05/28/2010

Viphilay Laos & Thai Restaurant

After a tough week at work, I was in no mood to come home and cook a meal for myself and my husband this evening. So instead I collapsed into the passenger seat of the car and instructed Allan to take me wherever he wanted as long as there was food.

So he drove to Chinatown, which was unusual, and then started driving in circles, which was worrisome, but then stumbled upon what he had been looking for: a small, unassuming restaurant called Viphilay.

I love Thai food. I often crave the bright, clean, exotic flavours and exciting sweet/spicy combos. But I seldom try new Thai restaurants, preferring to stick to the reliable if inconveniently located (for me) Syphay when the mood really hits. I was eager to see if we were about to discover another gem closer to our downtown home.

We did manage to get seated right away, however it was obviously at the worst table in the house (riiight next to the door) as all the others were reserved. I would definitely recommend making reservations here, as it is a rather small and seemingly quite popular restaurant with a lot of regulars happy to pack the tables. The atmosphere was very friendly, with excellent service and an atmosphere conducive to just hanging around enjoying yourself for a while.

The menu is extensive but very unintimidating. Suggestions are given in the menu for how to construct your meal (ie how many and what types of dishes to order together and how to eat them) and each menu item provides both a Thai and English name as well as a detailed description of the dish, making it easy for even the uninitiated to put together a meal. Highlights include a solid list of soups, the standard curry offerings, Thai-style salads, and an extensive selection of seafood dishes. We opted for chicken satay, green curry with chicken (Allan loves it too much to ever pass it up), Lahp Gnua (spicy beef salad), and coconut rice. As their menu states, “Lao and Thai cuisine is based on the concept of harmony and balance. Instead of serving dishes in courses (ex. appetizer, main course, dessert) a meal is served all at once in order to allow the complimentary combinations of taste and textures in each dish to be experienced fully.”

Lahp Gnua

I was asked how spicy I would like the lahp gnua, and I decided to just go for it and let them go crazy with it. The waiter helpfully instructed me in how to eat it (scoop up some beef into a lettuce leaf, roll, eat) and I dug in. It was definitely a very spicy dish, but balanced out with the coconut rice and thoughtfully provided cool cucumber slices was still endurable and quite tasty. The cilantro and red onion chopped in with the beef give it a pleasant, fresh quality that would be great on a hot day.

Green Curry

The curry was as delicious as we’d hoped: pleasantly spicy, well-balanced in flavour, and full of delicious and perfectly cooked veggies. I could’ve eaten the sweet little pea pods all night. I didn’t, though. In fact, we ended up taking half our meal home in a doggy bag, because I absolutely needed dessert.

When it comes to dessert, it’s fair to say I’m highly suggestible. I don’t really need a menu, I just need to glance a sugar-dusted dish being handed to a fellow patron or hear a particular item mentioned in passing, and I must have it. So as I was reading the dessert menu slowly, trying to make the best possible choice, and the waitress cut in briefly to say what ice creams they had available to day – and mentioned that an order of ice cream is a generous three scoops, and pointed out that we could mix and match flavours – I stopped pondering and just went for the ice cream. We got one scoop each of green tea, mango, and toasted coconut, because they all sounded ridiculously delicious. And they were.

The toasted coconut scoop is hiding at the bottom, but rest assured, it did not escape my eagerly digging spoon.

All in all, one of the better meals I’ve had this month. I guess I can let the hubby choose more often.

http://www.viphalay.com/

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03/08/2010

$20 in Strathcona

During the spring/summer right before we got married, my husband and I had a nice Saturday morning routine going for a while: sleep late, eventually make our way out of the apartment and across the bridge, then hit Bee-Bell Bakery for breakfast and head to the Old Strathcona Farmer’s Market for a little weekend shopping. Then the hectic last stages of wedding planning interrupted it, then the honeymoon, and then…and then…we never got back to it. To be honest, we’ve lived downtown for so long it doesn’t often occur to me to leave. So it seemed strange this past Saturday to wake up and head out and across the bridge, but it had been too long and had to be done.

One catch: a cheque we were expecting was delayed in the mail, and we realized Friday night that we only had $20 for the weekend. I like a challenge, though, so no worries.

The morning started, of course, at Bee Bell. The shop was bustling with the usual Saturday morning crowd, but the staff was doing a great job of keeping the line moving along at a good pace. I enjoyed the opportunity to inspect all the tasty treats behind the glass while waiting for my number to be called: pastries, muffins, cookies, rolls, croissants, and several varieties of bread. What I was after was the little display of hot treats hiding in the corner – distracting sweets be damned, my heart belonged to a warm, buttery, flaky sausage roll. YUM. I could probably live off of these and die happy.

After my husband secured a free coffee at the nearby McDonalds, we headed to the Farmer’s Market. I was nervous about being surrounded by so much amazing food with hardly any cash in my pocket, but I managed to appreciate the tasty scenery while only buying a couple items – a big bag of saskatoons (Allan’s favourite), and some perishke and dill cream sauce from Two Babas and a Stove, which honestly I don’t think I’ve ever managed to leave this market without. And, then, sadly, I hurried out before I made any hasty decisions; I still had another stop on my list.

So off we went to Coney Island Candy, a shop I’d read about but somehow never actually visited. I just finished reading a fascinating book called Candy Freak, which made me realize how much candy was out there that I was missing out on and just how wonderful it could be, so I’ve been pretty keen on picking up new goodies. Honestly I didn’t have high hopes for this store. I’d heard it was as much a novelty shop as a candy store, and I’m not really one for cheesy gag gifts and “naughty” adult items, but it was better than I’d expected. Fun atmosphere, HUGE wall of bulk candy (most of which I’d never even heard of), and best of all, an impressive collection of more obscure chocolate bars. I spotted a bar I’d only read about and didn’t even know was still being made – the Necco Skybar, which features four blocks of chocolate with 4 different fillings (vanilla, caramel, fudge and peanut). I snapped one up, as well as a handful of gummy Cola Pandas. The pandas were, of course, delicious, as any cola-flavoured candy is. The Skybar was alright – sub-par chocolate, but tasty, gooey fillings. Worth trying, at least.

On the way back to the car, we passed 2 Fat Frank’s stands, and by the second we’d lost any self control, at least as far as highly processed meats were concerned. We caved and shared the basic Jumbo Dog, slathered in sweet onion mustard and spicy chili sauce and sprinkled generously with onions. I took a big bite of it when we got back to the car, and discovered that it was both extremely tasty and extremely spicy. Luckily Allan was understanding and went back through the McDonalds drive-through to get me a giant root beer, adding at the end of the order “can I get anoth-er…a free coffee?” Smooth, honey.

At this point, somehow, we still had $5 and change, so instead of going straight home, we hit up someplace in our own neighborhood: Duchess Bake Shop. It’s a pretty little bakery – small but bright and welcoming, and filled with friendly staff and smiling patrons. Everything looked delicious, and there’s no way $5 could ever do this place justice, but for the sake of at least having a taste I grabbed a little assortment of macarons: salted caramel, rose, and lemon.

My favourite was definitely the salted caramel. It really nailed the texture; ever-so-slightly crisp on the cookie, soft gooey goodness inside, and creamy smooth caramel in the middle, not to mention the near-perfect balance of sweet and salty. The lemon was Allan’s favourite, unsurprising as he is possibly the single biggest fan that lemon meringue has ever had. Rose was the least favourite, but still certainly worth eating: delicately flavoured, and beautiful to look at.

All in all, a pretty good day on a budget. But I think every one of these places deserves a good, long revisit now that there’s some money in the bank…stay tuned for gluttony to come!

EAVB_PYIPDPTYUJ

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01/29/2010

Forkfest 2010: Red Ox Inn

While it was tempting to just hit up our old favourite Original Fare restaurants for their Fork Fest specials this year, I decided it was more important to use it as an opportunity to check out places I hadn’t been before but really needed to try. So last week my husband and I made a reservation at Red Ox Inn, a restaurant with an excellent reputation but which none of my friends seemed to have ever checked out. And even though there was only a $45 special (no $25 option), we decided it was worth it to finally try it.

We found the restaurant in a lovely neighborhood by the river valley (9420 91 St.) and walked in to find a very small but warm, comfortable and stylish dining room. We were having an early dinner so the place was nearly empty, but the tables were all packed by the time we left. We were seated in a comfortable booth with soft leather seats and the kind of wood table that xylophiles (it’s entirely possible I just made up that word) write poetry about. Our waiter was polite, helpful and completely lovely. He provided us with both the fork fest menu and the regular menu, as well as the extensive wine list, and tactfully gave us plenty of time to gawk at it.

Allan (my husband) stuck to the plan and ordered the pork Fork Fest special: italian sausage stuffed tenderloin with goat cheese/sundried tomato orzo and romesco sauce, served with a goat cheese salad to start and bread pudding for dessert. I made the mistake of reading the entire menu and had to go rogue. I justified it by doing some quick math and discovering it wouldn’t cost any more money if I got the butternut squash soup to start (sounded far too good to pass up) and the duck for my entrée, and just shared Allan’s dessert. And away we went.

My soup was just stupid good. I imagined a butternut squash, draped in a fine velvet robe, wrapping me in a warm embrace. I also drew a picture.

The waiter seemed impressed/shocked(/horrified?) at how quickly my generous portion of soup was annihilated. I did manage to stop short of licking the bowl, though, as there were now several other patrons sitting near us. Allan’s goat cheese salad was just as impressive, with a wonderful crispy/creamy chevre medallion and spinach that Allan said tasted too good to be spinach.

The entrées were even more delicious. Mine was juicy slices of medium rare duck breast served over a tasty risotto cake and butternut squash caponata (see above for my feelings on butternut squash) and a tasty morsel of bacon-wrapped fennel, as well as some yummy green beans and brocolli. The portion size was perfect: I was left immensely satisfied but not over-full or bloated. Allan was kind enough to share a bit of his pork from the fork fest special, which was also delicious but slightly less fantastic than the duck.

The final stage of my plan, sharing Allan’s dessert, fell apart when I was confronted with the dessert menu. I am completely helpless in the face of a good slice of pecan pie, especially when it’s covered in caramel and whipped cream. No regrets, it had to be done. After-dinner drinks weren’t in the cards on a weeknight after we’d had plenty of wine with dinner, but the list of single malt scotches, ports and dessert wines was hard to pass up. There’s always next time. And there will definitely be lots of next times.

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01/23/2010

Weekend Night Out: Prohibition Pub

I guess it’s fair to say that I’m finicky about the bars I frequent. I don’t want to be bored, but I don’t really want to spend the night dancing. I want a comfortable place to talk and hang out with my friends, but I do also want good music and a fun variety of people for those rare nights that I’m feeling like meeting new friends. I demand good drinks and snacks, served by friendly, competent servers and bartenders. The most significant love affair I’ve ever had with a bar was my all too short-lived relationship with the Sidetrack, which completely broke my heart by closing down (I even briefly tried to find a way to purchase and reopen it myself). These days, my main standbys are The Hat and Red Star, two conveniently located (for me, anyway) Jasper Ave pubs with exceptional food and drink menus and good ambiance, but sometimes a change is in order. So last night, I dragged my husband and friends to Prohibition (11026 Jasper Ave) for an experimental night out at an intriguing new hangout.

We arrived early – about 6:45 pm – and found the place quiet and relaxed. We laid claim to a couple of extremely comfortable leather couches and admired the very cool furniture in our cozy little nook while drinking our $4.50 (happy hour pricing) pints of Big Rock Traditional Ale, which is incidentally the first choice of draught beer for everyone present, and always nice to have available. Wanting to try out a few more of the beers from the solid list of on-tap options, I moved onto Big Rock Lime (not bad, not great, typical light lime beer) and my husband had Sapporo, which came highly recommended from the waitress and didn’t disappoint as a fuller-flavoured, more complex pint.

The cocktail menu was substantially more expensive than the beer list, with most sitting around the $10 mark. They were all decidedly “girly” concoctions with 1920s-themed names: I sipped at something called Prohibition Punch which tasted like grape kool-aid (one of my favourite guilty pleasures) while my friend Paul next to me somewhat sheepishly drank a bright-blue confection called Luciano’s Luck. Another companion asked for a scotch and cola and was told by the waitress that they didn’t have any scotch, which struck us all as rather odd. I think this is officially our Beer Drinking Bar.

As the evening wore on and dinner was getting further behind us, snack time rolled around. The menu wasn’t exceptional at first glance: a very standard (but not by any means bad) assortment of pub food (view menu here). Paul, a vegetarian, was impressed by the assortment of veg options, which included salads, spring rolls, wraps, and a veggie burger. We ended up with an order of red pepper hummus, served with tortilla chips and crispy flatbread. It was delicious, but the dip/dippers ratio was off, leaving us with a lot of bread and chips and no hummus left. The serving was also a little too small to be shared by even two people. Other people in our group ordered a quesadilla and chicken fingers, which were rated as “okay”.

By the end of our night, the small pub had opened up into a larger bar with a dance floor and DJ, and the bocce ball lanes were being used by a large group of people seeming to be having a great time (unfortunately my group was all too shy to go try to figure out just how one is supposed to play bocce). It transitioned nicely from a comfortable place to grab a beer with friends after work to a place to party and unwind on the weekend. All in all a good atmosphere with friendly staff and good drinks, and isn’t that what’s most important in a weekend hangout?

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01/19/2010

Forkfest 2010: Sabor Divino

Forkfest is like any other Edmonton event, in that I look forward to it all year and then, usually, miss it entirely. This year my trusty partner in crime Jill was kind enough to remind me it was happening. “I can finally afford to eat at Red Ox, Emily! I hear it is as if Jesus prepared a steak.”

As tempting as the holy steak sounded, we ended up at a different restaurant that neither of us had been to or really even heard anything about for our Sunday night out: Sabor Divino, down by City Centre on 103 St.

We were both impressed upon walking in to find a warmly-lit, attractive yet comfortable dining room filled with piano music. I browsed through the tempting menu briefly but tried to stay focused on why we were here: the special Fork Fest menu. Sunday night’s $25 meal (which will be offered again next Sunday) consisted of a salad to start, monkfish and prawn risotto as the entree, and a selection of any sample-sized dessert. We ordered our identical meal and got started on our waiter’s wine pick, a tangy Portugese vinho verde that would later be perfect sipped alongside our meal.

The salad proved to be delicious: mixed greens with 2 kinds of tomato, yellow peppers, and tasty little date morsels wrapped in bacon (and a vinaigrette that I want to describe as practically perfect in every way). By the time I made it through the salad I felt like I’d eaten a whole meal, thanks in part to Jill shoveling most of  her bacon-dates onto my plate (“are you trying to give me the pork sweats!?”)

Perhaps because we’d embarked on this with half-full stomachs (and had our fill of the olives and rolls served before our meal), we were both mostly tuckered out by the risotto, but still in the game enough to appreciate it. Jill simply could not get over the prawns (“it’s like they jumped out of the ocean and into my mouth!”, which were impressively fresh and perfectly cooked. The risotto itself was also delicious – absolutely bursting with seafood flavour.

Dessert was a tiny cherry cheesecake for me and a tasty serving of tiramisu for my companion. Just the right finish to our night out. We left more than satisfied, and eager to return with everybody we know to share our new restaurant find.

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