I recently dined with a senior City of Edmonton manager, part of the leadership group around City Manager Simon Farbrother that’s getting a great deal done.We talked about global energy/petro-chemical companies, how decisions are made about where multi-billion dollar plants will be built.“We’re part of the Pacific rim,” our manager said. “The guy making that decision is based in Shanghai or Beijing. He’s deciding if that plant should be built in China, somewhere else in Asia, Canada, the USA or Mexico. His only interest is the well-being of the company he works for.“He has hundreds of options – countries and states and cities are all offering economic incentives.“If we (Greater Edmonton) want to compete, we have to have the complete package – land fully serviced and ready to go, feedstock, infrastructure, labour, financing, tax incentives. In fact, we have to offer more. Their future consumers are all over there, not here.“How do we compete,” he said, pointing his fork at my nose, “ when we don’t have a singl ...
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Let us begin at the end.The ninth annual ATCO/Edmonton Sun Christmas Charity Auction, running in both the print and online editions of The Sun next Tuesday to Thursday, ends with four organizations dedicated to the betterment of our lives here in Northern Alberta: The funds raised go to the Stollery Children's Hospital, The United Way, Catholic Social Services through its Sign of Hope campaign and Edmonton's venerable Christmas Bureau.Yes, it's fun to bid on the expected 300-plus packages donated by companies and individuals who believe there's more to life and living than squeezing every cent of profit out of their bottom lines. It's fun to be in prolonged online bidding wars as the clock ticks down to the auction's end at 7 p.m. on Thursday Nov. 1. And everybody loves a bargain, if bargains are to be had.But that's not the point.The point is that the money, the cold, hard cash, will be distributed equally to those four magnificent organizations above.For the sick kids at the Stollery, for the 60,000 people ...
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Hardware Grill 9698 Jasper Avenue 780-423-0969 www.hardwaregrill.comFood: 4.75 of 5 starsAmbience: 4 of 5 starsService: 4 of 5 starsDinner for two (without beverages): Basic, $90; fully loaded, $150For 16 years, The Hardware Grill has dominated the city's restaurant landscape. It no longer posts its outstanding reviews, its awards or the local, provincial, national and international restaurant-of-the-year notifications. There are just so many.Others have briefly challenged this king of upscale dining. They have come and gone. Or settled back into a niche a degree or two below the Hardware Grill.Why did it take 18 months for the Weekly Dish to review the Hardware Grill? Partly because I wanted context, to have sampled most of the other aspirants to the Hardware's crown. And partly because the Weekly Dish tries to find the best of the ethnic eateries, the hole-in-the-walls and the best hot dogs, not just the best lobster-truffled this-or-that.But if you're going all-out — our bill was $137 for t ...
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Do Edmontonian invest, and if so, what do we invest in?I approached two of the city’s better-known financial advisors, CHED and Global Edmonton analyst Angus Watt of National Bank Financial and Ron Hiebert of Scotia-McLeod, host of CFCW’s weekly Making Money show, to ask these simple questions.(As always, think of “Edmontonians” as shorthand for Edmonton Sun readers, usually living in Alberta between Red Deer and Fort McMurray.)Right off the bat, we’re talking about a minority of you.About 70% of adult Albertans still live paycheque to paycheque, not saving enough to invest in anything besides your house. But 70% of you actually own a home, and, hopefully, are increasing your equity with every mortgage payment.But the time comes when the 30% have a tiny bit left over, after groceries, car and housing costs, the son’s hockey equipment and one holiday a year, to actually start making investments.Usually it’s in tax-deferred RRSPs (Registered Retirement Savings Plans — you don’t pay income tax until you make wit ...
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Dadeo New Orleans Diner & Bar 10548A Whyte Ave. 780-433-0930 www.dadeo.comFood: 3.75 of 5 starsAmbience: 4 of 5 starsService: 3.5 of 5 stars Dinner for two (without beverages): Basic, $30; fully loaded, $70Tucked in next to Avenue Guitars on Whyte Avenue, you've likely driven by Dadeo hundreds of times.Or walked by without noticing. The Cajun cookery is literally a hole in the wall. If you're not looking, you don't find.Which hasn't stopped Dadeo from becoming, by word-of-mouth alone, one of our city's most popular eateries.Word-of-mouth, over 21 years, has created a repeat clientele which sees the 60-seat, long and narrow classic diner full by 6:30 p.m. every evening of the week, except Wednesdays when it's closed.It's not hard to understand the attraction. The Cajun cooking is addictively good, the price is right, the staff are attentive and friendly, the atmosphere is charmingly casual, the decor the most unique in the city.To walk into Dadeo is to step back 50 years in time. This is no just-built fake '60 ...
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Grub Med 17 Fairway Drive 780-436-1988 www.grubmed.caFood: 2.75 of 5 starsAmbience: 2.5 of 5 starsService: 2.5 of 5 starsDinner for two (without beverages): Basic, $70; fully loaded, $110You'd think, with the Food Network, Gordon Ramsay, Restaurant Makeover etc. that restaurants getting long in the tooth would know when to reinvent themselves.Grub Med has always been a southwest Edmonton secret, a Greek restaurant in a strip mall off 119 Street south of Whitemud Drive.The locals — from Blue Quill to Riverbend, knew it could provide a pleasant evening in a decent ambience with darned good food.Its word-of-mouth reputation was such that it filled up on Friday and Saturday evenings with diners from across the city, who'd heard of its specialty lamb and fish dishes.But that was years ago. Alas, Grub Med no longer lives up to that reputation.Grub Med had been off the radar — a tell-tale sign — when up popped a Grub Med half-off coupon ($70 worth of food for $35 on a week night), so why not check ou ...
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Review of Next to Normal, at the Citadel Theatre in Edmonton, Canada, through November 11, 2013
By Graham Hicks
A successful twisting of the dramatic dial always arouses great interest, and, given the intelligence level of the audience it attracts, great expectations.
Thematically, the musical Next to Normal, that opened on the Citadel Theatre's Shoctor Stage last Thursday (Oct. 25, 2012) for an 18 day run, is not all that unusual.
The pathos and humour within dysfunctional contemporary North American families has been a familiar backyard for American playwrights since Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller. This time around, the emotional rawness is given believable depth by genuine mental illness on momma’s part.
Technically, Next to Normal is darn fascinating – leaving the safety of conventional musical theatre to edge much closer to opera, pushing much closer to Stephen Sondheim than to Rodgers and Hammerstein but delivering the whole show in an over-drive tempo that ...
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This column began with the thought of reporting on how the closure of the XL Foods meat-packing plant would be whacking northern Alberta’s rural economy. The plant has partially re-opened, but as of Friday was still not allowed to accept live cattle. Our cattlemen, I figured, had to be reeling.Meat-packing is a nice term for slaughter-houses. That industry has become so concentrated that two plants in southern Alberta, XL in Brooks and Cargill in High River, each normally slaughter 3,500 to 4,000 cattle a day.If Alberta’s slaughter capacity is halved (XL processes a third of all Canadian beef) you can’t get most of your cattle to market.The bottleneck should bump its way up the system. The feedlots fattening young cattle can’t ship to the packing plant. Ranchers can’t sell their calves to the feedlots because the feedlots are full. Prices for feedlot-ready young cattle had dropped by 10% in the past two weeks.There had to be pain and suffering happening in the countryside.With apologies to a handful of big-ti ...
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Parkallen Restaurant 7018 109 St. 780-436-8080 www.parkallen.comFood: 4 of 5 starsAmbience: 4 of 5 starsService: 4.5 of 5 starsDinner for two (without beverages): Basic, $25; fully loaded, $100If you have a favourite restaurant, dollars to doughnuts you have dishes you return to, time after time.You may not be sure why, but there's just something about how that particular chef prepares that particular dish. It keeps calling your name.I have a problem with the Parkallen Restaurant. It's not just one or two dishes. It's five, six, seven ...It's the quality of the kitchen, for 28 years presided over by Habib and Nahia Rustom, and now their son Joseph Rustom.There are no shortcuts. Everything is from scratch, or custom-made locally to Rustom specifications.To try their "mezza" combinations (a tapas-style collection of up to 12 mini-entrees) is to feast your way through Lebanese cuisine, to be taking mental notes on which dish you will order as a full entr e the next time around.Why do I love thee, ...
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Langano Skies Ethiopian Restaurant 9920 82 Ave. 780-432-3334 www.langanoskies.comDinner for two (without beverages): Basic, $25; fully loaded, $40Ethiopians are comparative newcomers to the city's culinary scene. But in a long-standing tradition of recent ethnic arrivals, Ethiopian entrepreneurs have taken over inexpensive restaurants in the 118 Avenue and 97 Street area to introduce the country's unique foods to the rest of us.The Sumamo family realized Old Strathcona would also be an neighbourhood where ethnic variations are sought after.Their dining room on 82 Avenue near 99 Street is now one of the more established Ethiopian restaurants in town.Ethiopian — think spicy, meaty "wots" or stews, legumes, and, most of all, injera, a honeycombed easily-rolled crepe with a unique sourdough taste.Think of similarities to South Asian (samosas, spice) or Middle Eastern (the mashed fava bean, tomato and feta cheese mix known as foul).Langano Skies — the reference is to Lake Langano in Ethiopia's Grea ...
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