It’s no secret we love to eat. Especially at restaurants at wineries! We are so blessed to live in a place like Kelowna, where there is plenty of great food and wine. I have been eager to try the new restaurant, Home Block at CedarCreek Estate Winery, and it didn’t disappoint. We’ve been to several wine club member events already. And just recently finally had the opportunity to go out for dinner at Home Block.
Home Block
We’ve been to a few member events at CedarCreek, and have always enjoyed the food prepared by their Chef, Neil Taylor. Consequently, we had high expectations for the food at the restaurant, and we were not disappointed. The menu is constantly changes. We love that they have this huge wood-burning grill in the kitchen like they do at Ox in Portland and CinCin in Vancouver.
This post will be mostly photos. Home Block is just past the new tasting room. The restaurant feels pretty big and has high ceilings. The side of the restaurant that faces the lake is all floor-to-ceiling windows and has a giant gas fireplace on the terrace. It’s spectacular. When we arrived, we were offered a choice of where to sit in the restaurant, “view or no view”. It was the early evening and quite dark out, so we opted to sit in the part of the restaurant “without a view”. It felt like we had the whole place to ourselves.
I was pleased to see that there wasn’t a huge markup on bottles of wine at the restaurant and chose a Meritage as it’s one of Justin’s favorites from CedarCreek Estate Winery.
We were mindful with what we ordered and decided to share an appetizer with the hopes that we would be able to make it to dessert and have enough room for a sweet treat. We started out with the wedge salad to share, and it was out of this world. Never had anything like it before. We think that it was the hit of buttermilk that gave it the balance and tang that we really loved and enjoyed.
The Menu
I forgot to take a photo of the menu, and because it changes so often, our entrees are no longer listed. Rookie move! Justin’s entree was pork chop on a bed of potato, with long red beets and pickled onions. I’m pretty sure mine was cod. It was served on spinach leaves, and under a mix of capers, raisins, and cauliflower. I remember thinking of asking the server to omit the raisins (because why put raisins on savory food?!) but decided to trust the chef. I’m not usually one to modify the entree ever, unless it’s a food intolerance or allergy. Glad I didn’t ask because the dish was absolutely perfect! For some reason, I was expecting the raisins to be punchy and be big hits of sweetness and that was absolutely not the case.
We managed to save room for dessert and ordered the Sticky Toffee Pudding. It was delicious, and not too sweet. The butterscotch sauce was lovely. We thought we could taste the brown sugar and a little bit of fire.
Overall Experience
Everything was absolutely amazing at Home Block. The food was cooked beautifully and seasoned really well. The service was good. The Executive Chef does such a wonderful job with the menu. The food is creative, spiced well, with a Mediterranean influence. We really enjoyed the ambiance of the restaurant as well, and will definitely be back.
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