For the Okanagan Spring Wine Festival, two of Kelowna's favorite boutique venues joined together to pair fine food and wine in a three course prix fixé dinner menu. We had supper at the Greenroom restaurant, where chef Scott Nystrom offered an interesting choice of two appetizers, three main courses and two dessert dishes on the special menu.
Each of the three entrees was paired with a wine from The View Winery, an establishment so new that it does not yet have a tasting room open, but whose Pinotage and Gewürtztraminer were both finalists in the 2010 Wine Festival Best of Varietal Competition.
Supping Away: Kelowna. Wild Apple Restaurant and Lounge
@Manteo Resort
3762 Lakeshore Road
Ph: 250-860-4488
The second day of our Kelowna trip started off with a breakfast meeting at the Wild Apple Restaurant. Despite delays with construction on Lakeshore Road we arrived on time for our 8:30 meeting. We enjoyed yet another beautiful view as we sipped our coffee before the others arrived shortly after.
I decided to opt for the double smoked bacon and cheddar cheese omelette. It came with a huge portion of roast potatoes and multigrain toast. The potatoes were quite delicious and after I tasted the first mouthful it was really hard to resist eating the lot, but I restrained myself with some effort.
Amanda had the wild salmon crab cakes "benny" with free range poached eggs, Hollandaise sauce, sliced tomato, roast potatoes and grilled rosemary pannini bread. The eggs were perfectly cooked but the verdict on the salmon cakes were that they were good, but not great.
After breakfast we had planned to drive further south to visit Carmelis Goat Cheese farm and three wineries, Cedar Creek, Summerhill and Tantalus. We figured we would be back in the vicinity of Manteo Resort around 1 pm and decided to return to Wild Apple for lunch to try out Chef Bernard Casavant's lunch "signature cuisine."
Wandering around the city centre of Kelowna we noticed several sushi restaurants.
After my first visit to Japan in the early eighties I became a sushi devoteee and my kids were in their teens before they realized that raw fish was not the staple food of Canadian cuisine.
So despite the many other cafes and bistros we also saw on our wanderings, for our first lunch experience we decided to try Wasabi Izakaya. It proved to be an excellent choice.
The cold wind seemed to penetrate our jackets as we walked around and by the time we were seated in the warmth of the restaurant we were craving something hot. So we decided to share the Dynamite Roll and Tempura combo, and the Salmon-tuna Sashimi and California Roll combo, both of which came with a bowl of steaming hot miso soup. The first combo also came with a salad.
When I was asking for suggestions for "don't miss" restaurant experiences in Kelowna, the name that kept coming up was RauDZ, so I decided that we would find our way there for supper on Monday evening, the first full day of our Kelowna experience. The restaurant does not have a reservation system but I was told that if we got there early there would no problem getting a table. RauDZ is open seven days a week from 5 pm - and I am an early-dinner person, so that was just fine for me.
With the Vancouver Marathon closing the streets in our neighbourhood, we needed to make sure we set off on our journey before they barricaded the side streets and prevented us from getting out of the area. Amazingly, since I had had less than three hours sleep, it was actually our planned time of 6:45 am when my little Audi emerged from our underground parking and turned onto Beach Avenue.
As we turned onto Richards I realized that the right side of the road was already barricaded. The left lane was open but the light was red. The problem was that the light responds to pressure pads on the right side of the road so my car could wait in the other lane for hours and the light would not change to green for me.
Well actually getting from Vancouver to Kelowna for normal people is not complicated. If you want to get there fast it is about a 40 minute flight from Vancouver to Kelowna Airport and there are direct flights also from Victoria, Calgary, Edmonton and Toronto. Driving from Vancouver should take around four hours and from Seattle, Spokane or Calgary- about 6 hours.
However, when it comes to driving I am not a "normal person." Firstly while I don't drive especially slowly I can say that the first and only speeding ticket I have ever received was over thirty years ago. And it was not really my fault! I was cruising over the Second Narrows Bridge and got distracted by my kids arguing in the back seat so my foot may have been a little heavier than usual on the accelerator and I did not spy the cops lurking behind the concrete pillar on the Mountain Highway exit.
Secondly, as a downtown gal, I walk rather than drive and in 10 years, I have accumulated the grand total of 50,000 kms on my little Audi. So while several of my neighbours drive back and forth between Vancouver and Kelowna like I drive from Yaletown to Kerrisdale, planning to drive to Kelowna for me became a logistical exercise akin to planning an expedition to the North Pole.
In October 2008, with my group of food and wine-loving travel pals, I spent a few days dining and wining in the Naramata area - A Taste of the South Okanagan. A month ago, on the spur of the moment I decided to book a week's vacation at the Lake Okanagan Resort in Kelowna. Although I realized that the area had changed greatly, memories of a magical week spent at the Resort more than 15 years ago had stayed with me all this time. As it turned out the week I was going to be in Kelowna was when the 16th Annual Okanagan Spring festival was on, so my plans for a sedate, book-filled vacation suddenly got more adventurous.
The Greenroom Restaurant and The View Winery
Each of the three entrees was paired with a wine from The View Winery, an establishment so new that it does not yet have a tasting room open, but whose Pinotage and Gewürtztraminer were both finalists in the 2010 Wine Festival Best of Varietal Competition.
Supping Away: Kelowna. Wild Apple Restaurant and Lounge
I decided to opt for the double smoked bacon and cheddar cheese omelette. It came with a huge portion of roast potatoes and multigrain toast. The potatoes were quite delicious and after I tasted the first mouthful it was really hard to resist eating the lot, but I restrained myself with some effort.
Amanda had the wild salmon crab cakes "benny" with free range poached eggs, Hollandaise sauce, sliced tomato, roast potatoes and grilled rosemary pannini bread. The eggs were perfectly cooked but the verdict on the salmon cakes were that they were good, but not great.
Wasabi Izakaya
After my first visit to Japan in the early eighties I became a sushi devoteee and my kids were in their teens before they realized that raw fish was not the staple food of Canadian cuisine.
RauDZ Regional Table
With the Vancouver Marathon closing the streets in our neighbourhood, we needed to make sure we set off on our journey before they barricaded the side streets and prevented us from getting out of the area. Amazingly, since I had had less than three hours sleep, it was actually our planned time of 6:45 am when my little Audi emerged from our underground parking and turned onto Beach Avenue. 
Getting there. It's Complicated!
In October 2008, with my group of food and wine-loving travel pals, I spent a few days dining and wining in the Naramata area - 
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