arts & eats part 1

so it has been a busy few days and this will take at least two posts to cover because I want to give everything it's due space and details-

since I have the photos ready to go on last night's wine and food I am going to start with that and then I will fill in the days before in another post - that would be the Saturday night concert with Al Stewart and Sunday's fabulous ballet performance by the Sarasota Ballet- but first we eat as MFK Fisher says... so off we go to Bern's Steakhouse in Tampa's Hyde Park neighborhood....

Bern's is mecca to wine lovers- at one point their cellar had over a million bottles - they told us last night 1.2 million and also told us it is down to a more manageable 600,000 bottles now - LOL we have less than 1/100 of that and can't keep track of them I have no clue how the somms there do it...

But anyway- our somm there for the last goodly number of years has been Brad Dixon (his cousin went to kindergarten with Phil's mom and the cousin worked in Phil's grandfather's store- LOL- small world - we are talking Belleville IL and we met Brad here in Tampa) and he really knows how to to work the cellar.  Phil gets in touch with him and then he and Brad work out a plan before we go because there is absolutely NO WAY you could go and make your way through the entire list to decide on the spot what to order.

So last night we had worked a list ahead of time with hopes that some of our prior favorites were still available and two of the wines we drank were prior WOE (wine of the evening) winners then we had three others including one that was an open choice for Brad and a wild card for us - and OMG it won WOE hands down against some really tough competition.

so off we go- and I will add the spoiler at the beginning - here are my happy campers in the dessert room after the meal - and the wines - which I should mention were also shared by good friends from TPA CBGB of wine trip to Argentina (first blog posts in 2010) and wine trip in Burgundy (blog posts in May 2014)

We started with two whites - a Chablis and a Puligny - Montrachet

by this time we had the cheese toasts - which I laugh at every time because they are like wheat thins that they melt cheese on - a la 1950s  and now we are on to our mini french onion soups which were marvelously retro and very tasty...

then the reds started arriving - the first was a former WOE winner and still showing fabulously from 1983 the Cru Beaujolais St Amour from Devillaine -

 then the wild card and winner of Wine of the Evening WOE the Grancey from Latour vintage 1970! (before I graduated from high school by a couple of years- and the Bordeaux guys always say burgundy isn't long lived---HA!)

then another WOE from prior visits - the 1975 Cahors still showing vigor - I think that may be a characteristic of the grape blend... Malbec (which they call something else in Cahors) and Merlot...

 the food arrived (not shown loaded baked potatoes) but here is the rest- we shared a large Chateaubriand for five and had plenty to take home for lunch-

in the dessert room I chose the cappuccino creme (a deconstructed tiramisu) and Phil and Mike had other things they liked - Mike's had raspberries and chocolate and Phil's some kind of hot fudge and nut ice cream or something- I was too busy polishing off my own dessert to notice LOL

Mike had a couple of ports and Phil and I had Madeiras from our birth year 1954- and speaking of 1954 here is a throw back to that time - in each of the pods in the dessert room they have a sound system to choose your own background music- LOL

so in recap here were the wines (we drank them right to left)

and if you got this far on the post I will let you in on a secret - the wines - all five bottles cost a vast sum of just under $280 total  (I defy you to find another high end steakhouse in America where you can drink five fabulous bottles of wine for less than 56 per bottle on average!) Now we know these old value wines will not last forever, but we have now been going here for similar wine dinners since February of 2011.  Each year, sometimes twice a year,  along with our somm, we have been able to scour the list for value wines and have been amply rewarded for the effort put into planning the visit.

It was great fun for all but since CBGB have joined in on nearly every one of the events over the years - it was fun for all of us to see Mike's eyes get wide and hear his comments on the wines as they arrived- that is how we got to the photo from the end of the night -

Next I will circle back to the concert Saturday night and the Ballet on Sunday--- so stay tuned as I always say... more fun coming up!

how Beer Haven became Bern's

So way back in the Post WWII period, a Madison Avenue type copy writer named Bern and his similarly skilled wife Gert, bought a small cafe called the Little Midway Cafe (LMC) in near south Tampa. The Cafe had a circus theme (think Columbian Exposition midway or to bring it closer to home here on the Suncoast - the Ringling Bros Circus midway.  It had about four booths and 18 seats at a counter.  Bern and Gert supplied their own farm fresh eggs and other produce for the breakfast and lunch at the LMC.  Gert worked the register and kept the books, while Bern would go to his day job after helping cook breakfast and then he would come back on his lunch hour to help with the lunch. The business grew....but they were strapped for cash because they were putting money back into the business.

At the point where they decided it was time to expand there was an open space in a shopping center on Howard Avenue.  The place was called Beer Haven (hey, I didn't name it- and this was in the mid to late 50s...) so they took over the empty beer haven and salvaged the B, the E, the R, and the N from the Beer Haven signage and opened up the first Bern's. A year later they had enough money to buy the 'S to complete the sign.  The naming of this now institution of wine and red meat was completed a bit later when the phone company told them they had to "be" something, a restaurant, a cafe, whatever... in order to be in the yellow pages... they settled on Steakhouse and that is what they are today. They eventually took over the whole shopping center on Howard Avenue and to this day they still provide their own produce and farm fresh eggs from the farm that is still a part of the operations founded by Bern and Gert.

Bern's is world renown... I know that may sound like hyperbole, but it is not.  French wine makers come to Bern's to drink wines their grandfather's made... and Bern's has the largest wine cellar in North America if not worldwide... they admit to 500,000 bottles.  Bern would go to France and when the wines he bought there (many times directly from the chateaux)were delivered, Gert would have to find a way to pay for them... Bern bought and bought and bought and today, the proverbial "fruits" of his labor are ours to enjoy.  And that we do - especially when wine loving friends and family come to visit.

here are a few past visits we have made to Bern's recounted:

http://blog.semifreelife.com/2014/03/we-celebrate.html

http://blog.semifreelife.com/2013/12/we-havent-finished-eating-yet.html

http://blog.semifreelife.com/2013/12/three-berns-visits.html

http://blog.semifreelife.com/2012/02/my-birthday-wines.html

http://blog.semifreelife.com/2011/02/away.html

Each evening brought amazing wines that are not available anywhere else in an American Steakhouse and many not available even in the library cellars of the actual wine makers.... this is "the stuff that dreams are made of..." like the infamous black bird- 

Last night was no exception-our regular Somm Brad Dixon really worked the cellar for us to provide and experience of some gems from the past. He commented that in the good vintages Bern would buy negociant wines but the off ones he cultivated direct grower/winemaker relationships, hence some of the more obscure producers that show up in the cellar inventory.  Of course the "names" and premier crus of Burgundy and first growths of Bordeaux get picked off by those seeking trophy bottles or who buy on "Parker" - the ratings guru who made his rep with the 1982 vintage of bordeaux. 

However, each time we have been there we have tried to find the lesser known gems and we usually take the 200 page wine list and narrow it down to 30 wine or so to discuss with our Somm and let him run with the "gist of it"... and if you actually read any of the prior posts you know that he's done a brilliant job.  And last night was no exception. Four amazing wines- perhaps a bit more pricey than prior visits as the giant values (with ancient pricing leftover from when Bern was still living) are disappearing over time--- so no more of the incredible wines from the 60s and 70s that we were drinking in some of those previous forays into the depth of the cellar. 

This wine got 3 of 4 votes for wine of the evening- 

where to find Bern's

so a very fun evening of wine and catching up with CBGB... and just to "circle back" as our CFP says... the old cafe Little Midway became Sidebern's and now has been reincarnated as Haven.  Yes, an homage to Beer Haven and the transition from Bern & Gert's Little Midway Cafe to Bern's Steakhouse with a few iterations along the way.... truly a fun place