Friday 27 July 2007

Food Festivals

Last night we packed ourselves into the car, and made the long trek downtown for the Taste festival. It really is quite a trek, I'm not exaggerating, but it was worth every minute of driving.


The event always promises lots of food from a selection of the city's restaurants, wine, beer, people and music packed into the square around city hall. It is definitely a fun way of sampling a few signature dishes from what may potentially be your new favorite place to dine out at.

This year we had a budget (I know the aweful 'b' word, but with house on the way what could we do!), we only had 30 ticket to spend, so we had to make our choices carefully! With the much selection it is a rather daunting task.

We started our food journey at Beijing Beijing for Hubby's favorite, Ginger beef. I will admit it too, we actually were able to avoid spending of our precious tickets here, because we are friends with the owner, so this was a freebie :) You really don't here me complaining. We followed this first course with a second course of beef again, this time Lemongrass skewers . These were soooo good. The meat way so tender, and had just enough hint of a spice. Will be looking for a recipe like this to add to my own collection (If anyone has one please share).

Now our next stop may sound boring, but I assure you it is not! Chicken Caesar pita. It wasn't a regular Caesar pita, it was actually was from an East Indian catering restaurant and had a east Indian flare. I don't know how they did it, and I am kicking my self for not snapping a picture of it.
Lilly's favorite of the night was the chili garlic shrimp with curry saffron rice from Bistro Praha. Ok, really she just liked the rice and we enjoyed the shrimp, but still. This little place I had never heard of until now, and appears to have quite a reputation in our fine city, especially for schnitzels.

At this point, our stomachs were full, our tickets limited, and our mouths were craving something sweet.

Dessert time!


I started with the balsamic strawberries with a vanilla cream cheese mousse from Four Rooms. This spot is now privileged enough to be on my list of "places to visit" in the future. They apparently have jazz frequently too.


We finished our meal with what has become a tradition for us there every year (and the most affordable thing thing). Chocolate dipped strawberries and cappuccino chocolate shooter cups from Sutton Place Hotel. This hotel has the best all you can eat chocolate buffet for $15 (includes a drink) on weekends! We have indulged once. Need I say more.

With full bellies after that, we made the long trek home, just in tine for Big Brother ;)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi Christy! I'm am just reading through the archives now, as I just clicked on your blog link from WB. I am also an Edmonton based gal, but my blog only has 2 posts in it so far :o(

Just wanted to mention about the lemongrass skewers, I made the Beef Satay i think it is called from the Sandi Richard Fixing Dinner cookbook last weekend. The marinade you use includes lemongrass and they have a nice mild flavour when cooked. I can send you the recipe if you would like? The only change I would make to it would be to use actually beef steak strips and marinate and grill them. The recipe uses plain old ground beef on a skewer and it was a little too "beefy" for my liking. Love your blog!