Eat! Eat!

Eat! Eat!
1325 9 Ave SE
Calgary, AB

Located in the trendy Inglewood neighbourhood in Calgary, Eat! Eat! is the perfect little place to go for breakfast and lunch. Our discovery of Eat! Eat! was serendipitous as our original plan was to meet our friends Tamir and Thomas a few doors down at another cafe, which ended up being closed that day.

Being a huge breakfast buff, I was pretty excited by their menu. However, after taking a look at both the breakfast and lunch sections, I had a hard time deciding on what to order. Tamir was in the same boat. We then amicably agreed to split a reuben and eggs benedict.

Reuben with chicken tortilla soup

The reuben ($12) was tasty, warm, and wonderful. It was served on buttery marble rye toast with the perfect portion of horseradish and sauerkraut. The corned beef was moist but a tad on the salty side, however. The choice of sides included yam chips, fries, house salad, or the soup of the day. I opted for soup, but I was presented with several choices which included Moroccan lentil, yam curry, chicken tortilla, and two others. I chose the chicken tortilla. Many of the tortilla soups I've had in the past were on the thick side, but this one was surprisingly different. It had a harmonious blend of veggies, chicken, and deep-fried strips of tortillas which added a nice crunch to the soup.

Tamir ordered one ham and one spinach and tomato benny ($13), so I was able to sample both. While the eggs were slightly overcooked, it didn't necessarily detract from the benny experience. I preferred the spinach and egg one over the ham one. The spinach used was fresh and wasn't overdone.

Andrew had a 3-egg omelette with bacon, sausage, red pepper and ham ($13). The hashbrowns on the side were homemade and well-seasoned.

Since I love breakfast foods, I give bonus points to any place that serves it into the afternoon. Eat! Eat! is open Tuesdays to Sundays from 7 AM - 3 PM on weekdays and 8 AM - 4 PM on weekends. Next time I'm in Calgary, I would definitely eat eat here again.

4.5/5

Suitcase Souvenirs: Bordeaux, France

As this is a travel and food blog, I'd like to use this post to step back into the past and relive some travel memories. During those vacations, I've kept only a paper journal that has never before been read by anyone else. I will be using this blog as an outlet for my future travel memories, but I will also be reminiscing in a series of posts entitled Suitcase Souvenirs, which perhaps you can also use as a guide to plan your own travels.

Bordeaux
May 2011

We spent 3 days in the Bordeaux area during our honeymoon. We chose a hotel that was east of the city centre, across the scenic Pont-de-Pierre bridge. I thought it was a fabulous location as the area was quiet, we were right next to a supermarket, and it was a only 20 min stroll or 5 min bike ride to central Bordeaux.

We used bikes to get around quite a bit in Bordeaux. The VCUB bike rental service is pretty awesome. There are tons of bike stations around town and you can pick a bike up at one station, ride to where you need to go, and chances are there is a bike station close to your destination for drop off. All you have to do is purchase a membership and get a PIN (rates depend on the length of the subscription but are super cheap). When you go to use a bike, any rentals under 30 min are free, or a mere 1 € for 24 hr. I highly recommend bike rentals whenever possible as it's an incredibly fast and efficient way to discover the city.

Andrew with our rental bikes in front of Place de la Bourse

L'Entrecote: We went to this steak restaurant based on the high ratings we saw from Google Places and guidebooks. They only serve one meal option here: a steak dinner that includes a walnut and green salad, and fries (16.50 €). While the salad and unlimited fries were acceptable, the steak was not. It was tasty, but drenched in a greasy sauce and was full of gristle. When I asked for medium steak, it arrived more rare to medium rare. It was hard to believe that patrons could be filling 4 floors of this restaurant. With all the other delicious options in Bordeaux, this is not a place I will return to.












One of my favorite things we did in Bordeaux was our wine tour. We didn't book anything before going on our trip as I found that in my searching, there were many pricey and multi-day options. Instead, we booked at the tourist information office, which gave us more choices within our budget. If there's a specific region you want to visit on a specific day, it might be better to book further in advance. Otherwise, if you're open to checking out any Bordeaux vineyard and are not too restricted by time, booking at the at the tourism office may be the better choice.

View of the vineyard from a window in the chateau

We toured two Grand Cru vineyards in the Graves region just south of Bordeaux. The majority of the wines produced in Bordeaux are reds, but Graves is also amenable to white wines. We learned that all of the Bordeaux wines are blended, so the red wines can be a mixture of any of cabernet sauvignon, merlot, malbec, and cabernet franc. White wines are typically a mixture of sauvignon blanc and semillon.

The wine cellar of Chateau Carbonnieux

At the first vineyard, Chateau Haut-Bailly, we tasted two reds. They make 3 grades of wine here and we tasted the premier and secondary grades. Honestly, I didn't really like either of the wines and if I had to choose, I would have gone with the secondary grade. It was full of tannins, but we were told that the wine needed another year or so of aging before reaching its optimal taste. The other vineyard we visited was Chateau Carbonnieux, where we tasted a red and a white. I liked both and would have bought some if we didn't still have to travel by air to Madrid and Brussels. However, I was able to find 3 stores that carry this wine in Alberta.

Our hostess preparing our samples of wine

I think Bordeaux rises above Paris as my new favorite city in Europe. It has a much more relaxed pace, is less touristy, and still has magnificent architecture with lots to see and do. It's a short drive away from the beach and even Europe's largest sand dune, which I will write about in a future post!

Jardin Public

Apple-Cranberry Crisp

Shortly after Thanksgiving, Andrew found some cranberries on sale for 50 cents a bag. Even though we still had some at home, he bought 2 bags. So I've been looking for ways to use up the cranberries, in addition to making some cranberry sauce a few weeks back. A coworker of mine bought a cranberry apple caramel crumble pie to share today, and I thought it tasted amazing (it's from Save On Foods, by the way). I then started to look for similar recipes and came across the Apple-Cranberry Crisp.

After a quick trip to the grocery store for some Granny Smith apples, I was set to bake.

The ingredients - NOT to scale!

I modified the recipe a bit, adding more cranberries than called for. I usually find crumbles/crisps to be on the sweet side so I didn't proportionally change the amount of sugar. The result was a fruity and tart dessert that went well with vanilla ice cream.

 

_________________________________________________________

Apple-Cranberry Crisp
Adapted from allrecipes.com

INGREDIENTS:
4 Granny Smith apples; peeled, cored and thinly sliced
1/2 bag cranberries
1/3 cup white sugar
3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/3 cup quick-cooking oats
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup butter, cut into pieces
1/2 cup chopped pecans

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C.) Butter an 8 inch square baking dish.

2. In a large bowl, mix together apples, cranberries, white sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg. Spread onto the baking dish.

3. In the same bowl, combine oats, flour and brown sugar. With a fork, mix in butter until crumbly. Stir in pecans. Sprinkle over apples.

4. Bake in preheated oven for 40 to 50 minutes, or until topping is golden brown, and apples are tender. Serve warm.

Hot Pot

With the turn of the season and the temperature falling, one of the comforting meals I like to turn to is hot pot, or Chinese fondue. For those who have never experienced hot pot, a large pot of broth is kept simmering in the middle of the table. A variety of meats, seafood, vegetables, noodles, and dumplings are cooked in the pot and eaten with a dipping sauce.

For our first hot pot of the season, we used a tom yum soup base. We got some thinly sliced beef, dace fish balls and imitation lobster balls from T&T Supermarket. I also sliced up a pork tenderloin. Meat is usually thinly sliced so that it can cook quickly in the broth. It can come pre-sliced from many Asian supermarkets or you can cut it yourself. To facilitate easier DIY slicing, the meat can be put in the freezer until it is half frozen.

For veggies, we chose watercress, siu choy (Chinese cabbage) cut into bite-sized pieces, enoki mushrooms, and regular button mushrooms. We also pre-cooked a package of rice vermicelli beforehand, and defrosted a package of O'Tasty pork and vegetable dumplings. On a side note, I highly recommend these dumplings. They make for an easy work lunch. They're pre-cooked and frozen, so all you have to do is heat them up and eat. You can find them for $4 for a package of 20 when on sale (T&T sells them).

Another thing we like to have with hot pot are konnyaku noodle bundles, also known as shirataki noodles. These are incredibly healthy as they are virtually calorie-free, but also have no fat, carbs, nor protein. But they are very high in fibre. It's touted as the diet food in Japan. It's tasteless, but it easily absorbs the flavor of whatever you cook it with, or any dipping sauce you use.

The two dipping sauces we used were sa cha sauce and something similar to satay sauce (a mixture of peanut butter, hoisin sauce, and sesame paste).

Because of the variety of food we like to cook in hot pot, we always have tons of food so we always invite others over. Let me know if you want to join us for our next hot pot!