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Alberta Beer Week runs September 25 – October 3, 2015, with tastings and beer dinners to look forward to. Jason Foster will also be leading another Edmonton Beer History Tour.
- A Bao Bun pop-up dinner will be taking place at Dovetail on September 27, from 4-8pm.
- Sustainable Food Edmonton is hosting an inaugural fundraising dinner on October 3, 2015 at the Arts Barns. Tickets are $52.35, with proceeds supporting their programs including Little Green Thumbs and Community Gardens.
- It looks like a Mediterranean restaurant has moved into the former Creole Envie space called Olio D’oliva (6509 112 Avenue).
- Cindy visits BRU Coffee and Beer House in Oliver, which just celebrated their grand opening over the weekend.
- Twyla was not impressed by Refinery Grill (10406 Mayfield Road), and wonders if that area of the city is the Bermuda Triangle of bad #yegfood.
- Cheryl highly recommends Buco, the pizza-focused restaurant opened by the Sorrentino’s Group in St. Albert. She claims it is better than Famoso, and on par with Rosso.
- Andrea is the latest to review Sambol Sri Lankan Kitchen.
- Chris recapped the latest Swine and Dine event, a delectable brunch at Packrat Louie.
- Speaking of brunch, Linda’s latest “Edmonton A to Z Restaurant Series” features Café Bicyclette.
- The Journal also kicked off a brunch series, with initial reviews of the Highlevel Diner, Culina Muttart and Canteen. This has nothing to do with the food, but will we ever reach a point where we won’t assume that the default mode of transportation is a vehicle?
- Lillian shared her experience of the FEASTival of Fine Chefs dinner last week at the Shaw Conference Centre.
- Congratulations to Giselle Courteau and her team behind the Duchess Cookbook for their Taste Canada win of best English single subject cookbook!
- I was really sorry to hear that Operation Fruit Rescue Edmonton had their shed broken into last week, and parts for their apple crusher stolen.
- It looks like a My Fries might be coming downtown to Rice Howard Way.
My Fries
- The new Hoang Long Fresh Market is now open at First & Jasper (10065 Jasper Avenue). Lincoln has a closer look at the self-serve set-up inside.
Hoang Long Fresh Market
- Signage for the forthcoming Joey’s in the Bell Tower downtown is now up.
Joey’s
- I love the redesign of the Bles Wold yogurt. It’s something Mack and I buy religiously, so the logo doesn’t really matter to us, but the more modern look might catch the eye of consumers unfamiliar with their product!
Bles Wold yogurt
- I had linked to a new restaurant in San Francisco last week that is almost fully-automated. I didn’t know we had a similar system at some McDonald’s locations in Edmonton. At a Sherwood Park branch, we punched in our order and paid using a touch screen and only interacted with someone to be handed our order. Is this the future?
McDonald’s automated system
- We had our last What the Truck?! team meeting of the season at Cibo Bistro (which has a great nook for groups of up to 8). I had been wanting to return to Cibo for some time. The service was great, and for the most part, I enjoyed the food. The veal agnolotti with summer truffle was well-cooked, but I would have appreciated a touch more sauce.
Veal agnolotti
- Before Pecha Kucha last week, Annie and I met up for dinner at L’Azia. I was curious about their new menu, which, as promised, featured some Asian/fusion fare. I was happy with the misoyaki butterfish ($27), served atop wild rice. Service could have been better, but it seemed they were unusually busy that night.
Misoyaki butterfish at L’Azia
- Mack and I managed to satisfy our Bun Bo Hue craving before King Noodle House closed for holidays (and re-opens on September 30, 2015).
Bun Bo Hue from King Noodle House
- Yes, it’s fall – a time for squash of all kinds!
Squash from Riverbend Gardens at the City Market
Only Here for the Food 
Thanks for your comment on the stolen OFRE crusher parts. We have managed with a smaller generator but hopefully can raise funds to get out pedal powered one going by next season.
I first came across the automated system when I was at McDonald’s in Rome. They had an English option, which I used, but after pressing a couple times and noticing there were 6 open tills, I opted to go up to the front to order.
A month ago, I saw one at St Albert, again, with an open till, but used it for the sake of trying it out. Three people ordered directly from the front, and by the time I got to the check out screen, two had already received their orders.
Last week, the one in Meadows had been installed. Staff actually directed customers to use the machines instead of going up front. In their words, “we don’t have to do anything anymore.” I hope they realize that that means they may have their hours cut short soon or they’ll all be flipping burgers shortly.
Kind of annoyed that this is the future of McDonald’s with seemingly slower order processing times, I have opted to go to Tim Horton’s this whole week and quite enjoy the human interaction.
I might be an exception here. Whenever there is a self-serve kiosk/machine (Superstore, Safeway, some Costco locations, YEG, et al), I prefer to use them, as I am usually fast enough and do not want any chit-chat. No, seriously. I don’t enjoy the obligatory “how are you doing?” or “good morning”, especially if things aren’t doing well personally or if the weather outside is crappy. And, even if things are well or the weather is good, I really doubt the cashier care how I am doing. Then again, I don’t blame them, as it is part of their job; however, given I don’t care about this type of interaction, we can save ourselves the trouble.
The reason why there is usually a backup on these lines is not because of the machine but the users, as they don’t follow instructions. How often I have been in Safeway/Superstore and the machine tells them to put the scanned item in the bag before scanning the next but they refuse to do so!
As for machines replacing humans, sorry to inform you that is the future. Check this video in YouTube by CGP Grey called “Humans Need Not Apply” – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU
As for ordering, to contrast your case, I went to the McD’s in South Common, made my order from the self-serve machine (for the record, Egg McMuffin combo), paid and got said order in less than a minute after I paid. Time between walking in and out was less than 5 minutes. All this time, there was somebody struggling in another machine (was there before me).