Food Notes for August 28, 2017

It feels like we’re getting a last blast of summer this week, though I can hardly believe we’re already at the end of August! Hope you’re soaking up every minute of it too. On to this week’s food notes:

• What the Truck?! has released the line-up of vendors to expect at their final event of the season on September 9, 2017, from 12-7pm on Capital Boulevard.
• If you have an excess of apples and want to transform it into cider, consider attending Operation Fruit Rescue Edmonton’s cider pressing event on September 9. A quarter of the cider will go to the volunteers, but you’d get to take the rest home!
• Nate Box is expanding his empire to include a sausage and beer hall called Salz. They’re hosting a pop-up bratwurst dinner at District on September 10, 2017 if you’re hoping for an early taste of the menu.
• The Butternut Tree is the latest restaurant to try and fill the space once occupied by The Copper Pot in Grandin at 101, 9707 110 Street. They’ve set their opening date as September 1, 2017.
• Montreal Hotdogs has delayed their opening date to September 18, 2017.
• Ripe Tomato Pizza, a Calgary-based quick-service pizza chain, just opened its first Edmonton location at 5011 Ellerslie Road SW.
• The Rec Room has opened its second Edmonton location at West Edmonton Mall. Unlike the South Edmonton Common flagship, they have just two of the dining options – The Shed and Three10.
• Congratulations to the Commodore Restaurant, an Edmonton institution, which celebrates 75 years in operation this year!
• Metro profiles vegan pizzeria Die Pie.
• Cindy breaks down what makes Menya Yuzen stand out in our increasingly crowded ramen scene.
• Linda is one of the first to review Nara Chicken and Tonkatsu, located at 8712 150 Street.
• Vue Weekly has a positive reception to Venezuelan newcomer Avila Arepa.
• Jonny reviews Thien An, a new Vietnamese restaurant located at 7304 101 Avenue.
• Graham believes Biera has done an excellent job at pairing their dishes with the in-house beer.
• The Journal enjoyed their visit to Tang Bistro.
• Crystal checked out Urbano Pizza.
• The second Culinary Lab Series dinner took place last week. Eat North put together a video capturing what we missed.
• Linda recapped this year’s Sturgeon County Bounty event.
• Alexis Hillyard, the maven behind the popular Stump Kitchen YouTube series, is running a crowdfunding campaign to support the production of the videos.
• The New York Daily News shows some love for Edmonton and Calgary.
• Mack and I checked out the annual Viva Italian Viva Edmonton festival in Giovanni Caboto Park yesterday. The grounds were packed with families enjoying the event, which included food trucks, performances, and even wrestling! There was also a tent that housed food-related events all afternoon – the highlight for us was an olive oil education session led by the Italian Centre’s Teresa Spinelli (they sold over 100,000 litres of olive oil last year!).

#eatlikeanItalian at VIVE

• It’s been too long since our last visit to Route 99, but I’m happy to say the poutine was exactly as I remembered.

Our Route 99 staple