served hot water and two cups with tea bags in them. Come on, I'm at a sushi place and you don't brew the tea for me? There was one thing that made me really happy, the potato thing seemed to be a LaSalle thing, there was lots on the menu with actual tempura. 

The food took forever but looked great. Thankfully I even remembered my camera this time around. Again the food tasted rather good. The Samurai roll in particular was great. The Volcano roll was one of the most unique rolls I've ever seen and tasted good. Their Rainbow roll was the best of the bunch. I wasn't that big a fan of the Slater roll as I found it fishy but my Wife loved it. Man those chairs sucked though and now the techno has lyrics. Did you notice something? How many rolls I just described? How does that compare to the number we actually ordered? Right, they forgot a roll. 

The very cool looking Volcano Roll

So after waiting far too long for someone to check in to see how our meal was, we pointed out our missing Vampire Roll. A waitress apologized and said she would get right on it. Not our waitress mind you, as far as I can tell she went home or something as I never saw her again. 10 minute later we asked again, and were told it would be just a moment. My wife who was facing the sushi bar saw our roll get made and then get delivered to a table that was eating all you can eat. The manager was out on the floor asking people how their meals were (actually rather good to see), when he came to our table we noted that we had now been waiting 25 minutes for a roll they forgot to serve us. He said he would fix it right away, 10 minutes or so later we finally had our Vampire roll. OMG garlic. It was good but not so good eating three pieces in a row. Would have been better if we were eating it mixed with everything else, if it had come with the rest of our meal.

So we finished up and had to ask for our bill. I hate having to ask for a bill. It came, and then my wife and I had a flashback to LaSalle. Sure enough there was an ATM by the door. Seriously people, don't do this! 

The Vampire roll we waited for

Back to the bill; I'm one of those people who just takes a bill, reads the total on the bottom does some quick math to figure out a tip and then pays. Thankfully my wife is one of those people who actually read the things before paying. I say thankfully because this is when we realize we didn't get our Dragon roll either. Wow, seriously, two rolls missed? There is no way in hell we are wasting another half hour or more here waiting for one more roll. We note this to the manager, he fixes the bill and apologizes. On a good move: he gives offers us free desert. We turn this down, at this point all we wanted was to get out of here and head over to Jack's for those beers. The manger was cool enough to toss us a 25% off coupon to encourage us to go back. 

So yeah, overall we did not have the best experience at Koi Sushi. The experience in LaSalle was fine and the food was good but not great. The experience in Kingsville was pretty horrible but the sushi was actually significantly better than LaSalle. I really have mixed feelings about the chain. For a special night out to have sushi I think I will pass and instead hit up somewhere like The Sushi California (that I just featured in my latest #FoodPornFriday post). I may consider going to either location for all you can eat sometime, since we do have two coupons we could use. I do worry that they won't get our order right though.

While I miss Moore's I still love The Dutch

My wife's family have been friends with the Moore family for quite a few years. They met up through the Southwood Lakes golf course back when golf was a huge part of my Father-in-law's life. The Moores used to own a very small place on the corner of Moy and Tecumseh called The Moore's on Moy. 

The Moore's on Moy was a great home cooking style place. Everything was made to order. The head cook Gordon Moore himself prided himself on fresh food and catering to people's unique tastes and food restrictions. It's the one place I remember going in with my Wife and having the head Waitress (Gordon's wife Joanne) remind my wife of her Milk Allergy and point out that Chef would have no problem finding a substitute. Added to all this was the fact that the food was just damn good and it was very reasonably priced. We hit The Moore's on Moy for pretty much every special occasion. Birthdays, Good Friday Fish, Father's day, etc. 

Mozzarella and bacon omelette

Sadly this restaurant on Moy didn't last. Something came up with the Landlord and Gord and Joanne were forced to close the shop. It was their life long dream to open a restaurant and this just didn't work out. Thankfully, for them and the rest of us, they didn't give up. A few months later they bought a small diner in Kingsville called The Dutch.

The Dutch keeps everything that was great about Moore's on Moy: the fresh food, the great prices, the very personal service, it's all still there. What's new is a much more relaxed casual atmosphere. Now the Moore's on Moy wasn't really a high end restaurant but it never had the homey greasy spoon feel that The Dutch has. Gord's still cooking and Joanne can still be found up front, though she's hired a lot more staff at The Dutch and it's good to see her just sitting down and chatting with friends and customers.

Love places that have stuff for
the kids to do

Now there's a ton of great places to eat in Kingsville. Amazing places like Jack's Gastropub. So why would I bother to go to this small diner? Well besides the fact that the owners are family friends, the food is still great. Gord makes something everyone calls "Gord's Bread" This is a thick rectangular loaf of bread covered in a secret mix of spices. This stuff is amazing. You can get Gord's Bread with almost anything. Sandwiches can be served on it, you can get a burger on Gord's Bread, you can even ask for a slice with your morning eggs. It used to be that you could buy just the bread, take out style, I have to admit that I don't know if they still offer that. I do know they offer homemade pies for take out.

Burger on Gord's Bread

In my opinion there's no better place for breakfast in the county. I'm a fan of the make your own three egg omelets with hashbrowns. I get mine with mozzarella and crisp bacon. My wife digs their Uitsmijter or "Bouncer" a traditional Dutch dish that was served to bar patrons late at night just before they were to be kicked out. This is black forest ham, cheese and fried eggs served over toast. Our kids love their oatmeal that is served with brown sugar and walnuts. Now I'm not saying other meals aren't good, not in any way, it's just that now that the Moore's place is out in the county it's usually somewhere we stop on our way to do other things out in the county. Stop in for breakfast before hitting the Sandpoint splash pad. Stop in on the way to taking my mom to her favourite greenhouses. Stuff like that. I do have one complaint though: Joanne isn't so great at topping up the coffee.

So I've already told you that The Dutch is my favourite breakfast stop out in the county. Where's your favourite place to eat before a day at Colasanti's or Point Pelee?

#FoodPornFriday #FpF A burger from The Dutch

Finally on the right day this week. This weeks #FoodPornFriday post comes from The Dutch diner in Kingsville. This place is run by the Moore family and has been a favourite since before they moved out to Kingsville.

What you see here is build your own burger with onions and mushrooms on "Gord's Bread" with a side of sweet potato fries.

I drove 45 minutes just to eat at Jack's Gastropub

Hoping to get in at least one more restaurant during Windsor Eat's Winter Bites we headed out to Kingsville, Ontario Saturday to try Jack's Gastropub. Now Kingsville is about a 45 minute drive out of town from where we are, so I doubt this will become a regular trip.

We got into town a little early (on purpose) and stopped in at the Butcher of Kingsville before driving around a bit to find Jack's. For some reason I thought it was located on Main St. when it was actually on Division. No big deal, Kingsville isn't very big at all and it took less than five minutes to find.

Jack's is located in a converted house. There's a small bit of parking outside and it looked like there was an overflow lot as well, but we didn't need it and I didn't think to confirm. A quick walk around the front of the place gave us a good look at a large obviously popular heated patio. It's mid January and the patio was packed, at just after 5pm. Once inside I couldn't help but point out the very cool little bar room off to the right. If I lived in Kingsville I could totally see sitting here drinking some craft beer and catching up on some reading.

We were asked if we had reservations, which surprised me given the time of day. Note to self and anyone reading this: make reservations, even if you think you are coming too early to need them. Thankfully they did have some room for us upstairs. As noted the place is a converted house. Well they didn't convert much at all. It was still very house like upstairs. We walked through an obvious living room, to the back hall, almost to the kitchen, up the stairs, past two bathrooms and into what I guess was at one time a main bedroom. Much of the original fixtures were still there. There were also lots of hats. No clue on this one, I guess someone digs hats. Cool enough.

Bad iPod pic of the Beer Menu

We got a booth seat, noted they have a high chair up here (hey cool this is a place we can bring the kids), and started looking over the menus. Note I said menus, as in plural. No I don't mean mine and my wife's I mean the food menu and the beer menu. That's right Jack's has a beer menu. I didn't think anywhere south of London had a beer menu. Awesome!

What we then realized is that we didn't have a copy of the special Winter Bites menu that brought us here. This was quickly corrected and we ordered. I went with the Pulled Pork Poutine followed by a Farm Burger, which is an all beef burger topped with bacon, goat cheese, onion tanglers and fried egg on a toasted Kaiser. Instead of a third course Jack's continued with the awesome offering up a Beer Tasting Flight.  That's right, instead of desert, you get four beers to try. For my flight of beer I decided to get Walkerville Blonde, Okanagan Springs, Maudit and Dead Elephant IPA. I will admit that I was slightly disappointed that between the bottle list and the craft beers on draft they didn't have anything I haven't tried before, but that is become more and more common as I reach the 700 beer's reviewed mark.

Flight of beers, a beautiful thing.

The beer came very quickly and it was nice to see a waitress point out which were which. I've been to a few places that serve flights that forget that important step. Our first course showed up before I had finished the first glass.

The Poutine was great, probably the best I've ever had. My pulled pork was fantastic and I tried a bite of my wife's Cheeseburger Poutine and it was good as well (though not as good as mine, score). Seriously this stuff is awesome.

Now here comes the one bad experience this whole trip. While about half way through my poutine our mains showed up. Holy cow, talk about fast. At this point we have probably only been at Jacks for 20 minutes. I can't help compare this to the disaster at Crave, this trip is like the complete opposite. Now I'm not happy the second course came out before finishing the first, but really, if it had to happen to any type of food, is it really that bad to get a burger while still eating your fries? I think most of all I just would have liked a breather and time for things to settle and to drink some more of those beers.

My Farm Burger

So that main course, how was it? Fantastic! Truly fantastic. This may be the best burger I've ever had. I'm still on the fence about it. It's most definitely up there with Motorburger. It might actually be better. I think I'm going to have to go back to Motorburger to check.

The picture over there doesn't do this burger justice. It was big, thick and amazing tasting. I couldn't even finish it, which is a rare thing for me (I'm a big dude for a reason). I also have to add, that bowl of coleslaw was great. Why I need to add that. I don't like coleslaw, well most of the time. I hate bitter, pickled tasting slaw. This was not that this was creamy fantastic slaw.

So yeah, this was good. Really good. Remember up top I said that the 45 minute drive meant this won't be a regular trip. I was wrong, totally wrong. Right now I'm sitting here typing this and trying to figure out how I can get back out to Jack's again this coming weekend, or maybe somehow tonight. Anyone know a good sitter?

Finally stopped in at The Butcher of Kingsville

Saturday afternoon we had plant to hit up Jack's Gastropub for dinner to try their Winter Bites menu. Since we were heading into Kingsville anyway, we decided to head out a little early in hopes of catching The Butcher of Kingsville before they closed. We made it five minutes before 5pm, just in time.

I've been hearing good things about The Butcher of Kingsville for quite a while now, at least a year maybe more. Actually when I was looking for somewhere new to try for my birthday dinner, two different people suggested I just go to The Butcher and buy a steak and make it at home and that will beat out almost everywhere I could possibly choose to eat. The BofK is a full service butcher shop that focuses on whole animal butcher, local, responsibly raised meats and handmade foods.

The place itself is right on the main drag in Kingsville Onatario and has a very inviting storefront. The front service area is small but doesn't really need to be any bigger than it is. Behind that is a small cafe counter where they serve coffee, deli sandwiches etc. We were already out in the county for dinner so didn't get a chance to try the cafe. Behind this was the butchery itself, surprisingly out in the open. I'm used to going to places like this where the 'work' is behind closed doors. It was a cool touch.

Staff was very attentive, answered every possible question we had, and even went above and beyond by ensuring we knew how to cook each item we bought. In addition to all the fresh cuts at the counter, they also had two coolers of prepared and pre-cut food. If we weren't due to be out for a couple more hours we would have grabbed a frozen meat pie for sure. Prices were extremely reasonable and comparable to other local meat sources. 

For my wife and I, the best discovery we made at The Butcher of Kingsville is to find out that they are the same people who did the beef share that we had taken part of a year or so back. It was called Country Connect and was awesome. You paid a set price and that gave you a portion of a cow, along with other subscribers. At a set point in time (I can't actually remember the frequency) the butcher would deliver you your cuts. What we thought was awesome about this, over and above the extremely fresh cut meat and high quality, was that it was a complete mix of cuts. This introduced us to a bunch of cuts of meats we never would have tried otherwise. The best part of all this? We found out that The BoK still does this, just through the shop! We will definitely be signing up for this for BBQ season this year.