Category: Around town
Around town
It still remains a culinary secret, even though Johnson’s Café has been open for over 10 years in the Hotel Selkirk at Fort Edmonton Park.
Why would this very good dining room, in the height of summer, only have a few tables occupied on a lovely Thursday evening?
Location, location, location.
It’s the café’s biggest strength and weakness. The historic Hotel Selkirk is in Fort Edmonton Park, accessible by a side road after the park closes. The site is so beautiful, it’s Jasper without the three-hour drive.
But destination diners don’t think of Johnson’s Café. And if they did, they’d be unsure how to get there and uncertain of its hours.
This will change. Fort Edmonton Park soon plans to be open year-round with upgraded services. Leading the changes is new food services supervisor and master chef Jasmin Kobajica, who’s already raised the bar on park food.
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Meat, recently opened in Edmonton's Old Strathcona district in Alberta, Canada, is one of the best, fully thought-through restaurants I’ve had the pleasure of entering.
It’s full of contradictions. Yet, from the initial impression, to décor, to food and menu, it’s one delicious whole.
Whoever has heard of a BBQ smokehouse parading as a tea room!
This slightly dainty, new-age establishment is serving up mounds of mouth-watering beef brisket, pulled pork and smoked chicken! It’s the opposite to the stereotypic “y’all chow down now, y’hear?” smokehouse. In fact, there’s not a smokehouse cliché to be seen.
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Tasty Tomato Italian Eatery
14233 Stony Plain Road
780-452-3594
www.tastytomato.ca
Open evenings, with lunch Thursday and Friday.
Closed Sundays
Food: 3 of 5 Suns
Ambience: 3 of 5 Suns
Service: 3 of 5 stars
If it ain’t broke, why fix it?
I can’t bear witness, as last week was my first visit to the Tasty Tomato Italian Eatery.
But by all reports, not much has changed in 20 years, other than Angelo and Mirella Amendola are older, and son Joe is now a full partner in the family-run restaurant.
To which Angelo would shrug his shoulders and say, why change?
The restaurant is full on weekends and obviously has a loyal clientele that spans generations.
Tasty Tomato has a comfy ‘80s feel. It’s not the least bit trendy, but is in no need of a makeover.
Which also describes the menu — as classic Canadian-Italian as you’ll find, with 18 pasta selections, veal and chicken entrees, starter tomato salads, calamari, eggplant, escargot and brusc ...
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The Weekly Dish talks about some of the basics in providing a satisfying dining experience ... and how many small restaurants are lacking in many departments!
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Odysseo by Cavalia
Under the big top erected east of Fort Road, north of Yellowhead Trail, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Through August 10, 2014
Tickets $25 to $200, at
www.cavalia.net
Review/Reflection by Graham Hicks
It’s very interesting, because the world-famous Cirque du Soleil made its original artistic reputation as the first animal-free circus of any stature.
Odysseo by Cavalia, with its 64 horses, is as culturally, spiritually and technically as connected to Cirque du Soleil as any show could possibly be. In fact, I would bet dollars to donuts that behind the scenes there is an immense amount of interaction between the two organizations, given Cavalia founder and on-going artistic director Normand Letourelle was a partner with Cirque de Soleil founder Guy Laliberte in its earlier years.
And obviously somebody had to finance what was obviously an enormous undertaking when Cavalia was founded in 2003.
Odysseo by Cavalia is not only a spiritual sister to Cirque ...
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By GRAHAM HICKS
Hicks on Biz posting
Sunday, June 8, 2014
www.hicksonbiz.com
graham.hicks@hicksbiz.com
Eyebrows were raised in a few political circles the other week, when photos of my door-knocking in Inglewood with potential federal Liberal Edmonton-Centre candidate Randy Boissonnault made the Twittersphere rounds.
About the only other federal Liberals I whole-heartedly supported – when I was a full-time Edmonton Sun columnist – were Anne McLellan and David Kilgour, and Kilgour had started at a Conservative.
So why door knock with Boissonnault?
Simple. I have reached the point I’m more interested in individuals than party politics.
I want to help intelligent, thoughtful individuals who actually believe in public service, who, for the right reasons, want to be in the House of Commons to make a difference. I’m tired of career politicians who don’t know how to make a living in the real world, and fed up with over-inflated political egos. I want individuals running for th ...
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Make Mine Love
World Premiere by Tom Wood, directed by Bob Baker, starring Rebecca Northan, John Ullyatt and Julian Arnold
Citadel Theatre, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Tickets
May 10 to June 1, 2014
Review by GRAHAM HICKS
There are delightful, hilarious, slap-stick scenes in Make Mine Love, in which interactive live-film technology plays a leading role.
But those gems are surrounded by long, laborious set-up stuff that just doesn’t quite work in the Citadel’s world premiere of its commissioned Make Mine Love, an original script written by Edmonton actor, director and playwright Tom Wood, directed by Citadel artistic director Bob Baker.
Make Mine Love is a huge undertaking, especially with an untested script, 10 actors playing 26 roles, sets with hundreds of moving parts shifting with breathtaking ease across America from Hollywood, to New York City and a train in between, all in 1938 when women were dames, everybody smoked, and wisecracks were the accepted lingo of the day.
...
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This Romeo and Juliet sets The Citadel ablaze
Graham Hicks review
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
Citadel Theatre – Maclab Stage
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
April 5 – 27, 2014
Ticket information
The opening to the Tom Wood-directed Romeo and Juliet will stay emblazoned in my memory as long as there is memory upon which to be emblazoned.
Eighteen cast members on the stage (plus nine teen apprentices) are fighting, some with sword-play in the initial Montague/Capulet brawl.
It’s a swirling galaxy of choreography, initially in slow motion to pounding lights and music, then shifting gears to real life speed, finally, slowly, winding down as the elders of the two warring houses and the rulers show up to sort things out.
I don’t know about you, but I’m a sucker for big fight scenes, especially when the actors are in the prime of their athletic lives as these kids on either side of 30 are – rolling and flipping and dancing with those swords, up ‘n’ over ...
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Mary Poppins
A musical based on the stories of P.L. Travers and the Walt Disney Film
Shoctor Stage, Citadel Theatre, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada through April 20, 2014
Ticket information. (Buy quickly. This show is going to sell out, especially at the low-end $35 rate)
Review by GRAHAM HICKS
Posted at www.hicksbiz.com March 21, 2014
780 707 6379
graham.hicks@hicksbiz.com
@hicksonsix
How wondrous the Citadel/Theatre Calgary stage production of Mary Poppins (The Broadway Musical)!
How mysterious that Mary Poppins, despite the 1964 Walt Disney movie, the West End/Broadway production of 10 years ago, and at least five songs that have burned their way into the memories of most of the English-speaking world, remains a lesser figure in the pantheon of favourite children’s fictional characters. At least that’s the case in North America. The original book of Mary Poppins by P.L. Travers, didn’t travel well across the Atlantic, and the entire Mary Poppins’ series (eight books) made ...
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The Parlour Italian Kitchen & Bar
10334 Capital Blvd. (108 St.)
780-990-0404
Centuryhospitality.com/parlour
Food: 4 of 5 Suns
Ambience: 4 of 5 Suns
Service: 4.5 of 5 Suns
Dinner for two, excluding beverages, tips and taxes: Basic, $35; loaded, $80
Edmonton’s Century Hospitality restaurant group (Century Grill, Lux Steakhouse, Hundred, MRK and two Delux Burger Bars) knows the secret to its undeniable success.
It’s so smart.
It deliberately stays about 30% behind the culinary sophistication of high-end bistros like The Red Ox Inn or the Three Boars, knowing those outlets attract a very small market of high-end discerning foodies.
But the Century group venture far beyond the predictable conventions of the big-box chain restaurants.
It presents, and presents well, something for everybody at the table — from the I-know-what-I-like crowd to the adventurous foodie out with friends and family.
Even the tried ‘n’ true — pizza, steak, hambur ...
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