ATCO Cafe: Back in Beautiful Business

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The gorgeous ATCO Blue Flame Kitchen has fully reopened

They’re back!

It’s been a tough 19 months for the restaurant business, considering all the on-again and off-again clampdowns. It’s been a particularly rough time for ATCO’s Blue Flame Kitchen Café, one of my favourite places in Calgary to eat, with its spectacular architecture and good, inexpensive food.

It was completely shut down for a long stretch, in part because the immense dining hall was connected to ATCO’s office tower and all its employees. Later, it was takeout and meal kits only. Even when the café finally resumed in-house dining, the menu was slim and the prices well above what I consider to be cheap eats.

So, it was with great pleasure that I went back the other day, to discover a more diverse menu and bargain, quality lunch dishes. My substantial, two-meals-for-the-price-of-one flatbread special, featuring fresh mozzarella, was only $9, as was a 12-hour pulled pork Cubano sandwich. Several other honking sandwiches were $10.

This $9 flat bread fed me for two meals

The only thing different was the scanty crowd, about 25 diners, in this cavernous, high-ceiling space that can easily accommodate a few hundred. Maybe it was the vaccine passport requirement. Or maybe it’s just waiting to be rediscovered.

Feast your eyes on these cheap eats

ATCO Blue Flame Kitchen Cafe
Commons Building, 5302 Forand Street SW, Calgary
Weekdays 8 am-2 pm. Closed weekends
403-245-7630

A Hearty Dosa of South Indian Cuisine

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It’s a family affair at northeast Calgary’s Chennai Dosa

It can be a nuisance driving halfway across a far-flung city to run an errand. But such journeys, especially to industrial districts, can sometimes serendipitously lead past intriguing strip-mall eateries you’ve never heard of.

Such was definitely the case when I ventured into Calgary’s northeast recently to get a tent repaired. A block away was a sandwich board advertising a place, Chennai Dosai, offering South Indian cuisine.

Chennai Dosai is in a little northeast strip mall

When I asked my server what constituted South Indian food, she said it featured dosai (also known as dosa), a thin crepe from a fermented batter primarily made from lentils and rice. Chennai is definitely the place to sample dosai, with some 20 such items on the menu, including masala and mysore.

I opted for a Chennai delight dosa, featuring stuffed masala, corn, mushrooms and other vegetables. It certainly was a bountiful delight, with some six chunks of silky dosa, plus a soup and two containers of dips, a two-meal deal for $13.

A bountiful meal of Chennai delight dosai

Chennai also lures in the locals with daily specials such as a butter chicken wrap ($9) and a breakfast masala scrambled wrap ($8).

Indeed, I may well head back, when I go pick up my tent.

Chennai Dosai
702 41 Avenue NE, Calgary
Monday to Saturday 10 am-3 pm. Closed Sunday
403-509-9186

Brewery, Coffee Roasting Under One Innisfail Roof

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House-smoked pulled pork sandwich and pint at Dark Woods Brewing & Coffee Roasting

I have two culinary vices, both regularly ingested as liquids. One is coffee… and probably the hardest to give up. The other is craft beer.

So it was with astonishment and delight that I found a spot that caters to both these vices, in Innisfail, Alberta of all places.

The name says it all: Dark Woods Brewing & Coffee Roasting. Under one roof in this central-Alberta town, local brothers Nick and Scott Bell are brewing some 10 types of beer and roasting five varieties of coffee beans. Here’s a third thing they’re doing in-house—slow roasting barbecue meats in backyard smokers for their taproom handhelds.

Hop-shaded patio at the taproom

So of course, when I hit the taproom recently, I had to go for the trifecta. That involved a Daines Ranch pulled-pork sandwich (10-hour smoked port butt), washed down with a Gnarly Stump IPA and chased with a dark-roast coffee.

How much better does it get than that?

Note: Dark Woods also runs a coffee booth at the new Red Deer Farmers’ Market

Dark Woods Brewing & Coffee Roasting
4720 50 Street, Innisfail, Alberta
Taproom opens 7 am weekdays and 10 am weekends
403-227-3630

Nanton Bolsters Its Food Scene

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The Hive is a collective of local vendors in Nanton

One of the things I always liked about Trader Joe’s, on western U.S. road trips, was the ability to mix and match when buying a six-pack of beer. That way, I could try a variety of local beers in one purchase.

So I was delighted to find the same concept at work in The Hive, a hub of local vendors and artisans in Nanton, 40 minutes south of Calgary. Here, I can mix a tall four-pack of craft beers from breweries in nearby High River, Black Diamond, Lethbridge and Fort Macleod, the latter featuring the fine Stronghold Brewing.

A mix-and-match six-pack of southern Alberta craft brewers

That seems to be the geographical range for the 250-plus vendors selling their wares at this little spot at the south end of Nanton, on the west side of Highway 2. A quick glance at fresh and frozen foods and drinks reveals this diversity: Coco Brooks fabulous pizzas (Calgary), El Papolete tomatillo dips (High River) and Tin Star roasted coffee (Nanton).

High River’s El Papolete makes a fine tomatillo dip

The sit-down dining options have been in flux, but the kitchen will now be run by The Buzz-Nanton, featuring sandwiches and daily soups.

All in all, The Hive is a big step forward in Nanton’s food scene.

The Hive
2517 21 Avenue, Nanton, Alberta
Wednesday to Monday 10 am-6 pm. Closed Tuesday
403-646-2056

Gasoline Alley Farmer’s Market Adds Pizzaz to Red Deer Food Scene

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The new Gasoline Alley Farmers’ Market in Red Deer

In the four decades I’ve been driving between Calgary and Edmonton, there’s been little incentive to pull over in Red Deer for a coffee or a bite to eat. That’s because the choices have been uninspired, to say the least, both along Highway 2’s Gasoline Alley and within the city. You know it’s a bad sign when the nearby community of Lacombe (population 14,000) has better cheap-eat options than a city of 100,000.

But maybe things are looking up. The Gasoline Alley Farmers’ Market recently opened, boasting more than 50 vendors. And there’s enough going on here to make me figure out the rather circuitous approach for drivers heading north along said Highway 2.

It’s an indoor market, kind of a mini Calgary Farmers’ Market in appearance, albeit with smaller crowds to date. It shares at least a couple of things with its more famous southern counterpart: fabulous Beck’s carrots (Innisfail Growers) and Luc’s fine cheeses.

Oishidesu Ramen Shack is one of 50-plus vendors in the market

But it’s the local food and drink vendors I’m interested in, and there’s a number that grab my attention. In the Market Kitchen, at the building’s north end, is a wall of beer taps, mainly showcasing a collective of central Alberta craft breweries, under the name Craft Beer Commonwealth. Indeed, it’s the only farmers’ market in Alberta with an in-house brewery and taproom.

A nitro cold brew on tap at Birdy Coffee

Sharing the space is Birdy Coffee Co., pulling shots from beans roasted in a wee machine around the corner. The bird illustrations on its bean packages are the most beautiful I’ve seen.

Divine coffee bean packages

In the two times I’ve stopped at the market, I’ve also sampled a nice focaccia at Dovganyuk’s organic bakery and dug into a delightful, bountiful sirloin burger and fries (a bargain $13) from Ponoka-based Longhorn Eatery.

Scrumptious burger and fries at Longhorn Eatery

Something tells me, I’ll be stopping in Red Deer more often in the future.

Gasoline Alley Farmers’ Market
558 Laura Avenue, Red Deer (I’d use Google maps to figure out directions; it’s a few blocks southwest of Costco)
Friday to Sunday 9 am-5 pm, Market Kitchen open every day except Monday

Claresholm Institution For Sale

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Roy’s Place has long been a Claresholm institution in southern Alberta

As a road-food eater, perhaps the worst thing I can encounter is a “for sale” sign outside a little, independent establishment. Usually, it means the business has failed, a sadly familiar outcome during all the pandemic shutdowns.

But that’s not the real issue at Roy’s Place, a local institution in the farming community of Claresholm in southern Alberta. Indeed, there’s a bit of a lunchtime lineup in the spacious restaurant when I visit recently. Double indeed, it has gained widespread acclaim since appearing on Canadian TV’s You Gotta Eat Here not that long ago.

Soup and sandwich special

The problem is more likely something that’s afflicted many a successful restaurant: burnout. Co-owners Kieth and Brandi have run the place for 14 years, putting in 60-hour weeks for her and 80 hours for him, while raising young children. So it’s not surprising to see the for-sale ad on the restaurant’s Facebook page.

Hopefully, they can find someone as talented and committed to take over the business. It will be one thing to duplicate the famous menu, which includes king-sized cinnamon buns, bowls of dill pickle soup (Thursdays only) and Angus beef burgers.

Every order comes with a generous helping of humour

But it will be difficult to replicate the pizzazz and personality the couple bring to Roy’s. Throughout my meal, Brandi is kibitzing with locals, several sporting hard-used cowboy hats. “That’ll be $10 million for your lunch,” she tells one customer and “I will not be responsible for her” another. Meanwhile, Kieth is steadily prowling the restaurant, delivering bulging plates of food.

The challenge for the next owners will be to keep the good times rolling. As the Facebook ad states: “Here is your chance to be the beacon of good food and love on Highway 2 for the next 15 years.”

Roy’s Place
5008 1 Street West/Highway 2, Claresholm, Alberta
Tuesday to Saturday 11 am-7 pm. Closed Sunday and Monday
403-625-3397