Food? Dumoulin the man
“I’m a huge soccer fan. I watch games every day,” Kuhnhackl said, trying to explain Dumoulin’s obsession. “He’s the same with picking restaurants on the road. It’s definitely his thing.”
Matt Murray said Dumoulin also has an encyclopedic knowledge of proper food-and wine pairings.
“He knows his stuff,” Murray said. “He takes it seriously and has a good time with it.”
To identify where he wants to eat on the road, Dumoulin works first out of two books.
One is titled “1001 Restaurants You Must Experience Before You Die.” The other is “Where Chefs Eat.”
Dumoulin constantly is on the lookout for recommendations and picks up a few of his ideas online. Typically Dumoulin will orient food choices toward chefs he admires.
Reservations are sometimes done spur of the moment, but more often than not — especially in busier cities — Dumoulin likes to work ahead.
“We have that California trip coming up [in mid-January], so I’m looking and booking now,” Dumoulin said. “If there’s a specific restaurant that I want to go to and I think the guys will really like, I’ll try to book it in advance. If not, the week prior I’ll start looking and see what the guys are feeling.
“Sometimes it’s sushi. Sometimes it’s steak, farm-totable-type stuff. Seafood. It’s kind of a ‘When in Rome’ kind of thing.”
At this point, some superlatives might be in order. You likely are wondering:
• Dumoulin’s favorite road city food-wise is Montreal, specifically because of a place called “Joe Beef.”
“It’s French, kind of a warming place,” Dumoulin explained. “It’s a little heavy, but it’s really good. We went with five, six guys last year. It was just an unbelievable experience.”
• His best meal recently occurred in Vancouver, British Columbia. “Blue Water Cafe,” Dumoulin said. “That was dynamite.”
• Sushi is probably the most frequent food type, while “Nobu” — started by celebrity chef Nobuyuki “Nobu” Matsuhisa — is a slam-dunk whenever there’s one around.
There’s usually a dining party of four, although since he was traded, Scott Wilson’s spot has turned into a rotation. Conor Sheary and Justin Schultz are Dumoulin’s regular dining partners.
“You know you can always geta reservation for four,” Dumoulin said. “If I know it’s always those four guys, I can book it in advance. A lot of these good restaurants book up early.”
More than logistics, Dumoulin believes he has a pretty good feel for what everybody likes and what they’re willing to try. That helps in picking new places.
“Throughout each city, it seems like there’s a different kind of food that we like,” Dumoulin said.
And yes, there have been clunkers.
“New Jersey last year, I’ll give him some grief for that one,” Sheary said. “It was in Downtown Newark, and it wasn’t very good.”
Meal times would be coach Mike Sullivan-approved, but for a bunch of guys in their 20s or early 30s, they can tend to bea little early.
Ryan Reaves joined the group once and couldn’t believe it when he was told to meet in the hotel lobby at 5 o’clock.
“We’re hungry,” Sheary said. “Five may be a little early; 6 is probably the prime time.
“Especially in New York or Vegas, those places are packed no matter what night ofthe week it is.”
Whenever he does make a bad choice, Dumoulin takes it hard. Not as much as, say, a costly turnover or something like that, but it’s definitely something he views as an opportunity lost.
“For me, nothing’s more disappointing than going to dinner and having a bad meal,” Dumoulin said. “That’s something we look forward to on the road. If we go and have a bad meal, it kind of ruins the whole night, especially for me.”
Dumoulin is engaged. He said he and his fiancee, Kayla Ermold, have structured entire vacations around food and trying new restaurants.
The most recent was New York, where “Sushi Yasuda” received high marks from Brian and Kayla.
At the all-star break, the two will head to Charleston, S.C., to visit Mt. Lebanon native Parker Milner, a goaltender for the South Carolina Stingrays of the ECHL who played with Dumoulin at Boston College.
In fact, Milner — who will be the best man in Dumoulin’s wedding this summer — has been moonlighting as a food critic at culinary website Eater Charleston, which makes the Penguins’ own foodie extremely jealous.
“It’s something we enjoy and something that’s fun for us,” Dumoulin said, speaking of him and Kayla. “We really enjoy food.
“Ialso love eating. So whenever it’s good and something I really enjoy … if you’re going to spend the money, you might as well make it the best meal you can.”