Travel Tuesday - Niagara - The Food

Last week I shared the falls. While my friends aren't as active as I am, they do enjoy a good meal and were very happy to work around my gluten and soy allergy.  Today we will talk about some of the food we enjoyed. 

Before I share two special meals - Niagara is a very dog friendly place. At a pub we ate at, I noted this on the menu:

The first special meal involved a winery.

There are over 50 wineries in the Niagara region and we visited this one twice, because it is one of my friend's favourite wine. The first afternoon was for a wine tasting and the second was for lunch.

I am not a big drinker, but enjoy the occasional drink. If I am going to drink wine, it is going to be red.

My favourite was the Merlot followed closely by the Pinot Noir.

For our meal we had charcuterie board, flat breads with fancy stuff (I could not eat the bread, but ate some of the toppings!) and salad:

Fancy food pictures courtesy of a friend who had fun playing around 

The vineyard

The second special meal was all about me. Anyone who has watched the show The Bear. may be familiar with the character Neil Falk. Neil, is played by Canadian chef Matty Matheson. Matty, went to high school with one of my friends and she has known his wife since kindergarten. She was able to arrange a reservation at Rizzo's House of Parm.  

I don't know if you hadn't heard about it, if it was the type of place you would rush too. From the outside, while busy, it isn't fancy and the vibe instead is very casual. However, if you didn't, you would be totally missing out. 

The food was fantastic. I want the salad dressing recipe (they grow a lot of the ingredients at a farm not far from the restaurant).

Our appy course

It was the best gluten free pasta I have ever eaten, and they don't up charge for a gluten free substitution. 

The service was flawless. Anyone who has watched the show may remember them talking about how the diners should never see the staff communicating, and we never did. Apparently one of the secrets to this (because I know someone who knows) is to overstaff.  Two of my friends had not watched the show and both had worked as servers and were also blown away by the food and the service. 

The price was great. We had an amazing 3 course dinner, for 4 people, with enough leftovers for a meal the next day, with one drink each, and a very good tip for about $290 Canadian/$213 US. To compare five of us ate at a moderately priced chain the following night, one drink each, appetizers,  and one dessert to share, the food was not as good, the service was not good and it cost $450 Cdn/$330US.

I am not usually a big celebrity follower, however this was a fun and delicious experience. It was fun to play 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon!