Well Seasoned Blog

Last week I had the very good fortune to stop in for a bite to eat with a friend at the Central City Brewing Company in the heart of Surrey.   www.centralcitybrewing.com I have known the Chef there for a while but truthfully the place is off my beaten path and has completely been off the radar until now.

I arrived a few minutes before my friend, giving me an opportunity to spend a few minutes catching up with the Chef.  Chef Carl used to work in Langley at a very well established winery, known for its classic French cuisine.  Carl left there a couple of years ago and took over the kitchen at CCBC.  A big departure for sure but clearly he has found his niche in amongst the giant stainless steel drums of the craft brewery.  His beer centric menu is friendly and delicious.  He has taken familiar food and completely raised the bar.  It was so much more than I had expected walking through the door – I was thoroughly impressed! Those that know me, know I often lament about the availability of good food in Surrey – the options are pretty limited but I can tell you, I will be a regular at CCBC.

Chef Carl was excited to have an opportunity to show off his menu and talk to us about how he used their craft beer in the food – we were excited to learn about the food and the beer and the share in his enthusiasm for his product.  This guy clearly works very hard – he has developed some incredible dishes that in a kitchen full of fairly inexperienced cooks and a lack of sophisticated equipment can be hard to execute.  First dish out of the gate was the Fried Cheese….well hello, fried cheese my old friend.  Okay so I have been known more than once to flippantly say “fried cheese can never be a bad thing” but in reality it can… this one was perfect.  Crispy stout soaked cheddar served piping hot with a blueberry, basil & beer dipping sauce – some salad greens and warm house made crostini.  You could taste the beer in the sauce and it worked perfectly with the berries and the basil – it was the perfect accompaniment to the fried cheese.  What a most excellent way to start.  Next, Chef told us all about his house made bacon…well hello CCBC house made bacon – it’s so nice to finally meet you!  Bacon is where you separate the men from the boys – Carl brines his bacon in the CCBC beer, cures it and smokes it…the whole process takes 9 days – he’s really proud of the finished product and absolutely should be, it is bloody fantastic.  Now – as you know, I am a self professed bacon lover …I don’t take the subject lightly, if it wasn’t GREAT, I wouldn’t event mention it here but this stuff is great, really great – possibly worth the trip to the CCBC alone.  Now Chef showcases this bacon in several of his signature recipes but the one he sent us to try was Salt Spring Island Mussels with beer cured bacon, blue cheese and red racer pale ale sauce…the mussels were fantastic and they came with more chunks of the excellent homemade bread to soak up the sauce.  The mussels were perfectly cooked and came out of the shell with chunks of bacon and the salty fragrant richness of the blue cheese.  Okay – so we have tasted the great beer, eaten fried cheese and shared the mussels C& I a getting full but the dishes just keep coming….(some days it’s pretty great to be me)

Next up Carls Fried Chicken..OMG – fried Chicken, fried cheese and home cured bacon on the same night…Carl, I think I love you!  Chef takes a ½ chicken – bones it out, stuffs it with cheese, caramelized onions and herbs.  He coats it in his signature spice rub and sends it in for a little sous vide treatment…in the steam kettle no less! After a little time in the hot tub the chicken is fried so it’s crispy and delicious – to say it was perfectly cooked is an understatement, I have never had Fried Chicken prepared this way- it was so moist and the skin was so tender, almost paper thin…I am pretty sure, I could hear the chorus of angels singing over the big screen TV’s.  This dish of course comes with baked mac n’ cheese and coleslaw.  Pure chickeny-macaroni goodness !

Okay – so when Carl and his crew aren’t making bacon,  using beer to marinate cheese or McGyvering an immersion circulator they are making fresh pasta – tons of it and they are doing it really well.  On the menu you will find Black Pepper Linguine, Goat Cheese Stuffed Ravioli, Sunflower Shaped Ravioli filled with LOCAL Kabocha Squash and freshly stuffed Cannelloni $14.  We had the carbonara – house made bacon, black pepper linguini and parmesan cheese – perfect pasta simplicity.  It was stellar.  The pasta was perfectly cooked and the sauce was the ideal conduit for the all important bacon.

In a way I am glad Chef just sent these dishes before we even got a chance to look at the menu…I truly would have had a hard time choosing what to order.  The menu is excellent with quite literally something for everyone.  From Fried Cheese $11 to Fresh Mussels steamed 6 different ways $15, 6 beautiful salads $8-13, fresh House Made Gnocchi $15, HOMEMADE burgers  $11 and 11 pasta dishes $12-$15.  The menu is user friendly and as I said, quite sophisticated.  I LOVE IT !

What can I say – it’s a nice room – big but not loud, there were a few TV’s on but I was still able to have a quite conversation with C.  The service was awesome, at one point after I asked the server about the parking restrictions in the lot across the street she even went outside (in a torrential downpour) to check to make sure she hadn’t given me bad information!  We were obviously spoiled by the Chef that night but it was a Tuesday and the place was reasonably  full, clearly the place has build a great reputation for high quality food and great beer.  To think…I have been missing out on this for so long !  Oh well, the important thing is that I have discovered it now and in fact, I am going back tonight with a different friend.  Oh…hello CCBC bacon, I have missed you!

Hopefully soon, Chef Carl will be teaching classes at Well Seasoned.  Sharing secrets from his kitchen and introducing us to the delicious food and beer combinations he has obviously worked very hard to perfect.  Stay tuned !

Thank you Chef for a great evening, I am a huge fan.