Tag Archives: canada

Best Calgary Eats and Drinks

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Fresh-baked pitas are just the start of the excellent shawarmas at Beirut Street Food

A new year, a new project. Inspired by this resolution: Schedule more spontaneous acts into my day.

The project is to discover and celebrate the best eats and drinks in Calgary. The best burgers, the best croissants, the best coffee roasteries, the best brewpubs, the best Lebanese poutine. It’s a long list.

Sought X Found is arguably Calgary’s best combo roastery and coffee shop

The rules: Calgary-based, independent places, serving up excellent fare. (small, regional chains are okay). Bonus points for interesting, even quirky spaces; hello Cold Garden Brewery! I’ll try to stick to one “best of” pick per category, though there will be instances of runners up and “also recommended”.

Cold Garden is certainly Calgary’s quirkiest, dog friendly brewpub.

Prices. I’ve pledged to banish “cheap eats” from my vocabulary, since they scarcely exist anymore. “Affordable” isn’t much better; affordable for who? I try to steer clear of high-end places but am no doubt fighting a losing battle against $20 breakfasts and $25 burgers and fries.

Subjective as hell? Maybe. I favour IPA beers and darker-roast coffees, which may prejudice some picks. The good news is you can comment here on my choices and offer superior alternatives and maybe gems I’ve never heard of.

There’s enough potential best-of categories to make a weekly pick last a year or two. I’ll try to restrict my posts to a paragraph or two. So let’s dig in.

The world’s best carrots beckon

Every couple of weeks, for the past 15-plus years, I’ve made a pilgrimage to the Calgary Farmers Market to pick up a 10-pound bag of Beck carrots. Yes, I’m seriously addicted to this Innisfail-based (central Alberta) grower’s super sweet Nantes carrots.

Ten pounds of the world’s best carrots

Indeed, I defy you to just eat one. Once you’ve been introduced to Becks, you’ll never go back to grocery store imposters that taste like wood. You can thank me later.

Beck Farms
Available at Calgary Farmers’ Market south (Thursday to Sunday) and west (Wednesday to Sunday) locations, opening at 9 am

Happy in Canmore

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There’s nothing like sharing Happy Hour appetizers

There’s one thing residents and visitors can agree on: Canmore is seriously overcrowded.

For a mountain town of 17,000 residents, that means traffic jams, wandering pedestrians, bewildering parking fees and lineups pretty much any time of day, any season of the year. God forbid if you head into town on a sunny summer weekend.

The good news is there’s a commensurate number of first-class, diversified places to eat and drink. Indeed, I would argue Canmore boasts more such places, on a per capita basis, than any town or city in Alberta.

Of course, most of these establishments charge mountain tourist prices for their fare. But there’s one way residents and visitors can snag a deal: Happy hour.

Big deal, you might argue. Happy hours are a dime a dozen in almost every municipality, big and small, in North America.

But here’s where Canmore is different. Given the large number of eateries, there’s a lot of competition amongst them, especially during the dead, late afternoon dining hours of happy hour. And that’s when a growing number of Canmorites (Canmorons?) venture out for a bargain burger and pint or pizza.

Here are a few to get you started.

Bridgette Bar is a mini, chef-driven chain (also Calgary and Toronto locations) that seems to have jumpstarted the recent interest in Canmore’s happy-hour scene. On a recent mid-week afternoon, more than 50 patrons were enjoying the fine subsidized fares. Its so-called matinee happy hour starts at 2 pm and offers generous deals of half off on all beverages and excellent pizzas, including wild mushroom ($13) and fennel salami ($12).

Fabulous chicken pizza at Bridgette’s happy hour

The nearby Mineshaft Tavern is a unique setup, sharing a kitchen with an attached seniors’ living facility in the newish, rundle-rock community of Spring Creek. When I saw residents, in comfy chairs, sipping happy hour glasses of red wine, I wondered where do I sign up for my own sunset years?

Mineshaft Tavern offers good pub fare, including a diversity of happy hour deals: $6 drinks 2-6 pm and daily specials such as $3 tacos Monday and $13 burger and fries Thursday. Plus there’s a daily $10 soup and sandwich deal.

An immense, delicious happy-hour burger and fries at Mineshaft Tavern

Elsewhere Crazy Weed and its sophisticated, casual menu offers 50% off “doughs” daily from 2-5 pm. Tavern 1883 boasts Canmore’s biggest “mountain” hour, with 40% off all food and drink from 2-5 pm every day. Finally, The Georgetown Inn has weekly pub specials, highlighted by fish and chips deals ($15 for one piece of cod) every Tuesday.

Mineshaft Tavern
808 Spring Creek Drive
Daily 11:30 am-9 pm
403-678-2288

Bridgette Bar Canmore
1030 Spring Creek Drive
Happy Hour 2-5 pm
Text 403-493-5643 “We don’t have a telephone”

What’s New is Olds

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Bean Brokers is a cozy coffee shop in Olds, Alberta

Here’s a clever way to find a good, substantial lunch in Calgary for less than $10. Get out of Calgary!

Okay, it’s illogical. But the math works when we gather, for a cousins’ reunion, in Olds, an agricultural town of 9,000 an hour’s drive north of Calgary off the QE 2.

It’s kind of hard to read the metal menu board at Bean Brokers, a cozy coffee shop where we meet. But I’m nonetheless rubbing my eyes in disbelief at the prices.

These days, I’m used to paying $12 and up for a decent sandwich in Calgary. Here, I’m only being charged $8 for a substantial grilled turkey panini with pesto. A first-rate breakfast sandwich is about the same price. And the big mugs of coffee are good, too.

A fine turkey panini for only $8

In fact, we’re having such a good time, it’s hard to get the 10 of us out the door. But off we must go for an early-season tour of the extensive botanic gardens and wetlands at Olds College.

The college opened in 1913 and offers extensive agricultural and horticultural education. One of its programs is learning how to make craft beer. How good is that? The good news is there’s a retail store, where imbibing members of the public can mix and match from about half a dozen styles of beer.

Stocking up on student-crafted brews at Olds College Brewery

Finally, the college has a national meat training centre, with again a retail store where you can buy fine, reasonably priced steaks, roasts and sausages.

And retail meats

Did I mention, Olds is only an hour north of Calgary?

Bean Brokers
5014 46 Avenue, Olds, Alberta
Weekdays 7 am-5 pm, Saturday 9 am-3 pm, closed Sunday
403-556-1069

Olds College Brewery
Corner of Highways 27 and 2A
Tuesday to Thursday 11 am-5 pm, Friday and Saturday 11 am-6 pm
403-556-8293

Olds College Retail Meat Store
Weekdays noon-5 pm, Saturday 10 am-4 pm
403-556-8283