Food Notes for June 29, 2009

• Connect2Edmonton asked me to write a guest column about food. I came up with a piece about an Edmonton “dining passport”. Thanks for the opportunity, C2E!
• Liane posted on her blog that Bistro Praha, which was heavily damaged in the Ramsay Building fire, will be relocating to Tower II of the Icon Tower.
• From Chris’s blog – there’s a new cupcake store that opened on June 27: Cake Couture (15008 87 Avenue, 780-709-1682). While I’m sure Edmonton can support the growing number of cupcake boutiques, one has to wonder why no one has situated a bakery in downtown Edmonton, where office workers may wander in for an afternoon pick-me-up, and custom orders would presumably be in high demand.
• The Culina Family of restaurants finally launched their new website, complete with a rebranding of Passa Tempo, which is now BiBO. The site has the option for each restaurant to have a blog, but we will see if if the promise for content holds true.
• The Taste of Edmonton, which runs July 17-26, have released their menus. It’s nice to see some new restaurants participating (Padmanadi, The Hat), but given other great sample events that are more economical and serve higher quality food, I have to seriously think about spending my dollar at Churchill.
• Michael Pollan was at UBC last week speaking at a fundraising event to help protect the UBC farmland from residence expansion. The event was followed up by a tasting featuring local produce and ingredients.
• Via the blog Eat. Drink. Better., a link to the recent bylaw passed in Toronto that will require buildings of a certain size to have either a green or a cool roof. So progressive – who knew I’d be applauding Toronto?
• When I interviewed Rob Feenie back in February, I asked him about the possibility of sourcing local ingredients. He said it might be possible, working with a local producer. Well, Chipotle, a popular Mexican chain based in the U.S., is doing it on a large scale, and has made a commitment to purchase at least 25% of one ingredient from small or mid-size farms within 200 miles of their 760 stores in the country. I didn’t think such a shift would be logistically possible – bravo to them for making the effort.
• Mack sent me an article from the Boston Globe about the proliferation of restaurants using Twitter as a vehicle for publicity and interaction with customers. C’mon, Edmonton restaurants – jump on the bandwagon!
• I had seen a sandwich board advertising a new “Indian fusion” restaurant – I didn’t know that the name of the restaurant was actually Indian Fusion (10322 111 Street, 780-752-5500).

Indian Fusion: The Curry House

• My family received our order of 1/4 of a cow this past week, which worked out to 183lbs. We immediately dug into our steak stash – when Mack took his first bite, he commented, “it tastes organic,” haha. I don’t think my palate can make that distinction, but it was pretty darn good steak.

Mack’s steak and potato

• My coworkers surprised me with a giant cupcake from Flirt last week to help me celebrate my birthday! I suspected nothing, even when one of my coworkers asked several questions relating to cupcake boutiques in the city. I am happy to report that it was delicious – the icing wasn’t overly sweet, and several coworkers commented that the cake had a nice texture. Thanks, guys!

The first super-sized cupcake Flirt has ever made