Café Medina • 5 comments • Café Medina is one part Moroccan inspired food, two parts hipster decor, and 3 parts interminably long lines. It's worth the wait for the spicy lamb meatballs though. Their waffle toppings (lavender infused milk chocolate and white chocolate pistachio rosewater) are pretty good too.
Salmon n' Bannock • 4 comments • I remarked once about why there weren't any Native American restaurants, where I grew up, in Winnipeg. Considering that we extensively studied Aboriginal culture in school and there was a relatively large population of Native Americans in the area, I was surprised that not even one restaurant existed. Any of the foods we tried on field trips were delicious, so when we learned of Salmon n' Bannock, a restaurant in Vancouver that serves First Nations cuisine, we stopped by for some bannock and way too much salmon. Everything was delicious and the owners of the restaurant were so kind. We shared salmon mousse and a game sampler platter: cured arctic musk ox, smoked bison carpaccio, and spicy game chorizo served with with cedar jelly and a blueberry chutney... all on bannock crackers. To end the meal, we split a Saskatoon berry sorbet that tasted like home. <<<>>>
Kingyo Izakaya • 3 comments • I've surely mentioned it here before, but it remains a rule for us to sit at the bar when we eat sushi. We read the tip in the book, The Sushi Economy, where a chef suggested that it's where you'll likely get the best cuts of fish. Perhaps he worked at a mediocre restaurant but 1) it's not like we're frequenting the highest caliber sushi joints 2) if you're watching someone make your food, they're probably going to be aware of it and 3) it's just fun to see all the meals being prepared with such precision. While Kingyo Izakaya is less of a sushi place and, well, more of an Izakaya spot, we still chose to sit at the bar. Our hunger hit us before we had decided where to go for dinner that evening. An app indicated the highest rated restaurant in the area that we happened to be walking through, and that's how we made our decision of where to dine. Traveling is so much better and easier than it was only 5 years ago. Since it was early in the evening, we snagged a seat before the restaurant got packed. Intrigued by the food of different cultures and excited to try everything, I used to think that I was an adventurous eater... but lately I stick to the tried-and-true. I began to wonder whether I was getting boring or just being practical but didn't have a chance to think it through after being served some really delicious tuna dishes and stealing a few bites of Alex's kakuni bibimbap.* The people who worked there were so enthusiastic, the food was great, and we left happier than expected considering we had only heard of the restaurant 5 minutes before being seated. - Mina *Bibimbap is a Korean dish, but kakuni is Japanese... whoever thought to pair the two gets first prize.
