Text 8721, 84 rader
Skriven 2014-01-12 21:54:00 av JIM WELLER (1:123/140)
Ärende: Restaurants over Xmas
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For a staff Christmas party, Roslind's people had a vegetarian pot
luck affair at somebody's house. The highlight was well constructed,
freshly made, deep fried lumpia made by a Filipino chap. The lowlight
was everything else but especially an extra mild pumpkin and quinoa
"chili"; the less said about that the better. We washed it all down
with macro swill and jug wine. Damned hippies!

Much more to my taste was the Coldwell Banker party held at
Thornton's Tapas and Wine Room this year which is the #1 place to go
to now that Pierre's L'Heritage has closed. The menu has evolved
over the years so it should really be renamed Thornton's Steaks and
Cocktails. I had several classic Manhattans, a superbly tender and
flavourful bison ribeye steak with a coffee sauce (Michael, did you
have the bison steak when you were there?) paired with a robust
Malbec, then an interesting cheese tray and lots of very old port.
The cheese details are a bit fuzzy for some reason.  I vaguely
remember being able to pick three from a list of nine, receiving
them on a wooden board along with fruit and crackers. They were all
relatively obscure and I hadn't heard of any of them before but they
were well described on the menu. I do sort of recall that one was
blue, another soft and the last one semi-hard. I thought they were
wonderful at the time.

That was on Dec. 13 so Dec 14 was reserved for hangovers and we flew
out Dec. 15, on discount airline WestJet which has improved its
service over the years but does not serve hot meals, just pretzels
and cookies and whatnot. My Mastercard earns double Westjet miles so
both tickets were free.

Slightly humourous FA announcement: "Don't forget to retrieve your
carry-on luggage from the overhead bins upon landing. But if you do
forget you can always get it back later on tonight ... on eBay".
 
We spent Dec.15 to 20 with Ray's family in Stony Plain, then motored
up to Fort McMurray on Red Arrow Coach Lines which is several levels
superior to Greyhound (2+1 across wide, comfortable, reclining seats
rather than the standard four 2+2 narrow ones, good movies, WiFi,
sat radio, free snacks and beverages, and no berserker homicidal
maniacs [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Tim_McLean] on
board) for Christmas with Raine's family, then back to SP Dec. 29 to
Jan 6.

We didn't eat out very often as everyone cooks well and enjoys doing
it except Ray's girlfriend's young children. And even they like
helping Roslind make Christmas cookies.

The few times we did go out we hit middle of the road places and
didn't have our typical one blowout high end dining experience per
trip.

A return trip to Original Joe's was warranted: good food and good
value. That makes four times at the same place, unusual for us.
It's a newish Alberta regional chain. The menu can be found at
www.originaljoes.ca. The 3 pepper burger and potato salad are both
awesome.

We met Roslind's friend Lilli at one of her favourites: the Cactus
Club Cafe, another regional casual dining chain and ate well there
too: http://www.cactusclubcafe.com. I had the double braised
pineapple hoisin short ribs which were quite good, although a bit
sweet for my tastes.

Both places had $5 drafts and margaritas on special so we didn't
look at the cocktail menu. Neekha had a Shirley Temple which turned
out to cost $6.50! I'm getting that girl some fake ID so she can
order $5 margaritas like her grandma and learn to like tequila.

Overall, small western regional Canadian chains tend to be better
than the Canadian subsidiaries of the American chains.

The third time out was at O'Brian's near the airport. It's in the
Best Western where we spent our last night. During the holidays they
were at half staff and serving buffets only but our dinner and
complimentary breakfast were both first rate with a nice variety if
choices.


YK Jim

... Did you hear about the Lucas-powered torpedo? It sank.

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