Leo and Zenobia Charvat run the delightful Wheaten Manor Bed & Breakfast in Niagara-on-the-Lake. The house was built specifically to be a B&B. The guest quarters are in the front half of the house, with a dining room and sitting room and front veranda for guest use. The bedrooms all have their own baths. It's a very pleasing arrangement, but it is Leo's breakfasts and his willingness to go to the extra mile (or, rather, kilometer — it's Canada, afterall) to help his guests that keep people coming back year after year.
Leo is an Austrian trained chef. After many years in the restaurant business, this B&B is his "half-retirement." He keeps a rotating schedule of 30 different breakfast menus. This year we enjoyed...
A first course of fresh strawberries mixed with yogurt and garnished with mint from Leo's gardens.
A second course of a Eggs Toscany with grilled tomatoes and goat cheese and pan fried potatoes garnished with oregano from Leo's garden.
A third course of butterscotch scones with anis garnish.
Oh wow, yum.
The Wheaton Manor guest dining room.
I don't like to use flash. First off, direct flash is harsh, and it's hard to avoid reflecting it directly back into the camera. Second, I think it's rude and distracting to the other guests sharing the table, who already had to watch the "weird woman" take pictures of her food. So the colors are off, though I used my in-expert photoshop skills to improve them a bit.
The best thing about those Eggs Benedict is that they were made with pan-fried pork loin instead of ham or Canadian bacon (which you can't find in Canada anyway ;-). Wow, they were good.
Posted by: Joe | May 26, 2004 at 01:05 PM
Niiice. Drooling. Were there herbs in those scones? That garnish looks nice but it seems kind of random.
Posted by: chefyamabushi | May 28, 2004 at 12:25 AM
No herbs. They were great, but the garnish was random.
Posted by: Joe | May 28, 2004 at 09:30 AM
Dear Kitchen Chick:Thank you very much for the critique re our breakfast @ Wheaten Manor. I have to mention that the eggs was not Eggs Benedict but Eggs Toscany and the garnish on the scones are not dill but was anis, mistakes happen.Thanks again, Best regards, Leo & Zenobia
Posted by: Leo Charvat Wheaten Manor | October 31, 2005 at 08:34 AM
Leo! Great to see you here!
Let me take this opportunity to say -- Kitchen Chick and I went back to Wheaten Manor in August, and it's still wonderful. We recommend it.
Posted by: Joe | October 31, 2005 at 10:05 AM
Leo & Zenobia -- thanks for the corrections. I've updated the post. You have a really wonderful B&B -- an absolute delight!
Posted by: Kitchen Chick | October 31, 2005 at 10:01 PM
My inlaws would have liked to have breakfast at the wheaten manor and we booked far in advance including payment. When my inlaws arrived they were told that another couple came earlier and she thought it was them, so Zenobia gave them our room. They were also told to look for another place to stay - at a Saturday late afternoon! which means no chance! This is the WORST experience we ever had with B&Bs. And we still did not get our prepayment back... How would you feel and what should Zenobia have done being a great host as you all describe above?????????????
Posted by: Teresa Schernikau | October 15, 2009 at 07:16 AM
Teresa, sorry your inlaws had such a bad experience. That was certainly not the best way to handle it. It certainly is awkward for the B&B - do they kick out the people they just let move in? (Are those people even in the B&B at the time?) I would think since the mistake was theirs, that they should have been the ones calling around to find another B&B and either refunding you on the spot or picking up the tab at the other B&B. (Or if they refund, then paying any difference at the other B&B if necessary.)
I find that many service businesses often do a poor job of fixing problems caused by them. If a business isn't stepping up to do what's right, then I-as-the-customer will "suggest" ways they can make it right for me. In this case, if they didn't offer the above solution, I would have argued for it on my own. It'd be nice if businesses did this on their own without having to be prompted, but most don't. Good customer service is reasonably easy to do when things go right, but the customer service skills for gracefully fixing problems is a much harder thing.
Posted by: Kitchen Chick | October 17, 2009 at 05:14 PM