Dinner – Page 32 – Elsie Hui

April 12, 2014April 12, 2014

Schanks Sports Grill – Calgary, Alberta

I’ve been looking for a good dry rib lately and when we came to Schanks Sports Grill I realized they had really good food! We stopped in on a Friday night and it was relatively quiet, but still had other people. The atmosphere was busy and spacious! Once we sat down, I ordered myself a Shirley Temple as it was fruity and something I wanted!

We tried their Garlic Soya Ribs for my rib mission. The waitress did advise us that they are salty, and they really were! The meat was tender and juicy but there was an overwhelming amount of saltiness to them. It’s not bad and it does go with beer… but it wasn’t what I was looking for.

We did order some wings and we got to try their Lemon Pepper Wings and this we really enjoyed. The seasoning was really great and the skin was crispy, with a tender and juicy.

Overall, it’s a decent place to go, but there are tons of other places along Macleod Trail that I’d like to try first before returning. It’s not up my alley as I’m not into sports – but I can see the place being packed on important game nights!

Schanks Sports Grill

9627 Macleod Trl S
Calgary, AB
(403) 253-7300

March 25, 2014June 24, 2014

Soluxe Restaurant 陽光飯店 – Calgary, AB

Chinatown in Calgary has changed a bit, and Soluxe Restaurant is a new change from Harbour City at the corner of Centre Street and 3rd Ave.

We started with some dumplings – at this time when we visited Soluxe, it was right after we got home from China and we just wanted some good dumplings in Calgary, so we gave it a shot and ordered an order of Seafood Meat Dumplings which wasn’t bad. They cooked it in boiling water and had some red vinegar on the side. I think they could have elevated it by pan frying it a little, but that’s my opinion. The filling was very flavourful, and I would say a little on the salty side.

We stopped in here for lunch one day to try out their noodles. It wasn’t bad at all. The portions were quite large and the flavours of the meat and soup was quite good! I ordered an order of their Rice Noodles with Beef and the beef chunks was really tender.

The other bowl of noodles that we ordered was basically the same thing, but it was called Special Noodle with Beef and the noodles were quite special. It was very homemade like, and it varied in thickness leading me to think they rolled it out themselves. It’s a broader noodle but it worked nice with the noodle soup.

Our overall experience was quite decent. We enjoyed our bowls of noodle soup. We actually took left overs home and had it for dinner! The portions were huge, so it helped justifying the price tag a bit as each bowl of noodles was just under $11!

Soluxe Restaurant

302 Centre Street South
Calgary, AB
(403) 269-8888

March 23, 2014September 30, 2018

Wellingtons of Calgary Dining & Lounge – Calgary, AB

For all the people who actually know me, they know I’ve been going to the same place for Valentines day for the last LOTS of years until they changed hands. This year, we had to find something else as we weren’t satisfied last year. We went to Wellingtons of Calgary and it was pretty good! It’s not cheap, but it was worth it for special occasions like Valentines day!

Once we were seated and ordered our drink, a bread basket came out and it was decent! But, we did order some starters and I enjoyed their Fresh Oysters in a Half Shell. I really enjoyed these oysters, they were really fresh and it tasted great with just a little bit of lemon.

My husband ordered their soup of the day, which was Seafood Chowder and it wasn’t a thick chowder, but it was still rich. It had tons of seafood in the soup and great depth of flavour.

The main entree, I had to order the Beef Wellington and it was really delicious! The steak was cooked to perfection, wrapped in great puff pastry that was light and fluffy with a great crispy exterior! It was a large piece of steak!

My husband ordered the Steak Dianne which was broiled beef tenderloin topped with a brandy mustard sauce. The steak again was prepared to perfection! We thoroughly enjoyed this steak with it’s gravy sauce! There was so much meat it was really worth the price!

After we ate, we were both stuffed to the rim. Our waiter sold us on getting a piece of cake for dessert, so we ordered what he recommended – the Cheesecake! It was fantastic and I’m so glad we got it! It was a light and fluffy cake where we were both glad we didn’t turn it down!

Overall, I believe this is going to be our new Valentines day location! We really like steaks for this special day and I’m sure we’re going to keep it that way! This may be my new favourite steak place in the city right now!

Wellingtons of Calgary Dining & Lounge

10325 Bonaventure Dr SE
Calgary, AB
(403) 278-5250

January 24, 2014

Jiajia Steamed Tang Bao 佳家汤包 – Shanghai, China

We found this amazing tang bao location at Huang He Lu which is directly north of People’s Square, which is an amazing place recommended to us by our hotel concierege! It’s apparently very famous for not only their tang baos, but ji ya xue tang as well.

We of course started out with their regular Xian Rou Xiao Long which is their fresh pork buns which we think are made to order and then steamed to perfection! These were our favourite xiao long bao on the entire trip! They won first place in our books! The skin was super thin and delicate with lots of amazing stuffing and soup inside!

There were also 2 other flavours of these tang bao that we tried. One of them was their Hai Fen Xian Rou Xiao Long which translates to crab meat and fresh pork buns! These were amazing! When you bite into it, you definitely know there’s some crab/seafood in there – yet it’s not fishy or over powering! It was a great combination and something to drool over!

The last flavour of the tang bao we tried was their Dan Huang Xian Rou Xiao Long which this one translates to egg yolk with the pork bun! These were really good as well, yet not our absolute favorite, we still ate another 2 orders of this! 🙂 So, not our absolute favourite yet eating about 30 of them tells you something about this place! WE LOVE IT!

Lastly, here’s something that is special to this place and area. It’s Duck and Chicken Blood Soup which is also known here as Ji Ya Xue Tang. The chicken and duck blood was so soft and jello like, it was really good! The flavour of the broth was fragrant too! It’s not as gross as it sounds as I have some co-workers who think I’m nasty… but, they don’t know! 🙂

Now, with this blog post posted – this is our absolutely favourite place that we discovered on the trip! We highly recommend this place, and be aware it gets busy really fast!! So, be patient, you’ll love it!!

Jiajia Steamed Tang Bao 佳家汤包

90 Huanghe Lu, by Fengyang Lu 
Shanghai, China 
+82 21 6327 6878

January 23, 2014

Bellagio Cafe 鹿港小镇 – Shanghai, China

We ventured to the Super Brand Mall in Shanghai and found a great place for dinner called Bellagio Cafe and it’s located on the 8th Floor of the mall and relatively easy to find! It’s closer to the IMAX, if it helps! 🙂

We ordered a bunch of dishes and shared it, Asian style! We first started with their Black Pepper Beef on Iron Plate which smelled and tasted absolutely amazing! The amount of pepper used was the perfect amount on beautifully tender pieces of beef!

We also tried Steamed Shrimp with Garlic and I know it doesn’t sound too appetizing, but it was absolutely amazing! The shrimp was really fresh and steamed to perfection. Tons of garlic on top of the shrimp – so luckily we all had at least one piece!

From there, with us being so Asian, we ordered some rice, Taiwanese Fried Rice, and it’s quite different from the fried rice that I’m use to! It is very similar, but different! Usually the main difference between Chinese fried rice and Taiwanese fried rice will be in the egg cooking format. Chinese will basically make scrambled eggs or an omelette first, while the Taiwanese will crack the raw egg into the fried rice and then mix it up.

A very traditional and popular Taiwanese dish is the Three cup chicken (三杯鸡) which is made with 1 cup soy sauce, 1 cup rice wine and 1 cup sesame oil. This recipe will make TONS of chicken, so it’s nice to modify it and Bellagio Cafe definitely modifies it and adds other ingredients such as ginger and basil into the dish to make it extra special!

My husband actually has Hakka ancestors so it was neat to him to find a dish done in this style. When he saw Hakka Stir Fry Dried Squid an Celery he ordered it! It is exactly as it sounds! Most of Taiwanese cooking is derived from 3 simple ingredients, and this dish shows the simplicity of their cooking with rice wine, soy sauce and some sugar! This dish was so simple yet so delicious!

We actually ordered a dessert or 2 for this meal, and the most memorable dessert was their Mango Pancake which was a mango crepe that was really thin around some light cream with some mango inside. It was light and airy and actually kind of refreshing! We really enjoyed this and I ate up my husbands half of the dessert! 🙂

Overall, we loved this place and it’s a place we would recommend for Taiwanese food! It’s neat to see Shanghai has different types of Asian cuisine and it’s actually done properly! The food, service and atmosphere ranks top notch for sure!