Last week B and I celebrated our second wedding anniversary – exciting stuff! To celebrate, we spent this past weekend in Whistler where we stayed at Nita Lake Lodge, the gorgeous lake-front hotel where we tied the knot. Besides celebrating our anniversary, we were especially motivated to visit Whistler on this particular weekend so that we could partake in Araxi’s Long Table Dinner, an annual event that we also attended last year.
This year’s Long Table Dinner was held at a different location than last year’s dinner, and so we spent Saturday afternoon at Rainbow Park, just outside of Whistler. In addition to the four-course dinner with wine pairings ($175pp), there was also a small market on-site that offered produce from local farms, such as Rootdown Organics and North Arm Farm.
Colouful produce that was available from the small on-site market.
Although the menu didn’t differ much from our Long Table Dinner experience from last year, the food and drinks were the typical high-quality that I’ve come to expect from Araxi.
We started with welcome strawberry, basil and vanilla gin cocktails…
…which we enjoyed with the Yarrow Meadow duck liver parfait grougere…
…and the chilled Fraser Valley corn and basil soup.
The oyster bar was a new addition to the line-up. On a hot day, chilled oysters with cucumber pearls felt quite indulgent.
Executive Chef, James Walt, putting the finishing touches on the first course.
First Course: Heirloom tomatoes, buffalo mozzarella, organic greens, basil and gazpacho vinaigrette, and tomato chips, paired with a glass of Mission Hill’s SLC Sauvignon Blanc 2010.
Second Course: Red tuna salad with butter potatoes, green beans, salsa verde, organic olive tapenade, and eggs. I really liked the way that they portioned this dish this year. The tuna salad was served with a Martin’s Lane Pinot Noir 2010.
Third Course: Roasted leg and loin of lamb, crispy beef cheek fritter, beets and baby carrots. This dish was paired with…wait for it…
…Mission Hill’s Oculus 2009!! B and I were both pretty excited when we saw the representatives from Mission Hill winery decanting this wine earlier in the day. I’m not sure if you recall, but I recently blogged about buying a bottle of this fabulous wine whilst in the Okanagan.
Fourth Course: Black Forest cake with cherries, buttermilk and vanilla pannacotta with peaches and nectarines, apricot macaroon, and there were some jelly pastels. Dessert was paired with another Mission Hill wine, the Reserve Riesling Ice Wine 2011.
The views weren’t as spectacular as The North Arm Farm location but, on the plus side, it was much closer to Whistler than last year. The Long Table Dinner series is over for another year, and I’m glad that we attended again. It is such a relaxing, fun day and I find that, besides the food and the wine, the best part of these dinners is meeting interesting people from all walks of life, including the local suppliers that provided the delicious ingredients that were used in the meal.
Wow. Looks beautiful.
Reblogged this on thecasualfoodblogger.
Fantastic menu … what are the cucumber pearls? They look a bit like some sort of fish roe.
I’m not exactly sure how they make them, but I think they are just made to look like fish roe. I think it is just cucumber and some other magic ingredients. I’ve seen Araxi also do this with raspberry.
I just googled for cucumber pearls… there is a process I found but it is a little complex …
http://starchefs.com/features/holiday_dinner/2007/html/Spiced_Kanpachi.shtml
Interesting even if you don’t plan to try it