Best Restaurant in Edmonton
So I figured I would split up a day's posts with one review, one update. That way, my legions of fans can spend their time on what they wanted to most. Let me know if it rocks your socks off, eh?
As a restaurant reviewer, I get asked all the time for the best restaurant in the city. This totally depends on price, cuisine and "luck o' the draw" in terms of cook and server, but I have one restaurant we go to for our anniversary. I hope that tells you everything you need to know.
Seeking Culina pastures
By CHRISTOPHER THRALL
Dinner without my wife? Ridiculous! Having been married only 14 months, wherever we go, we go together. But she was at her mother’s, and so I asked a friend to join me at Culina, if for no other reason than I wanted a second opinion and another meal to sample. The fact that I would be dining in one of Edmonton’s most romantic spots with a beautiful Japanese writer was completely lost on me—I swear!
Despite its enviable location, the restaurant felt intimately hidden, a secret shared between lovers. Tabletop flames flickered through frosted glass windows, half-lighting an empty patio on a cool October evening. First impressions were sensual and sensational: warm chocolate and cream tones enveloped the tables as soft jazz drifted across the room.
Since both of us had skipped lunch, we needed an appetizer right away. However, we forgot entirely about selection as we lost ourselves in description: the menu, clipboard-mounted to accommodate a rotating wine list, read like tiny poems about exquisite dining experiences. Our server returned to perform the specials, her gestures and words crafting culinary objets d’art in our appetites. I wanted it all. We gave our drink orders and huddled again over the menus.
By the time our drinks arrived—rich cappuccino ($3) for me, refreshing lingonberry soda ($2) for her and water in a chilled white wine bottle (nice touch) for us both—we had remembered our hunger. We requested the calamari in sweet coconut-curry sauce ($9) to start, and for the main course, my guest took the bison meatloaf special ($14) our server had described so well. For me, would it be the exotic goatcheese and channa dal baked in phyllo, or the lamb sausage on spinach leaves with chickpeas, asiago and roast garlic? I was told the chef has a deft touch with meats and I’m a diehard carnivore, so I went with the lamb ($15).
As I watched the restaurant fill up, my companion told me about her last experience at Culina—a Saturday brunch of bacon and eggs on the grandest scale. She’s loved this place ever since, and her description of a Sunday night three-course dinner for an incredible $20 made me a convert. We were just about through our Culina discussion when the appetizer arrived. I’d never had unbreaded calamari before: tender but not chewy in a fresh, spicy chutney, it was fantastic. The dish was also about twice the size I would have expected for "cuisine," so we were well satisfied.
Deep into a chat about her enchanting new boyfriend, we fell silent when our entrées arrived. They deserved fanfare. Size, presentation and aroma were all off the charts. Nestled beside meatloaf swimming in a sea of gravy, her mashed potatoes peeked out from under melted cheese. Two lengths of cobbed corn stood guard over her plate. My dinner, meanwhile, was a symphony of colour: a bed of fresh spinach was strewn with crisp chickpeas and gilded with a light garlic sauce. The lamb sausage was tender and savoury, but I would have traded my magnificent meal for half her bison. Both heavier and with a stronger flavour than the beef I’m accustomed to, her meatloaf put the cattle industry to shame.
We had wrapped up a discussion about her upcoming public reading by the time plates were cleared and dessert broached. Our minds snapped back to an eloquent description of the overbaked pumpkin cheesecake ($5), but my friend claimed it first. It turns out that "overbaked" means light, fluffy and delicious—not at all the kind of dense confection I tend to avoid.
Thrown, I was reaching for the menu when our server stopped me with a suggestion I couldn’t refuse: cambazola toasts dulce de leche ($5). Caramelized cream and sugar are drizzled over toasted French bread and thick slabs of a mild blue cheese are melted on top for a treat that’s simultaneously crispy, salty and sweet. A $5 pot of the Queen’s Jubilee black tea with loose flowers, herbs and grasses settled our fantastic meals.
We tottered out of Culina exquisitely satisfied and aware of just how dangerous a place it is. As friends, we had spent nearly three pleasant hours over dinner. If this had been a date, who knows what could have happened? Just don’t tell my wife.
As a restaurant reviewer, I get asked all the time for the best restaurant in the city. This totally depends on price, cuisine and "luck o' the draw" in terms of cook and server, but I have one restaurant we go to for our anniversary. I hope that tells you everything you need to know.
Seeking Culina pastures
By CHRISTOPHER THRALL
Dinner without my wife? Ridiculous! Having been married only 14 months, wherever we go, we go together. But she was at her mother’s, and so I asked a friend to join me at Culina, if for no other reason than I wanted a second opinion and another meal to sample. The fact that I would be dining in one of Edmonton’s most romantic spots with a beautiful Japanese writer was completely lost on me—I swear!
Despite its enviable location, the restaurant felt intimately hidden, a secret shared between lovers. Tabletop flames flickered through frosted glass windows, half-lighting an empty patio on a cool October evening. First impressions were sensual and sensational: warm chocolate and cream tones enveloped the tables as soft jazz drifted across the room.
Since both of us had skipped lunch, we needed an appetizer right away. However, we forgot entirely about selection as we lost ourselves in description: the menu, clipboard-mounted to accommodate a rotating wine list, read like tiny poems about exquisite dining experiences. Our server returned to perform the specials, her gestures and words crafting culinary objets d’art in our appetites. I wanted it all. We gave our drink orders and huddled again over the menus.
By the time our drinks arrived—rich cappuccino ($3) for me, refreshing lingonberry soda ($2) for her and water in a chilled white wine bottle (nice touch) for us both—we had remembered our hunger. We requested the calamari in sweet coconut-curry sauce ($9) to start, and for the main course, my guest took the bison meatloaf special ($14) our server had described so well. For me, would it be the exotic goatcheese and channa dal baked in phyllo, or the lamb sausage on spinach leaves with chickpeas, asiago and roast garlic? I was told the chef has a deft touch with meats and I’m a diehard carnivore, so I went with the lamb ($15).
As I watched the restaurant fill up, my companion told me about her last experience at Culina—a Saturday brunch of bacon and eggs on the grandest scale. She’s loved this place ever since, and her description of a Sunday night three-course dinner for an incredible $20 made me a convert. We were just about through our Culina discussion when the appetizer arrived. I’d never had unbreaded calamari before: tender but not chewy in a fresh, spicy chutney, it was fantastic. The dish was also about twice the size I would have expected for "cuisine," so we were well satisfied.
Deep into a chat about her enchanting new boyfriend, we fell silent when our entrées arrived. They deserved fanfare. Size, presentation and aroma were all off the charts. Nestled beside meatloaf swimming in a sea of gravy, her mashed potatoes peeked out from under melted cheese. Two lengths of cobbed corn stood guard over her plate. My dinner, meanwhile, was a symphony of colour: a bed of fresh spinach was strewn with crisp chickpeas and gilded with a light garlic sauce. The lamb sausage was tender and savoury, but I would have traded my magnificent meal for half her bison. Both heavier and with a stronger flavour than the beef I’m accustomed to, her meatloaf put the cattle industry to shame.
We had wrapped up a discussion about her upcoming public reading by the time plates were cleared and dessert broached. Our minds snapped back to an eloquent description of the overbaked pumpkin cheesecake ($5), but my friend claimed it first. It turns out that "overbaked" means light, fluffy and delicious—not at all the kind of dense confection I tend to avoid.
Thrown, I was reaching for the menu when our server stopped me with a suggestion I couldn’t refuse: cambazola toasts dulce de leche ($5). Caramelized cream and sugar are drizzled over toasted French bread and thick slabs of a mild blue cheese are melted on top for a treat that’s simultaneously crispy, salty and sweet. A $5 pot of the Queen’s Jubilee black tea with loose flowers, herbs and grasses settled our fantastic meals.
We tottered out of Culina exquisitely satisfied and aware of just how dangerous a place it is. As friends, we had spent nearly three pleasant hours over dinner. If this had been a date, who knows what could have happened? Just don’t tell my wife.
Labels: Best of Edmonton, Culina
posted by enthrall at 3:28 PM
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