Quarry Dining Lounge – Canmore, Alberta

We found ourselves at Quarry’s one evening as everywhere we wanted to try was completely booked up. Quarrys was also booked up, but they gave us a seat at the bar which was really neat! I love watching bartenders mix up drinks!

The food service was really fast despite the mad rush they had! They warned us that our meals would take awhile, but we didn’t think it was bad at all. We started with their bread and it was very fresh! Nothing like fresh bread on any day!

I ordered their Panko Crusted Salmon and I loved the seafood here! The fish was fresh without having the fishy taste. The crispy crust wasn’t hard or dry or greasy! It was a perfectly executed and it was delicious.

My hubby ordered their Steak and to our delight, it was very tender with tons of flavour. The portion was very generous and prepared to perfection of the doneness of the steak. The fries was thin and not soggy.

We enjoyed ourselves a lot here, and so we ordered dessert, their Apple Tart with Vanilla Ice Cream. It was simple and delicious. Everything was perfect at our experience at the Quarry!

What an amazing place to go to for a delicious and simple meal!

Quarry Dining Lounge

718 Main St
Canmore, AB
(403) 678-6088

Bumpers Beef House – Banff, Alberta

Bumpers Beef House is tucked away near the highway as you enter into Banff National Park – and it’s tucked away inside Bumpers Inn, by the gas station. We use to go here a lot for beef, as they always made it quite perfect for us! We’re not too interested in the unlimited salad bar, but we do take a few veggies and a dinner roll.

I ordered the ladies cut of prime rib, and it was large! I could barely finish it, but I stuffed myself and left extremely satisfied before we left Banff and headed back home. I blame the unlimited salad bar that stuffed me a little over the edge!

We also tried the 10oz Spencer Steak, and that was really good. Not only did they get perfect grill marks on the steak, it was cooked to perfection!

Bumpers Beef House

603 Banff Avenue
Banff, AB

Lilac Festival

There’s a lot to do in Calgary, and this year, I got do participate a bit with the fun in the sun – the Lilac Festival which is located on 4th Street from 10am to 6pm, and the Lilac Festival is normally a 1 day event on a Sunday.

This year, probably had a huge turn out as the weather was really nice, just perfect for outdoor festivities. The streets are full of kiosks that sell items, information and even food!! It’s a great place to sample cuisine up and down 4th street, and in and out around that area!

The lilac festival was full of people, and street entertainers that really attracted a large crowd! Perfect day to spend some time outside with the entertainers and watch them perform!

  • Lilac Festival 2011
  • Lilac Festival 2011
  • Lilac Festival 2011
  • Live Music at Lilac Festival
  • Lilac Festival 2011
  • Lilac Festival 2011
  • Lilac Festival 2011
  • Lilac Festival 2011
  • Lilac Festival 2011
  • Lilac Festival 2011

One of the best things about the Lilac Festival was the fact PC Loblaws Summer Tour joined in the fun and excitement, as they served up samples of their great summer BBQ products!! It was quite the line up, and quite worth it!! We went to Superstore the next day and told ourselves we’ll be purchasing a lot of their products for our next barbeque!

First they gave you a drink, a sample of their sparkling fruit juice. I tried the Peach Mango, and we also got to try the Orange Tangerine flavours – both were excellent! When I went to the store, I saw the same thing, but it was a mocktail, and purchased that instead of juice. It sure is better than coolers, as it doesn’t have the alcohol, and it tasted delicious!

Following that, we got a sample of either a burger slider or a mini sausage. Of course, there are 2 of us, so we had one of each! The sausage was really juicy and jammed packed with flavour! The casing wasn’t tough, it was really quite perfect! The slider was juicy as well – for some reason I thought it would be dry as burgers can tend to be dry, and it would be more prone to drying out as it was small. It wasn’t the case, which was excellent!

Then, the last stop was for ice cream! They had the cutest mini cones, which was the perfect amount for samples! I tried to super delicious Strawberry Shortcake Ice Cream and we also tried the Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream, and the texture we really nice, smooth, creamy and it truly tasted like what it’s suppose to taste like! I would be purchasing PC brand ice cream over summer as I finish up what is left in my freezer. I also found at Superstore PC Waffle bowls, which is something I’m really interested in getting along with my ice cream!

  • Lilac Festival 2011 - PC Summer Tour
  • Lilac Festival 2011 - PC Summer Tour
  • Lilac Festival 2011 - PC Summer Tour
  • Lilac Festival 2011 - PC Summer Tour
  • Lilac Festival 2011 - PC Summer Tour
  • Lilac Festival 2011 - PC Summer Tour
  • Lilac Festival 2011 - PC Summer Tour
  • Lilac Festival 2011 - PC Summer Tour - Mini Sausage
  • Lilac Festival 2011 - PC Summer Tour
  • Lilac Festival 2011 - PC Summer Tour Slider - Mini burgers
  • Lilac Festival 2011 - PC Summer Tour
  • Lilac Festival 2011 - PC Summer Tour Strawberry Shortcake Ice Cream
  • Lilac Festival 2011 - PC Summer Tour - Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

As we were walking up and down 4th Street, we stopped at a few kiosks to grab a bit to eat! We had a plate from Rajdoot Restaurant, which gave us a plate of naan, butter chicken, and tandoori chicken. It was excellent! I hope to actually sit down at their restaurant one day and enjoy! What an excellent way for us to sample the food!

Other places that had samples to buy would be Cruffs – House of Cream puffs, Spolumbo’s Fine Foods and Deli, Fiasco Gelato, Koob (The kabob Factory), Foo King Hot Relish, and much much more!

  • Papa Chocolat
  • Sushi Towa
  • Cruffs - the House of Cream Puffs
  • Cruffs - the House of Cream Puffs
  • Rajoot Restaurant
  • Rajdoot Restaurant - Curry Kiosk
  • Rajdoot Restaurant - Naan, Butter Chicken, Tandoori Chicken
  • Foo King Hot Relish
  • Fiasco Gelato
  • Lilac Festival 2011
  • SPOLUMBO'S Fine Foods & Deli
  • SPOLUMBO'S Fine Foods & Deli
  • Koob - The Kabob Factory

Besides the few stops I made, there were tons of eating options, and if you’re into eating, I’m afraid you’re reading the wrong blog, but there were lots of things to see at Lilac Festival, and it definitely can take up an entire afternoon! So, lather up on the sunscreen, and let the fun begin again next year!

Prince Seafood Restaurant – Calgary, Alberta

Prince Seafood Restaurant is a pretty decent dim sum restaurant. I would say the dim sum tastes alright, but for it’s price, it’s not cheap either! Sure, it’s not as expensive as some other places, but it’s pretty high for it’s taste and quality!

Price does have some very unique dim sum that I really enjoyed! They have this crispy crepe dish that is really good fresh! I would probably be back for that!

We went just before Chinese New Years, and they had turnip cakes for sale — so, of course I ordered a plate during my dim sum experience first… and I was actually disappointed with it! It tasted burnt, and if you look at the picture… it doesn’t look burnt. So, I never actually got to buy any lo bak gao to take home.

Another really disappointment dish I had was the lau sha bao — which when made, creamy egg yolk would ooze out when you eat it. This one.. it was oozing oil, and a lot of it. It made it really distinguishing to eat.

My overall experience would be decent. I’ll stick to the regular dim sum and be a little bit adventurous at times. But, chances are I won’t be back. For the distance to get here, I would go elsewhere with better quality dim sum. I don’t mind the price tag if it’s actually worth it.

Prince Seafood Restaurant

2825 32 Ave NW
Calgary, AB
(403) 250-8880

Chop Steakhouse & Bar (Chinook) – Calgary, Alberta

We arrived at CHOP the other night for a celebration of ours. We were super excited to try an upscale steak house, which was true!

We arrived about 6pm, and it was starting to get busy, but we were lucky and was able to grab a table. The atmosphere was really quite warm, and modern! It is a family friendly location, as well as it can be romantic as well as business gathering — really quite a versatile atmosphere!

We ordered the catch of the day, which turned out to be this wonderful piece of white fish, with sesame crust in a ginger soy sauce. It really was quite tasty.

We also ordered a piece of medium-rare prime rib, which was also tasty and tender.

As this was “celebration” night, we also ended the evening with a dessert. We ordered the Fallen Chocolate Souffle Cake and it was not good. This didn’t end our evening well. The chocolate fondant was extremely hard, and the layer underneath it was a strange marshmallow layer – which was suppose to be
mascarpone mousse. It didn’t look like a souffle, fallen or not, and it didn’t taste good either.

Chop Steakhouse & Bar

6605 Macleod Tr SW
Calgary, AB T2H