Gordon Ramsay's The Savoy Grill

While in London for the Summer Olympics, I had lunch at Gordon Ramsay's, The Savoy Grill, in the world famous Savoy Hotel in Central London.

The service was the best I ever experienced in a restaurant, and the food was quite delicious. I won't bother posting a review of every dish. I will say though that it was a great meal and would encourage anyone to go there. Of the 4 dishes, my favourites were the veal croquettes and the sticky toffee pudding.

All photos were taken with my cell phone.

Fresh, warm bread selection. This was excellent.

Veal croquettes with pea shoots and pickles. This was delicious.

Cauliflower soup with blue cheese rarebits. Pretty good.

Steak hash with fried brown egg and chips

(I was a little disappointed with this. While it was all tasty, it was basically a burger without a bun and these weren't proper British chips, they were french fries.

Sticky toffee pudding with clotted cream. This was to die for.

Taste of Calgary Food Festival - Top 5 Dishes

Every year I make it a point to take in the Taste of Calgary Food Festival. Restaurants from across the city bring samples of 3 or 4 of their dishes that you can try. In a very short time, you sample delicious foods of pretty much every culture you can think of.

The festival runs until Sunday. The weekend forecast is supposed to be great. Get out and enjoy the weather and the food!

The top 5 dishes we sampled were:

#5 - Oxtail with rice and beans from Green Grato. This was packed with flavour. I was particularly fond of the dumplings that were mixed in the sauce.

#4 Chinese Combo from China Rose. Our timing was good. We got there late and we were some of the last people left at the end of the night. Many of the restaurants were giving away food so that it wouldn't go to waste. The good people at China Rose gave us a box that included ginger beef, wings and noodles. While my hopes weren't very high because it looked like generic Chinese take-out, The taste of the food blew me away. I'll certainly be heading there next time I order Chinese.

#3 Strawberry and Mascarpone Waffle from Bubblemania. This was divine. They also had a blueberry waffle with Japanese yogurt that was incredible. The waffle was perfect and the strawberry might have been the best strawberry I ever ate in my life. Home run.

#2 Combo from Heritage Deli. The trip to the food fest was worth it to find the Heritage Deli. In all my years of going to the festival, I've never went to a restaurant that I tried from sampling there. That won't happen this year. I will definitely be going to the Heritage Deli. The combo was a polish sausage, perogies and cabbage rolls. Everything was homemade, and it tasted like awesome homemade food with every delicious bite.

#1 The winner this year was...Roasted Duck Omelet from Bubblemania. We decided on this as the best dish, not only because it was delicious, but because it was a little outside of the box. Most of the food at the festival was pre-cooked and sitting in warming trays. This omelet was made to order and the duck was roasted to perfection. If you go to the festival, it is a must try.

Honourable Mention goes to the Tzatziki sauce at Pegasus. Easily the best tzatziki I have ever had.


TOP 3 RESTAURANTS:
1. Bubblemania. They had 2 dishes in our top 5. Awesome presentation and very friendly staff.
2. Heritage Deli. Can't wait to see the real thing.
3. Pegasus (Greek). Everything looked awesome, and the tzatziki was to die for, but by the time we got there we were pretty full and couldn't try everything we wanted too. Definitely will visit their restaurant.

Gordon Ramsay's Foxtrot Oscar, London, England

When I went to university, I developed an interest of cooking. With the subsequent launch of the Food Network, I became even more interested in cooking. There are many personalities on the Food Network that I like to watch (Chuck Hughes, Jamie Oliver, Bobby Flay, to name a few) and some that I don’t like to watch (Ina Garten). My favourite of all time is Gordon Ramsay. I think that he often pours it on for the cameras, and that he is probably a different guy when not in a kitchen while being filmed, but I love the character that he plays.



Abbey Road

Ramsay has many restaurants of different styles all over the world, but his career as a restauranteur started in London.  Since I started planning my trip to London, eating at one of his restaurants was almost as important as getting my picture taking at Abbey Road.

I have been staying with my friend’s Brandon and Nicole Donnelly, who recently moved to London from Calgary for a 3 year stint. I’m the lucky guy who is their first visitor. The Donnelly’s, like me, love to go out to nice restaurants, so Nicole took care of making reservations at Foxtrot Oscar on Royal Hospital Road.

Nicole made the reservations the night before and the only time they had available was 8:00pm. Ramsay has many restaurants in London but this was the night before the Royal Wedding and Foxtrot Oscar was the only place we could get a seat. It is located a few doors down from Restaurant Gordon Ramsay. This was Ramsay’s first restaurant ever, where he launched his career as one of the most famous chefs in the world. We arrived to Foxtrot Oscar a few minutes early so I walked down to his first restaurant to take a picture. Outside this restaurant there is a man standing there who comes off as being a bouncer. This restaurant is world famous and I guess he is there to keep people like me from sticking my head through the door to get a look at the place. He was more than happy to answer some questions and told to me that to get a table in there, you have to make reservations 2 months in advance!

We made our way back down to Foxtrot Oscar, and our first impression was disbelief in how small the restaurant was. My sister counted 32 people seated including the 4 of us.  I’m not really sure what I was expecting, but I guess I thought it was going to be bigger than it was. The ambiance was nice and for it being small, it certainly wasn’t too loud.



Grilled Asparagus with poached Hen Egg

***Please note that all the photos were taking with a cell phone camera. I didn't want to be the guy in a nice restaurant with a DSLR, making a scene.

Heriloom Tomato Salad

We all decided to get an appetizer and we made sure to order different dishes so we could all taste something different. Brandon had the dorset crab pasta, Nicole had the heirloom tomato salad, Ashley had the spiced aubergine salad, and I went for the grilled asparagus with a poached hen egg. Nicole loved the tomato salad and was still talking about it the next day. It’s ingredients were simple, but it was beautifully plated and full of flavor. The crab dish was a nice pasta starter that wasn’t over powering with the taste of crab. My dish was also very simple in presentation and ingredients, but very elaborate in taste. It just goes to show that good food doesn’t have to be complicated to be tasty.

Ang Beef

For the mains, Ashley order the pesto pasta dish. She seems to have eaten a lot of pasta in our week long trip through the UK and Ireland. She liked it and so did I. Nicole and Brandon proved to me that they are a good match for each other, because they both ordered the same dish. The ang beef, which is a very lean cut of beef that was served rare was very tender. The highlight of their dish for me was Nicole’s Onion Rings that she got as a side. When they came to the table I thought the were going to be terrible. They looked nothing like your standard well battered onion ring. They looked like they were lightly tossed in some flour and then deep fried. Were we ever wrong. They were easily the best onion rings I ever had.

Burger and Fries

I scoured the menu and decided on the burger. Ramsay often talks about how he loves burgers. Everyone knows he can cook high end, pretentious food. I wanted to see how well he could do a burger and fries. Of course this was a gourmet burger served with a nice protion of chips (how the English call fries). The burger was excellent. I can’t say it was the best burger I ever had, but it would definitely rank in the top 5. The chips however might have been the best I ever had. My main must have been the most amount of food because everyone else easily finished their dish and I was struggling halfway through mine. Anyone who knows me, knows that appetite is not one of my problems. It should be noted that you can order your buger like you order a steak, rare, medium, well done, etc...

Sticky Toffee Pudding

We couldn’t leave there without getting dessert. Ashley ordered a vanilla cheese cake with a rhubarb compote which we all agreed was maybe the best cheesecake we ever had. I was particularly fond of the presentation. It almost looked like an ice cream sundae. Brandon, Nicole and I opted for a classic English dessert, sticky toffee pudding with clotted cream. I was definitely too full to have ordered dessert and under any other circumstance I would have passed. But being in London at Ramsay’s restaurant I had to do it. The sticky toffee pudding was awesome. Clotted cream is essentially butter and cream. It looks like a cross between butter and cream cheese. It definitely complimented the sticky toffee pudding and made an already rich dessert ever richer.

The one complaint we had was the service. Our waitress was nice and friendly, but for a restaurant of that caliber, she made some blunders that I wouldn’t have expected. Brandon and Nicole both ordered sides for their mains and she forgot to bring them. When we reminded her about it, they had to be cooked fresh and they were mostly done their dish before they arrived. After dessert, Nicole and I both ordered tea which never arrived. The host came and gave us our bill and apologized for the waitress. He didn’t charge us for Brandon and Nicole’s sides, but when I got home, I looked at the bill and she did charge us for a drink that we never got. We didn’t let this ruin the experience for us, but it was a little surprising to see this at a restaurant of this kind of profile.

One of the highlights for me was chatting with the head chef. I’m a nosy guy and I noticed the the bathroom was close to the kitchen so I made it a point to go to the bathroom even though I didn’t need to so I could try to sneak a peek inside the kitchen. When I did, the chef saw me and came over to chat. I told him I had the burger and it was excellent. Both of us didn’t have English accents so we asked where each other was from and it turns out he was a Canadian from Vancouver.  He proudly told me that his Canucks won and advanced to the 2^nd round of the NHL playoffs. He has been with Ramsay’s company for 5 years. He was at the main restaurant for most of that time and just took over this place last month. He was a nice, friendly guy. It was cool to see that a Canadian was running one of Gordon Ramsay’s restaurants.

When I asked everyone to rate this on a scale of 1-10 (10 being the best meal that they ever had) the average score was 7.5. Dinner came to 143 pounds (over $200 cdn) but we all agreed it was worth it. It’s not the kind of most people can afford to eat at every day, but like they say, “When in Rome…” Well I say, “When in London, eat at one of Gordon Ramsay’s restaurants.”

***Editor's Note - I wrote this review while on the plane flying back to Canada. Shortly after I returned I had some computer problems and couldn't post it until now. Reading this almost 2 months later, I think that the score deserves to be higher, more like 8.5 - 9. It was an exceptionally good meal.

Jamie's Italian - Glasgow, Scotland

I left for the UK/Europe 10 days ago and I set a different kind of budget than most people do when they travel. My budget was 5-10 pounds, and I don’t mean UK currency. I had full intentions on eating my way through UK/Europe, and so far have fulfilled my intentions.

I am currently in Scotland and after a day that started with a traditional Scottish breakfast (more about that on another post), for dinner we went out to one of Jamie Oliver’s flagships, “Jamie’s Italian.”

Jamie is British culinary royalty. He, Gordon Ramsay and Nigella Lawson would be the UK’s most famous of Britain’s culinary exports. I was really hoping to get to one of his restaurants on this trip.

Melanie and Alan

Luckily, I had some wonderful hosts/tour guides who had eaten there before and could guide my sister and I through the experience. My old college friend Melanie and her husband Alan live in Glasgow and had eaten there before.

Jamie’s Italian is a busy place, especially on a Saturday night at 6pm. We had to wait for a table, so we sat downstairs in the lounge, ordered some wine and the  “World’s Best Olives on Ice.” World’s best olives? Sure, why not. They were huge, delicious and the word that came to mind for myself and Melanie was “fresh.”

Selection of fresh bread

After we moved upstairs and got our table, we ordered a basket of bread that the menu said was “baked fresh, twice daily.” Most Italian restaurants give you free bread prior to your meal. You had to order it here, but you got a nice selection of different breads, and it was fairly cheap 3.65 pounds (about $5.00 cdn).

For an appetizer, I had arancini, which is fried risotto balls stuffed with cheese and ham. They were pretty good and a nice way to start the meal. Alan had “Italian Nachos” which were deep fried mini cheese stuffed ravioli’s smothered in freshly grated cheese. Melanie has a bowl of baked mushrooms. Melanie and Alan and very friendly people and are much like me who are happy to let other people to try their meals, in return for a few bites of yours. Alan and I agreed that Melanie had the best appetizer of the bunch.

Melanie's Mushrooms

Arancini

When  I go to a restaurant I study the menu, then decide on what I want and then I have to put the menu down right away or else I’ll change my mind dozens of times and then second guess my final decision. I looked at the menu here and for some reason the mains didn’t seem to impress me so I decided I would go with a pasta. The problem I had was I couldn’t decide which pasta to have. The menu has small and large portions of pasta so I was once again in luck and went with the two pastas I was thinking about. I put the menu down and then the waiter came and told us the specials for the night. This threw a wrench in my plans and I instantly started second guessing my decision.

Squid Ink Pasta with Scallops

I finally decided on a small portion of the special which was gnocchi with porcini mushrooms in a smoked mozzarella cream sauce, and I went outside of the box with my next choice and ordered squid ink pasta with Scottish scallops. The gnoochi was good, but maybe a little bland. I’m not a huge seafood fan, but I remember seeing a picture of squid ink pasta in one of Jamie’s books that I have so I ordered it. It was really good. The pasta on it’s own tasted normal, but with the tiniest bit of seafood flavour. The scallops were perfectly cooked and overall the dish had a tiny bit of a spicy flavor. I wondered if this was from the squid ink.

Melanie had the ricotta ravioli in a lemon sauce. The dish looked fairly plain but had a distinctly citrus flavour.

Ashley had the carbonara with smoked pancetta tossed in free range eggs. The noodles could best be described almost as an udon noodle. The dish was salty mostly due to the pancetta, but not too salty.

Alan opted for the rabbit ragu. It was the first time in his life that he had rabbit. He said he would have the Easter bunny for dinner. He described the dish as “very hearty.”

We had appetizers so we decided to pass on dessert. Truthfully none of the desserts we jumping off the menu to me and we were all pretty carb overloaded so we ordered lattes to perk us up so we wouldn’t be in bed at 9:00pm on a Saturday night.

When I asked everybody to rank the restaurant on a scale of 1 to 10, the average we had was 7.5/10.

Melanie liked the restaurant because she is “It is a place you could to go dressed up wearing high heels, or in wet running shoes after a day of walking around Edinburgh all afternoon in the rain.”

We all left the restaurant stuffed, and the bill came to 83 pounds (approx. $130 cdn). I thought this was pretty good considering we had 6 appetizers, 4 mains, lattes and wine. Jamie gives you good value for your money. I’m looking forward to the day that he open’s a restaurant in Canada.

Afterwards, we went back to Alan and Melanie's where Alan and I played guitars until the wee hours. It was a great way to finish off a great day.

Five Guys Review

Five Guys has some cred behind it. Obama goes to Five Guys. If it's good enough for the President of the United States, surely it could be good enough for the former student council co-president of Riverview High School.

Located in Deerfoot Meadows, practically next-door to their biggest competiton, Five Guys is the latest in premium burger joints to hit Calgary. By premium burger joints I mean it is very similar to South St. Burger Company, where they charge a premium and tell you that you are getting quality that you don't get at other places (McDonald's, Wendy's, etc...).

The place was packed. Almost lined up out the door. Don't expect to walk in and out of this place in 5 minutes. Obviously they're french fries are hand cut on site because you are greeted by about 40 huge bags of potatoes stacked just insde the front door. While you wait in line, you can help yourself to free peanuts. The place is big and the kitchen is an open concept. Everything happens right in front of your eyes. It looks like you would expect a burger place to look like, but they could definitely improve on the atmosphere. It is loud. There is no music playing, and they girl who calls out the orders, literally shouts at the top of her lungs, which became annoying.

On to the food. I ordered a cheese burger, fries and drink. When I opened it up, I thought they mistakenly gave me a double burger but that is just how they serve it. I ordered it "All the way," which is just a fancy way for saying "the works." The burger was huge, and sloppy. It wouldn't be something you would want to take with you and eat in your car. It was very good - definitely better than your standard fast food burger. I read in other reviews that two people could share one order of fries. They weren't joking. The portion of fries were massive. Impossible (for me) to finish, but they were so good that you would want to try to.

The meal came to just over $13. Almost twice as much as you would spend at your typical fast food place. Was it worth it? Yes. You get a ton of food. I ate lunch at 1:00 pm, and only had a little snack at 7:00 pm that night because I was still full from lunch.

Five Guys is worth checking out. 8/10

South St. Burger Company Review - Cross Iron Mills

As a regular listener of the Fan 960 sports radio station here in Calgary, and a guy who genuinely likes to shop, having a place voted the "Best Burger in Calgary" inside a brand new outlet mall seemed like an easy choice. I have been to Cross Iron Mills before and every time I walked past South St. Burger Company  I said "I'll go next time." Since the last time I had been here, the listeners of the Fan 960 voted it the best burger in the city which cemented the "I'll go next time," line, in stone. This place has been open for just about a year so maybe people like a new kid in town when it comes to burgers.


I was there at 5:00pm on a Saturday. The mall was packed and so was South Street. I kept it simple and ordered the hamburger combo and paid extra for cheese. South St serves New York Fries as their side. Kind of a nice touch. The beef is not frozen and is cooked to order. This seems to be getting trendy as Wendy's advertises this.

 It kind of works cafeteria style. You order and pay, then slide your tray down the line where you have a choice between a white and a whole wheat bun. Then they dress the bun while the burger cooks with your choice of their toppings.


Given how busy it was, it didn't take too long for the burger to be ready. I went with a whole wheat bun, blue cheese, lettuce, tomato, pickles, onions, ketchup, mustard and relish.

 The burger was really good. The bun was awesome. It was definitely the best part of the burger. Probably the best burger bun I ever had. It was very soft and tasty. All in all, in my opinion, this is definitely not the best burger I ever had in Calgary, but having said that, for a place that is kind of like a fast food joint, it buries any of their competition. I can see myself grabbing a burger here every time I at that mall and it is definitely worth checking out, but it's not the best burger in Calgary. Burger (with cheese), fries and a drink came to $10.50.

Restaurant Review - Bumpy's Cafe

My friend Amy raved about Bumpy's Cafe to me years ago and how good the baked goods were. So I go to Bumpy's and ordered a soup and sandwich. Makes no sense, but it wouldn't be the first time that I would be accused of doing something that doesn't make sense. I was there at about 2:00 pm on a Saturday afternoon. Bumpy's is everything a little cafe should be. Nice atmosphere, artsy looking people working there, small and quaint, etc...

I asked the guy working there what panini he suggested and we decided upon the Rueben. It was pretty good. I ordered the half panini combo, which came with a cup of soup, and a choice of coleslaw or potato chips. I picked the carrot ginger soup (I'll soon be posting a stellar reciped for roasted carrot ginger soup). The soup was good but might have had a pinch too much ginger in it for my liking. I went with the coleslaw instead of the chips, because it looked appetizing, and it was.

This photo was taken with my phone

Bumpy's was voted best espresso in Calgary, and from sitting down watching people come and go as I ate the meal, it really is about the coffee, so I'm thinking I have to go back for a coffee and a muffin next time. With a bottle of lemonade, the total cost for lunch was $10.75.


Been to Bumpys? Add a comment and tell me what you thought.

Restaurant Review - Rocky Mountain Flatbread Co.

I unsuccessfully drove around Canmore a few times looking for this place that my friend Deanna told me about that has great flatbread pizzas. She didn't know the name, but Canmore isn't that big, right? This time, on my way home from a great night in Panorama, BC, I did some research and found out the name and address.


Rocky Mountain Flatbread Co. appears to specialize in flatbread pizza, pasta, salads and soups. They focus on being organic and local as much as possible.


The vibe in the place is good. Your eyes immediately are attracted to the wood fire oven and the smell that it produces, as well as the colours and feel of the place, create a pleasing vibe.

The service was a little slow. It was mid afternoon on a Sunday and it was before any kind of dinner rush, but I think it was just the server might have been slightly inexperienced, although very friendly. Like most restaurants in the mountains, the servers are young kids from all over the world working just enough to pay for their skiing habits.


On to the food.  For a drink, without looking at the menu, I ordered a glass of iced tea. After looking at the menu, turns out the iced tea was organic tea that was sweetened with maple syrup. Lucky guess for me! While I was tempted for a big bowl of pasta I decided to stick to their speciality and get a pizza. I ordered the Apple Chicken Harvest. It had a tomato sauce, chicken and granny smith apples, onions, topped with cheese, pesto and cherry tomatoes. I was a little curious about apples on a pizza. It wasn't terrible by any means, but didn't really enhance the pizza. The pizza overall was good. I ate the whole thing without any problems, but it didn't knock my socks off. My next trip there, I'm going to go with a more tradtional pizza. That's right, I'd definitely go back.

Next time you spend a day skiing at Louise or Sunshine, avoid the mid afternoon cafeteria food and stop in Canmore for some gourmet wood fire pizza. It would be nice to be there with a group and order a bunch of different flavours and taste them all. My pizza and iced tea came to $13.50. Very reasonable considering that you are getting organic wood fired pizza that you would pay the same price for factory pizza, from a chain a few blocks down the road. Rocky Mountain Flatbread Co. definitely offers great value for your money.

Restaurants to try in Calgary in 2011

"All I wanna know is, who's coming with me?" - Jerry Maguire

I have a long list of restaurants that I want to try in 2011. Some are fancy and expensive, some are dirty burger joints. I figured if I actually wrote it down and made it public, there would be a better chance of me getting to them. I thought it would be good to get some feedback as to what they are like (feel free to leave comment below). Have a favourite place not on the list? Maybe there is a restaurant on the list that you want to try? Care to join me? Leave a comment and let me know your thoughts.

• Notable
• Rouge
• 5 guys
• Rocky's Burger Bus
• Mucho Burrito
• Japanese Village
• Catch
• Caesars
• Vintage Chop House
• O (Marda Loop)
• Bumpy's Bakery Coffee
• Redwater
• Brazillian BBQ Place
• Capo
• Ruth's Chris Steak House
• River Cafe
• FARM
• Charcut
• Pfanntastic Pannenkoek Haus