Crave Cookies and Cupcakes – Kensington

I really love cupcakes, and the best thing is, there’s 2 different places that sells great cupcakes near me! It gives me variety as they are 2 different companies! I do enjoy Crave Cookies and Cupcakes, and the location in Kensington is the main location! This location is cute and I really like it (even though it’s a bit out of the way!) I like the small community feel to anything in Kensington and it is so neighborly and friendly – plus they know how to bake great food!

We’ve purchased a few cupcakes from this location on different occasions. My favourite flavour from Craves would be A Lovely Bunch of Coconuts Vanilla cupcake. We’ve purchased from single regular sized cupcakes to half a dozen mini cupcakes. Overall, I think we’ve tried them all!

The “A Lovely Bunch of Coconuts Vanilla cupcake is a vanilla cake with a hint of coconut flavouring in the cupcake – then topped with vanilla butter cream icing and smothered in coconut. It is a messy cupcake but well worth it!

Craves - A Lovely Bunch of Coconuts Vanilla

The other cupcake that we enjoy a lot is Just Chocolate! You really can’t go wrong with chocolate cupcake with a delicious chocolate butter cream topping! The cupcakes are always light and fluffy while the butter cream topping is always the perfect consistency to hold up to the piping bags – these cupcakes are always perfectly decorated! These icings hardly ever had the hard topping on it from the sugar, since they sell out so quickly, there really isn’t ever a chance for that to happen!

Craves Cupcakes

Recently, I’ve been going to the Willow Park location and I’m loving it! 🙂 It offers the same goodness closer to home. Craves Cookies and Cupcakes is definitely one of the best in town – if it isn’t the best for me!

Crave Cookies and Cupcakes on Urbanspoon

Crave Cookies and Cupcakes

1107 Kensington Rd NW Map
Calgary, AB
(403) 270-2728

Mighty Skillet Food Truck – Calgary

One of our newest members to the Food Truck in Calgary would be The Mighty Skillet which recently started hitting the streets in November 2011.

I ordered the Eggs Benny which is their take on the Eggs Benedict. It still was delicious and just by looking at it, you knew it was suppose to be an eggs benedict. This platter of food came with 2 perfectly poached eggs, on top of a slice of ham, and that all sat on top of a bed of hash browns. Along side was a slice of toast. The hashbrowns was different from any other hash brown, as they were not crispy and it was made of what seemed to be a lot of onion shavings with a lot of herbs and spices!

We also ordered the Corn Beef Hash which again used a different type of hashbrown! This time, it wasn’t as “spiced” up, but still very flavourful! This dish was their spin on the regular corned beef hash as well! It was shredded potatoes with pieces of corned beef (deli?) mixed into it! It also had a fantastic egg on top!

Everything from this truck was very flavourful and well worth the wait! We went during a wind storm, and it was actually a lot of fun braving the elements and enjoying some good and hot food! Well worth the visit! These guys know how to prepare really good breakfast food and they’re awesome at making eggs in my opinion! Great work!

Comfort Hotel – Heathrow Airport

We’ve been late for a flight leaving England before, and that was the only flight we’ve ever missed. So now, if possible, we’ll try to be closest to the airport the night before, as we’re paranoid of missing an international flight, and we don’t fly on independent airlines or anything like that – that doesn’t help you out…

This time, we took the London Tube out to Heathrow Airport the night before. We chose this hotel as it’s really close to the airport, and there is a shuttle that takes you to and from the airport for a nominal fee. It was very reasonable, and much economical than taking a cab from the airport. Our day consisted of checking in early, and taking the tube back on to London, and returning that evening to the hotel — only to check out again the following morning.

This hotel offers excellent service, as they allowed us to check in early! They offered free internet for us, as we were apart of their loyalty program.

The shuttle service to and from the airport came quite frequent, and was never off schedule – in fact in both cases, they were early which is excellent if you were running late for your flight. This bus service to Heathrow is only 4GBP one way, or 7GBP round trip! This was an excellent offer and the shuttle was called National Express Hotel Hoppa.

The actual room was quite small, but offers everything you need in a hotel room, especially if you’re not looking to be there for long term – as it’s great for lay-over stays or anything like that. I really enjoyed my stay here, even though the rooms were a little dated, it had it’s fun component to it! It was more of your “standard” hotel room layout, with 2 twin beds, a small CRT TV, and that’s pretty much all you need for hotels like this by the airport! It really is a place for you to rest your head down and get a nice hot shower!

Another thing I really like about this room was the fact there was a towel heater in the bathroom! There’s nothing more relaxing than using a towel that is perfectly warmed to wrap yourself in after your shower. It was my favourite feature during my stay and I know if I’m in the area and doing an early flight the following day, I will be returning to this hotel!

Comfort Hotel Heathrow

Shepiston Lane, Hayes
Middlesex, UB3 1LP

Phone: 020 8573 6162

Boston Pizza Chinook Centre – Calgary, Alberta

This particular evening we were wanting to eat at Boston Pizza which is somewhere we use to go a lot, but has cut down. We went to the Chinook Centre location as it’s not only convenient, but we could also get some Christmas shopping afterwards! This location is one of the newest locations in Calgary, and I think it’s great!

I ordered the Baked Chipotle Bacon Penne which was excellent, with a nice spicy smokey chipotle taste which was kind of subtle, but enough to detect. This plate of penne was a large portion but was really good – it was penne with creamy alfredo sauce tossed with mushrooms, onions, tomatoes, and cheese. Then to make it extra special, they put a nice layer of cheese on top and baked it to oozy gooey yumminess!

For the pizza, we ordered Spicy Perogy Pizza and this was such a different type of pizza. Instead of your typical tomato pizza sauce, they use sour cream, and they line the pizza with potato slices. The toppings was delicious and it had lots of smoky bacon, cheese and green onions!

For dessert, even though we were super stuffed, we were convinced to try the Sticky Toffee Pudding and we’re so happy that we tried it. It was a delicious steamed chocolate sponge cake, topped with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream smothered with rich caramel sauce.

The food at this location was phenomenal, and the service overall was excellent. The prices was right, and you’ll never know what kind of new menu items you’ll find from Boston Pizza. It’s not your typical Pizza Chain as it offers not only your usual suspects at a pizza joint, but it offers new and exciting menu items and even specialty items like gluten free dishes.

Boston Pizza in Calgary Chinook Center

232 – 6455 Macleod Trail SW Map
Calgary, AB
(403) 255-2525

Second Cup – Holiday London Fog

There’s really nothing more exciting for me to have a Holiday London Fog from Second Cup. I know I rave about Chai tea’s and what not, but this is always another neat alternative. London Fog is normally made of Earl Grey Tea and some Vanilla flavour shot with steamed milk. What makes the Holiday version extra special is that they use a holiday Earl Grey tea, which is cherry flavoured. It seems like a lot of flavoured shots in the drink, but it’s actually quite good. It’s a bit on the sweeter side from both the cherry and vanilla, but it’s something I’ve associated the holiday season with as well. This is definitely a drink that you don’t need to add extra sugar in either!

Second Cup Holiday London Fog