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Catch & The Oyster Bar – Calgary, Alberta

We met up with some friend one evening at the Catch & The Oyster Bar right on Stephens Avenue, downtown Calgary inside the Hyatt Regency Calgary Hotel. It’s a lovely place and the location is actually larger inside than it looks!

Once we sat down and ordered, they gave us quite a bit of bread and butter. To be honest, we were saving our bellies for the main attraction for this visit.

We started with a bowl of soup, where we ordered their Seafood & Bacon Chowder and this chowder was jammed pack with seafood and flavours. It was really fresh and delicious with the perfect texture and creaminess without being greasy.

Now, for the main attraction, we got their Large Chilled Seafood Platter and it’s as large and impressive as you can imagine it in your mind, and exceed that image’s expectation! This platter had 1 lobster, 4 snow crab clusters, 12 oysters, 16 mussels, 16 clams and 16 large shrimps! The Oysters they gave us was 8 BC and 8 PEI oysters so we can taste the difference. Everything on this plate was so good, and we all over ate – yet couldn’t stop eating!

Overall, there’s not a bad thing we can think of to say about here! The place was clean, cozy, comfortable, yet casual. The food was fantastic, the service was awesome!

Catch Restaurant & Oyster Bar on Urbanspoon

Catch Restaurant & Oyster Bar

100 8 Ave SE
Calgary, AB
(403) 206-0000

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Red Lobster – Lobsterfest

For many years, I’ve seen TV commercials for Red Lobster’s Lobsterfest and I’ve never had the chance to go. This year, I said “we’re going!” and we did make it to Lobsterfest while the promotion was still on! We went to the location in Calgary on Macleod Trail – which is a location where I’ve been to a few times already. The place seems to be newly renovated inside and it seems more spacious and brighter – which is nice. It still has an intimate feel to it too!

We started with an appetizer, and decided to have an order of their White Wine and Roasted Garlic Mussels which is a big bowl of steamed mussels with white wine and roasted garlic and tomatoes. There was also some really nice bread to soak up the sauce, and both the bread and sauce was excellent!

When you order a meal, it comes with soup or salad to start, and I actually upgraded my soup to their Lobster Bisque which is something I love. Here, it wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t my favourite cup of lobster bisque.

For the other meal, we decided to just stick with their Garden Salad with dressing. It was very typical but it’s nice to have the greens in a meal such like this one!

My main order was their Dueling Lobster Tails which was a generous portion of 2 lobster tails. Once was a crab-and-seafood stuffed Maritime lobster tail, and a Maritime lobster tail topped with creamy roasted-garlic shrimp. Both the tails were excellent in taste and texture and although they are the same type of lobster tail, it was nice to see the difference in preparation!

The other main entree we had was their Lobster Lover’s Dream which was a dream – a lobster dream! This plate had a succulent rock lobster tail and sweet split Maritime lobster tail, roasted and served with lobster-and-shrimp linguini Alfredo. The Rock Lobster tail was not only beautiful to look at, it was the best lobster this evening. Plain, simple, and perfect!

The size of the lobster tails was surprisingly large in size considering an entree has 2 of them! They were cooked really well, and seasoned well. This was an amazing experience at lobsterfest! I’m sure we’ll be back again!

Red Lobster

100-6100 Macleod Trail SW
Calgary, AB
(403) 252-8818

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Fairmont Palliser: Fairmont Gold Room – Calgary, Alberta

I’ve been really fortunate with the people I meet, the place I go, and the things that happen during all my visits anywhere. This particular visit to Fairmont Palliser in downtown Calgary was truly one of my most memorable stays ever! I got to experience their “Hotel within a Hotel” with Fairmont Gold.

We got an upgraded room to their Fairmont Gold Room that offered a king bed, seating area, desk and and a few extra special privileges while being a guest during this stay. Once we got into our room, we noticed it’s the biggest room we’ve ever stayed in at the Palliser, so we were really excited. The large king bed was front and center which is always a delight! Bedtime is one of my favourite times!

The bathroom was also bigger and offered more bathroom amenities, which is so nice as it’s really rare to have amenities such as cotton swabs, mouthwash, and shoe shine cloth!

My favourite part about the stay was experiencing the Fairmont Lounge, which is on their Penthouse floor which offers complimentary breakfast and hor d’oeuvres during the evening. We made an effort to be at both and the food is fantastic! It’s a great place to sit and read, with a nice snack, or just some quiet time.

The stay was perfect and now we consider upgrading to Fairmont Gold when we know we’re going to be in the hotel more for future stays.

Be sure to watch the room walk through as it was a fantastic room we had!

The Fairmont Palliser

133 9th Avenue SW
Calgary
Alberta, Canada
1 866 540 4477
403 262 1234

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Sushi Boat – Calgary, Alberta

Recently, I decided to go back to Sushi Boat as I was in the area, and love this place! I use to come here a LOT when I lived in the NW. It was a Friday night and the place was full, but you didn’t need to wait long for a table either at any section.

Once we were seated, we looked onto the boats and they were actually quite empty. We waited for all the boats to go around a few times thinking they will replenish the boats – but they remained the same or even got eaten. We grabbed a few items that are standard and watched/waited as we ate. We started with their Salmon Roll and they were decent. It wasn’t the same as it use to be, but I was just thinking I got the “older” plate.

Then, we grabbed what we thought was Chicken Karaage, but it turned out to be Fish Karaage and we were really disappointed with that. It was cold, and not very good at all. The fish was dry while the batter was soggy. It wasn’t the sushi boat quality I remembered it to be.

Then, I saw one of my “go-to” sushi’s, the Spicy Tuna Roll and this has always been something that was pretty much fail proof, and it was! This plate was excellent, the spicy mayo was excellent as well.

Then, we decided to order off the menu and put in our orders as we haven’t been that pleased so far. We got a bowl of their Miso Soup and that was a nice salty treat! It did taste good but I thought it was a little too salty.

We got a plate of their Spicy Tempura Sushi which was really good! I think I just enjoy their spicy sauce, but the tempura was really crispy and not overly greasy! It was fresh and nice!

We had their 2 piece Pacific Roll, and that just came out as a giant modified California Roll stuffed with tons of imitation crab meat – which was fine as I love imitation crab meat! I definitely couldn’t put the entire piece in my mouth – although I did not try.

We got 2 orders of my favourite, the Hokkigai, as I’ve always loved surf clams. They were fine here, nothing bad yet nothing special.

We got an order of Inari as I like to call them pillow cases. My sister first called them that – and that name stuck! These are always delightful although I will never call it “sushi”. I just like the sweetness of the bean curd with rice packed in them! It was delicious!

And finally the last thing we decided to order, again as it’s more fail proof was their Crab Stick as I just buy packs of crab sticks eat eat on a daily basis. I love this stuff! It’s good as a sushi here as well!

Overall, Sushi Boat seems to have dropped in their quality a bit. Although the food is still good, it’s nothing like how it use to be. It seems like an average place with actual boats that go around for you to get your sushi! It’s still decent, but not what I was expecting.

Sushi Boat on Urbanspoon

Sushi Boat

806 Crowfoot Crescent NW
Calgary, AB
(403) 239-1818

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Masala – Banff, Alberta

We were in Banff for a cold early spring evening and figured curry would be the perfect cuisine to eat on a day like that! We went into the Wolf and Bear Mall to Masala which is an Indian restaurant.

Once we were seated, I knew I wanted their Chai Tea as it was so cold outside! I was unsure how large the serving would be, or anything, but it was so nice, it came in a tea pot with sugar on the side! It was perfect! The chai tasted wonderful, and it was a good start!

My husband is more into Mango Lassi and so he ordered a glass. The glass was a good size and the texture of the lassi was really good! It’s not so thick you can’t enjoy it and at the same time, it was creamy and fully of mango flavours! This was another great drink – and it’s starting to set the bar really high for our dinner!

We wanted to try new items on the menu as there were a few things we’ve never heard of. So we went ahead and ordered their Bison Korma. Although we’ve had korma, we’ve never had it with bision! This delicious korma was perfect with a good amount of both sauce and bison. This korma is a thick and creamy tomato sauce topped with pistachios!

The other dish we had was a chicken one, but one we’ve never tried. It was their Chicken Himachali which was chicken cooked with garam masala cuisine of the state of Himachai. The flavours were a little spicier than other garam masalas, but it was really fragrant and quite enjoyable!

With our curries, we ordered an order of Garlic Naan and Coconut Rice and everything got placed on the table at the same time for us to dig in family style! The portions were really generous as we were able to bring some home an enjoy the following day!

Overall, Masala has made it onto our top 5 list of Indian restaurants for sure! The staff was really friendly, the food was amazing and the prices actually was really fair! For the amount of food for 2, and some to take home, a bill over $50 seems very reasonable!

Masala

Wolf and Bear Mall
229 Bear St
Banff, AB
(403) 760-6612