Food Notes for September 28, 2009

I’m happy that my crew of choice won the latest season of America’s Best Dance Crew (even though they still pale in comparison to last year’s champion, Quest Crew). This week also sees the return of both The Hills and The City, hurrah! On to this week’s food notes:

• Chez Cora has been on my hit list of brunch diners to hit (with locations in Calgary, among others across Canada), but as it opened its first Edmonton outpost today, it looks like I will be able to satisfy my curiosity without leaving the city. The restaurant is located at Calgary Trail & 29 Avenue in Gateway Village, and is open for breakfast and lunch from 6am-3pm. Hurrah for more sit-down, non-fast food breakfast options in Edmonton!
• Creations, the revamped restaurant in the Sawridge Inn (4235 Gateway Blvd), opened on September 25. The menu looks promising.
• Liane reported that the third Mikado outpost in the west end (9942 170 Street, 780-481-2202) is set to open on October 1.
• Jan Hostyn profiled Patty Milligan (aka Lola Canola) in Vue this week.
• I know traditional media outlets often receive press releases sent en masse, but I’ve never before seen an impersonal “blogger targeted” mass e-mail…until this week. It’s for an upcoming fall harvest dinner at Culina Highlands on October 19: 5 Italian dishes, each paired with an Italian wine, for $65/person. I wish there was something I could link to, but nada.
• The LitFest schedule is out – and there are many food-entwined events on the list, such as Savouries – readings featuring Liane and Jennifer McLaglan (author of Fat), alongside appetizers inspired by the writing. I’m sad that I will have to miss it (I will be out of town), but I’m sure it will be a great evening!
• Andree wrote about gourmet food available on campus at Calgary’s SAIT Polytechnic – as with NAIT’s student showcase buffet, I think it’s awesome when students are able to show their hard work and efforts off to the public.
• This magnet that looks like a chocolate bar is too cool. I originally thought that it would make a great gift for a chocoholic, but on second thought, because it looks so real but is made of wax, it might actually be a cruel present.
• The word of the week in the NY blogosphere was “foodiot” – first, an article discussing the phenomenon of people’s constant obsession to update others on what they are eating – enabled by tools like Twitter and Facebook. And then, a great deconstruction of how this came to be over at Grub Street. Yes, I admit to being a foodiot sometimes…
• After picking our share of potatoes on Saturday, the lot of us headed to Hudson’s for lunch. This may well have been my first visit to Hudson’s, but I wasn’t sure. The patio at the 104th Avenue location was pretty nice, and felt sheltered from the thoroughfare. I liked their “mini menu” that featured small versions of burgers and sandwiches, inspired, I’m sure, by the popularity of bite-sized sliders. I ended up ordering the mini beef dip ($10.99, plus $1.99 for fries). The meat was a little thicker and seemed to have been drenched in a sauce to disguise the dry texture – with the au jus, it wasn’t bad, but I’ve had better beef dip elsewhere. Mack had nothing negative to say about his fish and chips ($13.99), and Jane, Yi-Li and Annie all liked their burgers. Watch for a fifth location at South Common to come in November.

Patio at Hudson’s

Mini Beef Dip

Fish and Chips

Yi-Li with his Champion two patty burger (which he heroed)

• Mack and I finally made our way to the sparkly new Southgate this weekend. We had been meaning to go for weeks, but between our busy schedules and Mack’s sound un-enthusiasm for shopping, our belated visit made sense. The new wing interior reminded us a lot of Calgary’s Southcentre Mall (actually developed by the same company), and for that reason, we weren’t as wowed as we could have been. The food court, however, is definitely the nicest in Edmonton. And seeing as I remember the days when the booths could have easily been misconstrued as dungeons in the Southgate food court of old, I can hardly believe the change.
  



Revamped Southgate Food Court

• What I don’t want to accept is how expensive mall food has become. We hedged our bets with something new – a decent butter chicken from Rasoee, an Indian outlet – and at $6.59, I’m sure we could have done much worse. Still, the value wasn’t there, even though both of us admitted that the basmati rice was very nicely cooked.
  



Rasoee’s Butter Chicken

• VIA, Starbucks’ venture into the world of instant coffee, hits all North American stores on September 29 (they will be sold in boxes of 3 or 12). Yesterday, while picking up a night cap, we were lucky enough to get a few free samples! We haven’t tried it yet, but we have read many positive reviews that say that it is the best instant coffee to ever hit the market.

VIA Samples