Travel Meals II

Ok. Was almost out of battery earlier and not able to do lunch from today.

Lunch was a French onion soup and then a sandwich bar kind of thing. But it was a nice sandwich bar that had some cold salads, greens, cold meats and cheeses and some hot meats. The hot meat was corned beef and something called Montreal Smoked Meat. Smoked meat was good but the corned beef was dry and too thinly sliced and a weird flavor. Also. Get ready. Montreal meat was hot. French onion soup however was not. Really? You can't do hot soup? So weird

Good greens and tomatoes. Also olives and cornichons. I am a sucker for those as we know. Had roast beef on a nice piece of some whole grain bread with brown mustard. Good amount of food.

Desserts more meh. Creme brûlée was not a real brûlée. Hard to explain. More Like just straight up custard. The brownies were dry which made me think they were old. Dinner is offsite so lets see what that brings.

Travel Meals

So I'm in Banff this week for work at an in house conference. Staying at the Fairmont Banff springs hotel. Common areas and exterior very nice. It's a behemoth of an hotel and an old one at that. I don't know how the rooms in other wings are but where I am it's a bit disappointing as I expected more from a Fairmont. Very bland decor. Not plush feeling. Just average. Tiny bathroom. My room is supposed to be an upgrade. If I were paying for this I think I'd be pissed. View of mountains and parking garage (the "parkade"  Canadians are so cute). Meh.

Dinner last night was with about all my coworkers from Houston. We are a rowdy bunch so company was good. Food was not. Forced to eat late and somewhere that could accommodate all of us we went to Bow Valley Grill. Had two tables of 6. Server very unenthused to see us. Took drink orders then never offered a refill the rest of the night. Huge black mark in my book as it's one of the things I rank service on.

Our table ordered a ton of apps. Seemed promising but very expensive for portion size, i.e. portions were teeny tiny. Pork tostada tasty but not hot. Same with the lobster gnocchi and the shrimp. The hotel seems to consistently have trouble with serving hot food. As in it is incapable of doing so. Coffee not hot. Hot water for tea not hot. Nothing is hot. And if I notice then you can bet it is a problem.

Next entrees come out. Table 2 almost all exclusively ordered meat and all reported terrible meals and food value. Our table was a little more varied. I had risotto. Someone else had halibut. Presentation was good. Especially the halibut my sartorial colleague ordered. My risotto had too much parsley on it and was topped with a ball of cream cheese rolled in parsley. Ewww. I had to jettison the cream cheese.  That is just kra-kra to put cream cheese on risotto.   Taste was ok though. Creamy without cream. My preference. Dessert was buffet. Got several things. All poorly executed and lacking in flavor. I don't know if Fairmont can't get food up the hill or what, but food quality very disappointing particularly in light of the hotel class the Fairmont is in. Sartorial liked his halibut but the bite he shared with me I found rather bland although the degree of doneness was just right.

The other table was miserable with their bad meals. All entrees were pretty costly too which made the badness that much worse.

I can only go with 2 microwaves and a not recommended despite the strength of the appetizers b/c they were cold and very small portions.

Luby's Goodness . . .

And other meals.

Monday I probably shouldn't bother with. Was dealing with appointments at home and running late to office. Lunch was a cherry chiller from the good people at the Mac Donald's ( only funny if you saw SNL last thurs) in the car. Once at work I had some Melba toast and Boursin cheese.

Tuesday was Luby's with Ducky Momo and FLB2. One word on FLB2 For ease of reference I think I need to call him something else. Chungry calls him Kingwood Boy but I think that is devoid of any creativity. From hereon out FLB2 will be known as Twist is this blog. If you have ever seen Fresh Beat Band you know who Twist is. In all honesty he only vaguely resembles Twist but once I made the connection I couldn't see Twist and not see FLB2. So Twist it is.

Where was I? Ah yes. Luby's. went with the three veggie platter bc one of my fav things at Luby's is the sides. Fried okra, green beans and broccoli rice casserole. Okra was frozen out of a bag which can be good but this was cold and had been sitting out a while. Green beans were good though. Broc/rice casserole was ok. Room for improvement. Very soupy and highly peppered. I didn't really have an issue with the pepper. The soupiness though was a problem.

The guys got fried chicken and gave mixed reviews. One liked it and one was not impressed.

More later on my Calgary eats. So far not off to a good start.



As much as I'm a fan of Luby's I have to rate this a 3 overall. I will give a shout out to our server who was phenomenal. I can't remember his name but his attention to detail was so good we left him a pretty generous lunch tip. Which is a big deal because we are picky and cheap.

And Then . . .

Oh my, busy week and now jetting off to Calgary for a work meeting in Banff. Poor me.

Friday I cannot recall what I ate. Oh yes! Hubs and I had to return some running shoes so went at lunch to Rice Village for lunch. Parking was tight so rather than try to repark near our initial objective, Bombay Brasserie we went to Sweet Paris down from the running store.

Tiny little hole in the wall with robins egg blue walls and white marble cafe tables. It felt like Latin quarter Paris vs old guard right bank. Very fresh and funky. Bonus: actual French people eating there!

SP styles itself a creperie AND cafe however it's really just a creperie. The cafe part must be a nod to the one sandwich they have on the menu. We ordered up a smoked salmon crepe a Houstonian (egg and sausage and potato) and a Nutella with strawberries for dessert.

One word. Yum.
Crepes were just right. Not chewy or rubbery cooked a perfect golden brown. Fillings could have been hotter but overall nice flavor combos and we each ate every bite.

Generally not a Nutella fan but I have to say with the strawberries mixed in this was fabulous. We killed it. And indeed our plate did look sort of a bloody mess when we were through. Strawberries masticated just right and not too much sugar added. No overuse of Nutella. A great balance.

My favorite part was the table full of darling older French gentlemen we sat near. Magnifique!

4.5 and recommended

Repeat x 2 . . . .

Two repeats.

Yesterday was the weekly dumpling foray.  As I have noted before I don't get a drink at Doozo, I go to Starbuck's for the refresher (which had a fresh lime slice, thank you very much) and a black tea for Ducky Momo.  Ducky Momo meanwhile waits in line for the dumplings in a perfectly synchronized ordering sequence.  So yesterday he ordered me a combo, which was supposed to be a chicken and pork combo.

What happened was a veggie and chicken combo.

Fav Lunch Buddy 2 had previously cautioned that the veggie dumplings were gross so I was not excited when I figured out that there was no chicken hidden in amongst the spinach.  But, I have to say they were rather tasty and a nice surprise.  The filling was like spinach pie with cellophane noodles.  I liked it so much I may add it to the dumpling rotation.  Added bonus, we got the Don Corleone booth.  It was faced a weird direction though so this was the view:

Today was lunch with a good friend at Treebeard's b/c it is right in the middle of our two office locations.  I was so jazzed to see her I totally forgot to take a picture.  Imagine a small bowl of shrimp étouffée and squash casserole.  I always get the étouffée.  On rare occasions I will get the gumbo.  Excellent as always although could have been hotter temperature wise.  Squash casserole was much better than last time.  I don't like my squash casserole crunchy with crisp squash.  I like it as mushy as it can before before its just squash pudding.  Today was perfection.  Nicely well done squash, good bread ratio and just the right amount of seasoning.  I could have sat there eating it all day.  4.5 for étouffée and a 5 for the casserole on this visit.  Huzzah!

Alas, now I must go try to find a doctor that does hernia repair.  What kind of a doctor is that?  I'm going with internist.  Wish me well!

Dinner

Bacon.

Trader Joe's Uncured Applewood Smoked Bacon.

Mmmmm bacon. . . .

Monday Monday . . . .

hahaha! It's really Tuesday.  I was traveling yesterday so totally forgot what day of the week it is.  Too lazy to go change my title.

Brought lunch today in the form of the second half of my Trader Joe's chicken enchiladas that I ate for dinner last week.  One package is 4 enchiladas and it's about $5 so a really good value.  Another bonus-- THEY ARE AWESOME!!!!  I'll just tell you right now I'm giving it a 5.  Sorry to spoil the surprise for you.

 this is actually a cross section of 4 enchiladas

close up-- look at all the chicken y'all!

Lots of chicken, but not overdone.  Good cheese to sauce ratio.  Great ranchero sauce.  I'm a repeat customer on these enchiladas.  They are muy delicioso as Dora (and my Daughter) would say.  And for today's in office lunch I am shaking things up a bit by eating on the other side of my desk!  Why is that a big deal?  I always eat on the right side out of view of the doorway.  If I eat on the left side then my lunch and my eating it are in full view of anyone who comes in or walks by if my door is open.  And today it happens to be open.  I'm trying to share the Trader Joe's goodness with the office. By stinking up the hall with my enchilada.  Any minute now the gal in the office next door is going to pop out like a SWAT team and spray everything down with some Lysol.  That's how she rolls.

In summary- 5 microwaves, awesome.  If you have a Trader Joe's near you buy these.  You will not be sorry.  If you are, I don't care to know about it thank you very much.