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Calgary Court Restaurant – Calgary, Alberta

Calgary Court Restaurant is a restaurant that is located in Chinatown and has been around for quite awhile now. Of course, like all Chinese restaurants, service isn’t their number one priority, so in order to get food from here, you either have to be a regular customer or be very patient. I’ve even had experiences where I walked out as I was seated for about 30 minutes and no tea or menu… but, I still go back, since they do make me good food.

One of my favourite hot drinks is the Hot Honey Water and there’s nothing wrong with ordering it, besides the fact you can make it at home. I sometimes just want it and I’ll order it instead of milk tea.

We’ll also order Milk Tea and often swap out evaporated milk for sweetened condensed milk. It’s one of my favourite drinks as well, but it takes more effort to make it at home.

We always returned to Calgary Court for breakfast as I’ve been mentioning we’ve been getting up early on weekends lately – may as well enjoy the nice weekends while they last now days! But, I’ve ordered one of my favourites and it’s also my dads favourite so it’s a dish that always reminds me of my dad. This dish is the Shredded Pork with Snow Cabbage with Vermicelli which is quite a filling breakfast if you think about it. It’s different, but it’s always a delicious one for me.

Another breakfast that we like to order is Deep Fried Pork Chop with Macaroni, and yes, I can make it at home… but it’s fun to eat these kinds of meals as they always come in combos that are very reasonably priced. This meal was the macaroni with Chinese Milk Tea and butter toast for under $6! You really can’t go wrong with prices like this!!

These breakfast combos are offered daily from 8am until 11am, and there are lunch specials afterwards, but they’re not as neat in my opinion!

Calgary Court Restaurant

119 2 Ave SE
Calgary, AB
(403) 264-7890

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Alley Burger Food Truck

We went to try Alley Burger Food Truck prior to the pilot project, when they opened a week prior – probably to get a system going just to test the waters before the event that was put on by Mayer Nenshi.

We got there quite early and we saw the Alley burger park it’s truck. We then had to wait for some supply trucks to come and do their deliveries. When it was all said and done, we waited for 3 hours to try a burger! It was lunch time, and I made the mistake of coming on an empty stomach, not expecting such a long wait!

On the menu is basically 2 types of burgers: The Whole Truck Burger is their 100% Beef burger, and the Alley burger is 100% Pork Burger. When we got to the front of the line though, Connie came out of the truck to erase the Alley Burger from the menu as it pretty much sold out right in front of us. The Alley burger is very special as it is different from all other burgers: pork and roasted garlic sausage patty with Quebec cheese and piri piri aioli which sounds extraordinary, but we’ll have to try it next time!

So, we ordered a small Whole Truck Burger and a regular Whole Truck burger (the difference is one patty or two), and even though I was hungry, I’ve passed a point of really hungry – so if I ate too much then, I would feel sick. So, I just stuck with a bit of greasy food! LOL! You’re able to put toppings on the Whole Truck burger which is great as you can customize it to the way you like it. These toppings are Piri Piri Aioli, Brassica Mustard, Sliced Pickles, Jalapenos, Onions, Lettuce, Tomatoes. For an extra dollar each, you can have additional toppings of Cheese curds, Farm Egg, Bacon. The burgers were quite large, regardless of which size you choose! The patties are tender, juicy, and cooked to perfection. My bun on the other hand was a little charred, but at least toppings and condiments made it all better! 🙂

We also tried their fries, as it was deep fried in duck fat and being Asian, one of the best fats to use is duck fat! It’s delicious! And, needless to say, the fries were delicious! There were some seasoning shakers you’re able to use and sprinkle onto your fries, we chose the Smokey Bacon and Cheddar flavour, and the other flavours that they had were: Truffle Salt & Pepper, Chipotle Bite, Curry in a hurry, Sea Salt and Spicy Portuguese. The fries tasted good without seasoning, but adding that extra bit took the fries to a whole new level! I would recommended trying one of their shakers!

Everything was so good, I’m sure there will be a next time!! 🙂 Just gotta go even earlier, because watching them set up doesn’t mean you’ll get the food you want!! I’m so happy for the success of food trucks! The best part about this entire experience was being star struck when Connie DeSousa was taking orders and handing them out to their customers. Connie was awesome on Top Chef Canada and her restaurant in downtown Calgary – CHARcut was really good too! So, the overall experience was just a great experience to just be apart of it all! What a privilege it was!

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Colonial Fusion Cuisine – Calgary, Alberta

We drove by Quarry Park randomly and saw Colonial Fusion Cuisine and immediately we knew it was a location we wanted to try. We were excited about fusion restaurants as we always hear about them, yet we never go in to try. The fusion was a mix between Vietnamese plus Thai and some French, which is kind of awkward if you think about it – but they seem to make it work with subtle modifications to traditional Vietnamese recipes for most items on the menu.

We started the evening with Mango Salad Rolls which takes a spin off your regular Vietnamese Salad rolls, as the rice papers are stuffed with mango, prawns, vermicelli, vegetables and herbs. It also comes with a coconut hoisin sauce to dip. This starter is really different as you do taste the mango, but it is a delicious combination of mangoes into the traditional rolls. I actually didn’t taste any coconut in the dipping sauce, so the coconut taste was really subtle against the mango. It is really light and refreshing appetizer.

For the main course, I ordered Caramelized Salmon – salmon with fish sauce and jalapenos, severed with rice and vegetables. The salmon was cooked perfectly, and it tasted so good, I ended up just eating the entire piece of salmon! 🙂 It had the perfect amount of heat and sweetness what was really special!! Great flavours, and great dish altogether!

We ordered the Mahogany Quail which is quail glazed in honey, garlic, onions, coconut juice and served with coconut rice. This dish was quite far from ordinary, which was really special! the quail was chopped into quarters, and smothered in their honey garlic sauce, with sauteed onions! This dish, you definitely had to eat with your hands, and the waitress realized that and brought us a bowl of water, with a beautiful flower floating in the bowl for us to wash our hands. The rice and the sauce that was eaten afterwards went in perfect harmony as well!! In more traditional Vietnamese locations, the quail would just be deep-fried so it’s crispy. Their spin here was the sauce which was really delicious!

Curry Stir-Fry with Chicken and vegetables served with rice was the last entree that we had, and it was really flavourful. The bowl of curry was really large, and it wasn’t filled with all sauce. It almost seemed like the pile of rice was too small for the amount of curry that was given! The chicken was tender and juicy, and had great flavours of curry, and a hint of ginger.

We ended our night with Iced Coffee which was really different than the traditional iced coffee. In my optional, in this case, I prefer the normal iced coffee. This glass was filled with ice, and it didn’t have sweet condensed milk, which is what I like!

We ordered dessert, a Mango Creme brulee which was your typical creme brulee, but with mango puree. I can’t say that I would get this dessert again, as it wasn’t a nice brulee texture. It wasn’t smooth, creamy and thick. It was like a pudding with a sugar topping, instead of a custard. They probably put too much milk or cream in, but it tasted a lot like mangoes! 🙂

Overall, this is a very fancy Vietnamese restaurant, and the seating, ambiance and quality of food was really good. The price tag to the dishes seemed a little high for what it is, but we had a wonderful experience. In actuality, I’m undecided if I will return! Go figure…

Colonial Fusion Cuisine

163 Quarry Park Blvd. SE
Calgary, AB
(403) 723-6669

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ABC Bakery & Cafe

I’ve been getting up really early in the mornings and heading to the airport to take pictures of airplanes as they take off. I like the early morning take off pictures as they’re quite different. However, afterwards I’m starving… so instead of popping into a chain restaurant, I went back to an old favourite, ABC Bakery & Cafe. I must say, the last time I was there was probably 4 years ago… and before that, I was there weekly!! Usually for dinner though, I’d go straight there after work. I guess I’ve left a job that allows me to pass by for about 4 years now! 🙂

Anyway, we got to ABC for breakfast around 8AM and I was happy I wasn’t the only table trying to find breakfast! There were a lot of their regular customers there – which is great!! The nice thing about these cafes is of course their price! It’s so easy, cheap and convenient to pop in through the day and order food! But, breakfast is always the best. I miss places like this. Calgary just doesn’t have a lot of them, and it’s a bummer.

We sat down and ordered our breakfast specials, and so we ordered Crispy Bun with Condensed Milk with Hong Kong Style Milk Tea. I like to drink either milk tea, or lemon tea with honey, but I wanted milk tea this time! 🙂 SOO GOOD! They always make it really good!! The crispy bun was toasted nicely, and the sesame seeds on the top of the bun add a really nice taste with the condensed milk. When I make it at home, I like to make a mess and put probably twice as much condensed milk in… it’s normally dripping! But, this was really good I didn’t make it or I’d get a sugar high at 8AM.

We also ordered the Pork Chop with 2 Eggs + Toast and with this breakfast, we also had the milk tea. It was pretty funny as the pork chop came out deep fried in dark oil. Clearly, they didn’t change the oil over night, but thats what Chinese places are all about! 🙂 It tasted good – and that’s what is most important!

This place has always been one of my favourite places to go eat. Cheap and delicious! Nothing to like!

ABC Bakery & Cafe

112 3 Ave SE
Calgary, AB
(403) 266-2888

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Urban Rice

Dim Sum is always something I crave – maybe it’s because I’m Chinese, or maybe it’s because I don’t know how to make it… or, it’s the fact I live so far away from the Chinese communities I feel a little “home sick”. Regardless, dim sum is something I enjoy as it’s part of my heritage.

Urban Rice is a location that was recommended to me by a good friend. I’ve been to their previous location and loved it, so I’ll just follow them around like the hungry person that I am. It’s been really nice with all the festivals at Olympic Plaza downtown as I can fulfill my cravings in Chinatown, since it’s not far distance apart!

We were seated in a pretty big table – a table for 4 people, maybe they knew I’ll eat a lot or something, but I appreciated that! They didn’t try to cram me into the corner or anything like most Chinese restaurants. The place was was quite full when we got in, and we could smell all the dim sum. We quickly sat down and mark off on a sheet of all the goodies I wanted to try!

We had our few favourites such as Beef Tripe, Chicken Feet and Turnip Cake which turned out really well! I pretty much ate the entire dish of chicken feet all by myself! 🙂 I didn’t realize until the end, and I had all the bones on my plate! No questions about it, I ate the beef tripe, and my other half ate all the turnip cake! We had nothing to complain about! (Well, it seemed like the food could use a little more salt, but that didn’t make the food bad.)

Ok, the beef tripe wasn’t as tender as it should be, but it was still tender enough to eat it! The flavour of the ginger and green onion was really nice too! I like to add a bit of hot sauce to my beef tripe, and it was really good. The chicken feet was the most flavourful dish of them all! Soaked in it’s sauce, and cooked till fall off the bone it really wasn’t a surprise when I ate the whole dish!

We also ordered some specialty items on the item as well, and another favourite of mines would be the Shanghai Style Pork Dumplings which I actually get some frozen ones from T&T Supermarket at steam at home for when I’m carving dim sum that badly, and it’s just out of my reach! 🙂 The skin was a little thick, but the dumpling altogether was really good! I of course like to dip it in the vinegar because that’s the way it’s eaten! The best thing about this dish is the fact it came with 5 pieces — which means I got to eat 3 of them!

Overall, I quite enjoy this location, as it’s got big portions of food, and they have lots of items to try out. The best part of this experience was all the dim sum was $3.25, which made the entire experience seem a little extra delicious at the end of the day when our bill was just slightly over $20!!!

Urban Rice

104- 108 3rd Ave SW
Calgary, AB
(403) 984-3380