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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 Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

Wellingtons of Calgary Dining & Lounge

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

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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

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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!

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Yong He 永和大王 – Shanghai, China

During our stay in Shanghai, we switched hotels to be in a different location. We ended up staying near the Shanghai Railway Station, and near there is Yong He Da Huang for breakfast and loved the location of our new hotel as it’s close to public transportation, other hotels and lots of good eats!

Once you enter this store front, you’re in the main ordering area where they take your order and you can either go into the back and pick up your order for take out, or sit down and wait for dine in. We did the dine in as we weren’t on a schedule so we can relax. We ordered their Red Beef Noodle Soup 紅燒牛肉麵 with of course some Xiao Long Bao, and I was quite impressed with the bowl of noodles! It had tons of flavour and it wasn’t as greasy as it looks! The beef was tender, and the noodles were excellent! The xiao long bao was in the top ranking too! The skin was thicker than some of the other ones we had on this journey, but it was delicious!

The other items we ordered were some Dou Jiang (豆漿) as it’s “the” thing to drink for us – and for those who don’t know what it is, it’s soy bean drink! The other item that looks pretty funny in the picture is actually Chinese fried dough or You Tiao 油条 wrapped in a thin omelette, with some sauce. It was a greasy and interesting.

We really liked this place! It was pretty local yet in a touristy area, and the food was cheap and delicious! It was fun and convenient as it was a 24 Hour shop!

Hong He 永和大王

梅园店
中亚饭店一层，太平洋火车站店对面
021-63179503

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Xiao Chi Dian 小吃店 – Shanghai, China

A very cool little place that we went to is actually a street side restaurant, which typically are dirtier but local and delicious. This one that we went to was Xiao Chi Dian which directly translates to Little Eat Place, or something like that!

At this little eat restaurant, we ordered some Xiao Long which came to the table in a bamboo basket steaming hot! It was really good! These xiao long bao ranked really highly on our Shanghai trip!! Steaming hot, tons of flavour, great skin with a great filling! It was divine!

The main attraction for this visit actually was for their lao ya fen si tang 老鸭粉丝汤 which was recommended to us by our friends wife! This steaming hot bowl of glass noodles (粉丝) has some duck and tofu in the soup. The flavour of the soup has left us all speechless! So what if this place is a little dirty… the food really compensates for it!

Lastly, we ordered some Fried Pork Chop to share amongst us all! It wasn’t anything to rave about, but it was a great piece of fried pork chop! The pork was still tender and juicy and the crust was really crispy! They used Chinese Vinegar for a dipping sauce which was good, and it helped cut the grease!

Overall, we have nothing negative to say about this place. If I had to say something, it would be that there isn’t a lot of seating at all. They do have tables on the upper floor, and that’s where we sit. We did pretty much take up the entire upstairs… with just 6 of us!