Coming Up at Taste: The All Bacon Dinner. Intrigued?

Every summer Karen Gillis, the winemaker at Red Rooster in the Okanagan, gets together a bunch of friends for a bacon weekend at her house. That’s bacon 24/7, morning, noon and night. Bacon every which way. Is Karen a bacon addict? “I think a lot of people share my problem…” she says with a wink.

Over the years Karen’s bacon weekend has gotten a lot more creative. “We have tried a whole bunch of novelty bacon things including bacon jelly beans and bacon frosting which is horrible.” So when the opportunity came to join forces with Taste: Victoria’s Festival of Food and Wine on a food and wine pairing dinner the choice was obvious. “Let’s do an all-bacon dinner where we would pair bacon dishes with wine.”

They asked Steamship Grill & Bar, a relatively new restaurant on Victoria’s inner if they’d like to host the dinner and prepare the food. They jumped at the chance. The Steamship is housed in the former Steamship Terminal built in 1924. It’s a high-end steak and seafood restaurant that features heritage beef sourced from Cioffi’s in Vancouver.

I met with chef Mike Andrews at the restaurant. We sat inside gazing out the tall windows at all the summer action on the harbour.  Mike has worked at the Gorge Vale Golf Club, The Marriott and Canoe Brewpub before taking over the kitchen at Steamship. “We’re setting up a long table upstairs in the Bateman Centre, ” says Mike. “It’s a beautiful space surrounded by the amazing paintings of Robert Bateman – and we’ll be doing a  four-course  all bacon dinner.”

Mike goes over the menu. “The amuse bouche will be lentils sautéed with bacon, a nice demi sauce and pan seared scallops. For the salad course we’ll have artisanal greens with crispy pork belly croutons and ponzu dressing. The entrée is going to be bacon bread pudding with bacon-wrapped pork loin, asparagus and bacon sauce. Then for dessert more bacon, of course.  We’ll have salted caramel ice cream with candied bacon caramel sauce and a maple cookie.”

The amuse bouche course at the All Bacon dinner: scallops, lentils and bacon. Photo by G Hynes

The wine pairings will be from BC VQA winery Red Rooster. Winemaker Karen Gillis will be attending and will pouring her Pinot Gris, Chardonnay, Cabernet-Merlot and a dessert wine.

Everything is Better With Bacon

Sunday, July 27 with winemaker Karen Gillis of Red Rooster Winery 

6:00pm The Robert Bateman Centre with Steamship Grill & Bar $99

Buy Tickets 

Steamship Grill & Taphouse

778-433-6736

www.steamshipgrill.com

470 Belleville Street

Victoria, BC

Taste: Victoria’s Festival of Food and Wine

For events and times visit their website