Big Taste Calgary 2014

[19Yzerman19]

Tonight begins my journey through 9 restaurants in the next wee or so. I shall try to post the fare at each! Hopefully others will do likewise so we can see as many menus as possible.

[19Yzerman19]

Bonterra Trattoria




Fairly simple, "can't miss" sort of dish. The lamb pancetta is really good.
Pasta cooked perfectly, sauce just heavy enough. As you'd expect.


The gnocchi might have been the highlight of the whole meal. The sauce was interesting but not at all overpowering. Didn't strike me as a very "Bonterra" dish though.
This is coming from someone who rates their Osso Bucco as one of the best dishes in Calgary.


Again, nothing here blew me away, but it was very tasty. Just rather safe.
The walnut provided some texture to the whole thing but really it was just a well executed, standard panna cotta.

Overall, very good meal. This is the only $25 dinner I have scheduled and I have difficulty imagining any of the other $25 options would be better. Still, it was a very safe offering and nothing super memorable, so there's not a whole ton to say. Given that it seems to me the point of Big Taste is to get people in the door and show them something that will make them come back, I'm not sure the menu really did much on that front. Instead they put together dishes designed to please basically everyone, which is a reasonable tack. But it didn't represent Bonterra to me; the main in particular was sort of outside their normal wheelhouse.

Next up: Sunday at River Cafe.

[calgarywinning]

Keep us posted of your adventures! This menu looks fantastic for $25.

If you get a chance to try Cucina do that! Look forward to your other reviews.

[Jacks]

Originally Posted by 19Yzerman19

That plate is at least 10% too big.

[Flaming Choy]

We went to Sky 360 the other day. Nothing spectacular but I like how the dishes come off their regular menu and not just some generic chicken entree they made to hit a certain price point. Good value compared to how much it would normally cost to order the same things off the menu. The view is a plus as well.

Don't know if the menu changes but we had a choice of

- Mixed green salad or Leek and potato soup
- Burger, chicken BLT, or Carbonara
- pistachio red velvet cake

[19Yzerman19]

River Cafe

This was good, fairly light. It felt like a bit more of a lunch soup than an appetizer for braised beef, but it was well done. Nice little bit of texture with the croutons.

Bonus - while waiting for and eating my soup I was drinking this - the River Cafe take on a Pimm's & Ginger. Consists of Pimm's No. 1 cup, rosemary lemonade, ginger beer, some mint, and cucumber. Very spicy, yet super refreshing.

This was a very feminine and fairly odd dish. "Hey, look what we can do" is sort of the theme. Some of the flavours worked well together (the apple pearls, pear and scallop) but the popcorn was just odd and the dumpling, while delicious, didn't really fit in. Also, huge disconnect between this and the main.

Sorry for the lacking picture quality from here on out, it was hard to get the phone to focus in low light. Anyway, this was outstanding. Highlight of their menu. The onion was done unbelievably, the rice provided a good base, really can't fault anything about it other than maybe the plating which I don't care about much when we're talking about a beef entree. The beef itself was beautifully medium rare and perfectly tender. I had a scotch with it, their Jura, which paired well.

Bonus: We added on a dessert: sticky toffee pudding with salted caramel, hazelnut ice cream and cranberries. This is one of the better desserts I've had since... I don't know when. The caramel was saltier than you'd usually want it but it balanced so well with the pudding and the ice cream that it worked. Highly reccomend trying this if you end up there, not sure if it's a seasonal thing though as it's a pretty winter-oriented dessert.

All told, I was satisfied with the soup, confused by the second appy, very happy with the entree, and blown away by the dessert. There's certainly room for improvement in terms of how they did the menu overall. I felt like the first two dishes were more of an afternoon lunch type of set up, and then the entree was pure late night dinner. I think it would have made sense to ditch the second appy in favour of a simple dessert, because they seem to knock the desserts out of the park, or have the handful of times I've had one here.

[Northendzone]

be sure to ask for some *******extra******* ranch dressing and some pop and bread to take home......

are those dishes being served on a picnic table?

[19Yzerman19]

It's just a wooden table, you can see it pretty clearly in the picture of my drink. If you've never been to River Cafe, the restaurant has a sort of woodsy cabin vibe to it.

[19Yzerman19]

TRIB Steakhouse

This is the first one I've attended that has a choice for its prix fixe. I went with the salmon cake, the strip loin and the cheesecake.

First, my bad - dove into this before I remembered to take a picture. In my defence I was hungry. In any event, I was pretty disappointed with this. It was tasty enough but fairly unremarkable; basically not fine dining quality as far as a seafood cake goes. The sauces didn't add any real interest, either.

The striploin dish was generally very good. I felt like the jus could have been more plentiful as I was using it with everything else on the plate, and though the striploin was cooked dead-on MR, it wasn't a particularly outstanding piece of meat. I'm at a point where there are very few steakhouses in this city that can give me something I can't do about as well on my own - Vintage is one, Trib isn't. But overall, this dish was very good. There's a bed of spaghetti squash under there you may not be able to see, which was delicious. The broccolini was also very good. But the highlight of the thing is that elk Wellington. Just awesome and by itself worth the price of admission, imo. Had this with a pint of Wild Rose Barracks Brown, a decision I do not regret.

The cheesecake was quite good, but after dessert last night paled in comparison. The concept of a butternut squash and gingerbread cheesecake with cranberry is interesting but they didn't meet its potential. It wasn't exactly bland, but it also wasn't memorable. Could've used a bit of a kick, maybe some additional nutmeg or cinnamon flavour, something to bring out the squash flavour. Again, good, but nothing to write home about. I had a late harvest with it that paired well.

While the first dish wasn't great (I regret not getting the salad but given the choices how do you not try the fish), I'm generally satisfied with this menu. It's a set of offerings that are perfectly in line with what I think of when I think of Trib, and I approve of that decision. Still, it was an exercise in meeting, but not exceeding, my expectations, which is also in line with Trib for me... in my experience it's not quite up to snuff with the better steakhouses (or restaurants) in Calgary, and this menu didn't change my mind.

Note: I didn't have this with the wine pairings, which at 20 bucks for three glasses is a solid value (the Inniskillin dessert offering is $16 bucks on its own a la carte). I had to go back to work, so two drinks was do-able, four wasn't.

[19Yzerman19]

John Gilchrist is actively participating in Big Taste and IIRC actually is doing an event at River Cafe tomorrow... I'm pretty sure he knows what their menu is! Thing is, that particular dish is on both the $35 dinner menu (which we had) and the $65 gourmet menu. Although I assume it will be different for the thing tomorrow. Quirky stuff like popcorn is sort of en vogue. But yeah, not a very well executed concept for me.

[Pagal4321]

Originally Posted by fotze

Wow! What an embarrassment that dish is. IF you are not cool with the value of the promotion, don't participate.

Is that seriously how it came to your table?? Popcorn?

You should seriously send that pic to Sal Howell or John Gilchrist?

How about you read the menu, since that kind of indicates the dish has....you know...popcorn?

[19Yzerman19]

Actually the dumpling was really good on its own - and I say that as someone not big on mushrooms. Wasn't burnt, just crispy. My photography probably just sucks. The issue there was that it stood out like a sore thumb, and for me, didn't cohere well with basically anything else on the plate. Whereas at least the pear, apple and scallop were good together (though there was either too much pear or not enough scallop).

I felt like that whole dish was conceived as follows: "Hey man I went to Q Haute Cuisine last night and they did some wacky sh** with pearled fruit jelly, puree of unexpected stuff and the use of random items that don't seem to have any connection to anything else. Maybe we should try doing that!"

I realize that's fairly insulting to the chef who obviously actually knows what the F he's doing, because this is a good restaurant, but it just didn't work, imo. However, as the main was really great and the soup was pretty good, I still left satisfied with the menu. Even if I hadn't been satisfied with it, the dessert we got as an add-on... yup.

Anyway. Next stop tonight: Ox and Angela.

[tete]

A couple coworkers and I went to Black Betty Burger&Wine Bar at lunch for their lunch menu and I really enjoyed it. Sadly, I forgot to take pictures. It was three courses:

Ahi Tuna Nachos (cubed tuna on fried wonton with mango and a bit of a cream/hoisin sauce?)

Butter Burger - my coworkers had it and said it was good, I got a quinoa burger that was amazing - brie cheese and apple slices on a quinoa patty.

Sticky toffee pudding - very tasty, super sweet, could have used a bit of whipping cream to cut the sweet, but still, very tasty.

I hadn't been there before and was pleasantly surprised.

[troutman]

Where did you go to eat afterwards after getting those bird portions?

[Barbecue]

Originally Posted by 19Yzerman19

I realize that's fairly insulting to the chef who obviously actually knows what the F he's doing, because this is a good restaurant, but it just didn't work, imo.

I wouldn't go as far as suggesting the chef knows what he's doing.

In a day and age in the culinary world where chefs need to think outside of the box to be at par with other chefs, sometimes, they just do stuff like this for the sake of being different. Even if "different" means using ingredients that doesn't make any sense. I don't think i've seen any reputable restaurants where they use popcorn as a garnish. Not to mention the sauce/food item ratio... they really over did that white sauce...

it's a terribly plated dish...

[malcolmk14]

Yeah that River Cafe dish is one of the strangest things I've ever seen.

Had the $65 gourmet menu at Vintage on Sunday and it was great.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by malcolmk14

Yeah that River Cafe dish is one of the strangest things I've ever seen.

Had the $65 gourmet menu at Vintage on Sunday and it was great.

I'm curious about that one. What was in the meal?

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by fotze

It doesn't mention burnt dumpling. Also says popcorn puree, not popcorn. and I wasn't even talking about it being a surprise, that it was plated horribly and has a burnt dumpling.

To be fair, that's how that type of Chinese dumplings is supposed to be, very crispy and caramalized to the point of looking burnt but the flavors actually work out alright.

#####ake causes me to stop breathing so I better avoid that menu nonetheless.

That dish is still a terrible concept with the popcorn ruining it overall.

[EverfresH15]

Do you have to make reservations to get the Big Taste menu or how does it work?

[crazy_eoj]

I don't think you need any special reservations they just have a set menu for Big Taste... you can also order off the regular menu.

Went out to Living Room for their big taste dinner menu last night and thought it was really great value for $35. I had venison tartare (awesome!), chicken (good), and fiasco gelato (also very good). The place was packed.