Food Notes for January 5, 2015

Happy New Year! Although I didn’t originally intend to take a blogging break, it was nice to step back over the holidays to relax with friends and family and complete our mandatory Christmas viewing (which for Mack, involves the Die Hard quartet). Hope you had a restful time as well! On to this week’s food notes:

• You have until January 7, 2015 to vote for your favourite alcoholic and non-alcoholic concoctions in the City’s 2nd Annual Winter Signature Drink Competition.
• Miss Sailin’ On? Check out their pop-up at Earth’s General Store on 104 Street on January 9, from 10:30am-3pm!
• A reminder about this weekend’s 8th annual Deep Freeze Festival, taking place January 10-11, 2015 along Alberta Avenue. It’s one of my favourite winter events; not to be missed!
• The first YEG Coffee Week event has been announced: a screening of A Film About Coffee and panel discussion about the city’s coffee culture. Early bird tickets for the March 7, 2015 event are $15.
• The Tomato’s annual list compiling the “best things to eat or drink in Edmonton 2015” is accepting entries January 5-23, 2015. You can see the 2014 list here.
• Denizen Hall received two thumbs up from the Journal. Can’t wait to try it ourselves!
• Liv blogged about her visit to Passion de France, the newest French bakery on 118 Avenue.
• Eat Your City checks out Café Blackbird in Crestwood.
• What comprised Edmonton’s best eats in 2014? Three CBC reviewers share their opinions.
• Most cooking classes that have sprung up are all evening affairs, so Gail Hall of Seasoned Solutions is offering a shortened, two hour alternative, priced at $49.95 per person. Perfect for those still seeking a second act to the evening afterwards.
• Liane polled some chefs to gather their food predictions for the coming year.
• I can definitely get behind Omar’s last resolution – “just say no to Q water”. I’m surprised more people aren’t making a fuss about the increasing number of restaurants charging for water in a city known for its water treatment system.
• Nature’s Green Acres posted that they will no longer be at farmers’ markets, and instead, will be focusing on bulk sales. Sign up for the newsletter to stay in touch with Danny and Shannon.
• It looks like the space that formerly housed Niche is now Tapavino (11011 Jasper Avenue). No details to speak of, as their website doesn’t seem to be functioning.

Tapavino

• Construction on The Burger’s Priest location on Jasper Avenue is now underway!

The Burger’s Priest

• I didn’t end up doing as much baking as I had planned this holiday, but I did manage to make Mack’s new favourite cookie – he couldn’t get enough of Gwendolyn Richard’s recipe for chewy lemon cookies.

Chewy lemon cookies

• For my sisters’ joint birthday dinner, they decided on Rostizado. Great service, as always, and we learned that even –30 temperatures won’t stop Edmontonians from enjoying fantastic rotisserie.

The platter of two at Rostizado (love the board itself, too)

• I was fiercely craving Izakaya Tomo, so we made sure to hit it up before the end of the year.

I love me some carbonara udon

Mack’s pick is the chicken kara-age