Zen Sushi and Grill (Calgary Trail)

Location: Calgary Trail (about a minute drive south of Whyte Ave)

Today my partner and I went to Zen for a fun Sunday all you can eat sushi lunch (17$). The concept is straightforward; they give you a checklist of all the food, pick what you want, they bring it out, eat eat eat, check off some more food until you just can't handle it anymore :) (but of course, don't order more than you can eat)

Today we ordered some green onion cake, beef short rib, inari, squid tentacles (Coel's favorite), cali rolls, smoked salmon rolls, golden cali rolls (normal cali rolls just tempura battered and fried), gyoza, teriyaki beef, agedashi tofu, and tempura.

Inari and salmon sushi

..These are some of my favorite things..

Brioche pepin and key lime tart

Battista Calzone

Location: 118th Ave

Spicy Italian (top)

Pesto Presto Calzone

Cafe Tiramisu

My partner and I were looking for a new local place to have lunch the other day when I suggested we try out the new Cafe Tiramisu on 124th Street just at the end of the block from Duchess.

Cafe Tiramisu is a cute modern cafe that serves up simple Italian fare and drinks. Simple pastas, paninis, salads, lattes and cappuccinos, classic desserts, breakfasts, smoothies, and not to mention tiramisu.

We've now been there twice now, the first time just to check it out and get tiramisu, and the second time to try out their lunch menu. Their tiramisu dessert is serves in a cute old school sundae cup and is perfect for sharing with a partner. Unfortunately I feel that I've had better tiramisu (such as Famoso's). I personally prefer one that's more creamy.

For lunch we decided to split an order of their Pasta al Vegitable (11.50$) and the Vegitale Panini (9$). The pasta was just as described, a simple penne pasta with artichoke hearts and sun dried tomato with a garlic olive oil sauce served with a wedge of garlic bread. Nothing fancy. As for the roasted vegetable panini, it had cheese, olive tapenade, and an assortment of the typical roasted veggies. I wasn't a huge fan of the roasted carrots, but I personally just don't like cooked carrots and I don't think they go well in a panini. I really liked the focaccia bread they used though.

Overall I thought that Cafe Tiramisu was a cute cafe that serves simple but well made food and would be a great place to study and have a coffee or have a casual hangout. Its nothing fancy and the simplicity of the food isn't something in my opinion worth raving about, but the cafe overall is a wonderful addition to the street and a promising hangout spot.

Continental Treat

Cuisine: Eastern European
Location: Whyte Ave

Continental Treat was one of those places I have walked by every time I was on Whyte and never gave a second thought to. For those who have yet to go and have walked by it many times I am sure you know what I mean. However, my time finally came to visit this restaurant on New Years Eve when I decided to book reservations here after failed attempts at getting reservations at many of Edmonton's booked up fine dining places. After reading multiple good reviews and checking out the menu online, I crossed my fingers that this place would deliver a romantic warm New Years Eve dinner. Thankfully I was right. They even gave us complimentary champagne at midnight, definitely a plus.

While in interior of the restaurants could do with some renovations, the aged look of the inside make Continental romantic and exciting. Dim lights, white table clothes, antique furniture here and there, dark worn wood, candle lit tables, fireplace, all features of Continental that in my opinion made it a great date night place.

I am always happy when a restaurants online menu is up to date, as was Continentals. Therefore I already had the chance to choose what I wanted to eat before hand. However, as I was sitting there I STILL had trouble choosing between the schnitzel, goulash, and this mushroom spatzle dish. We found enough things on the menu that we desperately wanted to try that we decided that we had to make sure to come back again to try it all out. For NYE dinner we decided on the mushroom and cheese spatzle(23$ and the Vienna pork chops (24$) I think it was called and both started with a cup of their famous dill pickle soup (4$).

As many before me have raved about, the dill pickle soup was a must. I don't even know how to describe it, therefore I suggest you just go try some for yourself. The mushroom with spatzle was to die for. It was creamy, filled with mushrooms, and the spatzle (German noodles) had a bit of a crisp to it on the sides that just great. The chopped pickled beets that came on the side was really good too, I could eat it alone. The pork chops  were cooked perfectly and came with a sausage and mushroom gravy, very good. Awesome food, large portions and very reasonable prices.

After such a good first experience we just had to go back to try more things on the menu. This time we both chose the dill pickle soup (4$) again and the schnitzel (veal and chicken) 19$ with a side of potato salad or pan roasted potatoes and cabbage and beet salad. Result: large piece of schnitzel, great side salad, simple and very filling.

The resturants weakness when it comes to food however is probably their desserts. They have a rather uninspiring dessert menue and tried their layered torte and were not really impressed. However, not all was lost considering we had a great meal and desset can be found elsewhere on Whyte.

Schnitzel. Sorry for the poor photo quality, I really didn't want to draw attention to myself by using flash in a dark
 restaurant during dinner time lol

Freshii

Location: West Edmonton Mall food court

I've walked past Freshii many many times in the food court and never gave it a thought because I assumed it was an overpriced salad and wrap vendor. However, I thankfully took the time one afternoon to properly look at the menu when one of the workers told me that I also had the choice of making my own salad or wrap. Now I'm a huge fan of customizable meals so being able to customize my own salad, wrap, noodles, or rice bowl was appealing.

If you want to customize your own meal you take the little clipboards with check sheets on it and pick the type of meal you want everything from the toppings and dressing to having it grilled or not. There is a list of premium toppings (meats, proteins) which cost an additional dollar and some cents and a list of free unlimited toppings (dates, corn, beans, tomato etc).

For today's meal I chose to create my own brown rice bowl (about 5$). I've also had the create your own wrap (also about 5$) which was surprisingly really filling. The customizable meals at Freshii are really affordable for a quick and healthy meal at the mall.

Brown rice with mix of veggies and a thai peanut and chili sauce

Filistix

Location: CAB Food court at the UofA
Type of food: Philipino fusion

So the other month I decided to try out the chilli (5$) from Flilistix at the university. As some of you may know, Filistix is a local Edmonton creation that originally operated out of a little food truck but now has a permenant location here on campus.

Craving something warm and hearty, I decided to try out their veggitarian chilli. In my opinion....I wasn't a huge fan. While is was full of veggies, I found that it lacked any flavor. It needed a little something for a kick.

Anyways, here's what it looked like

PS. Im going to apologize right now for any and all spelling mistakes you guys find. For some reason the spell check on my blog has disapeared and I quite frankly am not the best at editing. I hope you enjoy anyways!

Tutti Fruitti

Yet Another Duchess Adventure

Costco- South Side

So, for those who do not already know, Costco makes the best poutine in the city hands down. For less then 5$ you can get a huge serving of fries smothered in gravy and most importantly covered in LOTS of big chunks of cheese curds. Most places skimp out on the cheese, hello, it's the most important part, but fear not, Costco loads that sh** on. Now go! EAT!

And yes, I will admit, sometime I do drive to Costco just for their poutine and hot dogs :)

Too Long My Friend

Okay okay it has been way too long since I last posted anything and it's time to get my act together and start it back up again. I've been so busy with my last semester of university, relationship, and work to upload and write about all that wonderfull food I've been eating away at for the last couple months. Now that I am officially a university graduate I can spend all my time on my blog, jk jk. But cheers everyone to the new year and let it bring plenty of good food!