[Dine-Out] Calgary: River Cafe (Big Taste 2012) August 21, 2012

Big Taste @ River Cafe.

Course 1

The first course was a light starter consisting of Polar Bluff carrots and Old West Ranch Buffalo Mozzarella. I love love love buffalo mozzarella. I could eat buckets of this stuff. Anything with buffalo mozzarella = good in my books. And really, you’d have to try pretty damn hard to mess this baby up. This light salad was served with roasted carrots, pickled carrots, crisp carrots, toasted farro, and arugula.

The entree from the Big Taste menu was a plump Noble Farm Duck Cotechino Sausage:

Big Taste Menu

That beauty of a sausage was served with braised french lentils, roasted apples, buttered cabbage, and a preserved lemon yogurt. I am just loving all the restaurants using apples in their dishes. Bf loved it, polished it off, wouldn’t even consider trading with me…

I wanted to trade because I got this god awful french toast:

Brioche French Toast $16

I don’t even know why I ordered this, I know that I don’t like french toast (unless is stuffed with salty, meaty goodness). Oh I know, I was persuaded by the promise of brioche and crème fraîche. Crème fraîche is like my kryptonite. I will pretty much order anything that has crème fraîche on it…

This. Was. Not. Good. Never again am I ordering a french toast that is not stuffed with meat. The bread was so mushy – I felt like I was eating bread pudding. Not a good texture. And the flavours were just boring. You would think that the Okanagan rhubarb, orange, basil, and white chocolate crème fraîche would be good…but it wasn’t…or maybe it was, but just not good enough to mask the nasty mushy texture the bread had. Yuck. Biggest disappointment ever. Also, I don’t understand why people like normal french toast? it’s just sweet on sweet topped with more sweet.

At least the dessert was good…

Big Taste Dessert

This was a dandelion honey panna cotta topped with Kayben Farm blackcurrants and 2 baby Highwood Crossing steel cut oatmeal cookies. Have I mentioned I love panna cottas?

RIVER CAFE
25 Prince’s Island Park
Calgary, AB T2P 0R1
(403) 261-7670

[Dine-Out] Calgary: Borgo Trattoria November 14, 2011

The bf and I stumbled across Borgo a couple of weekends ago while walking down 17th, and boy, was it a good find! The interior of the trattoria is gorgeous, the atmosphere was very homey and rustic even though the decorations are very clean and crisp. Borgo was a great place to spend lunch. We had a table right next to the windows, perfect for people watching!

Gorgeous Gorgeous Interior

The bf order a cappuccino, he said it was delicious. I had a sip, it was very strong. So thumbs out for strong coffee drinkers!

Cappucino

I got a decaf latte, it was a bit bitter to my taste, I don’t think I’d get it again…

Decaf Latte

A lot of other tables ordered hot chocolates and the way they serve it is super cute! The steamed milk comes in a cute little glass milk jug, and was served with a separate little bowl filled with actual chunk of chocolates! It’s like a DIY at the table~

The bf ordered the Ciabatta Sandwich with Speck Prosciutto.

Ciabatta Sandwich with Speck Prosciutto

The sandwich came with sauteed broccolini & fontina cheese – the bf said it was a really good, but still nothing compared to Salumi in Seattle though (coming soon)!

I got the Salumeria Bar Board:

Delicious!

You get to choose 3 cheeses & 3 meats for $15.00, I think this is a great price and would definitely come back to have these. I’m not sure if the cheeses and meats change though, I hope so, I would love some type of soft brie cheese.

3 Meats - Prosciutto di Parma, Soppressata, Cotechino

For the meats, I picked Prosciutto di Parma, Soppressata, and Cotechino. I really like how they serve the meat here, the meat is served super thin so it seems like you’re getting a whole mound of it! I like thin slices better because it takes longer to eat. Also, the pickled onions that came with the board (top left) were deeeelicious~

3 Cheeses - Provolone, Piave, Montasio

For the cheese portion, I chose Provolone, Piave, and Montasio. I wasn’t a big fan of any of the cheeses (the provolone was good) because I like softer, more mild cheeses.

Yummy~

All in all, a great lunch, we will definitely go back. I want to go try their dinner menu!

Borgo Trattoria
818 – 16 Avenue Southwest
Calgary, AB T2R 0S9
(403) 245-2202