Text 5621, 86 rader
Skriven 2006-09-18 22:16:00 av JIM WELLER (1:123/140)
Ärende: Road Trip: Food Report 4
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Thursday we went back on our restaurant quest, returned to L'Azia for
lunch and then sought out both a Szechuan and a Serbian place for two
small suppers. Lunch was superb as previously reported. For Szechuan we
went to the (sic) "Szechwen Cuisine" which has been an Edmonton landmark
for 25 years, has consistently received great reviews and has been a
family favourite of Roslind's Ex's family over the decades. Sadly the
founder retired right after Roslind last ate there with Neekha just this
past June and the place has really gone downhill overnight under the new
owners. The place was empty of customers for the first time in many,
many trips and our favourite waitress who had been there the whole 25
years, was gone too. We ordered Crispy Duck, one of the ten classic
dishes that all Szechuan places just have to do well, and were gravely
disappointed. Oven baked, over cooked, re-heated when we ordered it and
not at all crispy, just completely dried out until it was hard. The side
order of mixed vegetables in black bean sauce was insipid and uninspired
too; they did it far better back in backward Rae-Edzo!

The Serbian place, Ziveli, was much better and I'm so glad we didn't
order a lot of food at the first place. We had some of the best "pita" I
have ever encountered to start. It was thick and soft like Turkish Pide,
not thin and hollow like Middle Eastern pita. The crust was unbelievably
soft and buttery and the bread was served steaming hot, fresh out of the
oven. We had some Skorthalia-like sauce (I forget the Serbian name for
this) for dipping and then a platter of cevapcici and onions with a
different style of bread and another garlicky dip. The menu had a lot of
Greek items on it too but oddly the cook was Filipino and the waitress
was Columbian and brand new. She really didn't know the menu very well
and screwed up our drink orders but was so friendly and pleasant (and
cute) she was forgiven.

Friday morning we started the long trip back after first fortifying our-
selves at a major truck stop in the north-west corner of the city, at
the intersection of the Yellowhead (Trans Canada) Highway and Highway 2,
the route north, called Truck Land. It offers a huge parking lot, diesel
and gas, rooms (it's partly a Super 8), showers, a tuck shop and a
robust 24 hour buffet offering a bottomless cup of (good) coffee,
breakfast stuff, assorted supper dishes, good roast beef, fair Ukrainian
and mediocre Chinese food and fresh homemade pies all at once. There
were two items you don't usually find at such buffets: fresh and stewed
wild Saskatoon (Service) berries and really good quality banana bread.
We stoked up on a variety of breakfasty things, then roast beef and
pierogies and finally berries and banana bread.

It was enough to last us 12 hours until we landed around 10 PM at my
SIL's (she's the one with the rodeo Brahma bulls and bucking horses)
ranch in Worsley, in north western Alberta where we enjoyed home made
beef stew that has been simmering in a crockpot all day waiting for us, 
in which everything including the beef was home grown, except the salt
and pepper. I cracked a bottle of our recently acquired Banrock Station
Shiraz which went with the stew very well. In the morning she sent us
off with a cooler containing a recently killed, large, mature, free
range, organic frozen chicken surrounded with several bags of frozen
raspberries and blackberries from her garden all of which we are
enjoying tonight even as I type.

We had a late lunch back in High Level at the cheap "crew" motel, home
of the $3.99 steak sandwich, which Roslind had. She got her money's
worth but no more. I had had a surfeit of rich meats and heavy starches
the past week so I tried to get a light meal full of veggies and fruit
which is difficult in a place like that. I ordered a veggie omelette
with a double large tomato juice, subbing salad for the french fries and
a fruit cup. The waitress had to check in back to see if I was allowed
to have salad instead of fries. I was. Then she apologized that they
couldn't make a fruit cup as they were all out of fresh fruit to chop
up. In the end she came out with a bowl the cook whipped up of canned
peaches and thawed frozen raspberries (used on their breakfast Belgian
waffles) plus canned pineapple tidbits (used on their Hawaiian pizzas);
she said she hoped it was edible and that it would be no charge. It
wasn't all that bad and I said so, tipping her a little extra for trying
so hard.

The first day we got home after a pretty successful food trip all we had
the next day was peanut butter and banana sandwiches having had enough
gourmet delights and hearty truck stop meals to last until next year.

Cheers

Jim, in Yellowknife




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