[Dine-Out] Calgary: Winebar Kensington

Goodness, I love long weekends. Long weekend = lots of eating out.

We finally got around to trying Winebar Kensington. We’ve stopped by a couple of times with the intentions of eating there, but they were always full. Surprisingly, we got in on Saturday night, no wait, and we even got a table (no bar!).

I’m so glad we actually got to eat there that day…because…they had SQUID INK!! I love squid ink anything. Restaurants in Calgary need to have it on their menu more. It. Is. So. Good. If I wasn’t so lazy, I’d make it myself.

We ordered 2 specials. I got the salt seared sole with squid ink risotto. The dish was served with a basil butter sauce (you can see its buttery goodness pooling at the bottom of the plate). This dish was amazing~

SQUID INK SQUID INK SQUID INK

The table next to us was complaining that the fish was too salty. But it was cooked on a salt block. So of course its going to be salty.

Oh. My. God. I still can’t get over how good the risotto was. I could eat a bowl of that stuff. Delicious. If you ever come across it, you have to try it. Don’t be put off by its carbon-black colour. You won’t regret it.  I actually regret sharing my dish with my bf, and I’ll tell you why after.

The bf got another chalkboard special: the braised rabbit leg. It came with sauteed tomato & zucchini and a rabbit ravioli.

Très Disappointing

This dish was such a let down. The sauce was mediocre, the ravioli was mediocre, but the rabbit leg…was…blech. The leg was really dry and had absolutely zero rabbit taste. As  average as the ravioli was, it at least tasted like rabbit. The leg…tasted like…turkey. It tasted like a dry, left-in-the-oven-too-long, turkey leg.

So, we originally had ordered the dish separately (sole for me, rabbit for bf) BUT for some reason, the sole came out WAAAYYY before the rabbit. Like a good 15 minutes. And well, I didn’t want to start eating without the bf but I also didn’t want my food to get cold. So being the good person that I am, I offered to split my plate with him, and he could split his with me (although I don’t particularly love rabbit, and I love squid ink). What a mistake. Haha, it could well become the worst decision of my life.

I don’t understand how one dish could be so far and above better than the other. I also don’t understand why our food came out 15 minutes apart. It’s not like we ordered a charcuterie board and other starter plates to share or anything. We specifically said when we ordered, sole for me, rabbit for him. Baffling.

Anyways, to sum it all up: squid ink = good, rabbit = bad. The rabbit was $23.00 too while the sole was only $17.00. We could have ordered TWO soles, filled our bellies with goodness, and would have had $6.00 extra!

WINEBAR KENSINGTON
1131 Kensington Road Northwest
Calgary, AB T2N 3P4
(403) 457-1144