Bistro India Food Review

We recently moved into the Oliver area, and we noticed a quaint house with a patio called Bistro India at 10203 116 street. We made our minds up that we would try it out for sure. One of our friends actually stopped by the restaurant and invited us to come over so we gave it a shot. It's a house thats made up to be a restaurant inside, it's super cute, and it has a very cosy atmosphere. The first time we went we sat in the dining room. Service was a little on the slow side, but we appreciated that this was most likely due to having only one server on, and the homemade aspect to the food. Our friend ordered the chicken samosas, butter naan bread, and the butter chicken. My boyfriend ordered the Chicken Chettinadu, which is chicken marinated in over 20 South Indian spices, and I got vegetable Samoas. (I wasn't very hungry.) Everything was absolutely delicious. The naan bread was clearly homemade, and was extremely cripsy, and soft throughout, and it had the exact fresh, homemade feel I was looking for.

The Chicken Chettinadu was amazing. This is for the lover of spice. No individual spice took over the dish, rather the various flavours united together to make one overwhelmingly delicious flavour. The butter chicken was the most authentic tasting butter chicken I have ever had. The chicken was moist but perfectly cooked, and spiced perfectly. Neither overwhelming or too subtle, but enough so it kept you wanting more.

The Samosas came with two ethnic sauces, both of which were highly enjoyable. The samosas are quite small, and only two come per order, so if you're looking for more substance, order two plates full. The samosas were not overly doughy, and they were not greasy as many usually are, I was overall happy with the quality of them.

As a group of three we needed 3 sets of naan bread (4 pieces come in each round of naan) and while we were there we tried the butter and the garlic naan. I recommend the garlic naan over the butter since I personally find it more flavourful. You can actally see the minced garlic on the bread, which is divine. The main dishes are easily enough for 3 to share if you have lots of naan and other appetizers. The amount they put into these bowls is a pretty generous. Us three people, two of which were drinking alcohol managed to eat here for $80.00 which I say is really quite affordable. When Erik and I went back again, we had the Samosas, garlic naan, butter chicken and a beer for $35.00 and sat on their little patio. Overall if you are looking for a cultural dish in the heart of Edmonton, that is seasoned well, and afforable stop by Bistro India for sure.

Burger's Priest Review - We've Been Converted

I have been wanting to try the Burger's Priest ever since it opened in Edmonton a few weeks ago. Located at 10148 109 Street, only a short couple of blocks down from our house made it too close not to try. We tried to go about a week after it opened one weekend night, and it was absolutely packed to the brim, so we decided to give it a shot some other time. We went the next weekend on the Sunday and it was closed... after two foiled attempts we finally tried it tonight. On a Monday night the cute little restaurant was still super busy, with no place to sit, but we didn't have to wait in line at all. We wandered up to the check out while gazing at the menu. Erik chose to have the double bacon cheeseburger with chili cheese fries and an iced tea. I had the regular cheese burger, with a mint chocolate chip shake and fries. We only had to wait a couple of minutes and then we were handed our food in a basic brown paper bag by a smiling guy working on the line. Everyone was exceptionally friendly, which was refreshing for a food joint. We headed home with our goodness and unwrapped everything to take a look. Erik's burger was pouring out of the paper it's patty oozing, and the crisp green lettuce giving it some colour.

The chili cheese fries came in a giant portion with the chili not overly saucy, and enough cheese and chili to cover the fries completely.

I brought my burger out and it had stuck to the bag because of tons of melted cheese, I wasn't complaining. The burger was tasty, and flavourful and you could taste a little bit of everything, nothing was overwhelming. It went in easy. It tasted simple, it tasted good, it tasted homemade like someone's dad just cooked one up on the BBQ. The bun was also the softest I have ever eaten.

My bag of fries was large enough to feed an army and I didn't even manage to eat them all. For future reference I will only order one set of fries for both Erik and I, as one portion is enough to feed anyone. These fries screamed homemade, the only fries I have found to rival those made in small poutine shops hiding in the small towns of Quebec. These fries were obviously potatoes earlier today.

The shake wasn't too thick to drink through the straw, it was nice and liquidy, and the chocolate chips were blended down to a good consistency. Erik made audible 'mmmmm' noises and he promptly let me know he would be going back without me for lunch on the regular. We were both very impressed and will be going back again soon. Burger's Priest has essentially perfected the burger. It was simple, it tasted good, and it had a homemade feel, which are basically the 3 ingredients to good food. 5/5

Patio Life

I've never been big on hot weather or the summer but right now we have that inbetween weather where there's a comfortable breeze and the sun is shining. Erik and I took advantage and ate out on a patio on Wednesday night. 

Dinner was amazing, we went to original joes and I got a Bellini as per usual and then amazing quesadillas which were supposed to have chicken but I switched it out for more avacado so so yummy. 

Hope you're enjoying the nice weather! 

Engagement Shoot - Alena & Josue

Recently I had the joy of taking engagement photos for a super sweet couple getting married at the end of August. They wanted to ensure that the invites would have enough time to make it to their family abroad. Alena really didn't want to have engagement pictures in the snow for a summer wedding, so we did the next best thing, went to the Muttart Conservatory for some happy Spring like photos while the rest of the city was taken over by snow. I'm super excited to do their wedding at the end of Summer.

What should have been the best burger ever.

The other day I decided to treat the boyfriend to a nice supper out. Unfortunately, it was a Friday night in the city, right around 6, and therefore running into long wait times, pretty much a given. First we headed to Red Lobster on the West side because he loves sea food, but after hearing about an hour wait, I wasn't interested. We jetted to the North side, figuring that the Keg may have a shorter wait time, but it turned out to be an hour as well. Finally we decided to try something new. Neither of us had been to Soda Jerks. I've heard all about it... pop in old school soda bottles of every flavour, milkshakes... giant burgers... it sounded AMAZING. So we headed over to the one in the next small town over, and it was only a 20 minute wait so we decided to wait. That's where it went all horribly wrong! First I ordered a rootbeer milkshake and for the dollar price difference I opted to get a large... and recieved a small anyways. The server realized the mistake and said she would bring me another one on the house later in the meal. Ok, fine. Erik and I ordered our burgers and it was pretty cool because we were able to select from a check list exactly the toppings we wanted on our burgers. We put our order in and then waited 30 whole minutes. I'm a server, and I understand that a lot of the stuff that goes wrong in a restaurant is out of your control, but half an hour wait is pretty steep. Finally we recieved this glory.

Now the ironic part of this photograph was... that is wasn't even my burger. They had accidently given Erik and I eachothers burgers. So once we had finally switched burgers (since we had the right sides) we dug in, starving after a 20 and then 30 minute wait to find that both patties were horribly burnt on one side. I was starving so I suffered through mine, but Erik wouldn't touch his after his initial bite. After 10 minutes our server checked on us because I was looking at her very directly across the restaruant. She showed her manager who quickly came to our table and apologized. She was nice about it, explaining how she was sorry that every part of our meal went wrong, told us we had no bill for the evening and begged us to come back. honestly I probably won't be back. I was so hungry and all I wanted was to treat my man out for supper and in the end he had one bite of a burned burger. Sigh.