Shut Up & Eat

 

With a chef from Naples and a New York attitude, Bensonhurst Pizza is a newcomer to the Calgary food scene. 4 of us headed there to see what it is all about on Saturday night. We ordered up some red wine as what goes better with pizza then a glass of red? We went with the J-Lohr 2012 Cypress Cabernet Sauvignon ($45), which was fruity, light and great to enjoy with our dinner. For a starter we shared the spicy clams & red sauce ($12) which were fresh, had a nice heat but we probably should have had two orders for the four of us as our only compliant about the dish is we ran out of clams too quickly! That being said, we had our sights on the 18” Bensonhurst Classic ($26) so needed to save some room. This is a New York style pizza with a thin crunchy crust and topped with tomato sauce, mozzarella and ricotta cheese, pepperoni, sausage, garlic and oregano. It was huge! Finger-licking good as well. We also got a Neapolitan style Marinara pizza ($16) as my friend Deb doesn’t eat red meat. This pizza was a simple tomato sauce with roasted garlic on a thin crust done in the wood fired forno oven. She liked the sound of no-cheese but was disappointed in the end that she didn’t take the waitresses recommendation and try the Margarita option as pizza without cheese, well it just isn’t pizza is it?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The décor inside is a mix of reclaimed New York windows, exposed brick, an open bar with pizza ovens and a graffiti’d wall leading you to the washrooms in the back. It is a vibrant and fun vibe with cooks tossing and stretching pizza dough before our eyes. The restaurant is named after a neighbourhood in New York’s little Italy and has a mantra of shut up and eat, that’s a New Yorker attitude to match the furnishings. I thought we already had some great pizza joints in the city and didn’t necessarily need another one but, clearly, I was mistaken, as after one dinner at Bensonhurst I know I will be back for more!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After dinner we walked down to Kawa Espresso Bar to enjoy the musical stylings of David J David over a glass of red and a tasty macaron from Made By Marcus out of Lethbridge, AB. They had 5 flavour options and we selected the chocolate salted caramel & lemon poppy seed. The macarons had marvelous chewy centre encased by a crusty meringue, a perfect end to the night. Oops, it was almost 2am, how did that happen? Grabbed a cab to head for home!

Cheers,
Janet

Mountain Dining

Kristie and I were out in Banff for a conference and decided that a perfect end to a great conference was lunch at Canmore’s famed Crazyweed. Canmore is located between Banff and Calgary so it was nice to stop for lunch en route to home plus it is hard to drive right by the cozy mountain town of Canmore with out stopping in. Named after Rocky Mountain wildflowers Crazyweed has received many accolades including John Gilchrist giving it a history-making 10 out of 10. When I first discovered Crazyweed it was located in a small space on Main Street in Canmore and was consistently hitting home runs with mouth-watering dishes that made me want to make the one-hour drive from Calgary to simply enjoy a meal. They built a new restaurant and moved into the space in 2007. The space is shiny, modern, with great mountain views, a grass roof and 3 or 4 times the size as the old location. I was so enamored with the old location/restaurant it took one or two meals to win me over but I have surrendered to this sleek temptress and enjoy that it is much easier to get a table!

The View

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We grabbed a table with our friend Patrick and since we were coming off a couple evenings of enjoying the “hospitality” of Banff pubs decided we should toast the end of the week with a bottle of Adami Prosecco ($80), why wouldn’t we? The bubbles were crisp with a hint of bruised apples, a lovely glass for a Friday afternoon. Our lunch choices were an Albacore tuna sandwich ($15), chicken pot pie ($16) and the lamb meatball hot-pot ($18).

 

albacore tuna sandwich

lamb meatball hot-pot

chicken pot pie

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The tuna sandwich was a large piece of tuna served open-faced on a bed of arugula with garlic aioli on a ciabatta and topped with a green olive tapenade accompanied by yummy duck fat potato skins. The chicken pot pie came with a side of greens dredged with a flavourful curry dressing, yum. The pot pie was served in a ramekin with a crunchy pastry top and a creamy chicken and vegetable filling. My lunch was the lamb hot pot and it arrived like a coulourful piece of art. The taste matched the appearance with layers of textures and flavours, moist meatballs served with lots of vegetables and in a biting curry broth  topped by mint chutney and crunchy chickpea noodles. It really was the perfect end to the week; we also give Crazyweed 10 out of 10! Janet & Kristie

cheers!

Bottle House Wine Wednesday

Driving into work today I noticed the Bottle House on the corner of 10th st and Memorial has 1/2 priced bottles of wine and flatbreads on Wednesday’s. Now, Wine Wednesday’s seems pretty common around the city and I’m guessing it’s because of the cute alliteration but what I didn’t realize was the flatbreads were something to be paired with the deal. If you read yesterday’s post, Ceili’s on 4th is also offering 1/2 priced wine and flatbread’s but on Thursday. Bottle House is small but it has a decent patio full of sun so when we finally see spring Janet and I will add this to our Wednesday list!

Cheers,

Kristie

 

Ceili’s wine Thursday

Janet and I Popped into Ceili’s for wine this afternoon and after a bit we decided to try some dessert which Merilyn helped us out with. We ended up having a yummy glazed donut with a simple vanilla ice cream topped with a cheery. Who doesn’t love an cherry in top!
We also learned that Ceili’s is kicking off wine Thursdays which will be half price wine and half prices flatbreads. See you April 10th!

Handcrafted Porters Tonic

I’m a huge fan of gin and tonic’s, anytime of year, any party, it’s a perfect cocktail anywhere. We’d recently been trying new gins from our typical Hendricks and Bombay but we were introduced to Porters Tonic Syrup at Christmas when we received them as a gift. We learned they were from the Silk Road Spice Merchant in Inglewood. The just recently Janet found Porters in the recent issue of Avenue Magazine under the 25 Best Things to Eat in Calgary. Well, we got it out of the cupboard and got to mixing! You mix 1:1 with gin and top with 4 parts soda over ice. When we first mixed it we were surprised by the colour and the flavour, it different than your Schweppes. And after a few sips we really appreciated the flavours. So learned that it’s made in Calgary by Nicole Fewell of Cheezy Business (check out our food truck review of them here). She makes them with real ingredients: distilled water, organic agave nectar, citric acid, cinchona bark, lemon, lime and lemon grass. Wonder where the quinine is? the ingredient that gives typical tonic it’s flavour. Quinine is found in cinchona tree bark and standard mass produced tonic is made from carbonated water in which synthesized quinine is dissolved into it.

If you want to want to give Porters a try you can find it in the city at both Taste and Sugo or purchase your own at Vine Arts or Silk Road Spice Merchants. Nice work Nicole!

Cheers, Kristie

Mooved by Model Milk

With great expectations we headed out to dinner this week at Model Milk.  Found in a historic dairy building on 17th Ave. they were recently named Calgary’s top restaurant of 2014 by Avenue Magazine and Justin Leboe, co-owner and executive chef, was named chef of the year.  Bring on the culinary delights!  We ordered a couple House Lords ($12) and a Black Manhattan ($12) to sip while we perused the menu and soaked up the chic ambiance. To start we had the ham and cheese croquettes followed by the shrimp and grits ($17) then the pork shoulder meal ($54).  The croquettes were warm, cheesy, crunchy and gobbled up way too quick!  The shrimp and grits were served with pepper vinegar, ham hock and a fried egg.  There were 5 large shrimp and the dish was creamy and delectable.  The pork is one of their large plates for sharing. It was a lot of fun to try and we were not disappointed with the bold flavours of the
Broek Acres pork shoulder with cucumber kimchi, spicy hoisin, bean and shoot salad with lettuce cups and steamed milk buns. To finish our meal we enjoyed a flight of port, which added to the groggy morning at work the next day…  We had great service and enjoyed chatting with the couple at the table beside us, check out the food and scene at Model Milk!

Cheers, Janet

Peters Drive In

This is a must stop if you have friends or family in town. Or even if you just need to keep a car load of kids quiet because they’ll all be enjoying some of the best milkshakes in the city.
They have 30 flavors and you can mix up to 3 so…there are 4,500 possible milkshake combinations! Wanting to try them all…at one per week it would take you 87 years!
Tonight we also ordered up a sundaes which are $5.00 and spectacular!

Last Mexican Restaurant Turns Indian

I’ve been seriously struggling to write this post but finally here it is.

Way back on February 13th Janet, Elaine and myself struck off after our spin class in each of our last Mexican restaurant to complete project fiesta! We were off to the NE to try Las Tortillas  however, they were closed for vacation! so we decided we drove all that way we were going to find another great restaurant to try. I drove and the girls threw out names and addresses, Elaine in the back on Yelp and Janet just ready to try and of the restaurants we cruised by (she’s braver than Elaine and I!). Finally we came across La Jawab – Indian and Hakka Chinese Cuisine. We were so intrigued with the restaurant tag line we just had to check it out!

Inside was what appeared to be a new restaurant and we were the 3rd group so we had a pick of tables. The menu was huge, I mean pages of items and on the back were the drinks, including cocktails. Guess what was on it…margaritas! And since we were trying complete our Project Fiesta we decided to try the margarita. Well, the as a challenge for them I would say. It took a really long time (we were sure they had to Google it) and then when they brought them out they were in martini glasses. The whole drink experience was pretty cute – they tried!

Then we each ordered a dish and few other items.

Dahi Bhalla ($12). This is balck lentil cakes serviced with fresh yogurt, mint sauce, tamarind, potatoes, onions and chickpeas. The sauce was amazing!!

Kadhai Chicken ($12). Chicken, peppers, onions, chilies, in a tomato gravy “serviced sizzling” is what the menu said. So we actually expected a big of scene like when they bring that hot skillet of fajitas. but no, it just came out like the other dishes.

Malai Koffy ($12) Paneer dumplings in a light cream sauce. This dish was a little blan and not on our favorite list.

Chicken La Jawab aka star of the show ($14). This was so yummy and I need to find this dish someone where in quadrant so I can get take out! It’s chicken in garlic and ginger masala and just lovely!

Finally we also ordered Aloo Parantha (4$) they come in 4 and are flatbread stuffed with potatoes and peas. They were good but a little heavy. This might be a great dish for lunch and only $4!

Overall the service was a little slow but we did challenge them in the drink department and the food was super tasty!

Kristie

 

 

Vero Bistro Moderne

We were headed to West Side Story at the Jubilee and wanted to have a bite nearby before the performance. We chose Vero Bistro Moderne, a small bistro with modern décor located on 10th street in Kensington, for our pre-show dinner. We selected a bottle of Spanish Lo Nuevo Sorbo A Sorbo Garnacha ($48) to start us off, which was recommended by our waiter as a good choice for this price point. Spanish reds are often not my favourites and although we enjoyed this one neither of us loved it. We shared some yummy calamari ($15) as our first course, which had a delicate squid flavor, a nice crisp and crunchy coating, and came with a kaffir lime aioli. For mains I had the veal ravioli served with an almond béchamel ($28) and my friend enjoyed the Venetian seafood stew ($29), which was served in a white wine tomato broth with lots of fresh seafood including mussels, clams, prawns, monkfish, scallops, and calamari. We both loved our meals, had great service and the restaurant was busy with a fun vibe. After dinner, we grabbed a cab for a short ride up to the Jubilee and thoroughly enjoyed Broadway in Canada’s West Side Story. So, the only questions remain, when are you checking out Vero Bistro and are you a shark or are you a jet?

Janet

Crepes and Cravings…hot chocolate cures all

During the month of February there is a hot chocolate fest going on in Calgary (YYC Hot Chocolate Fest) where local restaurants are mixing up their best chocolate concoction and patrons vote on their favourite. The winner will be crowned with having Calgary’s Best Hot Chocolate and everyone is a winner as the fest supports Meals on Wheels as for every hot chocolate purchased $1.50 goes to the charity. I stopped by Crepes and Cravings today to check out their Sicilian Cinnamon Gelato Hot Chocolate ($2.50). It was sooooo delicious, slightly bitter and the sweet cold gelato and whipped cream a great contrast to the bitter hot chocolate. Go check one out!