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The rest of the dinner proceeded in a lovely, ranching carnivorous fashion. For my main I opted for the Mackay Place Flatiron Steak with beefy fries, shallot herb butter and artisan salad. It looked like this:
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
It was great fun wandering around the house, peeking into old narrow closets, imagining lighting that stove, and it definitely added to a lovely supper. All in all this was an awesome experience - a bit of local history, mixed with a great drive and great food. This is definitely going on the repeat list.
4/5
This post got so unwieldy that I’m splitting it into 2 parts, so bear with me.
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…
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
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