Category: food
food
Are Albertans becoming choosier in what they eat and what they drink? Are significant numbers of us shopping at farmers’ markets as well as Superstore or Costco? At the big supermarkets, are organic and deli sections thriving?
Are independent butcher shops like Acme or specialty cheese shops like the new Cavern on 104th Street becoming more popular?
When you go to the shiny new huge-choice liquor stores and confront literally 1,000 brands of red wine, are you adventurous, learning about different grapes … or do you grab the usual Apothic Red?
To be blunt, are you willing to pay more, significantly more, for quality?
The subject arose at a multi-course dinner presented at Joseph Rustom’s Parkallen Restaurant by Big Rock Brewery last week, celebrating the launch of Big Rock’s Rosmarinus Aromatic Ale.
“Craft” beers, loosely defined as beers made by small, independent and traditional breweries, are a classic test of this quality versus quantity idea.
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Von's Steakhouse and Oyster Bar
Food: 3.5 suns of 5
Ambience: 3.5 of 5
Service: 4 of 5
Dinner for two excluding drinks: Basic, $60. Multi-course, $120.
Steakhouses — especially the high-priced ones — tread a fine line.
On the one hand, they must stick with the tried and true, the rib eyes and tenderloins covered in molten butter that an older, monied crowd expects.
On the other, the next generation(s) has less appetite for acres of red meat, expects dishes with more zest, expects casual elegance and has higher standards. If it’s a $28 chicken plate, it’d better be really good chicken in a really good recipe.
The steakhouse chains, hard-wired to convention, only change their menus with the greatest of reluctance.
Independents have more room to find that ever-evolving balance.
Von’s Steakhouse and Oyster Bar is as independent a restaurant as you’ll find in Edmonton, at its Gateway and 81 Avenue location for some 30 years. Kudo ...
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I'm collecting suggestions for the best grocery, deli, bakery, butcher and liquor stores in Edmonton and area, or REAL food at REASONABLE pricees! No restaurants please, not at this time.
Please pass on tips to me at graham.hicks@hicksbiz.com, or on Facebook, or Twitter @hicksonsix.
We need more cheese shop and butcher recommendations!
Recommendations so far:
Groceries/deli: Sayah Meat + Pie, Saccamanno's, Italian Centre South Side and Little Italy; H+W Produce (several stores); El-Safadi Market (113A St. and 134 Ave).; Ben's Meat + Deli (Stony Plain Rd.).
Beer, wine and spirits - DeVine Wines downtown, Aligra in West Edmonton Mall, Select on 149 Street near the Whitemud,
Sherbrooke Liquor (118 Ave. and St. Albert Trail, amazing beer selection), Vines in Riverbend. Wine & Beyond (Sherwood Park, Windermere) is kinda fun.
Cheese - Sylvan Star Gouda at Old Strathcona Market, great new cheese shop Cavern on 104 St. downtown with reasonable prices - Paddy's Cheese Market ...
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Battista’s Calzone Co.Corner 118 Ave. and 84 St.780 758 1808@battistacalzone►Food: 4 of 5►Ambience: 3.5 of 5►Service: 3.5 of 5►Lunch for two: $10 to $20El Rancho11810 87 St.780 471 4930►Food: 4 of 5►Ambience: 3 of 5►Service: 3 of 5►Dinner for two: $20 to $30There’s something about 118 Avenue’s restaurants and bakeries. From The Barbecue House at 97 Street to Uncle Ed’s past 50 Street are dozens of restaurants of every ethnic variation. The bakery cluster, from the Popular to the Handy to the Italian, creates more fresh bread choices than anywhere else in the city.The 118th Avenue blend of ethnic, artist and community has a small-town feel. But its low-income nature is a brake on gentrification, keeping rents affordable for family-run restaurants.These family restaurants are usually friendly, unpretentious and economy-priced. Trendy flatbreads or sliders don’t show up in these parts.Their village-style food, as typified by Battista Vecchio’s Calzone Co. at 118th and 84 Street and Dora Arevalo’s El Rancho Spani ...
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Select10018-106 St.780 428 1629www.selectrestaurant.caFood: 4 of 5 starsAmbience: 4 of 5 starsService: 4 of 5 stars(gluten-free options)Dinner for two (without beverages): Basic, $50; Multi-course, $90——How exciting to witness re-birth.Just over a year ago, the Packrat Louie group, led by managing partner Jodh Singh, purchased Café Select.Café Select … in the ‘80s and early ‘90s, this café/bistro on 106 Street just around the corner from the Avord Arms was one popular space. Its signature dishes are remembered by many - a vodka-spiked tomato soup, mussels, steak tartare and coquilles St. Jacques.From the outside, it wasn’t much. And it still isn’t today.But to enter then, as now, is to walk into a cosy Brussels or Prague café, with beautiful dark wood, gilded mirrors and antique light fixtures.Over the last decade, the café had deteriorated. Discerning diners lost interest. Things were fading to black.Enter the Packrat Louie gang. “I knew the restaurant was for sale,” says Jodh. “I went to dine. It was ripe f ...
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Café Crepe Symphony
10115 100A Ave. (Rice-Howard Way)
587-520-7111
Call for reservations
Food: 4 of 5 stars
Ambience: 3 of 5 stars
Service: 4 of 5 stars
Dinner for two (without beverages):
Basic, $20; Multi-course, $40
(Gluten-free available)
———
It’s tucked away in a Rice-Howard Way nook, beside the popular Tres Carnales, with a construction depot for the LRT Jasper Avenue overhaul right outside its doors.
But the Café Crepe Symphony should not be such a secret.
It ought to be as busy as Tres Carnales next door, Sugarbowl in the Bridge District or DaDeO in Old Strathcona.
Its crepes – for that is what the Crepe Symphony does – are that good.
So often, all one wants from a restaurant is something grease-free, light, refreshing and inexpensive. Yet the options are so limited.
Enter, at least for those close to downtown, the Crepe Symphony.
The menu is straightforward. Savoury c ...
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Original Joe’s
8404 109 St. (Six other locations in Edmonton)
780 988 5600
www.originaljoes.ca
Food: 4 of 5 stars
Ambience: 3 of 5 stars
Service: 3.5 of 5 stars
Dinner for two (without beverages): Basic, $25; Multi-course, $50
——
Way to go, Original Joe’s.
These guys like to lurk under the radar, with minimal advertising.
Original Joe’s started in Calgary in 1997, shortly thereafter snuck into Edmonton and has since quietly expanded to seven Original Joe’s in Edmonton, 55 across Western Canada. The original city outlet is still on 102 Avenue west of 124 Street.
My memory of Original Joe’s from years ago was of a not-bad burger bar with good beers.
But I’d been hearing good things. Going back to an Original Joe’s – on 109 Street in the Bridge District north of Whyte Avenue – was truly positive.
Today, Original Joe’s is like Toyota – offering excellent value for you ...
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The Makk on 124
10418 124 St.
780-705-3710
www.themakkon124.ca
Food: 3 of 5 stars
Ambience: 3 of 5 stars
Service: 2.5 of 5 stars
Dinner for two (without beverages): Basic, $70; Multi-course, $110
Where was our bread, my wife gently queried at the meal’s end … having observed bread baskets on nearby tables.
“Well,” explained the waitress, “we serve bread between the appetizers and main courses. But your entrees were ready soon after your appetizers, so we didn’t serve you bread.”
??????????
The Makk on 124th Street, I’m afraid, fell short of expectations, especially when proclaimed (by Where Magazine) as Edmonton’s Best New Restaurant of 2012.
It’s a little thing, this bread business, but indicative of the evening’s less-than-satisfactory experience.
Service was mildly indifferent. There was no visible sign of a maître d’. Before the Saturday dinner rush ...
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Century Grill3975 Calgary Trail 780-431-0303 www.centuryhospitality.comFood: 4 of 5 starsAmbience: 3.5 of 5 starsService: 4 of 5 starsDinner for two (without beverages): Basic, $50; Multi-course, $120——Chef Paul Shufelt, who writes in the Edmonton Sun about food creation while I talk about eating it, has reason to be proud.The Century Grill, the flagship of the Century Hospitality restaurant group over which Paul presides, will be 13 years old come April.I have dined at the Century Grill dozens of times, in formal occasions, business luncheons, even grabbing a burger with a beer in the adjoining bar.But this is the first time I have approached the Century Grill with a critical eye.It came up roses, as it has so often in the past.One has to establish context.The Century Grill is not in competition with the top-end Hardware Grill or the Harvest Room, nor with chef-centred bistros.Its target customer would be at home in an Earl’s or Cactus Club – upscale, but not too upscale, something different ...
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Three Boars Eatery
8424 109 St.
780-757-2600
www.threeboars.ca
Food: 4 of 5 stars
Ambience: 4 of 5 stars
Service: 4 of 5 stars
Dinner for two (without beverages): Basic, $30; Multi-course, $60
If you’re looking for a full-blown European dining experience, it’s here at the Three Boars … in a truly Canadian kind of way.
It might take imagination, shrinking 109th Street down to an alley for starters, but the Three Boars Eatery could be a hole-in-the-wall in London’s Soho district or the Montparnasse in Paris.
It’s tiny — 26 seats upstairs, a 13 stool bar on the main floor — full of quirky personality in an old townhouse a few blocks north of 82nd Avenue in the Bridge District. The décor is wood-plank rustic, contemporary in fixtures and chairs, European in its sense of space (i.e. not much).
Where the Canadian comes crashing through is in Ch ...
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