[Dine-Out] Calgary: Brasserie Kensington (Big Taste 2012) August 16, 2012

Oh dear. It just dawned on me how far behind on my posts I am. I’m such an awful blogger, apologies.

Soooo…I have a couple posts I still have to do from the 2012 Big Taste Calgary. I’m so ridiculously behind now that its official website no longer has its 2012 restaurants and menus on it. And because I’m such an awful blogger, I, of course, don’t have notes on the menu items. So…the next couple of posts will be very short and sweet…and will only contain stuff I can remember. Awful, awful, awful. I will try to be more diligent from now on. Promise.

So the Big Taste Menus are usually $25 for lunch and $35 for dinner. Most menus will come with three courses. From the 2011 event, the bf and I have come to the realization that two $35 menus usually end up being too much food. So this year, for a lot of the restaurants, we would order 1 Big Taste menu and 1 regular main course, unless, of course, the menus are super good and have lots of choices that we both want. Sometimes the restaurants only offer 1 menu with no choices (like the case with Kensington Brasserie this year) and there’s really no point in both of us eating the same thing.

So the first course of the Big Taste menu was a Brome Lake duck breast pastrami:

Big Taste Menu Item – Duck Breast Pastrami

Look at the perfect doneness on that duck. So beautifully pink. This small starter came with crostini and a little bit of greens on top of the duck.

Big Taste Menu Item – Braised Alberta Beef Short Ribs

This was my entree – braised short ribs on top a bed of mustard spatzle and topped with a slice of foie gras torchon. Oh. My. God. This was heavenly. This meal was 5 months ago for me and I still remember how fork-tender the short ribs were. Some people think that foie gras is too rich, but this small little portion was a perfect compliment to the meat.

The bf got this off of their specials board (I think):

Not part of the “Big Taste Menu”

I’m pretty sure it was a boeuf bourguignon, I remember trying some and thought that the red wine taste was too dominating…

Big Taste Menu Item – Foie Gras Profiteroles

And last but not least, profiteroles piped with a foie gras and sea salt ice-cream. This was a good dessert, but I don’t think the foie gras was very apparent. It almost tasted like a normal ice-cream.

BRASSERIE KENSINGTON
1131 Kensington Rd NW
Calgary, AB T2N 4P4
(403) 457-4148

[Dine-Out] Calgary: Redwater Grille September 30, 2011

The bf and I had dinner at the Bow Valley RedWater Grille a while back because I had a gift card to use up!

The meal started off with some complementary bread. As you can see, they don’t serve you fancy bakery bread, it’s pretty much just white bread but in a baguette shape instead of a loaf shape. The butter had some herbs in it though.

Butterball

We started off with the Calamari. The sauce is a green apple and lemon aioli. Hahaha, speaking of aioli, I overheard a conversation today where the guy was pronouncing it “alloy”, and his companions were all confused as to why there would be alloy in food.

The menu online says this is $9.00, but they totally charged us $10.00

This was actually quite well done, the oil was nice and the batter wasn’t too heavy.

I prefer the type of calamari with squid legs though~

For the main I had the Forno Roasted Red Spring Salmon. The dish came with herb roasted baby potatoes, asparagus, and chill garlic butter. I asked for mine without the butter though. I don’t get when main dishes come out for a massive knob of butter, why does anyone need to eat that much butter with their protein?

$24.00

Meh, your average fish & potatoes. Nothing special about this, nothing bad either…the fish wasn’t dry or anything, but it wasn’t fantastic.

The bf got the Crab Capellini:

$18.00

This was super delicious, but I think the recipe probably went something like this: equal part butter and equal part pasta.

Yum, I love soft-shell crab!

Even though the food was quite good, I don’t think we will be going back there anytime soon.

Why you ask? Is it because of the price? Nope, even though it is a little on the expensive side.

It is….

because….

…

…

…of this:

Soooo much oil

Above was what my salmon dish looked like sans food. I don’t even know how there could be sooooo much oil. Imagine how much there would have been with the ball of butter!

Empty Pasta Dish

This was the bf’s empty dish. I understand that a lot of restaurants cook their pasta with lots of butter so it tastes yummy, but there was probably a good 2 tablespoons of oil pooling at the bottom of the bowl. That’s just not very appetizer to look it. Imagine how much oil you probably actually digested…

I also don’t understand how they managed to do the fried dish (calamari) with little to no oil left on the plate…but this much oil for our main courses…baffling!

RED WATER GRILLE
181 250 6th Ave SW
Calgary, AB T2P 3H7
(403) 265-3837