Food Notes for January 27, 2025

Openings

• Canadian Chain Smoke’s Poutinerie is now open at 8111 104 Street.
• EggMania is a new restaurant offering “egg-centric Indian street flavours” at 6920 Ellerslie Road SW. It opened last week.
• Culinary Unicorn Kitchen and Bar opens on January 31 at 10009 107 Street (in the Matrix Hotel).
• O’Byrne’s Irish Pub will be opening soon in the MNP Tower (101 Street and 103 Avenue). This joins their other location on Whyte Avenue.

Closures

• Frida Urban Taqueria’s 124 Street location is now closed.

Upcoming Events

• I’m so happy to be a part of this year’s Togather Chinatown Arts Festival, running at the Edmonton Chinatown Multicultural Centre on February 1-2. I’ll be leading one walking tour each morning, complete with food samples and a chance to tour the Mah Society’s fantastic Journey of the Horse exhibit. If you’re interested, please pre-register! Even if you don’t want to go on the tour, do check out the event, which features a variety of vendors, a Chinatown Food Court, and free workshops.
• Winefest returns to the Edmonton Convention Centre on February 14-15. Tickets start at $120 and includes all food and drink samples.

Local News

• It looks like Filistix has launched a catering company called Flavour Agency from their same location, offering their same popular rice meals, as well as party platters and appetizers.
• I eagerly wait for this time all year – LovePizza’s mac and cheeza is back until the end of February.
• CBC Radioactive featured Hong Kong Bakery, one of this year’s Chinatown Dining Week participating businesses.
• Bannock Broz in the Enoch Community Centre is drawing rave reviews for its Indigenous take on the Philly cheesesteak.
• Edify checked out The Ridge Social Eatery in St. Albert.
• Spilt’s JoAnne Pearce will be competing in Canada’s first-ever national mocktail competition, the Beyond NOA 2025 semifinals, on February 17 in Calgary. Their drink entry, the Prairie Berry Patch is currently in Spilt’s menu.
• Chef Doreen Prei discussed representing Edmonton at the upcoming Canadian Culinary Championships in Ottawa.

What I Ate

• I’ve been having many desk lunches these past couple of weeks, during a very busy period at work. The latest was soup and sandwiches from Chocorrant – the very savoury French onion soup really hit the spot, and I adore their croissants.

Chocorrant lunch

• Mack and I stole away for a quick date night at Menya Mori. We’ve been big fans of their ramen kits but it was our first time at their brick and mortar. The verdict: the soup is excellent, and does taste better when someone else prepares it. Their Tonkotsu is my jam.

Tokyo Style Shoyu and Classic Tonkotsu from Menya Mori

• We finished off Chinatown Dining Week with an order from Spirit Bistro. Their big rice noodles with beef is a family favourite, and we had leftovers for days.

Our Spirit Bistro order

• I had a bubble tea date with Emily at Dagu on the weekend – I can’t believe our birthday girl turned 7.

Happy birthday, Emily!