Gravy and Cheese Curds, Je T’aime: Spotlight on Poutine in Calgary, Alberta

Dan    Calgary & Area, Restaurants, Thoughts     Alberta King of Subs, Bistro 2210, Brasserie, calgary, cheese, food tour, fries, gravy, Laurier Lounge, poutine

When Montreal is a little further than a hop, skip, and a jump away, a poutine fan can certainly have a hard time fulfilling those cravings. Are you a poutine-lover feeling unsatisfied in Calgary? Well, I’m here to make you feel better, or the Poutine Crawl is anyway…

Created and organized by local foodie, Karen Richards, the Poutine Crawl was an afternoon adventure into the magical land of potatoes, gravy, and cheese curds. Yes, this city-wide tour took participants to four local restaurants boasting some delicious styles of poutine. Forget the gravy boat, this was going to be a gravy battleship kind of experience. Keep in mind, this culinary excursion was not for the faint of heart, nor the small of stomach. Let the onslaught begin…

The tour started off at Alberta King of Subs. Nestled in the north-eastern quadrant of the city, this little shop has been dubbed a diamond in the rough by many of Calgary’s food critics.

Firstly, it’s known for it’s top-notch Montreal Smoked Meat Sandwich (trust me, it’s hard to find a good one here), but, secondly, is also a poutine hot-spot. We were greeted with excitement by the staff, and were presented with four types of poutine: Chicken, Pepperoni, Montreal Smoked Meat, and Hot Dog.

I liked the pepperoni and the smoked meat variations, but wasn’t so crazy about the chicken or the hot dog. The same gravy was applied to each offering, which was good, as were the fries. Overall, a great start. Karen had handed out score sheets to fill out as we went along. I gave these guys a 7/10. After the poutines were eaten up, we piled back onto the bus and headed to stop #2, Brasserie Kensington.

If you read my post on Brasserie Kensington recently, you’ll remember that I had tried their breakfast poutine, so I was definitely excited to see what other styles I’d be offered today. They did not disappoint. We were served by a couple of the owners themselves, who, like the first destination, presented the group with four different flavours to try: Original, Foie Gras, Pork Hock, and Mushroom (vegetarian).

With the exception of the mushroom version, all of these alternatives were topped with the same home-made duck-based gravy. The addition of truffle oil made them all nice and rich tasting too, which was great. As the title implies, the mushroom poutine is made with, well… mushrooms. Surprisingly, it was my favourite. As always, Brasserie Kensington has some very delicious french fries, always well seasoned. 8.5/10.

Stop #3 brought us to a quaint little place, in the Mission area of city, called Bistro 2210. Their service was amazing. The bistro was definitely ready for an army of poutine-eaters! Each table was equipped with lots of napkins, forks, and a large paper (?!) for any severe poutine spillage. Yes, they were ready. Chef/owner Jason Armstrong cooked up two great dishes for us: Duck Confit and Duck Chili.

The portions were very generous, probably the most generous, actually, out of each of the four stops. The duck chili ‘poutine’ was more like chili cheese fries, but tasted delicious, and massive points for thinking outside the box (or the gravy boat if we’re sticking with some mild humour theme?). Delicious as the duck chili fries were, I could not stop eating the duck confit poutine. I easily had one whole dish to myself (keep in mind, this was our third stop!). The gravy was not as heavy as the past couple stops, and there was plenty of nice, tender duck meat to keep a guy happy. Needless to say, this was the best poutine I had throughout the afternoon. 9/10.

Finally, it was time for stop #4. By this point, I (and I assume most others) was quite full in the belly. When the bus pulled up to Laurier Lounge, I knew that everyone was in for a treat…

Read the rest of this piece on Food Network Canada’s site.

Brasserie Kensington, Calgary

Dan    Calgary & Area, Restaurants     alberta, calgary, Restaurants

Brasserie Kensington is located in (you guessed it!) the Kensington business district of Calgary, and is the 4th restaurant from a duo of successful local business partners: Cam Dobranski, and Chris Hurlburt. I headed down to the fine establishment for brunch on the first day of The Big Taste. A dine-out festival that features great restaurants all over the city. Select lunch and dinner options are offered at a reasonable prices to encourage people to expand their culinary horizons.

This restaurant was pretty much brand new at the time, having soft opened the week prior, I had heard good rumblings, and really enjoy their sister establishments Muse and Winebar: Kensington located to the left, and below of it, respectively, and AKA Winebar (in Calgary’s Bridgeland area).

So..it was time to try this one out.

To put it in perspective: Winebar: Kensington would be a place I would go on a first date or with friends. Muse would be my ‘ok, we’ve lasted a few months’ (anniversary) location. Brasserie Kensington is a good in-between-er, like a good suit jacket, you could dress it up or down.

We were seated right by the huge north-facing windows that looked down onto Kensington Road (For those of you unfamiliar with this area, it’s an awesome people watching street). From the brunch menu, my date and I went for their Breakfast Poutine (share), Crab Cake Cobb Salad (her), and their Veggie Burger with bacon, obviously, and a side house salad (myself). The only thing breakfast about the poutine was the fried egg on top, yolk still runny. It added to the richness of the duck fat gravy. We both found the fry to gravy ratio to be perfect, and the fries themselves were well-seasoned and crisp.

I’ve got to give this place props for having the little details down pat. The lettuce in both the cobb and my side salad with perfectly tossed with vinaigrette, nothing worse than a dressing soaked wilt-y green. Also, it melted my heart a bit when I realized the generous tomato slices on each of our salads were individually seasoned. Nothing quite brings out the awesome-ness of a tomato like a little sprinkle of salt and pepper. Am I right people?

The Cobb Salad was on the ‘deconstructed’ side of the fence, with large pieces of tomatoes, egg, bacon, avocado, spring greens and two home-made crab cakes resting on top. I’m a sucker for crab cakes, but so was my date, so all I got was a bite. Better than no bite though…

The veggie burger patty had a nice mix of spices, a good blend of wild rice, mushrooms, lentils, and a great char…

To read the rest of this review and to see some more great shots of the restaurant, head over to Food Network Canada’s site!

Taryn Manning

Dan    Thoughts     awesome, DJ, music, pop, talent, Taryn Manning

It’s been a little while since I’ve written one of these. Now that it’s finally starting to get warmer outside (is it really though?), it’s nice to listen to some upbeat tempo kind of stuff. Taryn Manning is a muscian, but also a little bit of a jack of all trades. Singer/Actress/DJ/Designer/all-round cool chick.

She more or less came on the acting scene when she had a spot on Boston Public (remember that show? It was awesome!), and you might remember her from the films 8 Mile or Crossroads (*cough*), and most recently on the TV series Hawaii 5-o.

On the music side of things, she came out in the early 2000s with a band called Boomkat, comprised of herself and her brother. They released two albums, and now Taryn is going solo. She has a new single entitled ‘Turn it up!’. It’s definitely, ‘the roll down your windows and crank the volume’ kind of a song. When we’ll be able to roll down our windows and enjoy the sunshine in Calgary, though, is another question!

The single ‘Turn it up!’ is currently available as a free download off her website. Grab it while it’s hot folks!

Finally, she is most definitely on Twitter. She’s a sweetheart, give her a follow! @tarynmanning

Stacey: Cooking Local in Week 9

Dan    Stacey, Start From Scratch, The Participants, The Progress     calgary, cooking, Kick The KD, learning, Stacey, thoughts

This week we took a look at using local ingredients for every day recipes.  We made a roast chicken from Spragg’s Meat Shop, ‘smashed’ potatoes using King’s Orchard purple potatoes and honey apple tarts using apples also from King’s Orchard (grown in Strathmore, AB) and honey from Golden Acres Honey (Three Hills, AB).

Dan’s hope for us was to develop a ‘feel good’ connection with our food by supporting local, sustainable and natural ingredients.  My response is that I did feel good supporting farms from around the city since you can almost see your money put to work.  You are not paying some bureaucratic chain; you are supporting your neighbours.  Additionally, I think food that is almost ‘fresh off the vine’, as it were, just tastes better.  It’s like picking carrots from your backyard.

Our special guest this week was Dan’s grandma, Evelyn.  I think it is a rare privilege to get to share something like KTKD with your grandma and having her there for us to display our new cooking knowledge too was a real treat!  She wasn’t so sure about the purple potatoes or the chili powder in the apple tarts, but she was very proud of Dan! (and rightly so!)

With ‘local’ in mind, this week’s homework was to recreate a meal from a recipe already seen in class this time with local ingredients and then reflect on if being aware of where the ingredients came from helped us give pride in what we had cooked.  I think I already knew the answer to that, but was excited to treat it as homework nonetheless.

I decided to make the alfredo sauce because it was an easy recipe, we loved the taste in class and because the ingredients were as ‘in season’ as anything can be right now.

Unfortunately, I did not get myself together in time to make it to the Farmer’s Market where I could have found the onions, garlic, chicken, butter and cream from farmers near the city so I instead settled on finding ingredients that were at least from Canada.  Going to the grocery store and being conscious of the producer made me feel savvy and I noted that the prices were comparable to the imported products.

The alfredo sauce garnered excellent reviews however I am getting a little worried that my family is catching on to my one trick pony (I always choose the pasta sauce recipes!)…but it doesn’t seem like they are complaining

I would like to try this again (once exams are over) but instead make it to the Farmer’s Market as I do believe there is strong merit in being food conscious and supporting local businesses.  It’s all a part of Kicking the KD!

- Stacey

Kick The KD: What’s in a Name?

Dan    Start From Scratch, The Progress     calgary, cooking, Kick The KD, learning, Mount Royal, University of Calgary

Well, apparently something quite substantial…

If you checked out the press release that we put up on the site yesterday, then you’ll know that the name of my cooking initiative has got to go. Yesterday morning, I was presented with a letter from a representative of Kraft Canada requesting the removal of the ‘KD‘ mark (which I was unaware was trademarked) from the program title, as well as all marketing materials (i.e. images) using the letters ‘KD‘. As my current legal team is comprised of google’s search engine, I will comply with their request by the suggested deadline of May 2nd, 2011. Speaking of google, I did search ‘KD logo’ prior to the program launch and got these image results. Just saying…

I do appreciate the fighting spirit of my KTKD-ers (can I still call them that?), and I am as let down as they are that a small, fifteen person cooking class can’t use a name with ‘KD’ in the title. Using a nickname like ‘KD’ (again, not knowing it was trademarked), for me, encompassed any semblance of mac ‘n’ cheese (is that trademarked?) coming out of a cardboard box. The idea of this program was never to say: ‘Stop eating that right now, or else!’, it is meant to give students exposure to hands-on cooking, where they can see different dishes and think: ‘Ok, that was surprisingly easy and just as convenient as making a bowl of mac ‘n’ cheese!’

So, now what? It’s time for a change…

We are looking for a new name. This initial run of the program ends this Thursday, but is returning in the fall with two sets of classes, which will be offered to both University of Calgary and Mount Royal University Students!

If you have a name suggestion, then myself and the Kick The ____ team want to hear it!

(I do generally err on the side of humour, so your suggestion has to make at least one of us smile!)

Post your program title idea(s) as a comment on this post, or…

you can email them to us directly at: kickthekd@dansgoodside.com

We’re really excited to hear what you’ll come up with! The new name will be announced at our KTKD graduation event being held in mid-May. Stay tuned for details on that!

Hot Honey Apple Tarts

Dan    Recipes, Something Sweet     apples, baking, delicious, dessert, honey, quick and easy

What you’ll need…

3 apples (thinly sliced, skin on)

1/4 cup orange juice

1/4 cup brown sugar (firmly packed)

1/4 cup honey

2 TSP cinnamon

1/4 TSP nutmeg

1/2 TSP chili powder

corn starch

12 prepared tart shells

Everyone needs a little bit of spice in their lives, and since the Spice Girls have not put out any new tunes for a while, it’s a pretty safe assumption that the only way left to spice things up is with some chili powder. Anyway…I don’t really know how to follow a Spice Girls reference so…Just make these, ok? They’re very tasty.

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Place the apple, orange juice, and brown sugar in a large pan. Bring to a simmer on medium-high heat until the sugar dissolves completely. Reduce to medium heat, stir in the honey, cinnamon, nutmeg, and chili powder. Let everything cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

After 10 minutes, if the mixture has not thickened up, whisk together some corn starch and a small amount of water. Pour into the pan, stir, and you’ll have a better consistency in about a minute. Remove from heat.

Spoon the apple mixture into each one of your prepared tarts and bake for 15 minutes, or until the pastry starts to turn golden brown. Let cool for a few minutes before serving. Tarts and pies are best devoured warm!

Yields 12 tarts

Total cook time…35 minutes