Donald Murray's Profile
Opinions on the best Gastro-Pubs!
Hey! Cheers for the opinions. I have heard some great things about The Spotted Pig so far, how do you guys find the food? What is it that makes the Spotted Pig that makes it so good in your opinion, besides not feeling like a TGI Fridays haha.
Opinions on the best Gastro-Pubs!
Hey! My girlfriend and I will be coming to New York next week for a bit and we were really interested in visiting some Gastro-Pubs in Manhattan as we have heard it has taken off quite hugely there. In everyones opinion here, which ones are a "must visit" for some great food and local / good beer? Thanks!
Donnie and Emelie
Review of Rouge, Calgary.
Yah, unfortunately from all the great press we have heard of them prior they just had a really off night. I really hope for there sake it was just an accident of a night, because true enough as stated above at that price you dont get many second chances.
As for tipping the coat check person, you should not have to worry about that in a fine dining setting. The servers will all share with or "tip out" the support staff, such as the host, coat check, bussers.
When we do come back in the spring I think we will have to repeat because I truly do hate putting out a review like this one on a decorated restaurant, but at a certain caliber it should be close to perfection with every service. We'll see what the year brings I suppose, they should just be glad it was us and not John Gilchrist haha.
Review of Rouge, Calgary.
Hey folks, just thought I would put a review of Rouge up. My girlfriend Emelie and I are moving back to Europe soon for the winter and thought we would head out for dinner at one of the few "top" Calgary restaurants we haven't frequented before but wish we had, so last night we headed down to Rouge.
When calling for reservations I informed the host we would like to both have the tasting menu which sounded good to his delight. On arrival being quite cold last night we both had jackets on and oddly enough there was no where to hang them or a coat rack or anything was even offered, which put us off as we slung em over the back of our chairs Denny's style. You know I really have nothing against putting my coat on the back of my chair in a casual setting, but when you are in a fine dining scenario it seems perpustorous and a sort of blasphemy to me, its the little things that set a great restaurant apart from the masses.
After being seated in our beautiful corner table, and enjoying the great interior design and rusticness of the inside our server introduced herself and offered a choice of three different waters, which was a nice touch. Unfortunately she did not ask us to indulge in an appertiff or anything of the sort like a cocktail like we would have wanted to, instead bringing the wine for our first course pairing directly with our water, which was a bit weird. It would have been quite nice to have sipped on something before while getting aquainted with our surroundings. We would definately have had enough time seeing as our first course didnt arrive until the wine pairing was nearly empty.
Usually when ordering a tasting menu one would hope the kitchen would send out some sort of amuse bouche, as a way to let the feast begin in one bite kind of thing. Its not mandatory but its a nice touch, and it never came. What did come instead was a piece of bread slopped down on our side plates, that turned out to be, I dont want to be to harsh here, but stale. God, it tasted like it had been sitting out since lunch service, we were gobsmacked, but it was served with what seemed like a nice chilli oil.
After picking at the softer parts of our bread our first course arrived. We couldnt believe it! A seared scallop, 2 seared prawns in a tomato basil puree with some whilted arugula. Absolutely terrible. I still cant believe they would try to serve this in a restaurant that is supposed to be of a certain top caliber. The prawns appeared to be foreign Black Tiger prawns instead of our beautiful BC ones and were SO overcooked, and chewy. The scallop was cooked nicely at medium rare, and the tomato basil "puree" was liquid like a soup and offered no flavour compliment to the dish at all. An absolute disaster, and I really hope you believe me here that Emelie and I are not super picky eaters. We enjoy good food and good wine and have had been fortunate enough to eat at some of the better restaurants in the world, so believe me when I say this dish was an absolute disaster that a 1st semester culinary student wouldnt even put together. To say we were pissed is an understatement, we were thinking of getting up and leaving at this point due to the bread and now this. But we perservered on, thinking it could only get better. Overall a 1/10 for the first course, with the alpha zeta pinto gris as the pairing getting a 5/10.
Our second course showed a bit more promise. A duck confit cake served with pickled cucumber fresh from the garden, wilted arugula and a chutney. Good mixture of technique, and the flavours came across decently with a nice presentation to boot. Emelie found her cake dry, but I was pleased with mine. A nice pairing with a pinot noir. A solid 6/10 for this, not very memorable, but good technique and decent enough flavours.
The third course was quite good and definately a step up, but really how can you go wrong with fois gras? A large piece of fois with blackberry, a cassis coulis, fois mousse and "fois balls". Presentation was good, tastes were there and the Sauterene pairing was effective but once again nothing mind blowing or adventurous. An 8/10.
At this point a small break was taken for a palate cleansing course. Some home made soda of some sort that tasted quite watered down with some very nice cranberry gelatin, fresh from the garden. Weirdest palate cleanser either of us have ever seen. The soda part was terrible but the gelatin part was great. Definately still trying to wrap our heads around this one still.
For the 4th course, our main was served, and I was not wowed at all by what was brought. Anyone that has lived in Calgary long enough has seen this done a million times I'm sure. Filet mignon with truffled potatoes, a natural reduction and some veg. Blah, blah, blah. Where is the adventurous spirit, where is the chefs personality showing through. The potatoes were good, the filet was cooked nicely at med rare and the veg were done perfectly. But still just a 7/10 for me, show some ingenuity, this dish is so old and boring. Where is the inspiration?
If you've read this far I'm sure you can tell we didnt have the best experience, which is really too bad. We had very high hopes for this inglewood gem, but man did they ever let us down. So as I go on to this next course description I apologize for being so negative, just putting out the truth.
Our 5th course was a cheese course. And we are just completely flabergasted by what we were served. I am still in shock. Our server told us about a nice blue cheese she would be bringing and we were excited, big fans of blue cheese. What she served us was long pieces of romaine wrapped with some sort of cheese string and had tiny chunks of blue cheese about the plate with a basil oil dripping over the whole mess. I'm trying to stay professional, but as a European trained chef all I can say is I am embarassed for whoever came up with this dish. As much of a disaster as the first dish. We dont go to restaurants to pick them apart, we go for a nice meal always expecting the best, but wow, this was beyond terribly done, silly presentation and a terrible oily flavour. A complete embarassment, I still dont know what the chef was thinking with this one. 0/10
Now the 6th course was definately the highlight of the meal. A beautifully done panna cotta with an upside down cake and some fresh berries. Well presented, well done, great flavours. 9/10 for that one.
After that, our 300 dollar bill was paid and we left. A meal of absolute weirdness. I can say Rouge is lacking the "small things" that make great restaurants, and how they won awards with the food that was served is beyond me. All I can think is the Chef was not in the kitchen last evening to watch over what was being sent out. Where I come from, you send out a dish like the first one with shrimp chewy like octapus you get fired. We had high hopes and were extremely let down. I believe it was also our servers first night, or her first week anyways, and needs to learn to not talk so much and just let people enjoy there dinners, instead of telling them about how "mind blowing" and delicious some of the crap we just got served is.
Leaving on a positive note though, some of the dishes showed good technique and some traces of originality, overall for the entire experience a 5/10, and I can say we will definately not be repeating for awhile and not reccomending to friends.
On a funny side note, the major highlight of the evening for us was watching the table next to ours trying to "break" there bread on the corner of the table because it was so hard, haha. Anyways, wow, is all I can say.
Donnie and Emelie
Dinner Recomendations for Saturday
I think the Moroccon Castle could be fun for you guys, great setting for a birthday, and a lot of fun for the kids.
Calgary's Best Chicken Wings?
There is a place a bit out of the way but definately the best wings in Calgary are at the Bowness Hotel, also called Hexters, believe me or not! The chef uses some kind of crazy breading and man are they awesome! Best I have ever had, hands down.
Looking for haggis
Hey there, there is a great meat market on 16th ave NW on the right hand side just before you hit shaganappi, its in a strip mall near the keg, wendys and scotiabank....its called Bon Ton Meats. I noticed just a few hours ago when I was there that they have a huge special on for Robbie Burns day. Hope that helps, good luck!
Divino Wine and Cheese Bistro Review, Calgary.
Hey Folks, I havent posted much on here before but I have some time tonight and thought I would just add a review.
My girlfriend and I are both pretty food orientated, having lived and worked around the world, she is from Sweden and I am from Calgary originally. We are also both chefs by trade.
Having just moved back to Calgary recently from Sweden we thought it was time to check out the updated food scene!
So on Sunday night since we both had the night off we thought it would be a good idea to go and check out a restaurant we have been hearing a lot about but havent had a chance to eat at, Divino Wine and Cheese Bistro. We had walked in there a few weeks back and the smell from the open kitchen was absolutely to die for but unfortunately they were all full up for the night so we were hoping we could sneak in this time and fortunately it wasnt to hard, the restaurant was only about half full.
So we were seated and absolutely bombarded with paperwork, a menu each, a cheese menu, a desert menu, a wine list, a drink list each. All of this seriously took up our entire table and took us a long time to look over. They really need to figure out a system for delivering this a bit better. Eventually though we got it figured out and decided upon a self picked 5 course as follows:
We started off with a soup each, Emelie had the French onion($9) which she considered one of the best she has had in a long time 9/10 and I had the North Forest Mushroom soup($8) which was mediocre 2/10. At 8$ for a small cup I expect the taste to be spectacular and the ingredients of the top caliber but it just didnt come together. It tasted old and the soup was breaking from the oil.
For appetizers, originally we wanted the Fois Gras Torchon but it was only after taking 15 minutes to look at the menus and decide to order that we were told it was not available, so after some deliberation Emelie decided on Grilled and Honey Ginger Marinated Quail($17) which was very simply presented with a small salad(6/10). The tastes were ok, but nothing mindblowing. I decided upon the Sweetbreads with chantrelles and double smoked bacon($16) which was the absolute epitimy of mediocre(5/10). The double smoked bacon overpowered the delicate taste of the sweetbreads. The dish does not make sense at all in my chefs mind.
Emelie decided upon the Duck with swiss chard, fingerlings and an orange sherry reduction for her main($34). It was definately not cooked medium and I have no clue how it was allowed out of the kitchen. It would have been a stretch to even call it medium rare, but it was fine with Emelie because she prefers her duck on the rarer side. For an average customer though this would definately have been a big deal. Overall a 8/10 for the duck based completely on taste and not doneness. I had the Pork Rack($32) with Dill/Mustard Spaetzle and Braised Cabbage. I really enjoyed this dish, great flavours, great combinations. Simple and Rustic (9/10). I also had a great Belgian beer($9, sorry cant remember the name right now) paired with my main and I was so glad to see it served in a proper belgian beer glass(almost looks like a brandy snifter).
For Desert we decided to share the Champagne Creme Brulee($10). Emelie and I are huge fans of Creme Brulee and this was a decent one, although there was absolutely not a single hint of any champagne in the entire thing...?? Overall though a solid 7, but if you are going to call a dish something you better make sure you can at least taste it.
To finish the meal we decided on a 3 choice cheese plate($14) which was served very plainly and cleanly(9/10). One big surprise here was the Ermite Blue, a fantastic Quebec blue cheese, absolutely spot on and delicious. It was worth the entire price of the meal just to discover this little gem.
Overall, Divino was exactly what we expected, good solid food, prepared nicely. We didnt expect to be blown away, we just expected a decent meal in another up and coming calgary restaurant and they delivered. The mushroom soup and the sweetbreads were a bit of a dissapointment but the rest was solid. The wine and the cheese were definately the highlights and the to die fors, and of course I would hope so considering they call themselves a Wine and Cheese Bistro!
In the end, Dinner for 2 was $250 with a 20% tip. We each had a glass of red wine($14), a latte at the end and I also had a beer. I would give Divino a rating of 7/10 and I would reccommend highly for anyone to check it out and definately give that Ermite Blue a try!
Sincerely,
Donnie and Emelie
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