Dinner – Page 49 – Elsie Hui

October 3, 2012October 3, 2012

Shady Island Seafood Bar and Grill

So, my first trip to Vancouver – and on the first day right after I got checked into my hotel, I found myself wanting seafood! Calgary doesn’t offer anything great since we’re not near the ocean, and the front desk agent recommended us to Steveston which really wasn’t far away at all! We parked our car and took a walk towards the wharf and saw a restaurant called Shady Island Seafood Bar & Grill. How bad can it be? There was guests in the restaurant constantly at the odd hour we were there… so, we walked in for a try! Right at the door, it advertised Award Winning Seafood Chowder, so I knew I was going to get a bowl of soup!

This wasn’t really a meal and more like a huge sampling snack! So, the first thing we ordered was Mama’s Seafood Chowder which was really delicious actually! It was creamy with quite a few chunks of seafood in the chowder!

Then, we also had some BC Crab Happy Cakes which was a plate of crab cakes with a roasted red pepper aioli and tartar sauce to dip in. The crab cakes weren’t the best I have ever had, nor were they the worst. They were decent, but they were filled with lots of crab meat inside – without too much binding agent.

Our main was the Seafood Melt which was a patty made with baby shrimp & crab with mayo on foccacia – then topped with mozzarella and probably put in the broiler to melt the cheese. It came with a huge bed of fries on the side – which we never finished. Out of the entire meal, and if I had to pick something I didn’t like the most – it would probably be this main. It didn’t taste like there was enough taste to it and it was rather dry.

To our main dish, we shared a side dish, the Lobster Morsels which was lobsters and scallops on a cast iron plate – so it was sizzling! This dish had more of an Asian flair to it as it was seasoned with basically ginger and soy sauce.

My overall experience was decent. The place was a little dark, but it was a gloomy day. The bathrooms were on the upstairs, and it was a tad creepy. The food was quite good, so we left quite satisfied! We definitely can’t get anything like this back home, so we got nothing to complain about!

Shady Island Seafood Bar and Grill

#112 – 3800 Bayview Street
Richmond, BC V7E5W3
(604) 275-6587
Steveston

September 12, 2012

The Naaco Food Truck – Calgary

So, I’ve been eying The Naaco Truck since the day it came on to the streets of Calgary! They were at the Calgary Stampede but I really wanted to eat “Stampede Food” at there as I knew I would try The Naaco truck any other time! Well, I found time to try, and it just happened to be at Calgary Farmers Market during their first annual Sundown Chowdown which was a great event! I would say it was really successful!

The line ups were insane the entire night!! We had some friends lining up for Fries and Dolls and after about 90 minutes, they were told that food truck ran out of fries, but they were going to replenish the stock soon… so, they waited a total of 3 hours for some fries. Then, some other friends waited in line at Cheezy Bizness, which was a little worse really! It was about a 2 hour wait just to put in an order and another 45 minutes before we got the product! Luckily, the line at Naaco Truck wasn’t as bad. It was about an hour wait to get to the front of the line and about a 10-15 minute wait for the food. I think it was very successful knowing that other trucks weren’t as quick – and worse, other trucks ran out of food!

We ended up ordering a Beef Vindaloo, which was really good, made with tons of fresh ingredients such as their fresh vegetable slaw! This package of good food came on a piece of naan, topped with braised beef, feta, sprouts, yoghurt chutney and of course the vegetable slaw! This treat is also called the Gutsy Goan, and we were expecting more heat to it, but it is catered to the average crowd which may not take as much heat in their food.

To kick up the order up a notch or two, they did have some flavour salts that you can sprinkle on top! By the time I realized it existed, I felt bad for taking up the counter space and wanted to move out of the way so the next customers could get their order – so I didn’t get a chance to try either of their Inca Fire salt or West African Citrus spice salt…

The other order that we had was their 5 Spice Pork, which is kind of strange as I don’t think of pork with I think of “East Indian Culture or Cuisine”, but it doesn’t matter! The other thing to me was, 5 Spice is more “Chinese Asian” cuisine, but I ordered it anyway! This was really delicious and I’m glad I ordered it!! In fact, I recommend this! It’s a naan topped with shaved pork, fresh veggies slaw, sprouts and apricot tarragon chutney! The mixture of sweet and savoury is undeniably delicious! I love the braised pork alone or together with the naan taco!! I will definitely be back to the Naaco truck again!

September 10, 2012September 10, 2012

Double Zero Pizza

I’ve been on a pizza craze lately, and so we met up with some friends downtown to try Double Zero Pizza which is located across the street from Holt Renfrew. The environment of this restaurant is really warm, inviting and romantic. I really enjoy this pizza place, as everything we ordered tasted fantastic! The cost is on the upper end, but it’s decent for the quality and the location of this this restaurant.

Once we were seated, we were greeted really friendly and a bottle of water came to the table. The bottle looks spectacular and it tasted pretty good too! It’s a neat touch – creative and memorable!

We ordered a bunch of appetizers to share and we really enjoyed, and we ordered 2 appetizers! We tried their Tuna Crudo fennel crusted ahi tuna, roasted tomato relish, arugula. This was an excellent appetizer, and the tuna was perfectly seared, and the perfect balance of the tomato relish! This appetizer is a great sign of what’s to come!

The other appetizer the table ordered is their famous Double “00” Meatballs made with a house blend of natural pork and beef, tomato gravy

We tried 2 pizzas from Double Zero, and the first one was spectacular! It’s their Speck Pizza which is a pizza made with smoked speck, mozzarella, arugula. This pizza is really interesting as it doesn’t seem like there’s anything holding the arugula down on the pizza – so it’s the first thing to fall off! It’s simple to pick it up and place it back on the pizza though! The speck was amazing – with a hint of smokiness, and a texture much like prosciutto, it was a perfectly made pizza that is unlike any other!

The other pizza we had was on the bottom of the pizza stand, so the picture was taken in the shadows – but it’s the Margherita Pizza which definitely wasn’t a lousy pizza! It was simple and perfect! This pizza is made of fiore di latte, basil, tomato sauce! Fiore di Latte is essentially delicious and fresh mozzarella!

At the end of the night, it was so much food that we were too full to order dessert!! It was a fantastic dinner which I loved, and I would probably need to return to eat their pastas and desserts!

Double Zero Pizza

751 4 St SW
Calgary, AB T2P1E3
(403) 265-9559

August 15, 2012August 15, 2012

Open Sesame

I was looking for a special place to go for my husband birthday. We’ve been hearing great things about the Smugglers Group chain, and we didn’t know which restaurant to try. We ended up settling for Open Sesame, for no particular reason really! Eventually, we will try it all! 🙂

Parking was in the back, and there wasn’t too many in the parking lot, but there are street parking available, which seemed like there was plenty! I really felt like something sweet to drink, but non-alcoholic – so I ordered a delicious Aladdin’s Passion. This drink, it says it’s made with Passion fruit sorbet, Orange, Mango juices, slash of Green Tea. It was refreshing, even though the chunks of ice was kind of made it hard to drink until during the dinner entree when the ice started melting.

We started off with a plate of Potstickers as it’s one of my all time favourite foods! I like them even when they’re not good! But, no problem here at Open Sesame, it tasted great! It was stuffed with Ginger Chicken & Shrimp, but for 4 pieces at $7.45, I felt like it was a tad costly! But, that’s probably because I’m use to it being quite cheap from actual Chinese restaurants! Besides, it turned out to be the right amount anyway as the entrees are pretty big!

Now, for the hard part – the actual dinner! I couldn’t choose what I wanted to eat, as a lot of items on the menu sounded so good! From creating your own dinner with an “ingredient” bar to different areas of inspirations on the menu! I finally decided on having Malaysian Blazin’ Noodles which was a huge plate of delicious white, wide rice noodles tossed with Malaysian spices, and then stir fried with chicken and vegetables!

Then, the birthday boy ordered a sizzling plate, which came out steaming and making the area smelling wonderful! It splashed oil/sauce as it was put down, but it was so worth it! It was a very comforting plate of food as we have meals like that in Chinese restaurants. He ordered the Chicken Katsu, made chicken breast that was breaded and made super crispy. Served with this amazing chicken had a bowl of rice and a bunch of vegetables. There was a sauce that was placed on top of the chicken, and it was really good!

At the end of dinner, to be honest, I was way to stuffed for dessert. I even had the rest of my dinner packed to take home! It was really good, and I loved the ambiance of Open Sesame! I loved that a lot of their customers at least try to use chopsticks as they put it on the table with the normal eating utensils! I had fun here, and I’m sure I’ll return one day – but probably after I try the entire group of restaurants as they’re so well known in the city!

Open Sesame

6920 Macleod Trail South
Calgary, AB T2H0L3
(403) 259-0123

July 18, 2012December 31, 2018

Namskar Cuisine of India

I love Indian cuisine, and when I heard I was going to go to Namskar – Cuisine of India, I was really happy! Apparently I’ve been there once, but it must’ve been so long ago, I don’t remember it at all! Nothing in there rings a bell, so I will consider it my first time there! This little Indian restaurant is located right on 16th avenue, and it’s a corner location. It offers a few spots in the back which I found it was easiest to park on the streets. Once you walk up to the restaurant, you can smell the Indian spices and curries – you know you’re in for a real treat!

We got in, and instead of ordering my usual mango lassi, I decided to have a nice cup of Chai Tea which has always been one of my favourites. Unfortunately here, their chai wasn’t as strong as I would have hoped for. I like it when it’s creamy and full of spices – but that’s a personal preference. Luckily, their food is really good here!

My pictures didn’t really turn out, but we ordered a bunch of curries, rice and naan. We started with Butter Chicken which was a delicious dish with chunks of chicken pieces in a tomato and cashew sauce. The sauce was really thick, creamy and a hint of sweetness to the spice! For the first time, we also went ahead a tried some Fish Curry which was chunks of Basa fish cooked with fresh vegetables. It was a medium heat dish but came out to be one of my favourites of the evening.

For the spice dishes, we ordered Lamb Vindaloo which of course was lamb. Vindaloo has always been the killer dish for me but they made this sauce really nice – infused with so much flavour and fragrant, the spice was really nice with the lamb. We also had a order of Goat, which I don’t really remember what kind of curry it was in. It didn’t have as much sauce to it, and it was cooked with a lot of vegetables. Regardless, it was a great dish, and I ate a lot of it!

To end the night, we actually took a different spin… we ended with a plate of appeitzers instead of dessert. We had the Namskar Mix Platter which was a great idea to start with. For us, it was too much food as it came with pieces of Veggie Pakoras, paneer pakoras, Fish pakoras, onion bhajia, Veggie samosa, and a piece of lamb samosa. It came on 2 plates, which was great as we had a relatively large group and it made it easy to share.

This was a wonderful place to go for dinner. The service was really good, and they kept filling up our glasses with water – as we needed it. This would be a location I would return to for Indian food because I really enjoyed my experience here! This time, I will remember I’ve been here!

Namskar Cuisine of India

202 16 Ave NE
Calgary, AB
(403) 230-4447