Calgary

Always feel nice to be home. The sprawling land, the clear sky, the mountains and the fresh air makes me calm and slow down. This time back it happened to be my birthday and I went to Catch in the Hyatt downtown Calgary. It is a seafood restaurant featuring fresh catches of the day and oysters from the West and East Coast.  It is a lively, happening place, although the service might need a bit of more friendliness that suits the open concept bar/dine area on the first floor. You can literally watch the chefs making food in the kitchen which is located in front of the seating area separated only by a waist-high wall. This makes the place all the more open, fiery, and inviting. We sat in a booth area and were served with surprisingly delicious bread and ordered two fresh catches and one steak and obviously, oysters. Their oysters were absolutely fresh and fantastic. When oysters are fresh, you shouldn't taste any sea fishiness but only the freshness and the smooth texture of the oysters themselves. For main, I had their sable fish which tasted like a warm piece of butter, smooth, delicate and melts in your mouth without the greasy taste. It was a fantastic fish. One thing I was genuinely surprised by was how nicely their baked potatoes were made. They are crispy on the outside but soft and gooey inside. I am generally not the biggest fan of baked potatoes but I swept those away in a hurry while at the same time, admiring their perfect texture and taste. The wine list is also quite impressive. We had their Malbec, a bubbly from Italy and Muscadet from France. All were quite wonderful ; the Malbec was especially full bodied and smooth. Overall, it was a fantastic experience and everyone walked away happy and content.

To find out more information on Catch The Oyster Bar http://hyatt.com/gallery/catch/index.html

Feb Fest

Here comes Kingston Feb Fest, the winter festival that serves as a tourist attraction during the drab winter months and if there is one type of crowd it attracts, that is certainly kids and families with kids. The market square area is brimmed with people who are there either to watch the kids playing hockey games with the seriousness of real hockey players, or to listen to concerts (which don't really come up until late afternoon), or simply to walk around amidst wafts of smoke coming from the hotdog stands and melting ice sculptures scattered here and there.

I was attracted not just to be in a place of communal festivity, but I have my eyes set on some of the finest restaurants that participated in the feb fest through their own way: tapas with a choice of beer or wine for 10 bucks. This is probably one of the cheapest way to experience different flavors offered around the town without depleting your wallet. Because I had a relatively busy schedule this weekend, I was only able to try out 3 restaurants: Casa, Chez Piggy and Aquaterra. All of them were fantastic. In Casa, we had slow-braised beef served with risotto-like rice in a wine and tomato mixture sauce with shaved Parmasean on top which tasted like heaven. The texture and the temperature were quite perfect and when the cheese melted slowly on top as you were eating, it became another layer of gooeyness made even better by the slight saltiness that comes with the cheeze. In Chez Piggy, we had their oxtail pot pie which is more like a oxtail soup / stew with a layer of dough baked on top. It was probably the most uninteresting of all three but the oxtail meat were delicious and appropriately fat. The dough itself had interesting chocolaty taste which I assumed they used dark chocolate bits in making the dough. I have always loved bread with dark chocolate baked inside, the epitome of my experience being in the Wildfire in Sydney with their signature dark chocolate bread, and Chez Piggy's dough was no exception. The wine was decent (Sandbanks Merlot from what I remember) which was mild and fruity. Last but not least, we went to Aquaterra and their tapas was slow-roasted shredded beef on top of little pan fried pan cakes made of potatoes, cabbages and buckwheat (the buckwheat part borrowed from the waitress). They are quite amazing as the beef is tender yet moist and the little cakes are very well made and are not floury at all. The red wine they served was quite interesting, It was Sandbanks Boco Noir  which is not only fruity, but has a very nice tanginess / spicyness at the end which was quite nice and worth trying again in my opinion. It is also available from LCBO.

Overall, I was more than satisfied with my restaurant choices and their quality tapas. Wish I have the opportunity to come back every year and be in a state of food happiness every year.

Blutsgeschwister

Stumbled upon a pair of ultra-cool glasses over the Christmas break back in Calgary. Fell in love and bought them on a whim and have loved them ever since. I have always wanted to write something about them but because I don't know too much about the brand, never proceeded to do so. Today, I decided to search up this company - Blutsgeschwister ( I am assuming it's German) and found out they are a designing house that carries very unique lines - a baby line ( very cute and adorable), an underwear line, a home wear line and an accessories line, and of course, their glasses line called Wonderglasses! They definitely have some of the nicest, funkiest, most stylish glasses I have seen in a long time. I know the Japanese produce very funky and stylish glasses but some of them are exceedingly expensive. The glasses by B are relatively reasonably priced (mine are 339 CAD)  but I think equally stylish!

Here are the links to the firm and to their glasses line. Check out their accessories line as well, some of them are truly unique and if I could get my hands on them, I totally would!

Blutsgeschwister online shop: http://shop.blutsgeschwister.de/Wonderglasses-oxid/

Wonderglasses : http://www.wonderglasses.com/blutsgeschwister-wonderglasses/prescription_metal.htm