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Ampersand 27
10612 82 (Whyte) Ave.
780-757-2727
ampersand27.com
Food: 4.5 of 5 Suns
Ambience: 4 of 5 Suns
Service: 4 of 5 Suns
11 a.m. – 11 p.m. seven days a week
Sat. and Sun. brunch, 10 a.m. - 2 p.m.
Dinner for two, just food – basic $30, loaded $80
Congratulations, Nathin Bye and Greg Myshynuik.
You set out to make creative fine dining as accessible, fun and adventuresome as humanly possible.
Within eight weeks of opening Ampersand 27 on Whyte Avenue, you have already succeeded.
Expectations were high.
Bye made his name when, as executive chef of the Lazia Group and chef de cuisine at that group’s Wildflower Grill downtown, he won the city’s Gold Medal Plates competition in 2012.
At the Wildflower, Bye embraced “small plates” … steering his clientele away from one large entree toward multiple small “sharing” dishes. Diners could try a greater range of food, leave the restaurant well-filled but not stuffed.
...
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People without jobs, and jobs without people.
Temporary foreign workers are being sent home, but jobs in Alberta, particularly as health care aides, resident companions for the elderly, in retail, janitorial and on production floors, still go begging.
Good jobs, too. They might have uncertain and/or odd hours, but most clock in around $20 an hour.
According to a CIBC market study in 2012, 20% of the Canadian labour market was already showing signs of skilled worker shortages.
On the flip side, Alberta’s recent immigrants in 2013 represented 21.5% of all unemployed Albertans.
Alberta’s aboriginal unemployment rate as of Jan. 2013 was at 8.8%. That figure is steady improving, thanks to some powerful partnerships, but still well above the 4.2% overall unemployment rate.
There’s a solution. It’s being delivered by Alberta’s 11 “Comprehensive Community Institutions” of which Edmonton’s NorQuest College, with 10,000 full and part-time students, is th ...
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Baba Finklestein’s Café and Deli (take-out)
100A St. and Jasper Avenue
780-424-2121, babafinkelsteins.com
7 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekdays
Food: 4.5 of 5 Suns
The Burrow (take-out)
Central LRT Station, west concourse
780-425-9991, burrowcentralstation.ca
7 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays
Food: 4 of 5 Suns
The Greenhouse (Downtown)
10119-101 St.
587-524-9226, thegreenhousesalad.com
11 a.m. to 8 p.m. weekdays, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. weekends
Food: 4.5 of 5 Suns
This is so good.
Downtown condos are pre-sold and being built in droves. The LRT is full of downtown commuters and students. The downtown streets (actually the pedways in winter) are crowded with people not asking for spare change.
Cute little eateries with great food are springing up in the most creative of places: Like inside, and around, the Central LRT station in the city’s very heart.
The new Burrow take-out coffee and sandwich shop (by Nate Box of the Elm Café) is actually in the Central L ...
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This week, the Canadian dollar was worth 88 cents American.
This time a year ago, 96 cents.
Two years ago, $1 even.
Three years ago, 97 cents
Six years ago, 79 cents
Twelve years ago, a bone-chilling 62 cents.
The exchange rate: Big deal! When the Canadian dollar was down, all it did for you ‘n’ I was make out-of-country holidays and imported veggies more expensive.
A low Canadian dollar makes us feel psychologically poorer, comparing salaries with American cousins. With an 80 cent dollar, you might both make $60,000 a year, but yours is only worth $48,000 in American dollars.
Indirectly – in the taxes we pay, in mortgage interest rates – the exchange rate is a big deal.
RELATED
Bank of Canada holds rates steady
Canada’s inflation rate jumps in October
Hicks on Biz: Oil price drop not all bad
It’s a big deal if you work for a company that exports goods and/or services, or if your company imports components for its products.
Ex ...
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HALO Bar & Bistro
Lobby, Renaissance Edmonton Airport Hotel
Edmonton International Airport (terminal north end)
780 890 1420
http://flyeia.com/node/291246
6 a.m. to midnight, seven days a week
Food: 4 of 5 Suns
Ambience: 4 of 5 Suns
Service: 4 of 5 Suns
Dinner for two, just food – basic $50, loaded $110
The meal had been most pleasant at HALO, the posh new restaurant in the ultra-stylish new Renaissance Edmonton Airport Hotel.
The unpleasantness came upon leaving the outdoor hotel surface parking lot (no shelter, no plug-ins) tucked in beside the International Airport.
Three-and-a-half-hours on a Friday evening, 7 p.m. to 10:30 p.m., parking price … $24.50!
Not the best impression to leave with those making the 30-minute-plus trek from the city to the airport, specifically to try a new dining room.
The HALO (an aviation acronym for “high altitude, low oxygen”) Bar & Bistro is compelling for several reasons. Much has been written about ...
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The River House
8 Mission Ave., St. Albert
780-458-2232
riverhousedining.net
Food: 4 of 5 Suns
Ambience: 3.5 of 5 Suns
Service: 4 of 5 Suns
11 a.m. – 2 p.m., 5 p.m. – 9 p.m.
Weekends open at 10 a.m.
Closed Mondays
Dinner for two, just food – basic $70, loaded $110
Something is vaguely Gothic about The River House in St. Albert, housed within a neo-Victorian building done up with porches and spires beside the Sturgeon River.
Inside it’s all classic dark wood, ruby-red walls and mini-chandeliers: An echo of those dark shag-carpeted ‘70s steakhouses, the Addams Family or a high-end pub, you take your pick.
The River House has built a reputation for fine dining. Still fondly remembered as one of the best Hotel Mac executive chefs ever, Willie White opened The River House a good 10 years ago, coming back home after a stint in some sun-drenched country.
Having been ...
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Yes, we live in a frozen paradise, peace, security, freedom, opportunity, all that jazz.
But let that not stop us from belly-aching.
Today, I'm joining the old guys who meet at McDonald's every morning to take advantage of the seniors' discount and the nearby bathroom. (Public washrooms and the lack thereof, there's a complaint for another day. Thanks, Timmie's and McDonald's, for (usually) not locking your washroom doors.)
Hicks on Biz is going to complain!
Mostly, it's about airlines, banks and utility companies -- nickel + diming us to death.
Death by a million wounds! Frog-in-the-boiling-water death!
Airlines: Need we say more?
The latest new charge, $25 a bag, is resulting in two tons of carry-on per passenger. Wars are breaking out over overhead-bin capacity.
Airlines now list surcharge, after surcharge, after surcharge: NAV, airline insurance, fuel surcharge, "peak travel premium" and the dreaded airport improvement tax.
At the same time, economy class services are slowly and ...
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Loma House Vegetarian Express
9142 23 Avenue
780-466-8391
lomahousevegexpress.com
11:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m, noon on Saturdays.
Closed Tuesdays and Sundays
Food: 4 of 5 Suns
Ambience: 3 of 5 Suns
Service: 3 of 5 Suns
Graham Hicks
780-707-6379
graham.hicks@hicksbiz.com
www.hicksbiz.com
@hicksonsix
Here’s a little jewel of a restaurant.
Without a hint of marketing, Loma House Vegetarian Express on 23 Avenue (around the corner from Costco South Edmonton) has been serving delightfully fresh, delicate and colourful vegetarian dishes for some five years. Who knew?
It’s small — about 24 seats, very clean, casual and attractive in a well-designed strip mall. One wall is a floor-to-ceiling cooler for frozen vegetarian food, both brand-made and in-house.
But it’s the Asian-fusion vegetarian cuisine coming out of the kitchen that counts.
At Loma House, whoever’s in the kitchen has the lightest of touches. There’s no grease! Veggies ar ...
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With Farmfair International and the Canadian Finals Rodeo (CFR) happening at Northlands Park, this past week has been a celebration of our societal agricultural roots.
Farmfair brings together the livestock segment of Alberta agriculture. Purebred breeders and animal breed associations gather to socialize, discuss business opportunities and pick up ideas improve their breeds to produce more and better meat and milk.
The rodeo represents a series of niche sports based on our country-dwellers' inextricable link to horses and cattle.
Northlands Park is governed as a not-for-profit "agricultural society". While its activities now reach far beyond agriculture, its original mandate and many current activities still exist to serve the northern Alberta farming community.
It's an exciting, and challenging, time for all three organizations.
With the new downtown arena opening in 2016, Northlands is now in the process of reviewing and renewing its community mandate.
Farmfair has to reflect the changing ...
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“As you give, so shall you receive” still holds high truth, even in this age besotted with self-gratification as the path to happiness.
None of the dozens of restaurants donating dinners, time and culinary talents to the annual ATCO Edmonton Sun Christmas Charity Auction are doing so for marketing purposes.
Were that the case, the expense would best be re-directed to advertising.
They are offering dining experiences to the auction, being held next week in the Edmonton Sun on Nov. 4, 5 and 6, because … it’s the right thing to do.
My job, then, is to be a salesman of the highest order.
I want you, fellow Edmontonians, to bid top dollar for these dining experiences, not only for the Christmas Bureau, Sign of Hope, United Way and the Stollery Children’s Hospital, but to make our donors feel their efforts were worthwhile.
I also encourage you to patronize these establishments. Faced with a choice of a restaurant that contributes to the community, and one that does n ...
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