Savoy’s Health Cafe will make you swear off fast food forever
Change, they say, is the only constant thing in life. They have obviously never been to Savoy’s Health Café (11010 51 Avenue, 780.437.7718), which has been operating out of the same hole-in-a-strip-mall location across from Southgate for the best part of two decades. In truth, the Savoy is not exactly the same as it has […]
FOOD: Brooklyn Tomato neither Brooklyn nor tomato – just great Vietnamese
Not since Le Charles Mansion has a Vietnamese restaurant been so woefully named. I really meant to ask the server at Brooklyn Tomato (8205 83 Street, 780.756.6688) what that borough and that fruit-vegetable had to do with pho or bun or cha gio. Then I got distracted by the huge bowl of food they put […]
FOOD: A ‘taste’ of Edmonton is about right
Some, not me, have seen fit in the past to deride A Taste of Edmonton as the River City’s Festival of Small Portions, a pay-to-play agglomeration of lean-to food factories cranking out small bites for ticket-wielding foodies clogging up a Sir Winston Churchill Square desperately in need of shade. But of course, that’s the point—to […]
FOOD: The fatti is fine at Castle Bake
You know that thing where you talk up a restaurant for so long to anyone who will listen that when the time comes to introduce your friends to it, you begin to think maybe it’s not actually as good as you’ve been making out? Or maybe it’s changed in some fundamental way that renders less […]
FOOD: Mamenche’s the real deal for Central American cuisine
The first time I had a pupusa, it was in the very rooms now occupied by Mamenche’s Restaurant (10824 97 Street, 780.497.0037), a relative newcomer among Edmonton’s Central American food emporia. Back then, its 97 Street premises were the original home of Acajutla, a pioneer of said niche which has since relocated to the Avenue […]
FOOD: Shawarma is superb at Dahlia’s Mediterranean Bistro
Seems like just yesterday that Montreal expat Fadi Smaidi, scion of a Lebanese food dynasty in Canada’s coolest city, opened Dahlia’s Mediterranean Bistro (10235 124 St.), named for his young daughter on Edmonton’s yet-to-be coolest street, 124th. The reasons for Smaidi’s pilgrimage to this particular northern waste are obscure to me but now, three years […]
RESTAURANT REVIEW: Man can live by pho alone – at Thai Binh
“Is that all you eat – Vietnamese food?” This question was put to me by a regular reader who has noticed my affection for the cuisine of that particular Southeast Asian nation – my first review for Gig City being for a vegan Vietnamese joint – and while I don’t actually eat Vietnamese every day, […]
New owner does right by British favourite at Sir Winston’s Fish & Chips
You know who really likes fish and chips? Old people. During my younger, slackier days I spent a few months slinging plates in a cut-rate yet somehow pretentious seafood joint that obliged me to wear a shirt with a dolphin (in a beret and sunglasses no less) embroidered on the breast. While the menu was […]
FOOD: Southeast Asian home cooking in the houses
If you’re a diner-outer who wants to feel like you’re going over to someone’s home for a nice meal – albeit one you have to pay for – there are no shortage of choices in Edmonton. Take, for example, the enclave of fancy manses just off High Street (Manor Café, Violino) or the Ethiopian eateries […]
RESTAURANT REVIEW: Vegan Vietnamese delights at Veggie Garden
Right next door to where Oriental Veggie House once hung out its cruelty-free shingle as pioneer purveyors of mock meat cuisine in a Chinese style, the Veggie Garden Restaurant (10582 100 Street, 780.757.9060) has now set up shop. The place vends Vietnamese and Chinese delights in which the feature roles are assayed by stunt doubles […]
