CHOW DOWN IN COWICHAN
Farm to table fare at The Ainslie
As prisoners of the pandemic, we stuck to our truly beautiful province this summer. On a cycling trip in the Cowichan Valley, the hunt for a gustatorily rewarding meal led us to The Ainslie in Duncan.
Originally, we were set on Hudson’s on First, but the namesake chef was no longer there and we weren’t sure what to expect. As it turned out, Hudson’s hadn’t reopened after the all-clear.
The Ainslie opened about two years ago when chef/owner Ian Brom returned to his Cowichan roots with wife Kim and mother Heather Emslie as partners.
The restaurant borrows the name of the largest lake on Cape Breton, where Kim is from. It’s also the name of their six-yearold son.
The menu is the Cowichan Valley on a plate, although not rigorously so. The area’s blessed with a ridiculous number of impassioned farmers, winemakers, foragers and food artisans and of course, has the climate for it.
“The farmers tell me what they have for the week,” Brom says. “There are farm stands all over as well as major farms. Some deliver, some I go and pick up. And I also joined a program to put in orders online. It’s gluttony, really.”
Ainslie previously cooked under George Szasz at Stage, a neighbourhood restaurant in Victoria’s Ferndale neighbourhood with a very good rep. In fact, one of the dishes I loved at Ainslie was one I’d had at Stage — langos, a Hungarian fry bread made with mashed potato ($8). It comes with half cloves of garlic to rub on the pretzel-coloured fry bread. Rub-on garlic is one of my favourite things in life especially, when the garlic is super fresh.
The menu toggles between lunch and dinner and sharing plates and à la cartes. Haters might be won over to broccoli with the charred version ($13) abed in coconut peanut satay and tossed with toasted garlic and a heap of peanuts. The charred bits gives it bad-ass temperament.
Scallop ceviche ($15) is a palate refresher with mango, avocado, tomatoes, charred jalapeno in leche de tigre (tiger’s milk, a citrus and fish stock marinade). It was served with light, crisp crackers.
I swan dived into tomato season with the Saanich heirloom tomatoes and summer squashes sitting pretty in grilled peach gazpacho ($14) with options of grilled scallops or sliced flatiron steak to go with it. I went with the steak ($14) from Two Rivers Meats — lovely product but slightly overcooked.
The daily special happened to be local pork cheeks in red wine sauce with pickled mustard seeds, sliced radish and roasted new potatoes over kohlrabi purée — not the prettiest jumbled presentation, but the cheeks were fall-apart tender, glistening with the sauce and huge on flavour.
Other savoury dishes include a daily pasta, a Brom specialty.
“I love making scratch pastas,” he says. “It’s my passion.”
The kind depends on how much time he’s got.
“Right now, I’m making fettuccine infused with thyme, tossed with local chanterelles, bacon, roasted corn and corn stock emulsion. There’s a lot of work behind the simplest of dishes. There has to be to get the depth,” he says.
He’s recently made bigoli, a hand-rolled Venetian spaghetti. “It’s an eighth of an inch and rustic and holds up to a lot of sauce.”
The biggest seller, he says, are the pork belly tacos braised and cured in a soy caramel and served with house-made kimchee ($13).
The langos had a second coming in dessert form filled with strawberry purée inside and sprinkled with strawberry powder outside. Five pieces were served with salted caramel and brown butter curd, but the salted caramel would have sufficed for cleaner presentation and flavours.
A short wine list (three whites, three reds) changes and honours local wineries like Averill Creek, Emandare Vineyard (a biodynamic winery) and Blue Grouse. Brom is also a fan of craft beers feeling they go well with his food.
His plan into the future, he says, is to highlight the Cowichan area. “I could be working in the city making more money, but my roots are important and I’m focusing on community.”