Date night! at Le Petit Bar

Last Wednesday Tim surprised me by taking me out to dinner at my favourite restaurant in Peterborough, Le Petit Bar. Every couple of months I get a really big craving for a sophisticated cocktail and cheese tasting and this is the best place (perhaps the only place) in Peterborough to get both. Besides at home, given that I visit Chasing the Cheese at least every couple of weeks and there's always cheese in our fridge and lots of alcohol in our home bar. Chasing the Cheese supplies the cheese that is used at Le Petit Bar. I need to be better about making simple syrups so that I can make actual cocktails. I've already started accumulating bitters (none of which have ever been opened). 

My handsome husband with our dinner.

Tim brought one of his Rustic Woods cheese boards to give to Shannon (the owner) as a trial for the restaurant. Currently they use dollar store style bamboo boards. It's due to cost and how easy they are to clean, but it looks so sad when they arrange all of these amazing cheeses, meats, and housemade condiments on a made-in-China piece of cr*p! I hope Tim and Shannon can work out something - it would be great to have Tim's boards being used there. We love it there and Tim takes so much pride in his woodworking. It would be great to see them move to a product made with local, sustainable materials. Fingers crossed! She brought out our cheese and charcuterie mix on it and we quickly noted some necessary changes that would make it more functional. Plus I'm looking forward to going back and checking in on how it's going - like I need an excuse!

  

Curried Oeufs Mayonnaise - $5

Tim is a huge fan of deviled eggs (eggs in any format, really), so we knew right away we needed to get this for an appetizer. We were not disappointed. These were easily the most complex and delicious deviled eggs I have ever had. They had a syrup on them and were topped with crispy onions. The red sauce on the plate is sriracha. Tim compared the flavour profile to Caribbean roti. I'm not sure what spices were used in the syrup, but it definitely had a beautiful savoury/sweet balance. When you added the heat from the sriracha, it made for a really incredible bite. 

Two meat charcuterie and four cheese board - $10 for the meat and $16 for the cheese

The two salamis are both from Niagara Food Specialties - one is the abbruzzesse and the other is the nostrana. The cheeses from top to bottom are the Chateau de Bourgogne, a goat beemster, an applewood smoked cheddar, and the Tomme de Gross Iles. The sauces from top to bottom are honey, a ginger chutney, a spicy mustard, and a sweet cherry mustard. 

I love mixing and matching the cheeses, meats, and condiments! The Chateau de Bourgogne is one of Tim and my favourites. It's very mild and buttery. It's perfect to try with the different condiments and a little bit of apple. Tim loves smoked cheeses, but I didn't love the applewood smoked as much as the Bothwell smoked cheddar or the smoked gouda that Chasing the Cheese regularly carries. It was a little too smoke prominent for me - more than a little bitter. The Tommes de Gross Iles also wasn't my favourite cheese we've ever tried there, I found it almost non-existent on the palate. Notably, I am a fan of really funky cheeses. I like my cheese to have taste to it! This was just too mild. The surprise winner of the evening was the goat beemster. It has a beautifully smooth texture with a nice, sweet barnyard finish. I generally love goat cheeses, but even Tim said this was his favourite. He usually does not love goat or sheep cheeses. It was especially good with the chutney. I loved both of the salamis as well, although I don't think I could tell you the difference between them. They were both sweet and not too hard (I don't like really tough charcuterie). I thought they both tasted very strongly of honey. One was more peppery than the other, but I don't know which. 

For drinks, Tim just got a beer (I don't remember which one). I had a maple bourbon sour ($8.50). It was a little more sour than I was expecting. A bit of a duh moment for me, considering the name, but I think I just saw maple and bourbon and thought sweet. It was good, though, and grew on me the more I had. Ha - one could say that about most types of alcohol. Shannon was also a real sweetheart and let us try the 2008 Lillypilly Noble Blend. Shannon is really well-informed about the wines she carries and it was so neat to hear about this particular wine. It was very similar to an ice wine, only the concentration in sweetness is caused by a fungus that only occurs in very specific conditions. While I'm not a huge wine drinker, I do appreciate a good sweet wine and this one was lovely.

Afterwards we went home and cuddled on the couch while watching Pan Am. Perfect date night!