Welcome back dear readers, and I hope you had a fabulous long weekend! I sure did, and although I didn’t do anything especially exciting, I enjoyed every lazy, sunny minute of it.

This is another case where I’m blogging about a dinner quite some time after it happened. Why? Absolutely no reason short of being too lazy to write it up. I went to Alloy with friends and found it quite good, but just shy of fabulous.  Sadly the lighting in the restaurant was pleasantly dim – great for ambience but crappy for photos, so I apologize in advance for the lack of quality here.

Alloy opened up to all sorts of fanfare sometime last year, and got great reviews right out of the gate. After giving them a chance to settle in, two friends and I visited them sometime in the winter.

The décor was quite stylish without being overly cold or pretentious, and they are geniuses with the lighting. Brighter toward the hostess area, dimmer in the restaurant, the golden ambience of indirect light is still memorable.

The service was excellent throughout, which is not surprising since we knew our waitress. Nevertheless she was very knowledgeable and assuredly steered us through the menu.

Here we come to the downer part of the night – the cocktails. Apparently on the night we were there, the regular bartender was not. Whoever was filling in did not have the same expertise with the cocktails, a fact that we found out after we gently questioned the quality of our libations. I’m not sure if Alloy now has redundancies in place to replace the bartender if he can’t make it, but that night our cocktails ranged from bearable to awful. And since we heard amazing things about the drinks we were understandably disappointed. And that lost the restaurant money since we stopped at one. The Moscow Mule cocktail was made with ginger yes, but assuredly too much of it, to the point where the bitter notes in ginger were in the forefront, and the Pinku cocktail tasted like cough syrup. It was truly awful.

Rather than a typical bread basket, was hummus with naan and olives was brought to the table, and the hummus itself was strangely bland. It sorely needed a hint of lemon juice, a breath of garlic or even some sea salt on top. Perfectly smooth, with good olive oil on top, it was creamy and bland. The olives however, were fantastic.  Firm, slightly spicy, perfectly fresh they were everything mushy bland overly salty olives are not. The naan was very good also, soft and flavorful.

For our entrees we went with the beef short rib for myself, and I really need to wean myself off this dish, since if it’s on the menu I’ll inevitably order it. The short rib was excellent to the point of ridiculous. Out of our three entrees it was declared the table favorite. Melt-in-your-mouth tender, savoury, rich and wonderful it was a perfect winter evening dish. I also realized why people like polenta for the first time in my life, so kudos for that.

Another friend had the double cut pork chop. Since I only had one bite, I can declare it very good but not as good as my short rib.

My other friend went with a fish special, which was a gorgeous plating of halibut. While dramatic, the whole dish was a bit bland, with none of the flavors standing out or really offsetting the fish. That was the table consensus, not just me, so it was likely really on the unstimulating side.

I personally declined dessert, but my dining partners ordered two, a trio of panna cotta, and a trio of sorbet. Both were delightful, with the edge going to the trio of sorbet. I frequently underestimate sorbet, thinking it will be a lovely palate cleanser but nothing to write home about, but this trio of sorbet was spectacular. Slowly melting over a pile of diced fruit the dish was a perfect mix of refreshing, sweet and unexpected, making it a lovely ending to a great meal.

 

4.2/5
Alloy
220  42 Ave SE
(403) 287-9255

Without further ado – there was still snow around when a girlfriend and I drove here one dark night and found a well lit restaurant with an appealing concept – Vietnamese fusion. I love me some Vietnamese food with a loving love, so I was convinced that there’s a way to take those flavors we all know and love and mix them in novel ways for our enjoyment. I also read plenty of innovative chefs doing crazy things with Vietnamese food so I was really excited about the trip.

The restaurant was pretty nice – gorgeous curved ceiling over the bar, very well done lighting, elegant woven mats and upscale place settings. All the staff was beyond friendly and knowledgeable when discussing the menu. I was steered toward the caramelized chicken and my friend was determined to try the savoury crepe (stuffed with prawns, mung beans, hickama(?), bean sprouts and green onion). The first alarm bells went off at the spelling of jicama – while pronounced hickama it’s certainly not spelled that way, and someone should’ve looked at the menu before printing it out.

We started out with two appetizers, the spring rolls (simply because I couldn’t picture giving them up for all the fusion in the world), and coquilles St. Jacques provencale – a French twist on a French dish, I suppose. The spring rolls were on the thin side, and were quite passable, although certainly no better than the spring rolls in our favorite Vietnamese joint. The coquilles St. Jacques rated about a 4/5. The scallops were cooked perfectly, so kudos to the kitchen there, and the sauce was lovely if uninspiring, but it was not the best sauce for the dish. Somehow the basil and the smoky-ness didn’t go with the flavor of the scallops and I hardly cook scallops, so I can’t suggest how I’d do it. Lemony cream sauce probably….

Moving on. We got our entrees and that’s where things derailed for us. My friends crepe was huge and absolutely flavorless. If you look at the list of veggies again, mung beans, jicama, sprouts, you’ll likely guess that they need a pretty strong flavor base somewhere to balance them out. And it was utterly lacking. No salt, garlic, sauce or anything to enliven the bland, watery mess of a dish, whose only hint of a redeeming quality was the crispy outside. The dipping sauce provided was too watery to make any difference, and rolled off the veggies leaving a faint sweet flavor in its path. After picking at all the outside crispy bits, she ate all the prawns and called it a night.

My caramelized chicken was not much better. It was a rather dry breast with a poorly balanced caramelized sauce with too many bitter flavors. It was served on veggies without a hint of seasoning and a mound of plain white rice. Since the only flavors were from the chicken, namely salty, sweet and burnt, the dish was not a satisfying entrée. The meat had too much flavor and the rest had none.

On that note we declined dessert and decided that while fusion cuisine is excellent when done well, it is a poor substitute for the primal satisfaction of a real bowl of hot Vietnamese soup or noodles when done poorly. Given the rather high prices at the restaurant we expected the quality to match. In our experience – it did not.

And if you’re wondering, see my restaurant rating scale here.

2.5/5

Colonial Fusion Cuisine
163 Quarry Park Blvd. SE
(403) 723-6669

I’ve been blessed with a new co-worker who loves to eat as much as I do. So three days this week instead of pondering how sad it is to work every day (very sad), we’ve taken the liberty of a long lunch to check out three restaurants that participated in Downtown Dining Week, offering a three course menu for 25.00. The list of participating restaurants was impressive, spanning not only most high-end places downtown, but also Mission, Bridgeland and Kensington. Some restaurants only did an evening menu, while others were a long hike from the office, but in the end we narrowed it down to three: Teatro (because even though it’s a venerable institution, we’ve never been), Saint Germain (because they’re very new), and Rush (because they just got voted Calgary’s best restaurant by Avenue Magazine). 

None of them disappointed, and here’s a quick recap of the three.

 Bread rolls at Teatro

Teatro opened up with a tomato confit with a prosciutto, basil pesto and pecorino pepato. It was a lovely dish and received top marks from my co-worker, and a bit less so from me. The tomatoes were soft and tomatoey, the prosciutto lovely and the cheese sharp, but the room temperature dish could’ve used more pizzazz. Like a garlic oil in the pesto or some garlic chives slivered on top, it seemed to lack an element of spice that would make it great.

The chorizo pappardelle with red peppers, parmesan and green onion was a wonderful dish. Comforting, balanced, the pappardelle was perfectly cooked, the chorizo was sharp, and the sauce was a perfect balance of salty, sweet and sour with none of the excess sourness of lesser tomato sauces. It was a glorious bowl of pasta.

The dessert tasting was a duo of some chocolate concoction and the most amazing chocolate crème brulee I’ve ever had. It was decadent, outstanding and flawless and a perfect end to a great meal. In fact it was so good, I kind of forgot to take the photo before I ate it. It was worth it, trust me.  Overall, Teatro is a restaurant that totally deserves its standing as one of the pillars of fine dining in Calgary, and it’d return here in a heartbeat for a nice dinner.

I’m sorry, I ate it…  : ( It was THAT good.

Saint Germain is the only restaurant that actually offered a choice between two appetizers, entrees and desserts, and my friend and I both wanted the same thing. So in the spirit of enjoying the lunch fully, (who needs variety), we had the same starters and mains and a different dessert each. We had a wonderful smokey lentil soup to start, and it was thick and hearty and good.

The prosaic fish and chips that we chose over merguez sausage and white beans were pretty good, but not original enough to win big points. The fish was flaky soft on the inside,  moist and steamy and enclosed in perfectly crisp batter, and the fries were thin and pretty good, not great. They could’ve used more salt and were a bit on the dry side. The dish came with two dipping sauces – one a tomato based sauce similar in texture to cocktail sauce, and some sort of mayo based concoction that was just addictive. Guess which one was gone first, veg or mayo?

The desserts were a white Provencal cake with lavender honey ice cream and a walnut tarte. The cake left us both indifferent – it was a plain, dryish white disk without much flavor and the ice cream didn’t seem to help, but the walnut tart was fantastic. Crumbly, crunchy, rich and nutty it was a close second to the crème brulee the day before. The prices here were totally affordable with the awesome sounding daily special (something along the lines of lamb and pickled onions and…) falling into the 12-15 dollar range, which makes this the most realistic place for an actual weekday lunch.

Meh

Yum

Rush fully deserves its current standing as the best restaurant in town. I am so often disappointed by newly hyped restaurants that I wasn’t sure I’d be impressed, but I was.

The apple and celery root soup was sublime – a creamy dreamy bowl of goodness with flakes of smoked ham hock that actually made us silent for a moment.

The braised short rib was not only fork tender and possessing a rich savoury flavor, but served over creamy polenta and the best braised greens I’ve ever had, it was a study in umami and comfort. It was a seriously solid dish, so rich and good that it made you reevaluate an ingredient you thought you knew. Dishes that make you do that deserve the highest praise in my books.

The dessert was a letdown, but mainly because I fell victim to my expectations. See when I hear the words lemon tart, my mind trained like Pavlov’s dog, automatically thinks of A Ladybug Bakery’s lemon tart. It’s a reflex that I can’t help, and frankly don’t want to, since it’s the best lemon tart on the planet and probably in the universe. So to get a lemon SQUARE (a very different animal) on my plate trying to sail under false pretenses was cause for intense disappointment and longing for the real deal. See when a town has a lemon tart THAT good, you might as well give up and either serve theirs, or carefully try and skirt the competition altogether.  Anyhow, the lemon square was kind of boring though the raspberry gelato was intensely flavored and sweet. It was the weakest dessert out of the three restaurants, but I’ll totally forgive them due to their mindblowing food.

Square - not tart

If your town has a dining week I totally urge you to partake and experience all those places you’re not sure are worth the money.

I’m going to go bond with P90X DVD now.

It’s no secret that going out to eat is one of my favorite things to do, right up there with skiing and reading, and people, that says a lot. I’m one of those travelers that will have a ‘must eat’ list before going on a trip, although I don’t plan every meal, that would be anal. Just a list of several restaurants that define a city, from big names to hole in the wall gems. Often I came back from those vacations and cried because they reached a level of awesomeness rarely seen in Cowtown. So it was in the spirit of low expectations that I checked out Calgary’s newest restaurant last Thursday, and it was surprisingly awesome.

Having been open for only two days when my friend Vanessa and I descended on it, they were still a bit unprepared in the drinks department, especially when it came to anything other than wine – no beer kegs yet, no hard cider, no soda for a highball, but undeterred we requested a caesar. It was rather serviceable as my friend put  – worse than Spur and better than the Keg. They must have been out of veggies too, as it arrived unadorned with beans, celery or asparagus – namely the best parts of a caesar.  But they were JUST opened, so can’t really complain.

The menu was quirky and fabulous  – bone marrow gratin (in Calgary!), romaine with crispy chicken skin, arugula and tuna conserva with lemon pickled new potatoes and shaved celery, baked raclette… and although it was hard to decide, ya gotta start somewhere, so we went with carnivore’s delight -  the bone marrow gratin, duck fat poutine, and the share burger – a min. 9 oz order of a garlic sausage burger topped with an egg.

This was my friends’ first time with the bone marrow, and luckily she’s an adventurous soul – it consists of two thick rounds of bone, seasoned lightly and broiled, served with flakes of parsley to cut the richness, flakes of sea salt for crunch and to bring out the flavor and thin crostini. The marrow was as divine as expected – warm, rich, beefy and robust. (For the uninitiated souls the texture is similar to soft boiled eggs’ egg yolk and the taste is not unlike bread and drippings, or dragging your bread through the bottom of a roast dish.) The crostini appeared to be buttered though, which is a bit of overkill since beef marrow itself is intensely rich. (Yeah, go ahead and ask for more crostini right away – four is just not enough.)

The duck fat fried poutine was… ducky. A small dish of thick, hand cut fries with a mild duck fat flavor and just a bit less gravy than it should have had. It was well seasoned, and had the fries been crisper and the gravy more bountiful it would have reached greatness.

The burger was not a traditional beef burger, but a sausage burger as stated on the menu. A thick patty charred on the outside and cooked to medium on the inside it was one of the most satisfying burgers I’ve had in a while. Topped with a sunny side up egg which slowly dripped over the meat and served on golden brioche it was just an embarrassment of riches when it comes to flavor. I’m almost reluctant to admit that in the midst of this carnivorous nirvana I actually wouldn’t have minded some tomatoes or pickles on the side – just to cut the richness. But no worries – I ordered a second caesar instead.

The portions are on the small side which led me to wonder at the outset whether we ordered enough food, and I’m happy to say my concerns were unfounded. The three dishes we shared left us very comfortably full, on the verge of stuffed really, and according to all witness accounts we eat like lumberjacks, so believe me when I tell you that three dishes between two people is plenty. Of course we did go all out on the meat front – had we ordered some lighter fare we might have had some room for dessert, which sounded just as original and fun as the menu – Saskatoon berries layered in a jar with cheese cake and graham crackers anyone?  Alas we did not, so it will be with pleasure that I’ll be returning there in the weeks to come to see Charcut come into their own and be an extremely worthy and welcome addition to the Calgary scene.

There are many cons against large cities. From the crawling traffic congestion to urban sprawl, from rising crime rates to choking pollution, living in cities is not for everyone and many people long to escape, which is why vacation properties are so popular. But undeniably there are perks too. And for me one of those perks is discovering new places – new places to eat, shop, browse and in general make life more palatable and entertaining. In the last decade Calgary has reached some magic population density where new stirrings around town outnumber one person’s ability to keep track of them.  More little subcultures are developing, more restaurants opening, more small businesses are finding a niche, all of which makes for much more interesting city life.

Which is how I discovered completely fantastic churros right in Calgary, in a small restaurant in Bridgeland, which has actually been around for a few years but never made it onto my radar. One cold (is it ever anything but in Calgary?) Saturday morning I was at work in my office downtown.  (I normally never work weekends, and in fact have a personal rule to only put in overtime for an exceedingly good cause, so this was an exception). A girlfriend took pity on me and proposed going out for brunch to break up the slog of the workday.  Quickly searching a place that serves late brunch we decided to stick close to the core and ended up at Artisan Bistro in Bridgeland.

Located on a wide quiet street Artisan Bistro is a small restaurant that has managed to get plenty of accolades from the local papers. Inside it was quiet and airy with pale yellow walls, burgundy trim and white linens on all the tables. A single perfect rosebud on the table added a cheerful touch. The menu was two pages long, with brunch stuff on one side and heavier fare on the other.  They have a house granola, crepes, French toast and the usual assortment of omelets and eggs. I was seduced by the sound of El Bistro – an omelet with house chorizo, grape tomatoes, scallions and mahon cheese with pan roasted potatoes and golden grain toast.  My girlfriend was more in the mood for lunch and settled on a bowl of seafood chowder and the  Athena sandwich with grilled lamb, roasted peppers, caramelized onions and herb aioli.

The food was just shy of fantastic, firmly in the Very Good camp. The soup was hearty with real chunks of seafood, perfectly cooked veggies, homemade tasting broth, hot and creamy and utterly satisfying. The sandwich was excellent – tender flavorful lamb offset by caramelized onions and a savoury mayo. The side salad had pretty good house dressing. The omelet was tasty with good house sausage, but lacked the height of greatness that AKA Bistro’s omelet achieves. The potatoes were very good and served with ‘real’ ketchup… couldn’t resist there. The toast was surprisingly a highlight in itself, not a mere afterthought. Warm, buttery, grainy it tasted way better than any toast I’ve had lately.

But on this very momentous day, we somehow overcame our natural resistance of desserts when we saw churros on the menu. Both of us are an anomaly to womanhood in that we don’t have much of a sweet tooth and will gladly skip dessert in favor of a savory appetizer but the stars were aligned just right that day and soon the best dessert I’ve had in some time was placed before us. It’s hard to fault anything deep fried, but these strips of deep fried dough sprinkled with just enough icing sugar to enhance their taste and served with the richest, smoothest, most decadent cup of dark chocolate were a revelation. Crunchy, warm and – this is key – not too sweet they were a perfect dessert.  And now I understand how they’re such a hit in Spain, at a much lower cost than a plane ticket.

Cool walkway in the back

4/5

Artisan Bistro

809 1 Avenue NE
Calgary, AB T2E 0C2
(403) 263-3727 

All Day Bruch:  Wednesday – Sunday 9:00 AM – 3:00 PM

(kitchen closes at  2:30)
Dinner: Friday – Saturday 6 :00PM – 10:00PM

(kitchen closes at  9:30)

I may have mentioned once or twice that I’m not a morning person. Sunday was no different, and we arrived at the bistro at the *ahem*early hour of 2 pm, which worked out to a great advantage since we were the only ones there, and they serve brunch till three p.m.

Although it’s not much to look at from the outside, (are they going to finish that?)

The interior is simple and lovely with warm neutral colors and lots of wood. Since we arrived so late we were able to snag a prime seat by the window and watch the world drive by.

After ordering the mandatory, necessary and obligatory elixir of life coffee, which was nice and strong and came with cute wee spoons, we browsed the short and sweet menu. Neither of us have much of a sweet tooth, so waffles and french toast were out, and in the end we chose the filling but comforting eggs benedict for John and truffled omelet for myself.

I gotta tell you right now, the omelet was a revelation. Tender, soft and chock full of goodies it was everything that an omelet tries to be, and in my kitchen fails. I’ve never made an omelet that was much more than scrambled eggs, but this one was divine. Full of mushrooms, green onions, truffles, well seasoned, it was a symphony of flavors on par with the best omelet I’ve ever had. The pork belly, grilled tomato, toast and hash browns were simply gilding the lily. I’m craving that omelet just thinking about it.

John’s eggs benedict were very good, but not as good as my omelet. The eggs were softly poached, but the sauce seemed weaker and blander compared to what great eggs benny achieve. The brioche was a fantastic foil and the pork belly provided a much needed salty note, it was a solid dish, but not achieving full greatness.

The only two minor complaints we had was that the hash browns could’ve used a hint more salt too. Not to sound like a salt fiend, but they were very well cooked, crispy in the corners and soft on the inside, flecked with herbs and looked great, but potatoes take a good deal of salt to bring out their flavor, and these ones just lacked a bit. Salt shakers were not provided at the table, and the ketchup offered was housemade and waaaay too sweet. Breakfast places should not mess with Heinz, it’s a gold standard for a reason, and I’ve only tasted a couple of house ketchups that rivaled it.

Minor quibbles aside, we had a great, filling, satisfying breakfast. The service was great, the coffee was flowing, and all was right with the world.

4.5/5

AKA Winebar
709 Edmonton Trail NE
403-984-7534
Tuesday to Thursday & Sunday 4-11 p.m.
Friday & Saturday 4 p.m.-1 a.m.
Weekend brunch Saturday and Sunday 9 a.m.-3 p.m.

When I wasn’t cooking I managed to head out to a new gastropub that just opened up in Calgary for a drink and a bite to eat. I hate the word gastropub, it sounds pretentious and harsh and also like a snail with a case of indigestion.  Besides, if you have good food, the word will spread and people will eat. But that pet peeve aside, I wasn’t going to hold it against them, since they’re clearly aiming to advertise that the food there is worth eating.

My girlfriend and I arrived as they were opening, and we were the first ones of the night ushered in to the clean, modern space, not overly lit up nor too dark.  Grabbing a booth across from the lit up block of the bar we browsed the menu for something… pub-like. We were rather hungry and cold since guess what? it’s already snowing here.  Going for pseudo-comfort food we went with an order of mixed wings (spicy hot and lemon and lime), and a burger with fries. Simple yes, but sometimes you just need simple.

The wings arrived in cute oval bowls with a ranch-type sauce and were great. Perfectly hot, crispy and delicious they hit the spot like only wings can. Way better than the generic hot sauce swimming wings that arrive tasting like Tabasco and oil, these were tangy and spicy and great.

The burger was also very good. A thick, juicy patty that was well seasoned with salt and tasting of good quality beef, it came with all the fixings and a bun that fell apart a bit as you ate. The fries were rather mediocre. They were on the dry and mealy side and didn’t have that crispy exterior and creamy interior that great double fried fries have. They could have also used a tiny bit more salt, a bit of a miss in my books since potatoes and salt go hand in hand.

But it’s the drinks that I really want to talk about.  That’s the one area where for once, I lucked out, and ordered some excellent choices. (To explain that remark, I am not a born menu whisperer, and often my dining companions choices look and taste better than mine. But not always…)  To start with I had a ‘dirty vegas’ caesar. (Canadian national cocktail for all you’s south of the border).   Now, I’ve had me my share of caesars, and even when they’re bad they’re drinkable, which makes them a safe bet when booze is called for. I’ve had some pretty good caesars too, the kind that you really enjoy while they’re there, at least until you get to the end and end up with mostly melted ice water and Tabasco. But this was an epic caesar. It was a perfect blend of sweet, salty, savoury and spicy with a delicious shrimp and olive garnish to gild the lily. I am normally a slow drinker, and this one was gone before the appetizer arrived. 

I really really wanted another one, but my girlfriend was looking at the cocktail menu and persuaded me that trying something sweet now would only be prudent. Since I was going to blog about this I agreed in the spirit of investigative ‘journalism’. And as I waffled between two choices I did what I often do, and asked the waitress to decide for me. Her eyes lit up when she mentioned the ‘spurito’ and people, when waitstaff’s eyes light up – order the dang drink.  This was hands down the single best cocktail I’ve had since 2005 when my best friend masterminded a summery concoction in a dark bar one night. But that’s another story. You know the expression ‘better than the sum of its parts?’ Well this cocktail would be in the dictionary beside that entry. It’s hard to explain flavor, but it was a smooth creamy tasting blend of strawberries with the faintest trace of mint. It was not thick at all, but lightly bubbly from the soda, fragrant and perfectly refreshing. It’s my new favorite drink of the year.   In fact I am now counting the days until I go back for a much needed post work libation and have at least two.

Spurito

My deepest fear of the moment is that spur loses its momentum of newness and greatness. I’ve seen it happen before with restaurants and bars – they start out new and innovative and fresh with a great menu and awesome value, and slowly slide into a decline over the next few months. Spur, if you mess with the spurito, you’ll have me to answer to.

Spur Gastropub

351 – 4th Avenue SW, Calgary
(403) 262-2888

Food: 4/5
Drinks: 5/5

And it was slightly inconsistent. The steak was tender and perfectly done, with great beef flavor, but it lacked an ingredient I consider crucial to well prepared meat: salt. There was none, not a hint of salt on the steak, nor in the herb butter. This is so odd, that I’m chalking it up to a mistake on the kitchen’s part, perhaps, rather than a deliberate omission. The potatoes however, were divine. Perfectly roasted, seasoned, creamy on the inside, they were an awesome dish.

My girlfriend ordered the winner of the bunch, the Alberta Bison Meatloaf wrapped in smoked bacon with mashed potatoes and mushroom pan jus. It was an awesome meatloaf, flavorful and moist, with the bacon a perfect foil. The mashed potatoes were about as good as they come, and it was a hearty comforting meal.

The restaurant ran out of smoked and barbecue glazed pork ribs with mini mac and cheese and coleslaw, so they subbed bison ribs in the dish, which was a mixed success. The bison ribs were simply too lean, and remained way too chewy despite the long smoking time. The reason pork ribs work so well is due to the high fat content which is slowly cooked out of the meat leaving it moist and succulent. The bison didn’t have that luxury. The flavor was outstanding though, with a decent pink smoke ring and a tasty glaze, and the portion was huge owing to the size of bison ribs. The mac and cheese was also awesome, with the crispy top that to me is the best part. The coleslaw was fresh and quite decent.

For dessert we managed to practice uncommon restraint, and only got one dish to share – the panna cotta. Soft and creamy it was not overly sweet, and the berry sauce added a great fresh touch. The oatmeal cookies were quite dense and crumbly, more like granola cookies, if you like that sort of thing.

The restaurant was slowly wrapping up for the night as we finished our coffees, so grabbing the camera we explored the house while we could.

Of the original structure the living room, kitchen, two bedrooms and a verandah remain, with the other few rooms being added on by subsequent owners. Wandering the house I was struck anew by how much more space we now think we require. Our modern oversized houses could easily fit two smallish ones of a century ago, and yet those small ones housed more people. Everything’s expanded in the process, the bedrooms are larger, the closets huge in comparison with the cupboards of years past, the common rooms the size of modern dens. The only exceptions I typically see are the kitchens, which were often large in comparison, with the amount of effort and materials it took to cook making it a necessity. Which makes sense given that much of the food was grown, produced, canned and saved right at home.

Here’s a photo tour of the house:

The living room

Wall shelf

Little table

Kitchen

The original stove!

Old buffet in the kitchen

Buffet detail

Scarred but solid door

Doorknob

Ever since I heard of The Mackay Place I wanted to go there. I was sold on the entire idea of a renovated farm house re-purposed as a restaurant, plus the house ketchup and steak they served at the Millarville Market were absolutely delicious. All summer long I drove around with their brochure in the car, and when a girlfriend suggested a Saturday night supper I and another friend jumped at the chance.

The farm house was built by a Scottish homesteader J.A. Turner 123 years ago, which for this neck of the woods is a very long time ago indeed.  He raised a family and imported Clydesdale horses from Scotland, got a valley named after him, and shortly after oil was found on the land, he sold the property. In 1916 the Mackay family bought the homestead and held it until 1988. Since then the property has underwent a couple of incarnations, becoming a tea house, a pub, a bed and breakfast, and most recently a restaurant, dubbed simply The Mackay Place.

Old buildings and places have a certain fascination for me that is at times hard to explain. There is a palpable mystery to inhabiting the same space as the people that came before us. Perhaps it is because so much of history is lost to us, the people that built those things and walked those same floors are unknowable in a way that their modern descendants will never be. Our lives are documented with tapes, movies, books and blogs in unprecedented ways. We record too much and those before us not nearly enough. So we imagine what life must have been like back then, how it would feel to actually use those museum-looking pieces of furniture, wear different clothing, feel a different rhythm to life. Or perhaps we react to the energy of the place, getting shivers in an abandoned asylum or dungeon, and walking straighter in a cathedral or theater.  Suffice it to say, that visiting a restored homestead was incredibly appealing to me.

The property is nestled behind tall trees just off highway 549, and contains the main house, a small cabin and some neat decorative touches with a country motif.

A wheelbarrow of flowers:

A rooster in a rim:

And a cabin, which if I’m not mistaken dates back to the original settler’s time:

The restaurant itself is a well maintained farmhouse, where it looks like as little as possible was done, which kept many details alive. The original layout of the rooms was preserved, with the original kitchen, living room, master bedroom, and what was apparently Jenny’s bedroom – one of the four Mackay children’s room, where we dined.

The menu is very much in keeping with the ranching theme befitting the area, ranging from a lamb burger to bison meatloaf, with a couple of choices of fish, wild salmon and halibut. All the meats are local and the farm or place of origin is specified, which is great since very few restaurants in the Calgary area make the effort. We each ordered an appetizer and an entrée so we got to sample a decent selection of the menu.  

I started with a loaded spinach salad that’s served with house smoked pork-belly bacon, herbed goat’s cheese, marinated portabella’s and crunchy fried onions, which is the only way to eat spinach in my opinion. It was fabulous. The bacon was absolutely outstanding, with a depth of flavor that store bacon will never have, golden crunchy, savory onions and (travesty) almost too much goat cheese. But it was a salty flavorful work of art and I enjoyed it thoroughly.

My friend ordered the house-smoked steelhead trout antipasto with pickled asparagus and caper aioli, which for some reason I only got a crappy picture of, likely because I was drooling over my salad… It was an absolutely generous portion of tender trout, tangy greens and a dollop of sour cream.

My other friend got the soup of the day, which happened to be a mushroom soup. It was a lovely creamy soup, although not the best version I’ve had. The mushroom flavor was mild, and the mushrooms themselves were pureed a bit too fine for me, I personally prefer a more assertive soup with some mushroom bits. This was pureed more than Campbells, which should tell you something about its texture.

With our appetizers we had a very decent Caesar and house wine, but since I know nothing about wine, all I can tell you is that it was a bit thin bodied but with a fine flavor. I know, I suck.

 Stay tuned for entrees and a tour of the house tomorrow…

Once upon a time when James and I just moved in together, we lived in the pre-gentrified neighborhood of Inglewood.  Just to the east side of downtown it was still a bit run down, a little seedy, and full of dusty antique shops and tiny eateries, before the upscale chocolatiers, restaurateurs and designer furniture stores moved in.  The yeast factory added a brewers aroma to the air, as did the poultry trucks rumbling through the truck stop in the summer heat.

Our proximity to seventeenth avenue afforded a great deal of shopping and eating experiences that the suburbs simply don’t have, and we often drove the streets looking for a little place that may have something good to eat. Being dedicated night owls we often drove the streets at the later hours, being faced with a lot of closed signs since Calgary has a penchant for dining early. One night cruising the streets looking for a quick dinner to go, we drove past a little donair shop that always had an open light glowing. Tired of searching and quite hungry, I persuaded J to pull over, despite his reluctance to do so, since it looked like any other donair shop with generic food of dubious quality.

I went inside and chatted to the owner behind the counter. Not feeling like choosing I asked him what his favorite dish was, and he instantly replied the steak kabob in a pita. Not one to turn down a recommendation I said ‘I’ll try it’, and amended ‘make it two’ as J was frantically waving from the car, deciding to brave the shop after all.  Ten minutes of idle conversation later, we grabbed two bundles of full toasted pitas and went home. Really hungry by now, I dug into the pita the moment we walked in the door, and had a revelation. Tender, juicy cubes of steak in a tangy marinade replaced the traditional ground pressed meat of a donair, tossed with a garlicky sauce and the standard veggies – lettuce, tomato, onion and hot peppers. Wrapped in a pita that was pressed and toasted until crispy the bundle was so much better than a typical donair that I marveled how I’ve never seen this before. Washed down with mango juice it was one of the best quick dinners I’ve had in a long time.

Toasty and crispy

Delicately grilled steak cubes

Since that momentous occasion we went back to Eat A Pita an embarrassing amount of times. We got to know the owner and chatted about his home country of Lebanon, his children, his hope to return there one day, and his love of cooking. Even when we moved to one end of town and then another, we still make our way down there at least once a month. Since then the owner, Ali, sold his shop to another great family who expanded the cooking area a bit, but kept the menu and the quality. Ali purchased an apartment in Lebanon and moved his family there for his children to get to know his homeland, and unfortunately had to come back as the civil war broke out. I hope he opens another shop, but in the meantime I’ll keep driving back for the steak in a pita that changed my views on donair shops.

Mmmm mango juice

The restaurant is small with a half dozen tables inside, and if you go, get a large steak in a pita. It gives you two skewers of that wonderful meat, and is the best value. They will cook the meat to order, so f you’re a carnivore get medium rare, and if not, get well done. Get a mango or a guava juice too, and perhaps some great baklava, not made onsite, but still quite good. They also have the usual assortment of marinated and stuffed olives, stuffed peppers, small meat pies, and a variety of sweets. Sadly they are no longer open until ten, which was one of their huge draws, and now they close at eight like many others. All their meat is halal.

Eat A Pita

2-4602 17 Avenue SE
Calgary, AB T2A 0V1
(403) 273-3113
Mon. – Fri: 11:00 – 8:00
Sat. – Sun: 12:00 – 8:00