Food Notes for July 9, 2012

This heat wave is a bit unreal! It makes me appreciate the air conditioning at my office much more, heh. Hope you’re finding ways to stay cool! On to this week’s food notes:

• One way to stay cool for free: 7-11 is handing out free slurpees on July 11, 2012 to the first 1,000 guests.
• Get ready frozen yogurt fans: Pinkberry opens in Edmonton at West Edmonton Mall on July 12, 2012. Free samples will be handed out from 6-9pm.
• Gleaned from the July/August 2012 issue of The Tomato: Chef Andrew Fung (most recently of the Blackhawk Golf Course, and 2010 Gold Medal Plate winner) is opening up a restaurant in MacTaggert. Also, Fat Franks will be opening up a diner-style restaurant.
• The Italian Centre is also planning a restaurant to open in the fall called Massimo’s Kitchen, named after Teresa Spinelli’s son.
• Capital Ex has introduced a number of new dishes at this year’s festival, including cricket pizza, flavoured mini doughnuts and a grilled cheese burger – where the bun of a typical burger is replaced by two grilled cheese sandwiches.
• Liane wrote a great story about a trend of local restaurants serving up staff dinners.
• Vue asks, “How does Edmonton stack up as a beer town?” It sounds like we have a long way to go, but it’s interesting to find out that two of Calgary’s successful beer destinations are heading to our fair city.
• Addie’s article on the Next Gen blog about a few restaurants trying to keep it local is worth a read.
• I love lists – Jay Palter, “newish in Edmonton”, made a list of his favourite dishes in the city.
• I was sad to have missed the supertaster sessions offered by Sobeys, but at least I was able to read about the opportunity on Kelly’s blog.
• The community some want to create in Mundare sounds a bit like a local food utopia. One mile diet, anyone?
• Jonathan Waxman, who competed alongside Hubert Keller in our favourite season of Top Chef Masters, was another contestant we were cheering for. Great interview with him in Eater this week discussing seasonality and trendiness.
• Sad news in the food world today: Chef Anthony Sedlak of Food Network Canada’s The Main, was found dead on Friday in his Vancouver home.
• Food competition shows are going mainstream: Anthony Bourdain and Nigella Lawson are hosting The Taste to air on ABC this fall.
• Mack and I were happy to have been asked to participate in Next Gen’s food-focused DIYalogue last week at The Black Dog. It’s always fun to talk food, and there was no shortage of enthusiasm and love for the subject in the room! I mentioned that day that one thing missing in Edmonton’s scene is southern comfort food, but neglected to also say that we could also do with what Grub Street calls “Asian hipster cuisine”.

DIYalogue

Representing What the Truck?!

F

ilistix served up some fine Moroccan tagine

• It’s been a while since we’ve been in the food court at West Edmonton Mall, since I had no idea we had a Freshii in the city. Mack and I tried them for the first time on the weekend. The Asian noodle bowl ($7.29) had a good variety of texture, and more chicken that I was expecting, while Mack thought his chicken club wrap ($8.29) tasted light and fresh.

Asian noodle bowl

Chicken club wrap

• I can’t tell you how much we were craving Route 99’s poutine last week.

Poutine!

• What’s better in +30 degree heat than a hot bowl of pho? I met Mack at Pho Tau Bay today for just that at lunch, and good thing too – they will be closed from July 16 – August 15, 2012. Get there while you can!

Pho