Brasserie T | le Voyage Gourmand

For the third year in a row, Noma in Denmark has taken the title of Best Restaurant in the World according to Restaurant Magazine. After looking through the list of the 99 runners up, I must admit that I’ve never eaten at any of these places. The closest I’ve come is eating at L’Atelier’s sister restaurants in the US, but I would imagine that the difference would be like drinking the last pint of Guinness and watching your buddy drink the last Guinness when you’re absolutely parched.

The crew of Noma accepting the best restaurant in the world award. Picture by Unknown, The World's 50 Best Restaurants sponsored by S.Pellegrino & Acqua

The L’Atelier experience changed my outlook on what food should be. Being stuffed to the point of bursting with 3 courses of foie and the obligatory butter laden, orgasm inducing pomme puree reinforced that there’s a significant difference between what good restaurants do, and what great restaurants do. The intensity and obsession with which the best chefs and brigades choose their ingredients and produce dishes is an incredibly rare occurrence, resulting in something almost other-worldly.

I will say that I am a bit disappointed that no Canadian restaurant made it into the top 100. I had high hopes for places like Joe Beef and Brasserie T, which are pushing the boundaries of great food in this country and are among some of the most innovative and crazy places to eat.

There are a few things from this year’s list that stand out in my mind:

Continue reading “The Best Restaurants in the World” »

This week’s Bachelor Chow is on offal! Everyone’s forgotten cut of meat. Head on over to the Kingsland Farmer’s Market site to check it out!

[Link defunct, reposted below.]

Next week will be an interesting one, picture heavy too!

Dirty Little Parts
By Gabriel Hall
Originally posted on March 17 at the KFM site

If you’ve lived in Calgary for any period of time, you’ll come to know it as a very steak-and-potatoes type place. That’s not a bad thing. We have some of the best, if not the best beef in the world, maybe with the exception of flying 12 hours over the pacific to fry up a very well marbled and very expensive piece of Matsusaka.

When I arrived here in 1996, there were few meat and potato alternatives. A smattering of sushi places, a few Chinese eateries confined to Chinatown, and the occasional experimental fusion restaurant that would never last more than a year were surrounded by steakhouses that were packed full every night of the week.

Fast forward 15 years. Although meat and potato culture still reigns supreme, the influx of money and people willing to take that money in exchange for new and lurid experiences has increased. Sushi restaurants can be found every few blocks, multiple Caribbean and Mexican markets exist within the city, and Calgary restaurants are consistently rated as some of the best in the country, if not the world.

There is one style that that has been largely forgotten and passed over: Offal.

Continue reading “Bachelor Chow 03 – Dirty Little Parts” »