Life in Cowtown

This Sunday I my mother and I were running around doing some errands, and I persuaded her to stop at NOtabLE. It took a fair bit of persuading because she’s on a perpetual diet, and considers restaurants to be the height of frivolous spending and caloric damage.

But I had hunger on my side – the most potent ally, as well as the fact that it’s been a long time since our last foray, so we snagged a lovely table by the window at Notable, which I’d been wanting to check out since they opened.  We arrived shortly after brunch was over, and chose our selections from the lunch menu, starting with the excellent Phil and Sebastian Coffee.

My mother gave in to a carb craving with their pasta pappardelle with lamb bolognaise, and I sort of mixed and matched. I normally try not to do that in restaurants for many excellent reasons, but I really wanted to try the salmon belly with no desire to eat greens with it. So I got a side tomato salad, and a side of fries, because I heard they’re excellent fries.

The pappardelle was pretty darn good. The warm, slippery noodles were coated with a sheen of butter and just the right hint of salt and parsley that makes even plain noodles comforting. The bolognaise was well seasoned, redolent of lamb and garlic and the asiago gently tied everything together. A starter bowl is a perfect sized lunch.

My teriyaki glazed salmon belly was less well done. The teriyaki sauce was so thick that the salmon flavor really had to fight to shine through. Teriyaki is a pretty potent flavor and while salmon is strong enough to stand up to it, there is a limit to how much should be used. If the dish had half the sauce, or even a third, it would have been sublime instead of nearly overpowered.

The tomato salad had flavor due to locally grown tomatoes and a good balsamic dressing, of which again there was a tiny bit too much of.

The fries were great – crispy, salty, potato-ey, and I can see how they’d be amazing with roast chicken and its juices.

The highlight of the meal came with their unusual Stilton cheesecake.  I’m not the worlds biggest fan of blue cheese, but I do like the right one in small quantities, and it was intriguing enough to make me want to try it.  It’s served with rhubarb compote and raspberry coulis.

The first bite I didn’t get. The unexpectedness of Stilton on the palate is shocking, and for some reason the cold texture with the salt did not hit my tastebuds as expected. The second bite is when something connected between my tongue and brain, and suddenly it was a perfect combo – the gentle tang of Stilton, the mild sweetness of the cheesecake, the fruity hit of rhubarb and raspberry.  The unexpected but delicious combination was unique and pleasurable in ways I’d hoped for, but wasn’t sure I’d receive.  Fantastic ending to a good meal.

A couple of notes on the menu – I’m looking at the pdf menu online as I type this, and a couple of selections are no longer there. No mussels, no veal liver, no brisket sandwich. So it’s been simplified quite a bit to a soup, a couple of salads, sandwiches, burger, pasta, pizza, and two rotisserie items – chicken and steak. Where I’m going with this, is that with the exception of the odd unique item, the lunch menu is kind of boring.  Unless you specifically go out to eat and aim to get a burger, sandwich or salad, you’re not really broadening your horizons or getting something you can’t get anywhere else.  The quality may be higher, but so is the price, so it’s sad to see the more unusual items disappear already.  

So, I’d go back there for dinner in a heartbeat, I did have a chance earlier to sample, and vouch for,  their excellent rotisserie chicken, and I’m dying to try the Sunday special of porchetta, and the chicken confit ravioli.  Their portions are very decent and a fair value. And I hope that none of their dinner menu choices have devolved to Calgary’s status quo by the time I get there.

4/5

NOtabLE

4611 Bowness Road NW
Calgary, Alberta
403.288.4372

We’ve barely emerged from a very deep freeze here in Calgary, and the sharp wind that ushered in our Chinook barely feels like an improvement. It’s + 2 C outside, but feels much colder, and frankly I’d take -20 with no wind any day. It’s a cold cold wind.

Matters appear to be equally wintery in other parts of the world, and our US neighbors are also not spared their winterland adventures, while Australia battles a huge hurricane. Like my co-worker poetically phrased it: ‘everyone’s getting bent over this year’.  Crude but right.

So if you’ll indulge me, I’d like to take a moment and escape. I’d escape to the tropics, but even CUBA plunged down to a memorable +1.6 a few weeks ago, and people, their homes have no heaters. Imagine an unheated concrete box and how much that would suck.  So in order to properly escape, I’m going back in time, to the height of summer and a lovely garden stroll in a very unique inner-city garden of Calgary.

It’s unique because of it’s odd location, it’s sandwiched between the chaos of the Stampede grounds and the quiet of a large old cemetary. The garden literally flows down the hill in meandering pathways and is a tiny hidden oasis in the bustle of city traffic.

It never used to be there, I’ve spent some time walking around that cemetary and where the garden is flourishing now used to be a messy tangle of vegetation and not much else. It was restored to former glory quite recently and my brother and I took some time to explore it.

The topography of the park is rather crazy – neat wooded paths lead to steep hills and cliffs and quite a bit of terrain is covered in such a small area. 

There is a little wooden bridge:

A lovely pond (with some empty beer bottles), c’mon people!

And a ton of native vegetation, all of which I know not the names of, but thanks to reading garden blogs, I did identify all some of the hostas! Aren’t you proud of me? The flowers range from modest prairie flowers like these:

And these:

And these:

To some pretty exotic specimens, that likely didn’t see too much life on the prairie: (Unless they did of course, my knowledge of botany ends with color.)

I don’t know what he was, but he was gorgeous, and HUGE!

And I sincerely hope that’s a peony:

And did I mention I got the hostas number? I betcha no one else was as excited by hostas as I was. Familiarity breeds love you know.

As well as some of the largest leaves of… something known to man. Seriously, I could make a bed of one of those.

Of course there were some hilly sections where you got to climb. All those stones criss-crossing the hill are actual narrow paths. You can play mountain goat:

And they’re steeper than they look, at least 30 degrees I’d say.

But very pretty:

And once you’re at the top, you can have a lovely rest in a shaded oasis:

Then you meander some more, a bit lost really, which is hard to do since you’re in a pretty small space, but the layout FEELS like it.

Well hello there – who’s pretty in pink?

And how exotic is this?

And find some oddly tucked away chairs to ponder life in:

Until eventually, you find a glimpse of the rebuilt house of the guy who started the garden – waaay back when.

The house is now a cafe, and I’m sure it’s a great spot for a drink, although we weren’t in the mood.

Overall I loved this garden more so than many others, and the crazy meandering layout is largely why. I hardly ever get the opportunity to get lost in the city,  to follow an unexplored path, or to find something hidden from sight. Most parks are lovely spaces, but much more open and with way less flowers of course.  Many gardens are more formally laid out with straighter lines and stricter paths. It’s very neat to find yourself a bit disoriented, it’s like a small adventure with plenty to see on the way, and a drink at the end.  Sure beats winter.