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Murrieta’s Bar & Grill – Canmore, Alberta

We went for a nice day trip to Canmore, Alberta and took a walk around the Bow River walk around Riverside Park. It was just a quick walk as it was really cold outside! We finished our walk and made it to downtown Canmore around 10:40AM, so we walked up and down the main street to see what we could eat for lunch. We ended up at Murrieta’s Bar & Grill as we wanted some food soon and to warm up – and they were opened at 11AM.

This restaurant is located on the second floor of a corner building right at Main Street. We were immediately greeted by really friendly staff, and it’s always funny when the staff ask where we’re from – “we’re only from Calgary!” but, it’s such a nice getaway it seems like we went faraway! We started off with some hot tea, as we were freezing! I ordered a Green Tea and my husband had a Earl Grey Lavender Tea. These packs of teas are really fancy, and full of flavour. The first cup wasn’t over powering and the second cup wasn’t super diluted!

We started off our lunch with an appetizer called Tempura Flour Crusted Calamari with this delicious Chipotle Mint Yogurt as a dipping sauce on the side. The calamari was so delicious on it’s own that you don’t “need” anything on the side. The calamari was super crispy on the outside with the nice thin batter that actually stayed on the calamari! Just a squeeze of fresh lemon really made the appetizer!

We both ordered sandwiches for lunch, and I had the delicious Grilled Chicken Sandwich which is a sandwich with
Sundried Tomato Tapenade, Vine Ripened Tomato, Lettuce, all stuffed between Olive Sourdough bread! I got my sandwich with a side of fries that were perfectly fried – and I couldn’t stop eating the fries! Even stuffed with fries, I was able to inhale my entire lunch! It was perfect!

The chicken sandwich actually had a really nice smokiness spread on the bread and it added tons of flavour to the sandwich. The chicken itself didn’t have too much flavour, but it wasn’t dry – which is very important to me! It’s kind of like their take on a “pulled chicken sandwich”!

We actually cut of meals in half and switched a half so we could taste what we both ordered. My husband ordered the 6oz House Made Beef Burger with a side of house salad. This classic burger is built with
White Cheddar, Horseradish Aioli, Lettuce, Vine Ripened Tomato, inside the Grilled Classic Burger Bun, topped with a Dill Pickle!

The beef burger was cooked to perfection – still a little pink inside with delicious beef juices running out! The burger was smoky, and it seemed like it was made on a grill. The vegetables in the burger was extremely fresh, which added a great crisp element to the sandwich. This could be one of my favourite burgers I’ve had in awhile!

At the end, I was sitting there already thinking about dessert. I was absolutely stuffed, but I decided I really wanted something sweet. We ordered the Cheesecake Souffle which is a neat plate with Cheesecake Souffle – poached pears, house made cookie, honey mint jelly! I must be honest, I was worried that the mint jelly would be overpowering, but it was a perfect compliment to the dessert making this the perfect dessert and very memorable!

Overall, this place was quite amazing! The food was really delicious, the service was great, and the prices was reasonable! All prices in Canmore seems to be set a little higher, but they all have the quality to back it up – which means I can go there expecting nothing but deliciousness!

Murrieta’s Bar & Grill

737 Main St
Canmore, AB T1W2B6
(403) 609-9500

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ABC Restaurant

I went to the ABC Restaurant that’s in Chinatown the other day, and realized that the sign outside has completely changed. Which made me realize they’ve changed concept and/or owner. We still went in for a breakfast as there isn’t too many places that are opened so early on a weekend in Calgary.

The breakfast concept is repetitively unchanged, and so I ordered a breakfast combo B with Satay Beef with Rice Vermicelli which comes with a hot drink for $5.25! I love how inexpensive Chinese breakfasts are!

The other breakfast that we ordered was the House Special Combo< which was for $6.75, and the 2 options ordered was the scrambled eggs and Rib Eye Steak. It also came with a hot drink and buttered toast.

The milk tea was fantastic, I like the small old school type of cup! The actual milk tea was quite silky and quite strong of a flavour. It was really good – not the best I’ve ever had, but it’s quite good!

Overall, it’s a nice place to return to. I do miss the original cafe/bakery a lot, but change isn’t a bad thing either! Here’s the post to the old restaurant, which was called ABC Bakery & Cafe

ABC Restaurant

112 3 Ave SE
Calgary, AB T2G0B7
(403) 266-2888

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Chili’s Texas Grill (Southcentre Mall)

I’ve never been to Chili’s and to be honest, we went there because we heard about a fantastic promotion they have going on… it’s the 2 for $25 which was one appetizer to share and 2 full sized entrees! Even if they didn’t do a full size entree, it’s still a fantastic deal! We visit the Chili’s location at South Centre mall, which is located outside of the mall, towards SportsChek. We went during mid-week evening, and thinking there wouldn’t be a line up, there was! It was exciting to see so many guests, it makes me think the place is always good!

We got inside and they took our name and they advised us it would be about 45 minute wait for a table. We said that’s fine and we sat down to wait. Not long after we sat down, they came out with some appetizers for their waiting guest – which was a really nice touch! They were bringing out Jalapeno Cheese Bites which was a delicious jalapeno cheddar that is breaded in panko and deep fried to perfection!

When we sat down, we flipped through the menu, and figured we wanted to upgrade our dinner to the other special 2 for $30 special, which is the same deal, but the food sounded more appetizing for us! We ordered a Texas Dry Ribs for our appetizer to share. It was a huge portion and it was delicious whether we took it as is, or splashed some lemon juice on it!

I ordered the Classic Chicken Fajita which is something I really like! I love eating with my hands, and with fajitas coming out on a sizzling plate with caramelized veggies, this was a fun meal for me! The chicken was delicious and it was truly a full sized entree. There was only 3 tortilla wraps, but it’s alright, I just ate the entire thing off the sizzling with the condiments poured on top! It was really enjoyable and memorable!

The other entree that we ordered was the Chicken Enchilada Pasta which is a huge bowl of penne with some grilled chicken, corn, mushrooms and onions in a rich enchilada sauce with melted mixed cheese. It was a hearty meal and cheesy too!

We really enjoyed our time at Chili’s and we’ve been thinking about returning – especially during the spring/summer months and enjoy their patio too! Regular meals are reasonably priced, and the service was exceptional. To top it off, the food was spectacular and very pleasant to eat! We’ve just selected Chili’s as a location we will add to our circulation of places to go for dinner now!

Chili's Texas Grill (Southcentre Mall) on Urbanspoon

Chili’s Texas Grill

282 100 Anderson Rd SE
Calgary, AB
(403) 225-2150

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Fortune House Restaurant

We just arrived as an entire family to Toronto and just in time for Chinese New Years. Well, it’s kind of hard to miss as festivities go on for about 2 weeks! We went to Fortune House Restaurant on Birchmount and celebrated Chinese New Years.

The first dish we ordered was Silky Egg with Shrimp and they used really large shrimps in this dish. The egg was made perfectly as the egg was cooked such that the omelette was silky and soft.

Our next dish was half a Marinated Chicken with Ginger Oil and this is one of my all time favourite chicken dishes. I like a cold chicken and I absolutely adore Chinese ginger oil sauce as it tastes good on anything!

Here, we have this clay pot which is filled with lots of goodies – from shrimp, tofu, bbq pork and veggies.

As this was still apart of CNY dinner, anything long is good, so we had some Long Beans and it’s sauteed with chilies. It’s a simple dish, and when dishes are simple, it’s crucial that it’s done perfectly! This was definitely one of the hits of the evening!

Another dish with veggies was Beef with Mushrooms and onions and to be honest, I can’t remember much about this dish, so it wasn’t anything extraordinary – but, I don’t remember not liking it either. So, it must have been a decent dish that we enjoyed! 🙂

I personally don’t eat a lot of eel, but when it comes to these dinners, you’re required to at least have something of everything, and when the Black Bean Eel came out, I was a little hesitant to try, but I must say, it was pretty good! I think the sauce was a perfect compliment, and even though it was full of bones in the eel, the meat was really soft! The eel was fresh enough that there wasn’t any fishy tastes or smell to it, so it worked well at the end.

My parents were stating that they eat more dishes now days without meat (even though I want to say it’s not true), regardless my aunts ordered Lo Hon Braised Mixed Vegetables in Hot Pot for them. It was full of Chinese fungus and greens, but the flavour they used in the sauce was really quite good! I think they used “fu yu” which is a type of fermented bean curd. It would’ve been even better of a dish if they added more fu yu in as it was really subtle tasting… when it should be more prominent!

Pork is an important dish for Chinese New Years as some say pork symbolizes progress. We ordered Pig Feet and this one was prepared such that the flavours was infused into the meat and it’s very tender. There are many ways to make pig feet, but often it’s quite time consuming – whether you braise it or use the pressure cooker.

Overall, the food was really good and the service was quick too – as they were really trying to turn tables to seat more customers. We later came back another day for lunch and the food was also really delicious! They do everything at this restaurant, so it doesn’t matter what you’re craving – they’ll have it!

Fortune House Restaurant on Urbanspoon

Fortune House Restaurant in Scarborough

2598 Birchmount Road
Toronto, ON M1T
(416) 292-1260

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Chiu Chow Boy – Toronto, Ontario

We didn’t know where to go for dinner as it was a family dinner with lots of people. It isn’t easy finding place for a large party over the weekend and still during Chinese New Years. We ended up making a reservation at Chiu Chow Boy in Scarborough located in a strip plaza on Kennedy Road. This was one of the best dinners we had as the food was very flavourful and well made.

We ordered lots of dishes, as mentioned, there was an entire army of family for this dinner. We ordered Duck in Marinated Sauce which is like a soy sauce marinated duck. We had a half order and it was still quite large! The lo-sui flavour was infused into the duck meat thoroughly and made it really good.

This is an interesting dish that we enjoyed, it’s a Stir Fried Pig’s Intestine with Sweet & Sour Preserved Vegetable and it was really good. The sweet and sour flavours was balanced really nicely with the preserved vegetables and the intestines. I really like eating the intestines and the texture is really unusual. It’s important to eat intestines only when they’re cleaned properly and they cleaned it thoroughly.

I really liked the dish of Deep Fried Baby White Fish with Spicy Salt from Chiu Chow Boy as the fish was deep fried perfectly. The tenderness of the fish meat and the perfectly crispy coating was delicious. The spicy salt sprinkled on top was so good it was one of my most memorable dishes from this restaurant. It’s soo good that I didn’t even need any other dipping sauce or anything!

An all time favourite dish for me in “late night – da laang” style (which is a Chiu Chow style eating with white congee) is Pan Fried Oyster Patties Chiu Chow Style! This was great because we ordered it as a normal dish and I pretty much ate a quarter of the entire dish! Sometimes, this dish is called an Oyster Omelette, but those tend to be thinner. This omelette has just the perfect amount of oysters and stuff ratio to egg which is a nice treat as most places have an omelette with a few oyster pieces floating around!

Our family loves braised pork belly, and normally with large gatherings, we’d order some. It’s less guilty when everyone has a little bit of pork belly to indulge instead of a big plate to yourselves. This time, we got Pork Belly with Taro Root which is braised slices of pork belly and some fried taro slices and then smothered with some sauce on top. This dish is always an appetizing dish no matter how you make it because the sauce is always delicious over rice!

Anyone who knows me knows I love fish and I eat it no matter how it’s prepared! We ordered Braised Garoupa with Tientsin Cabbage in Hot Pot and this is one of the tastiest fish hot pots! Lots of sauce, deep fried fish pieces, it was just perfect! It’s a great winter dish as hot pots tend to stay hot longer on the table.

Finally, a dish I actually don’t eat since I claim it tastes like “nose bleeds”, but a lot of people in my family likes it… it’s Blood Jello & Chives! Yup, it’s actually what you think it is, and I know the texture as a silken tofu. The texture is great but I can’t get past the taste — the entire plate did disappear so it means it was good, right?

Chicken with Chinjew Sauce which is basically deep fried chicken pieces with deep fried kale. I normally really enjoy this dish, but they over fried everything so the chicken was dry and almost tough. They seemed to have over salted this dish. It was the only dish on the table that didn’t get finished which was really too bad as it’s a simple dish to make – you just got to do it right!

Our vegetable dish was Satay Beef on Gai Lan and the gai lan was cooked perfectly! I never remember how delicious it is to just use plain good quality satay sauce on something like steamed/boiled gai lan! It’s a small picture, but it was pretty much beef in satay sauce poured on top of the gai lan! it was a total hit as you can see, I couldn’t even get a shot of it without chopsticks!

Overall, it was a good restaurant! The service was like any other Chinese restaurant, so nothing special. The rates weren’t too bad either. The food was full of flavour and the quality was really nice! I’d return here as it was a location that I remember a lot from the trip due to the food!

Chiu Chow Boy in Scarborough

3261 Kennedy Rd
Toronto, ON M1V
(416) 335-0336