Many people like dining in some-one else’s home. They like to do so either in person or, perhaps vicariously, by watching some of the popular shows on television. Some go to more extreme lengths: A fellow member of my cooking club, ate at four strangers’ houses in the course of a week, and then invited them all to his place for supper!
He won the popular, if bitchy, TV program “Come Dine With Me”. (Brad’s 15 minutes of fame were well deserved; his recipes blew the competition away, and included one for a delicious maple miso glazed sea bass that I’ve cooked a variant of.)
So I was interested to get an invitation via Facebook to join a friend “and other interesting dinner guests for an Exotic Journey to the Past - a British Raj dinner in downtown Burlington.” It would be $35 a head and
hosted by someone called Sandy in Burlington. We’d have to sign up via a website. Fascinating...
I perused the EatWith website to get an idea of what this was all about. With a vision of bringing “people together one meal at a time” EatWith claims to be a “trusted global community that invites people to dine in homes around the world.”
People who love to entertain can become “EatWith” hosts. Thankfully quality and safety appear to be uppermost in the minds of EatWith organizers. The vetting process is long enough there are apparently ~5000 people waiting to be approved. This is somewhat reassuring.
Folk seeking an authentic or different home dining experience, whether in a place they are visiting or one they live in, can sign up at modest cost for the number of spots available at the table: These seem to range from as few as one to a maximum of ~20, but the limits are set by the host who also provides a description of their house and what will be on offer on the website.
You can “find a meal” in over 30 countries now. In Canada there are pre-vetted hosts in a few cities including Burlington (check the website for details.) Currently featured on the front page is “Guinea pig: the Brazilian cooking experience ($50 per guest) in Sao Paolo, a $14 “Flavour Tripping” party in Cologne, Germany, and Euro-Australian fare in Richmond, Australia ($46). There are many other choices when one begins to search by country, and you can even find some professional chefs who are offering meals.
My spouse and I signed up. We quickly heard back from Sandy who gave us instructions on how to get to his house and told us what to expect. We turned up at the appointed hour, bringing our own B, and were warmly welcomed with a Salted Mango Gin cocktail.
One of the guests accurately described the locale as “spacious and beautifully decorated with bright red colourful Indian fabrics draped flowing across windows and lit candles in small colourful earthen pots.”
In between scrambling to greet guests, and running to the neighbour’s kitchen that he had commandeered in addition to his own, our urbane and charming host was a fount of knowledge on Indian food and how the British had tried to bend it to their palates. He also told me that he loved to see people connect and have a good time: as a first time host things he felt things were going pretty well as he had expected, though the food was being served later than anticipated.
We mingled with the twenty or so other guests as the appetizers began to emerge. First off was one of the best dishes of the evening: a chicken chappli kebab was flavoured with onion, green chilli, turmeric, tomato and coriander and came with a tamarind sauce. Its origins were Northern Pakistani, bordering on Afhanistan, where the British had a garrison in Peshawar, Sandy told us.
Chicken 65 had great curry-leaf influenced flavour and was not too spicy, just the way the Brits liked it. According to Sandy, the dish was named after item #65 on a menu rather than featuring 65 ingredients as you would be forgiven for assuming.
Last among the apps were Ismaili/Gujurati-style (by way of East Africa) chicken and vegan-friendly samosas sourced from Burlington Samosas whose owner Kris Mistry was one of the guests. She has a fascinating story about her new business, one I hope to tell in the future.
Conversation among the guests flowed freely, with a number of other food connections. Our initial contact was Louise Sherwood, a friend of Sandy’s and Editor of the newly re-launched and BCity Magazine, eye-catching copies of which were available for all the guests. (Full disclosure – I’ve just been appointed Food and Drink Editor.)
Another of her friends present was Bob Nedelko, the gregarious operator of a “No Frills” grocery store on Brant St. It turns out he has a great story to tell too, not just about the store’s local-sourcing approach, but also his Ivan Vineyard. (We sampled an excellent Charles Baker 2012 Riesling made using his grapes.)
We sat at a long table for the mains: first, a mulligatawny soup with coconut, rice and a serving of well-cooked fish. The final dish was a dry meat fry curry from Kerala served in a heavy Karai pot (like a steroidal wok). It was plated with eggplant, raita and a pilau rice and cachumbar (onion and tomato and cucumber with black salt) salad.
We departed late in the evening with mysterious loot bags labelled “Spicebox Kitchens”, a reference to a new online magazine related to Indian cuisine. Each contained smaller numbered bags of spices. We’ve been promised recipes so we can replicate some of the dishes.
So, did the event run perfectly and to time? Of course not. When was the last time you held a dinner party for 20 strangers and that happened? Was it tasty, fun, and would I go again to dine with Sandy or some other EatWith host? Absolutely!
In fact that opportunity is open to readers in May. Sandy is planning three more dinners themed around the evolution of curry. You’ll be able to choose from evenings dedicated to curries from East Africa, Indonesia and Malaysia, and Cambodia, the Philippines and Vietnam.
So GoEatWithHim! And perhaps, if I decide to get vetted at some stage, EatWithMe...
For more pictures, click here.
Alex (Alex can be reached at fft@thehamiltonian.info ) or on twitter @AlexBielak
Food for Thought logo, designed and kindly donated by Ninka Bielak. Ninka can be reached at ninka.bielak@gmail.com.
Interesting concept. I like to cook and giv people a taste of my work. I am not a chef, however after 4 decades, I would like to think I ahve learned something. I am always open to learn new things.
ReplyDeleteGo for it Scrap. A "taste of Steeltown" perhaps...
ReplyDelete