Sometimes in business and life, it takes a good friend to offer a great suggestion.
That’s what happened when Dave Temmerman, the chef owner of Hardrock 42 Gastropub, had a friend share a recent experience with him.
“He visited a bar and winghouse in southern Ontario and was introduced to a swamp sauce, which was a tasty combination of all the in-house sauces on the menu,” Temmerman shared.
The idea spurred “Slag Pour,” a mix of sauces with a hard rock miner’s twist.
Slag Pour is made on-site at the downtown gastropub. It’s a combination of his homemade sauces, including honey garlic, ranch, barbeque, caesar and hot sauce.
It’s then finished with a mix of all dry rubs.
Slag Pour sauce is reddish-orange in colour, with a similar appearance to the hot slag residual poured outdoors after the smelting process. It was a common site to see in the city as the smouldering lava looking rock waste used to be visible on main city roads. Now the process is done at dumps on Vale property.
Sudbury.com recently delved into the history of the slag pour as a local attraction. You can read that story here.
While the sauce is available in-house, it is now being marketed and sold in the restaurant for customers to take home.
“It’s amazing because customers are now sending us pictures of what they are making with Slag Pour,” Temmerman said.
“One customer mixed a white gravy and Slag Pour together to add to fried chicken. Some are using it as a pizza sauce.”
He says another customer discovered the sauce makes for a great salad dressing as well.
Slag Pour is offered to gastropub customers that stay and dine as well and can be added to any order.
A new menu will soon be launched to include Slag Pour, and other hot ticket items are getting a miner’s destination redo as well.
The Big Texan burger with its pulled pork, mushrooms, cheddar cheese, onion rings and sauce will become the Stobie. It will pay homage to the Frood-Stobie nickel mine that closed down production in 2012.
The Ring of Fire burger with bacon, jalapenos, onion rings and spicy sauce will also be referred to as the Smelter, referencing the mine processing building that has been in existence for over a century.
The Slag Pour “to go” containers are 500 millilitres in size and sell for $10.
Hardrock sells the sauce in its market fridge along with their favourite soups, including the Dill Pickle, Roasted Red Pepper and Jalapeno Cheddar.
Temmerman said he owes his friend a few beers on tap for making Slag Pour a success.
“He’s a beer nerd like me,” he added.
And also suggests that IPA beers are a great pairing for anything Slag Pour-related.
“The bitterness of an IPA combined with the sweetness of slag sauce makes for a wicked combination.”
Hardrock 42 Gastropub can be found on Facebook and Instagram as well as the website https://hardrock42gastropub.godaddysites.com/. It is located at 117 Elm Street in the Clarion Hotel.
Anastasia Rioux is a writer in Greater Sudbury. Let’s Eat! is made possible by our Community Leaders Program.
