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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.
Recently I met up with a few friends at La Vita e Bella for supper, and although we had a grand time, it wasn’t because the food was amazing. That’s okay – they’ll fit right in to Calgary’s average food scene. Their location is not too bad – right beside the Stampede casino, in a rather nice wooden historical building, with a quietly private patio. The parking is a bit of an adventure – IF you’re driving on the opposite side of the road, and catch the attendant on the block BEFORE the restaurant, you might get a spot without having to circle one way streets.
Since my ability to follow directions virtually guaranteed block circling, I arrived fashionably late and we proceeded to order drinks. Given the warm evening, my friends ordered beer and mineral water, while I got a martini. There was problems with the keg that night, and my friends beer came out totally flat, and she was promptly offered a substitute. Overall the service was nice, if uninspired, but nothing to complain about. Once our drinks arrived we were given a basket of pretty great bread and a dish of olive oil and balsamic to dip it in.
 mmmm.... bread
For appetizers we all shared meatballs stuffed with buffalo mozzarella, served in tomato sauce and topped with basil ricotta, and the bruschetta with roma tomato, garlic and fresh basil on a toasted prosciutto and ricotta crostini. Sounds good, don’t it? But it wasn’t, really. The bruschetta didn’t work on several levels – first it was so soggy by the time it arrived, that the crostini was falling apart. Secondly, the prosciutto was one large piece, and people have you ever tried to bite through a piece of that stuff? It’s hard, right? So as you tried to take a dainty bite the prosciutto simply pulled all the topping along with it, and the soggy bread collapsed, and you had a mess on your hands. Finally, see that big piece of while in the middle of the bruschetta? That’s garlic. An entire half clove of raw garlic.
 big ass garlic clove
Now, I love garlic with a devotion typically reserved for newborns, but to have a mouthful of that much raw garlic kills not only your breath, but all the other flavors in your mouth. All you taste is garlic, and the nuances of tomatoes, prosciutto, cheese, never mind herbs are lost forever. The drizzle of brown stuff around the plate tasted strongly of maple syrup which didn’t really go with the flavors of ham, cheese and basil, but maybe that’s just me. It didn’t detract from the dish, but didn’t do anything for it either.
How were the meatballs? Pretty good. The sauce they were in was very fresh and sweet tasting, a simple but delicious plain tomato sauce that offset the meatballs rather well. They were big, juicy and browned, a little mild flavored and the buffalo mozza made for an interesting filling. The ricotta was about as bland as ricotta normally is, basil or no, so to me it was a strictly decorative item.
For the main course, two of us could not resist the sound of the risotto cooked with prawns, brandy, oregano, grana padano cheese in a rose sauce, while me and my equally gluttonous friend shared the lasagna layered with a bison, prosciutto and bacon bolognese, ricotta cheese, fresh basil and roma tomatoes, and the aaa alberta striploin thinly sliced served with arugula, cherry tomatoes and lemon vinaigrette.
I couldn’t resist asking for a bite of the risotto, and it had a very mild flavor, something I’d need to add way more salt, cheese and oregano to, so as to bring out the flavors of rice and prawns. My dining companion mentioned that she’d rather have the prawns in larger chunks, rather than tiny pieces, so that she could tell when she was biting into a prawn.
The aaa striploin was a huge disappointment. It was not thinly sliced, but shaved paper thin, and fully cooked. Picture a plate of well done, unseasoned sandwich meat, and you have this dish. Except sandwich meat has more flavor. This had NO salt, NO seasoning, small chunks of fat hanging off some of the meat, and it was as bland and disappointing as could be. After we requested some lemon wedges from the server, and doused the beef with it and salted heavily, it was edible. Was it worth 25 bux? Not even remotely. The menu description led us to believe a thin steak would be cooked however we wanted and thinly sliced over some greens, but this was a mixed plate of flavorless boiled tasting beef. I don’t get it.
 Can YOU tell it's sirloin?
The lasagna however, was wonderful. Just awesome. All the flavors were comforting, warm and mixed so well together, that you couldn’t identify the individual spices – the hallmark of a good dish. The filling was awesome, the sauce was the same goodness as the meatball sauce, and the melted cheese around the plate added layer of awesome. Overall it was our favorite dish, and the one thing truly worth eating again.
 Oh so good
We wrapped up with a panna cotta and a coffee, and it must have been late, cause I don’t remember any details about the dessert, but I do remember it was a solid dish. Nothing bad about it, and the coffee was awesome – rich and strong. They also get points for great patio music, I clearly remember Air being played as the evening wound down. So here’s the deal – if you go – park kitty corner from the restaurant, on the block before. Skip the bruschetta for the appetizer, but definitely get a slice of that awesome lasagna. I assume other desserts are good too, so that and a good coffee will ensure you get a very solid meal.
3.7/5
La Vita e Bella
401 – 12th Avenue SE
403-264-6046
I suppose if I’m ever going to talk about eating out in Calgary, I should mention how I rate restaurants. First of all, I’m completely unscientific and due to budget constraints that professionals don’t have, I can’t visit a restaurant four or five time to assess a composite score. Like every person I am entirely subjective and my favorite may elicit only a shrug from you, and vice versa.
While a nice ambience is lovely, food is far and away the most important thing to me. I will live with grimy windows, a smoking kitchen, indifferent service (I draw the line at rude), as long as the food is worth it. What is worth it to me? Honest food. Food prepared in such a way as to showcase the best of it’s attributes. It can be simple or complicated, high-end or hole-in-the-wall, but it has to have an honest relationship to itself.
That’s a hard thing to quantify, but I think every diner can spot a fake from a mile away. Whether it’s inauthentic or westernized ethnic food, ingredients completely out of season, indifferently prepared ingredients with no thought of bringing out the best in them, under-seasoned dishes and gargantuan portions of mediocrity, we all know when we’re in the presence of a big heap of ‘I don’t care’.
Most people I know would far rather go to a little out of the way joint with little ambience but lovingly prepared meals than the fanciest pretentious buffet. That is not to say that high-end restaurants can’t be good, but I’ll be honest, I’ve been disappointed with much of Calgary’s fine dining. And more than disappointed, I’ve been crushingly let down by Calgary’s mainstream restaurant reviewers. So many times I read reviews online where I can find them, pick a place that sounds great, go there and be baffled by the crappy food while the clipped newspaper review is glowingly posted on the front door.
I aim to eat locally grown food (ideally grown organically), and I eat only humanely raised meat from local farmers. That is a stance I take based on a strong desire to not cause undue suffering to an animal whose life will sustain me. However this is not a stance I can hold on to while I review restaurants since that would leave me with about two restaurants (okay three or four) to ever choose from. I simply choose to dine out less frequently and cook mainly at home.
Often when I go out I try to find the gold in restaurants, mainly by asking the staff about their favorites. No one place does everything well, so to find the one dish that makes you come back again and again is totally worth it in my books. Apparently I like one trick ponies as long as it’s a good trick. 
Having said all that, I passionately love good food especially eaten with friends and family, and I’d love to showcase some of my favorite places to eat since Calgary has precious few culinary gems. So without further ado, here’s how I rate food related establishments.
5/5
• you made me squeal with delight!
• I’d drive across the city for you!
• I’m going to call my friends and insist they go here yesterday!
• I’ll weep bitter tears if you leave (cough cough Red Saffron)
4/5
• it’s been a pleasure to meet you
• I’ll go a bit out of my way to find you
• You’re within reach of greatness, reach for the stars!
3/5
• the state of most food offerings in Calgary
• You are unfulfilled potential
• I’d go here if you’re cheap and I’m close
2/5
• I’m sure some trucker loves you
• I’ll eat here if there’s nothing else available
• You’re all business, no soul
1/5
• I cannot believe I paid money for this
• Even sentimental value can’t save you
• The world would be a better place if you weren’t in it
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