Food Notes for June 11, 2013

Sorry for the belated food notes – I returned from Toronto late last night, and didn’t get a chance to post. I’m getting back into the swing of things though, including last-minute preparations for our first What the Truck?! this Friday – check out the menu here. Hope to see you there! On to this week’s food notes:

The Art Gallery of Alberta started their Late Night Wednesday series on May 29, 2013. Admission includes a signature cocktail to be enjoyed on the terrace, and evening exhibition tours.
A night market is launching in Edmonton in a few weeks, called Just a Little Somethin’. Their grand opening will take place on June 22, 2013, and it will run every Saturday from 7-11pm in a parking lot located at 10171 106^th Street until September.
Sad news: Bee Bell Bakery will close its Old Strathcona retail location on June 15. I feel like a grew up on their banana cream pies – I hope someone decides to buy the bakery.
Both Andrea and Linda reviewed Urban Shabu, the new hot pot restaurant in Chinatown. I did not know it was related to Urban China!
Based on the Journal’s review, Café Amore has remained true to its roots in spite of its move to a larger location.
It’s great to see gastropub chefs (Mike Scorgie of Woodwork and Jesse Morrison-Gauthier of The Common) competing amongst more traditional fine dining chefs in this year’s Gold Medal Plates.
Gail Hall’s second farm tour in August heads to Central Alberta, and includes stops at Rock Ridge Dairies and Gull Valley Greenhouses.
Annie sent me a story about the rise of pop-up patios in Calgary.
Connecticut has made strides to label GMO food sold in the state, but will it ever come into affect?
While in Toronto, we stumbled upon some interesting chip flavours at a Loblaws store.

Would you like a drink with those chips?

At The Drake General Store off King West, we found a cool rendering of brunch hot spots nearby. Neat way to capture restaurant recommendations!

Brunch map

Food Notes for June 3, 2013

It feels like I was just in Toronto, but I’ll be there again in a few days to attend a work conference. It’s a nice excuse to be away, and to visit with my sister again! On to this week’s food notes:

Downtown will certainly be a gathering place on June 8, 2013 for this year’s version of “Super Saturday”, with the City Market, Pride, and several parties. More details about what to expect here.
Duchess Provisions promises to be bigger and better – check them out on June 9, 2013 when they re-open.
The Sunday market scene just went from zero to sixty: Eden’s Market on 124 Street and 105 Avenue just opened on June 3, 2013 (interestingly, it is a fundraiser for YESS), and will operate until October 6 from 10am-3pm; La Cite Francophone’s year-round market will begin on June 16, 2013, and run Sundays from 12-5pm; and the Edmonton Petroleum Club will be starting their Browse & Brunch market series on June 9 – September 8, 2013. Of course, don’t forget about Callingwood, which runs 10am-3pm.
I just looked at the list of Birch Patio Date Nights (out at the Devonian Gardens on Thursdays from June 6 – August 29). If you ever needed an excuse to go, how about themed nights, like Italian feast, summer in Paris, and my favourite, county fair? Count me in!
The Edmonton Craft Beer Festival is on June 14-15, 2013 at the Expo Centre.
Both Marianne and Sarah visited Belgravia Hub last week – looks like a great community spot!
Robyn reviewed Café Amore’s new space downtown.
It looks like Swichfood will be out on the streets tomorrow – I just can’t keep up with all of the new food trucks this year!
Pure Kitchen now has a website! And they have coupons!
Ninh Kieu (10708 98 Street) in Chinatown has now changed hands.

Cusina Ni Mutya

This evening, I had an amazingly productive and energizing meeting about another pop-up event we’re planning for this summer. It probably had more to do with the company and the idea, but it may have also been related to the namesake dish at Café Tiramisu.

Iced latte and tiramisu

Felicia and I had the privilege of attending Cirque du Soleil’s Amaluna under the big top at Northlands with complimentary tickets. It was my first Cirque, and I was blown away. I expected acrobatics, but wrapped up in story, beautifully told, it was so much more. It’s a must see!

Under the big top!

Slow Food Edmonton’s Berkshire & Beer

Last Sunday, Mack and I walked over to Yellowhead Brewery to attend Slow Food Edmonton’s Berkshire & Beer event. The evening was touted as a fundraiser for Thousand Gardens in Africa, a Slow Food International project to initiate much-needed gardens in numerous drought and poverty-stricken communities in Africa. As a result, the ticket price was much steeper than previous Wild Boar & Beer events organized by Slow Food, with a focus on education.

Berkshire & Beer

I struggled a bit with the thread connecting the eight different presentations together. To be sure, they all focused on aspects of food, but the divide between discussions on international projects (Thousand Gardens and Terra Madre) and local projects (Shovel and Fork and Operation Fruit Rescue Edmonton, among them) was jarring. A reshuffling of the order (perhaps a gradual move from international to local, or the other way around) would have helped, but there still didn’t appear to be an overarching theme. It also felt a bit like the content functioned as an introduction to local food producers and initiatives, in spite of the audience make-up (most seemed quite familiar with the subjects already). I had to wonder if the intended target for the event was actually those newer to the local food scene – if that were the case, the ticket price probably should have been lower.

Allan Irving from Irvings Farm Fresh (I love that he has a beer in hand!)

Though I understand that the event was a fundraiser, it would have helped if the organizers were up front about what proportion of the ticket price would be donated to charity. Otherwise, I found it difficult to manage my expectations around the food that would be served, especially because beer wasn’t included. It sounds like the chef at Yellowhead had free rein on preparing the nose-to-tail dishes (made from an Irvings Farm Fresh pig), and while we enjoyed the food, it amounted to little more than a series of passed hors d’oeuvres.

Pork leg confit slider and pork belly on a beet crisp with daikon and carrot slaw

Of the dozen bites we tried, my favourites were the tenderloin schnitzel, topped with sauerkraut, gruyere and garlic aioli, as well as the blood sausage and red wine onion demi glaze crostini.

Tenderloin schnitzel

Blood sausage

At the root, this event was fundamentally different than the Beer & Boar events Slow Food Edmonton has offered in the past (including one, full disclosure, that I helped co-organize several years ago). I did appreciate the more formal opportunity for learning, but should Berkshire & Beer return to the calendar next year, I hope some changes are made to make it more engaging, and an even bigger success!

Kudos to Addie and Genevieve and the rest of Slow Food Edmonton’s volunteers for their work, and I look forward to reading about the progress on the garden funded by the dollars raised that night.

City Market 2013: Week 3

It was a beautiful spring day at the City Market, the glorious sun highlighting just how much the trees have budded and bloomed over the last week.

Busy market day

Folks were snatching up the fresh produce left and right – given we’re already into June, it’s only a matter of time before the warm weather bounty is before us again!

Rhubarb from Riverbend Gardens

Pea tendrils from Sundog Organic

Bell peppers from Doef’s Greenhouses

Sprouts from Greens, Eggs and Ham

Bedding plants from Kuhlmann’s

Plants from Kuhlmann’s

For the second half of the market, I helped man the Downtown Edmonton Community League booth. We were selling league memberships and also promoting our annual toonie pancake breakfast, taking place on June 8, 2013 from 8:30-11am. Two bucks for a plate of pancakes and sausage at the intersection of 104 Street and 102 Avenue!

Ian at the DECL booth

The pancake breakfast will be kicking off a full day of activity downtown next Saturday: the market, Pride Parade, and the Centennial Street Celebration on 104 Street. The celebration marks the hundred year anniversary of several buildings on the Promenade, including the Phillips Lofts and Cobogo Lofts. 104 Street will remain closed after the market, and you can expect an outdoor barbecue, buskers, and salsa dancing!

I’m a little biased because I think downtown is the place to be, but this will indeed be true next week – enjoy the party!

Food Notes for May 27, 2013

Hurrah for rain! Hopefully we are in store for more moisture, but it’s still amazing how fantastically green everything seemed to become overnight. I relish my lunch hour walks when I get to drink it all in – hope you’re getting some fresh spring air as well! On to this week’s food notes:

A new market debuts this weekend. Check out Eden Market on 124 Street and 105 Avenue every Sunday starting June 2, 2013 from 10am-3pm. It sounds like they will have several food trucks on hand, including Battista’s Calzones, Eva Sweet and The Food Fighter.
I was too slow in posting a link to Elm Café’s first brunch that they are hosting in their brand new 118 Avenue space, but it sounds like they will be offering them on a regular basis in the future.
It looks like Urban Shabu (9700 105 Avenue) in Chinatown is now open. Anyone been?
Liv reviewed the freshly opened Belgravia Hub.
Another corporate food truck is rolling into town (remember the visit by Kraft last year?) – this time, Sabra, offering samples of hummus and salsa from June 6-9, 2013. Check their Twitter for location updates.
Top Chef Canada is recruiting for Season 4 (deadline June 11, 2013). What say we start drafting Edmonton chefs to represent?
After work on Saturday, I swung by the Alberta Hotel to check out CKUA’s new space on Jasper Avenue. The music room was too packed for much of a peek, but the bar space (tenant still TBD) was beautiful. Hopefully someone takes it over soon!

Alberta Hotel

On a rainy Friday, I grabbed some lunch at Bully Food Truck, parked in Churchill Square. The pizza burger (topped with pepperoni, mozzarella, caesar salad and bruschetta) was messy, but worth it!

Pizza burger

In spite of our workout on the weekend, Mack and I gave into our cravings and ended up at Route 99 for a plate of poutine. It was worth every fry.

Poutine!

Recap: Ginger Beef Throwdown

Last Friday, we kicked off our 2013 What the Truck?! season with a Ginger Beef Throwdown. Partnering with the Royal Alberta Museum , the event was organized in conjunction with the current Chop Suey on the Prairies exhibit, which examines the history of Chinese restaurants in our province in the twentieth century.

Although we knew the event would draw a crowd, we never anticipated the sheer number of early birds that staked out a place in line well before the start time. The glorious weather definitely helped, as did the scheduling just before the long weekend, but most of all, I think it speaks to the fact that Edmontonians love food trucks!

The line

I have already written about the rationale for our food ticketing system and the “intentional bottleneck” that we created, and in spite of fielding many complaints, I don’t think we could have done it any other way. Given the constraints of the museum space, as well as a desire to streamline food access to enable sampling of multiple dishes, we were happy with how things worked out overall. That said, we could have done a better job in communicating the reasoning behind the system – hopefully those that left hungry and frustrated will give future What the Truck?! events another chance.

Controlled chaos

It also bears saying that the trucks just rocked it that night. They pumped out servings like nobody’s business, and continued to push the limits of their capacity. Thanks to The Act , Bully, The Lingnan Express and Smokehouse BBQ for a memorable start to the season!

The trucks

As for the food, while we didn’t vote ourselves (The Lingnan took home the crown), we were able to sample Bully’s BLT and The Lingnan’s traditional ginger beef. After the craziness, they really hit the spot! For a more comprehensive look at the dishes that night, check out Teresa and Diane’s posts.

Bully’s BLT and The Lingnan’s ginger beef

Partnerships have been vital to What the Truck?! from the beginning, so we appreciated the opportunity to work with the Royal Alberta Museum for the first time. With over 400 people who checked out the exhibit that night, it was counted as a definite success for the RAM!

Without question, this was our most labour-intensive event to date, as we not only had to facilitate the food tickets, but also drink sales. Because of these responsibilities, we could not have run the event on our own, and were indebted to the generosity of our volunteers. Thanks to my Mum, Dad, Felicia, Caleng, Linda, Phil and Robyn for all of your help!

Lastly, thanks to everyone who came – we hope you had fun! We are already in the throes of planning for the next What the Truck?!, which will take place south of the river in June. Stay tuned for more details next week!

124 Street Grand Market 2013 Kick-Off

While the City Market is my go-to destination for seasonal produce and other groceries, the 124 Street Grand Market is a great mid-week destination for a fun evening out. In its first year, it did a great job highlighting the fact that a market isn’t just a shopping hub, but also a place for people to meet, eat, and linger. Their “food truck alley” encouraged patrons to expect great dinner options, and an expanse of tables to enjoy supper al fresco. The musical buskers were a bonus, and created a lovely atmosphere in which to drink in long summer nights.

Welcome!

The 2013 season for the 124 Street Grand Market kicked off this evening. The skies threatened rain, but this didn’t deter the modest crowds from celebrating the market’s return.

124 Street Grand Market

The Misery Mountain Boys

Four trucks offered plenty of options, and included Drift, Nomad, Little Village and Sailin’ On. My sister and I took this opportunity to give Sailin On’s vegan dishes a spin, and ordered the BLT ($8), containing coconut bacon, lettuce, tomato, carrot, and a homemade garlic vegan mayo.

Sailin’ On

We weren’t sure what to expect from the coconut bacon, but after trying it, were shocked at how the texture and taste so closely mimicked meat bacon. We learned that the coconut bacon was comprised of roasted coconut flavoured with spices, but besides a hint of coconut, it was a pretty impressive stand-in!

Felicia was almost fooled!

We also indulged in an ice cream sandwich from Cookie Love. Over the weekend, they picked up their bicycle-powered cart from Portland, and though it isn’t quite finished (awaiting decals and an umbrella), it was ready for its first trial run at the market.

Mike from Cookie Love

I bought an ice cream sandwich ($5), made up of a double chocolate chip cookie, regular chocolate chip cookie and vanilla ice cream. The cookies were thin enough to make it easy to eat, and were as soft as they could be having come out of a freezer. It was a nice treat on a warm night.

Ice cream sandwich

It was great to see some new vendors out as well, including Duchess. Giselle explained that although the shop was quite busy on market nights, it made sense to have an actual presence at the market. To sweeten the deal for shoppers, Duchess developed specific products that are exclusive to the market, such as marshmallow macarons and a line of bottled drinks. As you can expect from Duchess, everything was beautifully-packaged and gift ready!

Duchess iced teas and lemonades

This market is also a great place to find funky treasures and gifts. Tonight, we stumbled upon Kristine MacDonald’s “yeglaces”, silver/copper charms in the shape of our fair city, with a river etched through it.

Yeglaces

Although I don’t (yet) own a bike, it was such a novel idea to have a bike repair specialist on-site. Instead of park and ride, how about a tune-up and dinner?

Dusty Pedals

Congrats to Krista and her team on a great first day!

124 Street Grand Market
108 Avenue & 124 Street
Every Thursday evening from 4-8pm until October 3, 2013

Giveaway: Red Shoe Crawl Tickets!

Since the Red Shoe Crawl started two years ago, it’s been great to watch the event grow and establish itself in Edmonton. A fundraiser for the Ronald McDonald House of Northern Alberta, the Red Shoe Crawl is a fun way to visit a neighbourhood by sampling your way through businesses within walking distance of one another.

I attended the very first Red Shoe Crawl that took place in Old Strathcona in August 2011, and was blown away by how well organized it was, and loved how it promoted exploring a particular area on foot. The ticket price provided incredible value (we were far from able make our way through the food provided), and it was even better that the entire ticket cost was directed to the charity.

Fish and chips from Elephant & Castle

In 2012, the Red Shoe Crawl took place twice that year, and expanded to include the burgeoning 124 Street neighbourhood as well. Though there perhaps wasn’t as much food when compared with the Whyte Avenue event, without question they made up for it with a more diverse range of participating shops, including several that I had never stepped foot in before.

Gelato from Cococo

If you still haven’t had a chance to attend a Red Shoe Crawl, now is your chance! The 2013 Taste of Whyte takes place on June 9, 2013, from noon-5pm. Tickets are just $40, and is inclusive of all food and beverage samples. Expect a great line-up of businesses, with more to be confirmed. So far, the list includes:

The organizers were nice enough to allow me to give two tickets to the event away! To enter, all you have to do is leave a comment with a valid e-mail address that answers the following question:

Which Old Strathcona business are you most looking forward to trying or revisiting at the Red Shoe Crawl?

A winner will be chosen randomly from all responses collected before the deadline. The contest closes on May 27, 2013 at 11:59pm. Good luck!

EDIT: Congrats to Susan Z. for winning the two tickets!

Food Notes for May 20, 2013

I had great intentions to catch up on writing and some other things this weekend…but then I found myself just enjoying the long weekend. I hope you were able to take in the sunshine as well! On to this week’s food notes:

A reminder about Slow Food Edmonton’s Berkshire & Beer event at the Yellowhead Brewery on May 26, 2013. The menu is now up as well.
Dishcrawl will be hosting their next neighbourhood crawl around Southgate Mall on June 12, 2013.
Liv professed her love of the sandwiches at Pure Kitchen.
Vue profiled Sailin’ On, the newest food truck to hit the streets in Edmonton.
Sad news: the Arbour Room at the Rutherford House is now closed due to staffing and financial challenges.
I missed this article last week – ever wanted to peek into RGE RD Chef Blair Lebsack’s kitchen? Now you can.
I also missed linking to Omar Mouallem’s fantastic piece about the history (and his history) with Burger Baron.
Mack sent me this amazingly nutty clip from a recent episode of Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares. The owners are so stubborn and blind to their toxic behaviour that it’s hard to believe the confrontations aren’t staged.
Valerie posted a recap about Eat Alberta 2013. Her pictures are gorgeous, and bring me right back to the day.
Mack and I trekked across the High Level bridge over the weekend for dinner and dessert. The latter was made up of visits to Transcend and Menchies. Transcend was advertising their new cold brew coffee (something we’ve made at home, but are generally too lazy to do on a regular basis). Mack loved it, commenting that it actually tasted like coffee, though given it is filtered several times, we were surprised to see so many unidentified flecks in the mixture.

Transcend’s cold brew coffee

Menchie’s, the newest frozen yogurt chain to land in Edmonton, is set up in the same way as other self-serve froyo establishments, with a wall of yogurt options and an adjacent topping station. I did appreciate the easy access to sample cups, though was hoping for more fresh fruit options. Overall, I enjoyed the strawberry sorbet, but probably wouldn’t be able to pick it out of a froyo line-up.

Menchie’s

Felicia and I hit up Hundred for an Alley Burger last night. I don’t know what it is, but the burger always tastes better when consumed outside on a warm summer night.

Alley burger!

Food Notes for May 13, 2013

I hope you’re ready for the Ginger Beef Throwdown on Friday! Join us at the Royal Alberta Museum on May 17, 2013 from 5-8pm as four of Edmonton’s food trucks vie for ginger beef supremacy! Check out the menus here. On to this week’s food notes:

Tickets for the first Red Shoe Crawl of the year are now on sale! Taking place on June 9, 2013, the event will showcase some of Old Strathcona’s best restaurants and businesses. Tickets are $40, with proceeds supporting the Ronald McDonald House of Northern Alberta. We had a blast at the 124 Street crawl last October.
The Edmonton Community Foundation’s upcoming Annual General Meeting on June 13, 2013 will feature Jeremy Isles, Chief Executive of the Federation of City Farms & Community Gardens, UK.
Beer Revolution (11736 104 Avenue) opened today.
Look for Belgravia Hub (7609 115 Street) to open this week!
La Poutine’s truck is now on the streets! Looking forward to our first mobile poutine.
It also looks like Sailin’ On, Edmonton’s first vegan truck, will be on the streets on May 14, 2013!
Marlow Moo wrote about a pop-up over the weekend with forthcoming food truck Switch.
The rise of Italian in Edmonton continues with the opening of Enzo’s on 76.
Liv also wrote about Amato Gelato in Lewis Estates, the first of a Vancouver-based gelato chain to open up in the city.
The Makk was positively reviewed in the Journal last week.
Vue’s annual Golden Fork Awards were announced last week! I found it interesting how many of the winners were concentrated in the Old Strathcona area – will we soon see a shift to more Downtown and Oliver-area restaurants?
The same issue featured a Vue writer taking on the burger challenge at Soda Jerks – could you finish three monster burgers in thirty minutes?
Valerie is looking to hone in on our “Canadian voice”, and is inviting writers to help her identify uniquely Canadian experiences and foods. Find out more about The Canadian Food Experience Project here.
A call for Edmonton Food Council members is now open. Interested parties have until May 20, 2013 to submit applications.
It looks like Remedy is expanding again, this time into the space vacated by Booster Juice in the Palomar Building on 82 Avenue and 104 Street.

Remedy – coming soon!

The Burg announced their presence in a big way on the 4th Street Promenade – probably hoping to capitalize on all of the foot traffic the street garners when the outdoor City Market begins on May 18.

The Burg

Kabsa is now open at 10332 82 Avenue – anyone know if it is the same folks behind the space that was taken over by Corso 32 downtown?

Kabsa

We stumbled upon a new bubble tea shop just off the main Whyte drag, called Teapsy Café (9959 82 Aveue). They offer the variety of cold drinks found at similar shops, but enhance their menu with Peking dogs (think a Chinese-style Japadog). The peach slush we tried was very refreshing.

Teapsy Cafe

After a meeting with the folks at The Next Act on Thursday, we stayed on for dinner. It was a good call – the omnivore grilled cheese hit the spot!

Omnivore grilled cheese

We were happy to join other “Drift-ers” at Red Star today for a group viewing of their Eat St. episode! It was great, and showcased their food well.

Of course, Kara and Nevin made sure the audience was well fed!

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