Misc. Round-up . . . .

Get a snack. It's a long one . . .

Ok- so no photos of anything I ate over the weekend . . .no scratch that. I do have pics from Sat. night dinner at Tommy Bahamas.  Coconut shrimp app and crab stuffed shrimp with a Hurricane followed by a jalapeno mojito.  Drinks all excellent.  The mojito had a nice bite to it.  Coconut shrimp always good at TBs.  Consistency I have come to find is very hard to pull off, but I have to say every time we go to TBs we get this app and it is always prepared the same and always good.  Kudos to Tommy Bahamas kitchen staff!

hurricane

 

coconut shrimp

My main complaint with TBs is the bread and butter combo.  I don't care for the bread.  It's some kind of white bread that is not sourdough, my fav, but not a plain white dough either.  Butter it comes with is a cinnamon honey butter that doesn't add anything to the bread.  Just give me some regular butter please.

Crab stuffed shrimp were very nice.  My usual dish is the Thai shrimp and scallops--also always excellent.  I also like the pulled pork sandwich they have there too although I do find the blackberry BBQ sauce to be a little heavy handed for the pork.  Anyhoo-- crab stuffed shrimp-yum!  Dusted with a little too much spice but overall very nice.  Would not have gone with a mashed potato I don't think but then not sure what I would have done instead. Spinach seemed to have little to no seasoning so it was too bland for my personal preference.

 crab stuffed shrimp with chili sauce

No dessert.  We had to run to go get a movie (and it was kind of super depressing Hope Springs so dessert and more drinks would have been the more entertaining way to go).

Hurricane is a 5, the other 2 shrimps I will give a 4 since part of the goodness scale is whether or not I could eat it every day.  While I love me some shrimp, not sure  I could pull off shrimp prepared either of these 2 ways EVERY single day.

On to my business trip to Calgary!

Stayed at a lovely boutique Hotel le Germain.  Only thing that bothered me is the room was full of ambient lighting so not only did I feel like I could never get it bright enough, there were also a billion stupid switches to mess with.

Breakfast was continental is the le Germain Mount something or other room.  Fairly standard, cereals, yogut, toast, pastries and . . .  what a nice surprise, some cold cuts and cheese!  No, that is not sarcastic.I was thrilled to find some ham and cheese along with fresh strawberries and home made croissants.  the croissants were authentic and to die for.  Strawberries were some of the freshest I have had in a while and the meat and cheese was standard but nice when paired with the other two items.  All told it made for a lovely breakfast.

I would give this a 5.

plate of awesomeness

 

Moving on to lunch with a couple of my Calgarian co-workers . . .  it was an exceptionally fine day in Calgary so we opted for some rooftop patio dining at West.  We shared the fried calamari appetizer (calamari was previously frozen but the breading was nice and light and peppery), then I had the crab and mac n cheese.  I am usually reluctant to get mac n cheese dishes out due to the propensity of cooks to add too much cream in with the cheese and making the dish way too rich so you eat about 5 bites then are done.  I put my fears aside and ordered and was happily rewarded with a delightful dish of tender macaroni with prosciutto, crab and Gruyere cheese.  I did not taste even a hint of cream.  It was a great combination of flavors, not too heavy even with the cheese and best of all I was able to eat most of it and enjoyed every bite.  My only complaint might be that some larger lumps of crab meat were in order. Ideally a 5 but at the end of the day, too rich to really pull it off so I will go with a 4.5.  An excellent mac and cheese.

With some very minimal arm twisting I convinced everyone to order a dessert.  We had a lovely trio of dark chocolate something (that I think said mousse but it was really like getting two candy bars or a flourless cake or something), a sweet potato cheesecake and a strawberry and rhubarb panna cotta.  I think we all agreed that the panna cotta was the best.  Very subtle flavors, great texture.  The cheesecake was also really really tasty.  Very light, not overwhelmed with the sweet potato and a nice caramelly finish.  The chocolate I will give a 4, the cheesecake a 4.5 and a 5 for the wonderful panna cotta.  If you're in Calgary I would recommend this restaurant.  West in the mall on 7th Ave, eh.

Finally, we have my meal on the plane.  A cold salmon with some wild rice and tabouli salad with a lemon cheesecake and a very pleasant Shiraz.  I'm not super hip to cold entrees. This was ok. I liked it better than the cold chicken salad that I got last time.  What is it with return trips and cold entrees?  Going with a  4 for the salmon, 5 for the wine and a big fat 0 for the other 2 parts of the meal.  The lemon cheesecake was gross, with too much fake lemon taste.  And really, do you know what it takes for me to call any kind of dessert gross and give it a 0?  You can trust it was not good, let me just put it that way.  The rice and tabouli salad was also gross.  too much red pepper, no seasoning that I could discern and it didn't taste like the rice and tabouli were cooked  through.  Not one of the better moments in airplane chefery.  I'll just leave it at that.  The wine however I sincerely liked very much and would like to know what it was.  If you are on Air Canada and have some shiraz tell me what it is!!