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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Neil Herbst is a tad bemused by the love that craft beers have received of late.
Not that the co-owner, with his wife Lavonne, of Edmonton’s Alley Kat Brewery is complaining.
For the last few years, Alley Kat sales have been jumping by 30% per year.
Fruit beers are now all the rage – thanks to the big breweries wooing female consumers with new tastes.
Alley Kat just happens to have 19 years’ experience brewing one of Canada’s finest fruit beers – the apricot flavoured Aprikat.
Aprikat sales, of late, have gone through the roof.
Alley Kat’s second fruit beer, the grapefruit-flavoured Main Squeeze, is not far behind.
Thanks to the interest in craft beers, Alley Kat’s other core brews – Full Moon, Amber and its recently revived Scona Gold – are showing up in just about every beer store in town, and are on tap in most of the city’s new mega-brew pubs.
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Since 2007, through the reigns of executive chefs the wise Yoshi Chubachi and then boy wonder Nathin Bye, The Wildflower Grill has earned a sterling dining-out reputation.
The Wildflower is not flamboyant, not over-the-top, not out-smoking or sous-viding anybody else.
It simply offers “new Canadian cuisine” at reasonable prices in a contemporary setting ... where diners can actually hear each other speak without shouting.
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It’s a question with an alarmingly simple answer.
How can Edmonton – without the natural beauty of mountains, seaside, lakes or badlands – attract significant numbers of out-of-province and international tourists?
We’re talking genuine tourists, not those visiting relatives or friends.
West Edmonton Mall attracts “rubber-tire” tourism – visitors driving to Edmonton. But the mighty mall doesn’t attract much in the way of international shoppers.
The answer lies in a four-acre chunk of undeveloped land at the west end of the 158-acre Fort Edmonton Park, nestled next to the Quesnell Bridge in the river valley.
The answer is “Phonan” (pronounced pa-ho-nahn) – the Cree word for a waiting or gathering place.
Close your eyes. Let your imagination wander.
Imagine a year-round First Nations exhibit/experience/living museum/theatre/themed trails, honouring our region’s past-and-present aboriginal community with cultural integrit ...
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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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Review by GRAHAM HICKS
Normally on Broadway, a “triple threat” refers to musical theatre actors who act, sing and dance.
Wicked is a triple threat of a different sort, so unique as to be almost on its own in the pantheon of active, touring Broadway shows.
Wicked has an extraordinarily creative story line, wonderful songs, and offers philosophical/ethical choices for its audiences to ponder after its shows.
For Wicked is very much, within all its action and finery, a contemplation on the nature of what creates wickedness, of the perception of wickedness. Is it born of circumstance, misunderstanding or simply innate?
This version, currently at Edmonton’s Jubilee Auditorium until Sunday July 20, 2014, actualizes every ounce of the potential within its script, score and lyrics.
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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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The Genius Code
Surreal SoReal Theatre
C103 Theatre Space (formerly the Catalyst Theatre)
8529 Gateway Blvd. Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
780 431 1750
Through Sunday June 8, 2014
Ticket information
Theatre review by GRAHAM HICKS
How the definition of playwright has changed.
It’s not just about words and scripts any more.
Enabled by new techniques, thanks to an understanding of what technology can do, it’s about another invisible supporting cast for the experience of emotion and mood and interior dialogue.
Jon Lachlan Stewart’s Genius Code, at the C103 (formerly Catalyst Theatre) through June 8, is all about taking the theatre experience, live on that stage, into new and quite exciting dimensions.
The words are relatively straight forward - the attraction, then love/hate affair between two tumultuous artists with vicious tempers and a tendency to self-destruction, mixed in with the silent witness of a third pal - a sound engineer/dj - to whom the lovers have given &nbs ...
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Bar Bricco
10347 Jasper Avenue
www.barbricco.com
Food: 4 of 5 Suns
Ambience: 3.5 of 5 Suns
Service: 3.5 of 5 Suns
Tuesday to Saturday evenings
No reservations
Dinner for two, just food — basic $50, loaded $80
The Red Ox Inn spawned Canteen. Hardware Grill spawned Tavern 1903.
Now, right next door on Jasper Avenue, Corso 32 has spawned Bar Bricco.
It’s Phase II of executive chef/owner Daniel Costa’s plan of three restaurants side by side, three styles of regional Italian cuisine — the gourmet Corso 32, the “snacks” of Bar Bricco, and, soon, an 80-seat urban trattoria/pasta house in what was the Transcend coffee cafe.
Bar Bricco’s “snacks” are all about the small-plates craze sweeping the city, but these are “snacks” in name only. The menu is divided into spuntini (snacks), salumi (cold cuts), formaggi (cheese) and condiment (mini-desserts).
Not just any snacks, but delicious truffles, high-end Italian chees ...
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I am just off the phone with my patient accountant Jane, i.e. my “paid tax preparer”.
(Being self-employed since retiring as a full-time Sun columnist in 2010, the deadline for my tax return is later than you employees.)
My head hurts.
Family medical premiums, liability insurance payments, investment reports, GST calculations, CPP owing, eligible charity receipts, RRSP contributions, RESP withdrawals …
For my unincorporated business, I track all revenues and expenditures. That takes four hours a month.
Then Jane goes through it for tax purposes.
No, you can’t claim golf course fees, even if you were golfing with your biggest customer. How much of this trip was for work, how much for pleasure? Yes, a new computer is a business expense. Annual vehicle mileage and all expenses, please. Was this restaurant bill for your Weekly Dish column, or entertaining a client?
It takes me at least 10 hours, on top of monthly book-keeping, to prepare for Jane’s audit.
And ...
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