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The Ranche Restaurant – Calgary, Alberta

I really enjoy going to Fish Creek Provincial Park in Calgary, it’s a beautiful location where the Bow River passes through this park. At the edge of this park lies a wonderful little restaurant that is delicious and known as The Ranche Restaurant. I’ve only been here twice – ever! Both times I’ve been here so far was during the Christmas season and it’s jammed packed! Somehow, they always manage to bang out delicious food, and great service!

This time, we started our dinner with Blue Corn Crusted Red Spring Salmon and Lobster Cakes Lambs Lettuce with flaxseed Vinaigrette, pickled red onions and lime aioli. This appetizer was amazing, and you definitely know it’s salmon cake as salmon does have it’s own distinctive taste. The lobster adds lightness to the cakes and makes it sweeter. It’s a wonderful combination and unfortunately, I don’t have a beautiful picture of the appetizer. I’ve got to say it’s one of the best “seafood” cake appetizers I’ve had in a long time!

For the dinner, I tried Roasted Brome Lake Duck Cider braised red cabbage, pancetta crisp, ricotta parsley gnocchi, maple raisin gastrique – which is caramelized sugar, deglazed with vinegar. The gnocchi was little light pillows of potato goodness. It was really light and fluffy and infused with flavour. The duck was really well made, and delicious – even though it was slightly on the tough side.

The other meal we had was Seared Atlantic Scallops and Braised Porkbelly which was made with Roasted fingerling potatoes, cauliflower puree, aged balsamic reduction. The pork belly of course was a fattier part of the meat, but it makes the pork so tender, juicy and pork tasting it was great! The crispy skin on the pork was very memorable. The pieces of scallops was quite large, and thankfully it wasn’t over cooked at all. It wasn’t rubbery at all and it was fresh and sweet!

Desserts was something I really loved. I ordered a Chocolate Lava Cake with decadent rich, dark chocolate that souffled out of the ramekin and a pool of chocolate oozes out when I started digging into it. I never did figure out what the custard sauce was, but I mixed it into the molten cake. It was really delicious and definitely a highlight of the evening.

The final dessert we ordered is a Milk Chocolate Hazelnut Café Napoleon Caramelized Orange Sherbert, Chocolate Tuille. This wasn’t really what I was expecting, as I was thinking it would be in layers of light crispy phyllo pastry or something like that – where in fact, the dessert was really hard and brittle. It tasted great, but not the dessert I had imagined it to be.

The Ranche Restaurant is a wonderful place to eat for any occasion – whether it’s for a romantic night out, a party or gathering, it’s just a nice place! It’s great for families and entertainment! The best part is, they always seem to serve excellent food!

The Ranche Restaurant at Fish Creek Park

15979 Bow Bottom Trail SE
Calgary, AB
(403) 225-3939

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Giraffe – Waterloo London

During our trip to England, we had to visit London. Our first night in London, we met up with my cousin there and she brought us to Giraffe which was located on the Southbank near Waterloo. It was a beautiful location as it was right off the river, and a great place to stop in for a bite to eat as it was just beginning to pour that day.

I ordered a Smoothie as I wanted something sweet and fun! I tried the Mango Mama which was a smoothie made with mango, strawberry, banana, orange, apple juice. I ordered mine without the banana, since I’m allergic to bananas, so it wasn’t as thick and creamy. It was still a delicious drink though, full of fruit flavours! The best thing about this drink I must say was the awesome giraffe stir-stick standing in my smoothie! The giraffe was just tall enough so it’s head would stick out of the drink! My little nephew loved these giraffe stir-sticks too!

I wasn’t too sure what to try – the menu was massive, so I just picked something I thought I would enjoy instead of venturing off and trying something new. I ordered the Rodeo Chicken Burger which was a huge burger of grilled chicken breast with melted cheddar, fried mushrooms, BBQ sauce and onion ring. It had the usual condiment suspects such as lettuce, tomato and mayo. It was weird, as I’m not normally a fan of chicken breast – they’re normally kind of over cooked and dry, but this chicken breast burger was actually juicy, mouth-watering good! With the crunch from the onion ring, and the extra sauce from the BBQ sauce, it was a delight to eat this burger!

I split my meal with my husband, and he ordered Grilled Mojito Chicken which was something completely different from what we’ve ever ordered or tried to make at home. This was half chicken marinated in mint, lime and rum. Served with sin on fries and a home made poppy seed celery slaw. This half a chicken was really unique as it was infused with mint and lime flavour. It’s like no other roasted chicken, but it was extremely enjoyable.

My cousin enjoyed a Szechuan Sesame Noodles which was basically fried vegetables and egg noodles in a Szechuan pepper sauce with ginger, garlic, fresh mango and fried shallots. It was definitely Asian style and it must’ve tasted good as she almost finished the entire bowl. This bowl of noodles was the best smelling dish, and it looked really good as well!

My little nephew ordered a kids Pasta Pomodoro fresh penne pasta with pomodoro sauce, and of course he had fun eating this plate of food! He actually enjoyed it so much, he ended up eating it with his hands instead of his utensils! The little kid finished everything, and had some of our french fries as well!

Overall, this was an amazing place to eat! The atmosphere was fun, the prices was reasonable – especially considering the location of the restaurant! Best of all, the food was great, and the service was fine. Our favourite course from the evening would for sure be the Grilled Mojito Chicken, and we would order that again!

Giraffe

Southbank Centre
Waterloo
Belvedere Rd
London, UK

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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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The Maple Leaf – Banff, Alberta

We took kind of a family trip out to Banff during the Canada Day long weekend. It was hard to find places to eat, so I made a reservation for The Maple Leaf for dinner. It was really nice, as we got to sit in the dining room which was on the second story looking out onto Banff Avenue. The atmosphere was really nice, our waitress was really good, and very well mannered & polite. It was a perfect place to end our evening out in Banff.

We sat down, and before long, our waitress came by with really good bread, with a Balsamic and Olive Oil dip. It was really good olive oil and balsamic!! One of the few that wasn’t too strong or too mild! So, immediately, I was already satisfied.

We started the evening with Pan Seared Calamari which was plated really lovely. I must say the portions for this appetizer was a lot smaller than I expected, but it tasted good – which is really what matters! The plate had some olives, spinach, and some toast with tomato bruschetta, chardonnay butter sauce.

we all ordered our own entrees, and we had ordered Braised Lam ShankRoasted root vegetables, olives, harissa, creme fraiche, almond & apricot gremolata.

The Apple Crusted Pork Tenderloin Apple sauce, hero mashed potatoes, mustard jus

Prime New York Beer battered onion ring, garlic mash potatoes, balsamic jus,

Bison Tenderloin Bacon wrapped, Benedictine blue cheese, potato gratin, cucumberland jus

To end the night, we even ordered a dessert, the Chocolate Torte which was beautiful and tasty.

The Maple Leaf

137 Banff Ave
Banff, AB
(403) 760-7680

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Wild Bill’s Legendary Saloon

We were in search of something different, and we found something different a Wild Bill’s Legendary Saloon! The place was huge, with lots of seating areas! We must’ve went at a quiet time, as there weren’t a lot of customers yet. When we left though, the place was starting to fill up!

I tried the Elk Burger and it was actually a toss up between 2 items that I really wanted to try. I ended up with the elk burger as it’s a little more special. The elk patty was thick, and in the middle of the patty was some smoked gouda. It was really good!

We also ordered the Low n’ Slow Beef Ribs and it was fall off the bone tender! It was really juicy and succulent, and something I would recommend if you’re fine with getting your hands dirty! It is a place for customers over the age of minority (18 years old) as they do serve alcoholic beverages — so, this is not a family restaurant!

Wild Bill’s Legendary Saloon

201 Banff Ave
Banff, AB
(403) 762-0333