January 2010 Dinner Club

A new year of Dinner Club has arrived! I was bummed to miss out on what looks like some good eats and tasty treats...

Cattle Baron - October Dinner Club

Reminder that our next Dinner Club get together is at the Cattle Baron in North Calgary Friday, October 16 at 7:00 PM. See you there!

3340 - 26 Street N.E.
403-250-2595

Kulinary Kids

Wow, I must say that Kulinary Kids was a blast, we got to make most of our own food, and I must say we did a fabulous job!

I learned how to make yams tolerable, woohoo! The tenderloin was seasoned just right and I enjoyed every bite! The blueberry reduction was outstanding and simply the best I've ever had! Everything was amazing...we are truly great cooks!!! Chef Stephanie and Kim did a great job with our menu, thank you, thank you! I enjoyed it so much I have booked my step daughters birthday party there!

We are still waiting for the recipes, I have spoken with Chef Stephanie and apparently the recipes were emailed to Canda a while back! HINT HINT Canda, please pass them along!

I give Kulinary Kids 5 Shazams!

Kulinary Kids

We had a blast at Kulinary Kids!! Everyone was relaxed and having fun and enjoying the experience. For all the food and the educational aspects I thought $30 plus tip was very reasonable. Of course eating earlier would have been preferable but the wine helped with the hunger pains.

Chef Stephanie planned a menu of beef tenderloin with mashed potatoes and yams, sauteed zucchini and roasted carrots and parsnips served with a blueberry reduction sauce. Dessert was a no bake pumpkin pie (baked crust). The food was simple yet tasted divine...I do admit I had a second helping of potatoes and I would have taken home all the leftover spuds if it would not have made me look greedy. Although we did not leave with recipes in hand I believe they are to be forwarded to us soon.

Chef Stephanie is a big fan of sushi, Vietnamese and Indian food. Her favourite restaurants in Calgary and area are Inn on the Lake Bonavista, the Banff Springs Sunday Brunch, Sushi Kinjo, Glory of India and the Oriental Phoenix.

A big thank you to owner and former teacher Kim and Chef Stephanie for the great evening and all their hard work.

Kulinary Kids - September Dinner Club

This should be a fun one. Instead of our regular routine picking a restaurant to eat at, we will be making our own dinner and dessert at Kulinary Kids. Hope we don't get into a food fight!!!

224 - 12100 Macleod Trail SE
Calgary, AB T2J7G9, Canada
(403) 276-2433

Sans Fungi for this Fun Girl!

Escoba was my favourite dinner club yet! Maybe it was the fact that we started an hour early with a wine tasting where we sampled the Ruffino Ducale Chianti.... or perhaps it was the oh so cheesy Three Cheese Chick Pea Dip we shared! Then again, it may have been the Linguini Fresca pasta that I ordered. Can we say D-e-l-i-c-i-o-u-s! Linguini, spinach, baby roma tomatoes, olives, artichokes, white wine and garlic! The linguini was supposed to also have mushrooms, but it was "sans fungi for this fun girl"! Just when I thought it couldn't get any better, I shared the Chocolate Mousse (whipped with rhum and citrus creme fraiche) with Crystal and it was to die for! Great wine, great food, great friends make it a 5 out of 5 Shazams for me!!!

Good Pizza, Good Wine, Good Fun!

I give Escoba 4 ½ Shazzams. I had the Carne flatbread which was basically their version of a meat lovers pizza (awesome for us O-blood types!). It was fabulous. I traded a slice of mine for a slice of Allison’s (Eon? Flatbread). It was equally yummy with goat cheese and artichokes. A few of us were there at 6pm for the complimentary wine tasting, which was really fun. The Wine Guy (or the Sommelier if you’re being all fancy) was very informative. We liked the Chianti he served so much, we split a bottle 4 ways and shared an appetizer (Chickpea dip) before the rest of the gang joined us at 7pm. It’s true that the menu is limited and some items were pricey, but this is a Wine Bar after all. I loved the service, the food and the wine. Escoba is pretty great! I can’t wait to go back again sometime.

Escoba

Escoba was excellent. I had the Linguini Fresca pasta along with Debbie and Joc (sans mushrooms). A nice fresh vegetarian pasta with a hint of heat that filled me up and left no room for dessert. Glad I came early for the wine tasting as I enjoyed the Ruffino Chianti (sangiovese) provided by Darren the sommelier (not sure if was actually a sommelier but he gave a nice run down on the wine and the region where grown). The service was good and our waitress was spunky and had a great personality.

The hand painted artwork was a nice touch, as were the antique architectural pieces hanging on the walls.

Allison was prepared bringing her over large calculator...but did it get used? Nope, not necessary, as the restaurant divided the bills up individually. My meal was very economical coming in at around $22.00 including 18% gratuity. Wine was free as we had a pre-arranged wine tasting before dinner. I would definitely come again and try more of the appies. I noticed the menu was not extensive (its all about the wine) and there were not a lot of dairy-free options. Even the pasta I choose, which I thought would be dairy-free as per the description, came topped with parmesan. I wish the server would have come around asking if you wanted parmesan on top and then freshly grate it for you, like they came around with the pepper, so I could have avoided the cheese.

Friday, August 21 @ 6:00 PM (Wine Tasting), 7:00 PM (Dinner)

Reminder that our next Dinner Club will be at Escoba Bistro on Friday, August 21. There will be a wine tasting at 6:00 PM with dinner to follow at 7:00 PM.

403 543 8911

624 8 Avenue SW

Calgary, AB

T2P 1G4

Mango Mouse? What was I thinking....

I’m giving the King & I 3 ½ shazams. Can I do that?? It’s better than a 3; not quite a 4. I loved the spicy Pad Kai Long Song and the banana spring rolls which Lisa and shared. The Chu Chu Seafood dish was also quite tasty. However the Mango mouse was a disaster! What was I thinking? I could’ve ordered a chocolate silk pie or the chocolate pate (damn yours looked good Nicole), but nnooooo I had to get all fancy and order the mouse, which was like an old leather jelly-like barf-fest, with mangos on the side. Yuck. The service was good, the prices were decent. I was sorely disappointed with my choice of dessert and I wish I would’ve known about the Tiger beer, Allison, that sounded good! 3 ½ shazams kids; You just can’t beat the ‘O’.

The King & I - 3 Shazam's

We went to the King & I this month for dinner club, I hadn't been there for many years. The restaurant was tastefully decorated but other than the coconut rice there was nothing that triggered any memories for me. I loved seeing the gong and would have enjoyed hearing it's hauntingly beautiful echo! Perhaps in the past, there are others like me, that took advantage of an opportunity when it presented itself, because the mallet was nowhere to be seen??? The service was great and the wine was pretty good. This one only gets 3 Shazam's for me, should maybe be 4 ish but...they lose 1 for not having the mallet for the gong!

Ok, on to the food! My favourite, of course, being a seafood lover, was the seafood dish that only 3 of us shared! Yum yum! Thanks to the other 4 for not liking seafood. I also really enjoyed the salad rolls, loved the cilantro in them and the sauce was much lighter than most salad roll sauces. The coconut rice was just as I remembered it from years gone by. There was only one dish that I found a bit too warm for my palate, but please don't ask me which it was, it was in mixed in with everything else that was heaped on my plate! It may have been the beef with spinach dish, but not sure and wouldn't want to condemn a good dish unnecessarily. Brandi & I shared desserts (as usual, thank god for sisters!) we had the banana spring roll with coconut ice cream, it was amazing! The ice cream was super good and had bits of coconut in it, very tasty! The other dessert we tried was a mango jello like thingy, which looked beautiful but didn't quite deliver on taste.

Many thanks to Nicole for the great pics and having the foresight to write down the names of the food we ate!

Dinner at The King & I

I rate dinner at The King & I 4 Shazams. Everything was very tasty and the "sharing" experience was fun. Seven of us each ordered an entree and each had a bowl of coconut rice (although there was plain and brown rice options) which seemed just the right amount of food, with only a bit left over. I recommend the salad rolls as well which were very fresh. I would stay away from them if you do not like cilantro. The first entree pictured was the Galanga Cashew Chicken, then Bernadette's stirfry, then my plate all loaded up with goodies. I was especially fond of the Chu Chi Seafood (tiger prawns and scallops are stif-fried with seasonal vegetables in our chili jam and basil coconut milk-infused sauce), Buddha's Delight (snowpeas, asparagus, shiitake mushrooms, carrots & water chestnuts stir-fried with mushrooms sauce) and Pad Kai Long Song (tender chicken sautéed in spicy peanut sauce and served on a bed of spinach).

I have never seen the Dinner Club order so many desserts before. I only wish I had not eaten so much so I could have finished my Chocolate Pate with Raspberry Sauce. Yum! Ok, yes I was very organized about our order...haphazard can be a lot of fun too...so next time the Blackberry is only coming out for pictures. :)