Food Notes for April 1, 2024

Openings

• Dining Car Cafe, opened by the team behind Old Strathcona’s Waffle Bird, is now open in the ground floor of the CN Tower (10004 104 Avenue). Their menu includes coffee, sandwiches, soups, and baked goods.
• Also from the Waffle Bird team, they’ve announced that they are collaborating with Table Top Cafe to open Diced, the new board game eatery located in the former Northern Chicken spot on 124 Street: “Craft cocktails, local brews, banging food, and competitive cardboard are sure to make this snazzy new spot a date night staple!”
• Good Goods has opened downtown at 10250 106 Street.
• KB & Co’s eighth franchise location is now open at 12322 102 Avenue. This location also offers their house-made salad dressings and dips to go.
• Banh Mi Diddy, a Vietnamese sandwich and coffee shop, will be opening behind MacEwan this month, located at 10548 110 Street.
• A new restaurant called 3 Poms is coming soon to the west end, and will feature “creative, locally sourced plates, cocktails, wines and craft beer”.
• It’s so great to see this spark of new energy in Chinatown, continued with the announcement from Yelo’d that they will be opening an ice cream outpost called Little Bon Bon in the neighbourhood.
• The Taco Shop is opening on BRBN st this spring in West Edmonton Mall. It is helmed by Dani Braun, formerly of Tres Carnales and Rostizado, which closed in January 2023.

Upcoming Events

• April sees the return of Filipino Restaurant Month in Canada, which serves to “promote and mainstream the Filipino cuisine in Canada”. In Edmonton, three restaurants are participating: Cebuchon & BBQ, Filistix Downtown, and Manila Grill Express.
• Sorrentino’s annual Garlic Fest returns for its 32nd year. In addition to a special garlic fest menu at all of their locations, Sorrentino’s is also hosting a number of fundraising dinners to support a facility to support lung transplant patients.

Local News

• Ramneek Singh, who reviews restaurants on Facebook, alleges that The Tomato’s Top 100 Best Things To Eat or Drink list is a pay-to-play list. Some have come to The Tomato’s defence, including Peter Keith of Meuwly’s. April 3, 2024 Update: Singh has since significantly edited his post and removed his allegation of pay-to-play, and Keith’s post is no longer publicly available.
• Lydia shared that Let’s Grill Sushi Downtown has come under new ownership, and now features all-you-can-eat and conveyor belt sushi.
• CBC Radioactive featured Carne Asada Mexican Taqueria.
• Linda put together a guide to fun sampler flights available in Edmonton, including coffee, drinks, cheese, tacos, poutine, and ice cream.

What I Ate

• Before we left on our trip, I had lunch at my favourite go-to spot near work, El Fogon. Their arepas are so good.

Beef and cheese arepa from El Fogon

• Mack and I were also able to steal away for a lunch date for our only Downtown Dining Week meal at Bundok. They had a great deal, featuring their delicious parmigiano soup and gnocchi parisienne.

Gnocchi parisienne from Bundok

• We had a great time in San Jose visiting my sister. While I did not enjoy how car-centric the community is, it’s hard not to love their weather, and a visit to a farmers’ market there made me realize how starved I feel for freshly-grown produce (the citrus were fantastic). I also didn’t know that San Jose was home to the largest Vietnamese population in the US – in certain areas of the city, signs were posted in English, Spanish, and Vietnamese. Needless to say, we had our share of pho and banh mi during our visit!

Banh mi from Duc Huong in San Jose

• We also spent a few days in San Francisco, and did not regret choosing the very chill, non-touristy Outer Sunset neighbourhood to stay. DamnFine Pizza and Polly’s Ice Cream were within walking distance and were both fantastic. We did pay between 5-10% more per meal, guised as everything from a “cost of living” surcharge, to a fee tacked on to pay for employee health benefits. It definitely added up, and was pervasive most places we went (including picking up a salad from an airport kiosk). We were fine to pay more to support a living wage, but it was interesting how the California culture has evolved to to “hide” the fee in plain sight as opposed to outright raising the menu prices.

DamnFine Pizza