Text 18328, 103 rader
Skriven 2007-07-29 23:25:00 av JIM WELLER (1:123/140)
Ärende: Road Trip 3
===================
Thursday was our day to hook up with Gerald Miller and his wife. We
set out with Olive and Hank and met them at the Buffet Royale which
was allegedly Edmonton's biggest and best buffet. It was marginally
better than some of the others but overall still a bit of a
disappointment. I guess I'm just not a buffet kind of guy. It's too
bad the Yeoman Beefeater Steakhouse Gerald spoke fondly of was out
of business and that we got side tracked away from our first choice:
the Billingsgate seafood market and restaurant. We would have had a
first rate meal at either of those places. In any event the buffet
is run by Chinese people and offers a combination of Chinese,
Ukrainian, Italian and Canadian food. It's located in a most
inauspicious location in the northwest end, near railway tracks,
meat packing plants and pawn shops but, hey, that's often a good
sign of a hidden treasure. Not this time. There were a few dishes of
note though: good meaty large short ribs, nice big spicy Cajun
shrimp, steamed mussels on the half shell with Chinese black bean
sauce and a chocolate fountain with fresh fruit for dipping. We ate
heartily despite my bitching all the same, had a few beers and
chatted for hours. Gerald and my FIL seemed it hit off rather well.
                                                 
On Friday we picked up Lily, an old friend of Roslind's who once
lived in Yellowknife. We went to her newest favourite place, a
restaurant called Sage in the River Cree Casino on the Enoch Reserve
just outside of Edmonton. This was the high point of the trip. The
whole evening was a complete delight. Our young waiter was very
knowledgeable, had tried all the dishes himself and was passionate
about good food. He said all the dishes were good but personally
recommended four things from which we picked three. We started off
with three wonderful salads which we all shared: Roslind chose a
crab salad with seasoned Acini Di Pepe Pasta and baby greens, Lily
picked a grilled scallop and quinoa creation and I had one of yellow
beets, spinach, spiced walnuts, goat cheese, balsamic vinegar and
grape seed oil. All were first rate: good quality, ultra fresh
ingredients with interesting combinations of textures and flavours.
For mains we had a lightly five-spice spiced, double thick, pork rib
chop with wild rice, another wonderful scallop dish with couscous
and some pan fried wild caught pickerel together with a couple
bottles of Kim Crawford Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc.

Of all the desserts the lemon meringue tart for two sounded the most
interesting. It was meant to come garnished with a trio of wild berries
(raspberries, blackberries and blueberries) and a blueberry sauce.
Now Roslind is not fond of blueberries and asked if they had a
raspberry sauce. They didn't, so the waiter suggested an unadorned
tart with all the fruits on the side for final assembly at the
table by each of us, to taste. (Thankfully he did not use the word
"deconstructed"!) So out came the tart which was in fact big enough
for three with four little bowls of individual fruits and the sauce.
We each dressed our own plate as we wished and all of us ended up
happy with the results. I was so impressed with the place and its
beautiful table settings, decor and window scenery but more
importantly the excellent food and expert attentive service from
that great waiter that I tipped 20% plus a bit more rather than my
usual 15%.

Saturday was family barbecue day. In attendance were ourselves, Hank
and Olive, Darlene (another of Roslind's sisters) and Bob, her newest
partner, John (one of my brothers) and Lily. Darlene and Roslind
cooked. They grilled Aletha's chicken up Barbados style, with thyme
and lime, did the steaks, roasted asparagus, made a foil packet of
potatoes and onions, plus a Greek salad. The meal was rounded out
with beer, red and white wine with Drambuie, coffee and a store
bought fruit flan for afters. A good time was had by all. For
Sunday, leftovers all day! On Monday, another steak barbecue! Only
this time Hank was in charge: huge, super thick, 21 day aged, AAA
T-bones, baked potatoes, corn on the cob and his Germanized version
of Greek Salad.... all the usual vegetables except the lettuce
marinaded in a garlicky mayonnaise based dressing. It was different
from the usual thing but I liked it. (And I swore off steak after
that!)

Tuesday the two of us trekked off to lunch to Tropika, the Malaysian
place I love and which I have written about before for some of our
old favourites: sates and peanut dipping sauce, roti canai with mild
curry gravy and garlicky sauteed kangkong. This time we ordered the
fancy fruity house cocktails by pointing at the pictures on the menu
rather than trying to order a half and half dirty martini from a
bartender who doesn't speak English. I had a Mai Tai and Roslind a
Singapore Sling, both were most excellent and suited the food better
anyway.

That evening we took Darlene and Bob to the New Asia Village, a
Punjabi place and another chowhound recommendation, but with some
trepidation as Darlene had announced she didn't like Vietnamese food
as it was too spicy, didn't like Japanese food as the sauces were
funky and had never had Indian food before. I made her a sampler
platter from the buffet before we ordered anything. She liked the
naan, tolerated the chicken tandoori, disliked the butter chicken
and abhorred the very mild lamb curry. She didn't want to spoil the
fun for the rest of us so she survived on naan and Kingfisher beer
while the rest of us pigged out on shrimp tandoori, butter chicken,
a hotter lamb curry (dhal ghost), bharta, and other assorted
tasty things. Bob was in his glory as he had abstained from such
delights since he met Darlene.

Cheers

YK Jim


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