The China Inn

They have place mats, and Shirley Temples!

A few months ago Patrick and I found ourselves being sent to The China Inn. "Where is that?" we wondered. Like a good prairie town, Saskatoon has a lot of Asian restaurants, and though this place sounded familiar we really didn't know where we might find it.

So we google-mapped it and realized it was only a few blocks from our house; the sort of faceless, somewhat nondescript restaurant you pass by every day without quite realizing it is there.

It was quite late on a Saturday night. "We might not make it," we worried, rushing over in our car though it was only mere blocks away. (Why walk? This is, after all, a good prairie town, where car is king!)

 We entered and found an entirely empty restaurant. Which was okay. I mean, it was late Saturday night. The place would have had customers earlier, no doubt, and drunken Westsiders would surely stumble in in a hour or so for Shanghai noodles and chicken balls. "We've just caught in in the dead hour," I thought.

Except: there was no staff.

We waited patiently in the doorway, then moved further and further into the restaurant. There was no one in the restaurant, but we could hear a television playing, and, sure enough, when we peeked, we could see an elderly gentleman watching TV, seated at a table, in a room past the restaurant, behind the counter. "What do we do?" I whispered. "I don't want to bother him...."

In the end we just cleared our throats a bunch of times and then said, "Excuse me?" loudly enough that he looked up and summoned someone to come and help us. A woman came out of the back, sat us down, and gave us menus.

Like a good prairie town, this menu had a plethora of cocktails (or "highballs", as we call them here) on the menu. Patrick opted for a Shirley Temple, which seemed like the right sort of drink to order.   We decided to get some wonton soup, which was actually really, really tasty. It was full of vegetables and the broth was savoury and the little wontons were full of nice meat. It actually seemed like someone had made these from scratch! Perhaps the gentleman at his back room table had more responsibilities than just ensuring no one stole the television?

Our second course wasn't nearly as nice as the soup had been. We got two dishes and both appeared to have the same sauce on them -- a reddish sauce that seemed to contain a liberal dousing of red wine vinegar. On the plus side, the dishes did match the colour palate established by the Shirley Temple, not to mention the China Inn's red chairs and reddish-brown table tops, so perhaps they just go for themes?

Will we ever return to the China Inn? I can't say. The soup was great. The staff were friendly (once they realized we were there). The Shirley Temple is always a welcome distraction from the regular non-alcoholic drink world of colas. Perhaps the next time we're wandering past the nondescript restaurant in our Westside 'hood, (or, more likely, driving past in our prairie-approved vehicle) we'll remember to stop in for some lovely soup. We might hold off on the red wine vinegar sauces, though. After all, I can make something that unexciting (and potentially unintended) at home.

The Blue Diamond

This is a menu. It's Faux Leather!

Last week, Patrick and I called up our friends, Amber and Karen, and invited them to go saskaspooning with us.

"You have to go wherever the phone sends you," we warned. "We might end up spending hundreds. We might end up at the 7-11 in the Industrial area."

"That's fine!" they said. "Bring it on!"

"We might end up at a steak house," we cautioned the vegetarian. "You might end up eating nothing but croutons."

"That's cool!" said the vegetarian. "I'm up for it!"

"I hope we end up at the hospital cafeteria!" exclaimed Amber.

So they put us on speaker phone, and Patrick shook his Galaxy S2.

"The Blue Diamond!?!" I said, with horror.

"Hooray!" came the excited voices down the phone. Both Karen and Amber started talking at once. "I haven't been there in forever!" "That was my family's fancy place when I was little!" "Oh, hooray! Hooray!" "Giggle!" "Squeal!" "Giggle!"

"So you're both fine with this?" I asked.

"100 percent!" they promised.

* * *

When I first moved to Saskatoon I knew a girl who worked as a waitress at the Blue Diamond. On Friday and Saturday nights, her boyfriend used to go and sit at a table to make sure she was okay. A few years later, she became a guard in a maximum security prison -- she claimed she'd cut her teeth on bad guys while serving in the lounge. This did not sound like the type of restaurant my family went to for special Sunday night suppers, but then, reputations change over 20 years (just ask Tom Cruise). Perhaps the Blue Diamond was no longer the fine family establishment Karen and Amber remembered from their youth? Unless they came from really sketchy families.

I was a bit nervous when Patrick and I drove up to the big glass building -- that's right, it looks like a large, blue diamond -- and when we walked in to the brightly-lit lounge a couple of guys looked up from their draft beers and said, "Looks like you two came in the wrong door." They pointed us toward the door marked "restaurant". Through the door and up the stairs we went, until we emerged into a large room filled with cozy booths, fake plants, and senior citizens who, unless they were concealing shanks in their support hose, were likely not the clientele who'd prepped Jill for her career in prison work.

Clearly there were TWO Blue Diamonds.The lounge half, filled with tough guys, and the restaurant, filled with the elderly. (What if you were a tough geriatric? Where did you fit in?)

This drink was good.

After being seated in a giant booth, Patrick and I ordered rye-and-cokes
(it only seemed appropriate) and a plate of potato skins, thinking we could share them with Amber and Karen when they arrived.  The skins appeared with more bacon than I think is permissible by law (ie: a lot) and we felt a bit badly because this mean the vegetarian would not be able to partake when she arrived. Oops. (Sorry, Karen!) I guess we should have known -- this is the Land of Meat, after all.

When Karen and Amber did arrive, they climbed into our big booth and we all perused the menu. It likely hasn't changed since 1977, when Saskatoon believed in Quantity Over Quality. With this in mind, I set out to find the meal that would get me the most "bang for my buck", so to speak.

While Karen went with the Just Say Cheese pizza, (though she added pineapple), Amber settled on soup and a salad, and Patrick asked for just a steak with salad and a piece of garlic toast, I ordered the full meal deal. This meant I was served: a small orzo soup, a starter Caesar salad, a piece of garlic toast, steamed vegetables, chicken parmagiana and a side of spaghetti with meat sauce. Oh! And a slice of orange for desert.

 Yes. This was my meal.

I ate the soup -- it was pretty good. I tried to eat the salad but the garlic nearly burnt my tongue off. The vegetables were super mushy, which upset me until I realized that the majority of their clientele likely have a hard time chewing, making these mushveggies ideal. The chicken was actually pretty tasty, but I had a hard time eating all of it -- there were two breasts. "A chicken gave both his breasts for you!" my friends implored. "Don't let his sacrifice be in vain!"

I tried, really I did. But there was also the spaghetti with meat sauce....In the end I took one and a half chicken breasts home and half of the spaghetti. I also added to my leftovers like a million of Patrick's steak-mushrooms -- seriously, they gave him 2 million garlic-fried mushrooms.

And for a guy who doesn't really like mushrooms? That's a lot of fungus to get through on your own.

In the end, we had a lot of fun. Karen was dismayed by the amount of cheese on her Just Say Cheese (and pineapple) pizza, and we were like, "look at the 2 million mushrooms. Look at the 6 pounds of chicken here. You cannot expect less than a pound of mozzarella on your pizza."

"It's the feta," she said. "There is so much of it, it is like eating a salt lick." (Which didn't sound too bad to those of us in the group who love salt).

We drank our rye and cokes and we discussed the cost of heating what was essentially a green house in one of the world's coldest cities. We debated going downstairs to get a drink in the lounge, but in the end we just packed up my leftovers and went to my house, where we toasted the evening with a cool, crisp bottle of Spumanti Bambino (only $9.99 at your local offsale!)

PS I took the leftover spaghetti with meat sauce, mushrooms, and chicken for lunch a few days later. Let's just say without the pomp and circumstance of the Blue Diamond herself, my meal was less than a delight....

Saigon Rose

When Patrick and I found out we'd be heading to the Saigon Rose, I felt pretty happy -- this place is an institution in Saskatoon and yet I'd never been. Actually, that's not true -- I'd been once but it had been cold and raining and it was a rush meal and I got soup, and I kind of don't count soup as food.

The Saigon Rose has been around for eons, apparently. Their Bird's Nest is legendary, I guess, but Patrick and I opted for some other dishes:

Patrick wanted soup, (apparently he considers it food), so he ordered himself a little bowl of chicken soup. There were spring rolls on the menu, and we got an order of those, and then Patrick wanted to try some of the spicy chicken wings. And then we got excited about ginger chicken, and so we got that too, and of course we ordered some rice. And some Vietnamese coffees. Oh, yeah, and there was this bread roll thing that we ordered, because we had never heard of such a thing.

 And then the food came. And kept coming. And coming. And nothing was anything we expected. The soup was far bigger than either one of us had anticipated, and it was made with eggs instead of noodles. Not bad, but just unexpected. And then the chicken wings were deep fried, too, which we hadn't expected. And the ginger chicken was too, but so were the spring rolls, and the bread thing actually came with two pieces, which meant we had tons, and tons, and tons of food.

What we also had was no rice, and no coffees. We asked for the rice, which came eventually. We never got the coffees.

The other thing about the food was that it was really, really, really sweet. Not bad, just really fried, and really sweet. Like me on a Friday night. (Haha!)

Other fun tidbits about the evening? Well, we were entertained by these flames, which were situated right behind Patrick's head, and then the restaurant decided to play some music to entertain us all: it was an endlessly repeating, sickeningly sweet (like our ginger chicken? and our deep fried chicken wings? and the sauce for both the bread and the spring rolls?) version of Old Macdonald's Farm, played on some inane toy.

By the time we left, with a bag full of leftovers, I was no more the wiser about the legendary Bird's Nest, but I do know that I'll probably go back to try it sometime, and while I'm there I'll smash that child's inane toy so no one has to listen to Old Macdonald's Farm being sung by saccharine Disney children ever again.

Otawa Japanese: I forgot about this one!!

Apparently last year Patrick and I went to the Otawa Japanese Restaurant before we went to the movies.

I completely forgot this was a Saskaspooning Experience.

I blame it on the movie we saw afterwards: Inception ate my brain, and the only thing I could think about post-film was the spinning top. And the fact that Ellen Page will never get to be a love interest. And the fact that they used Edith Piaf music for the Marion Cotillard stuff and I couldn't decide if that was cool or self-indulgent.

Anyway, I forgot about the restaurant, and I have nothing to say except it was probably tasty.

The End. (or is it...???)

The Saskatoon Asian Restaurant!

Seriously. That's what the restaurant is called.

The Saskatoon Asian Restaurant has been around for a long, long time. When I moved to Saskatoon, people were like, "Oh, that's my favourite Asian restaurant," and I think now people were saying that because it was the only Asian place around when they were children. Much like I thought Buster Brown's was the place for shoes, only I know better now.

I had only been there once before, when I had these strange tofu-triangles cooked in tomato sauce called, "Soldiers", or something. (They are no longer on the menu). I never went back, but not because it was an unpleasant experience. I never went back because Saskatoon has a MILLION Asian restaurants and The Saskatoon Asian Restaurant is somewhat tucked away, and so I always forget about it.

Anyway.

A couple of weeks ago Patrick and I decided to Saskaspoon.  First we got the Konga Cafe, which was our Saskaspooning adventure last time. Thanks for the variety, Internet. Next we got Mel's Diner, which would have been super, if we wanted a $3.75 breakfast special. (Mel's is only open for daytime eating). We kept on shaking, and finally hit a viable place! The Saskatoon Asian Restaurant! We were on our way to a party on the other side of town, (it's a small town, so in Toronto terms the party was, like, down the streetcar line a ways), and The Saskatoon Asian Restaurant is downtown, and, luckily, open later than most downtown restaurants on a Saturday. Perfect!

The Saskatoon Asian Restaurant is in a mall-type place. You open the main doors, walk down a wide hallway with shops off the sides, until you come to a tall, curving staircase. With its red carpeting and dark wood banister, you kind of feel like you're in the 1970s. The Saskatoon Asian Restaurant probably dates back to then. I suspect that's why the name is so descriptive. Prairie Folk have a long tradition of Telling It Like It Is.

Because it's not Saskatoon Thai or Saskatoon Cantonese, they pretty much have very big menu with many Asian countries represented. As we were on our way to a party, we didn't need to eat a ton -- I had a bag of chips waiting in the car and I wanted room for them later. So while my normal rule-of-thumb in Asian restaurants is for each person at the table to select one dish each for sharing, plus a plate of spring or fresh rolls, also for sharing, this time around we ordered only one dish between the two of us. And that dish?

Thai Peanut Chicken with a side of Rice!

We drank our tea, (they just brought it automatically! We didn't have to order it! Which reminded me of Chinatown in Toronto), and sipped it while we waited. We eavesdropped on the people next to us. It appeared that a young man was introducing his girlfriend to his parents for the first time. Both the mother and the girlfriend were dental hygienists, and while the boyfriend was all,  "Oh, wow, I never thought about you two having the same job. That's so cool,"  I suspect he was really like, "Oh, God, it's that Oedipus complex I read about in Hustler."  There was also a debate about the usefulness of getting a trade versus just working as a pipe fitter, which both amused and irritated Patrick in turn.

We looked around at the people eating at other tables and they were all getting these delicious, saucy dishes. The Oedipal-Complex table beside us had, like, 9 dishes for four people, and they all looked so good. But when our dish arrived, it seemed that all the sauciness had been used up at their table, because our food was, well....sauceless.

I wanted to walk over to their table and tip their lovely, drippy dishes over my plate. But I didn't know them, and this isn't the big city where you can get away with crazy mealtime shenanigans. So I ate my somewhat uninspired chicken dish and thought about my chips in the car. 





Luckily the price was right. A pot of tea, rice, and a meal that fed two of us for less than $16.00! AND there was even extra, which I took home with me. I ended up cooking up a lovely, spicy peanut sauce and adding it to the leftovers. And voila! I had a saucy meal at last.

The Konga Cafe

Last Sunday Patrick and I decided to Saskaspoon for lunch. We shook the iPod and were pleasantly surprised to get Jake's, a lunch place downtown neither one of us had been to in a long, long time. But, being a lunch place downtown, it was closed on Sundays, as they serve primarily business people, and businesses tend to be closed on on Sundays.

Sigh.

We shook the iPod and got...The Konga Cafe!


(Aside: The Konga Cafe is not new to us. It's down the street from my house, for goodness' sake. To the gods of the Internet, I implore you: SEND US SOMEPLACE NEW. This is, like, the fourth time in a row we've been sent to place we've literally been to in the past few months. But I'm not complaining. After all, we could have gotten a MacDonald's. Or a Seven-Eleven. Dammit. Now I've cursed us. Guess where we'll be going next?)

The food at the Konga Cafe is good. Actually, it's better than good. It's tasty, the portions are ample, the ingredients are simple and very nicely spiced. Plus it has a nice ambiance -- it has a Caribbean sort of vibe, but unlike lots of "place-themed" restaurants, this one doesn't feel fake. It's a sort of messy, sort of homey kind of place, with lots of stuffed monkeys, flags, and paper flowers for decor. The place mats are just red, green, and yellow printer paper. It's the only place I'm able to tolerate reggae music.

It's owned, I think, by a couple from the Caribbean, so they knew what they're talking about. Their hours are "12ish - 10ish", for example, and each meal starts with a free johnnycake, which is a deep-fried ball of dough. (I have often wanted to have an International Fried Dough festival, because every culture has a deep-fried dough something-or-other. It could be great. You could have paramedics on call for the heart attacks that would be the logical outcome of such a festival.)

Patrick and I each got the "special", figuring that since we'd eaten pretty much everything else on the menu, we might as well get the dish that might not be there next time.  The special was a breaded, deep-fried chicken breast with a curried, savoury mushroom gravy and a bowl of creamy red-bean and chicken soup. It was awesome. And we were so full by the end of our lovely meal, considering we'd just consumed basically one whole chicken each.

At one point the chef (one half of the ownercouple, I think) came towards our table and she was all dancey-- like she danced out of the kitchen, danced over to us, asked if we'd enjoyed the meal, and then danced away.

And that's it. The Konga Cafe did not disappoint, but this Saskaspooning trip wasn't full of crazy stories or strange adventures. I guess that's just the way it is with your neighbourhood restaurant -- sometimes you just want to go in, get your free johnnycakes, dance a bit with your chef, and leave a good tip. Sometimes that's all you need.

Aroma!

Two weeks ago it was Saturday, and Patrick and I were going to the movies. He had pre-purchased tickets so we could see the 10pm showing of Bridesmaids at the Galaxy in downtown Saskatoon. But before we went to the movies, we had to get supper.

It was 8pm, which meant we only had a couple of hours to eat.  Could we Saskaspoon?
Could we? There were so many what ifs. 

What if we get a restaurant way across town? What if we end up in a slow-food restaurant? What if we get a place where the servers are sullen teenagers who are in the middle of Personal Dramas and forget to place our orders and we starve? What if we get the Seven-Eleven? I was excited about the movie. I didn't want my evening ruined because I'd had to cobble together a meal of old hotdogs and dried out "potato wedges".

Still. We love adventure almost as much as we love movies. So we dove right in and shook that little ole iPod and got....."Aroma!"

The good thing about Aroma is that it is downtown, in the Radisson Hotel, actually only a block away from the movie theatre. The bad thing about Aroma is that we had literally been there about two weeks before. I think it was been the last time we'd been out to eat, actually. And we'd consciously picked it last time -- I believe because of its proximity to the movie theatre.

Sigh.

We went anyway.

I was pretty happy, because I'd been craving pizza all day, and this place does pretty good wood-oven pizzas. So there was that.

I ate a pizza much like this one.

Here is an aside:
I am always amazed at hotel bars and restaurants. They are always full. And, I think, full of travelers. Other than the free breakfast, who is eating at their hotel? I get it when you are in a small town and the only choice for eating is the restaurant attached to the front lobby. I get it -- it's the only game in town. But when you're a tourist, or a business traveler with an expense account, and there is an entire city out there with really good restaurants, why do you eat in the same building where you sleep? I don't care if Aroma is a well-reviewed, well-loved restaurant in Saskatoon. Unless you are a holidaying agoraphobe, please go outside and explore the rest that our town has to offer.

Okay. Rant over. Moving on.

So Patrick and I got mojitos, and I ordered myself a peach and pecan salad with a ham-and-pineapple pizza. Patrick ordered a goat cheese pastry thing with crackers and short ribs.

While we drank and waited for food, we watched as the host told a table next to us that he was "often compared to Steve Buscemi" and we thought how that was not something you should tell someone. Not unless Steve Buscemi is his brother, or you have a fetish for Steve Buscemi, should you ever tell a man that this is his closest celebrity look-alike.

We watched as an out-of-town family tried to find a gourmet pizza that was the closest approximation to the pizza they ordered in their home town. In the end they went with plain cheese.

We watched as the chef, whose kitchen is open to the entire room at large, tossed dishes, swung knives, and slammed pots, pans, and pizzas onto flat surfaces with what appeared to me to be a disdainful-yet-passionate strength. I imagined her speaking with an Eastern European accent; I got the feeling she'd apprenticed with Great Chefs and had ended up in Saskatoon cooking at the Radisson Hotel Bar and had spent the past four years wondering just what the hell happened to her life.

Our food arrived just in time. I enjoyed my pizza, though my salad was a bit heavy on the dressing, and the peaches were dried, which I hadn't been expecting. Patrick liked his goat cheese thing (so did I -- I snuck some bites) but he wasn't too impressed with his shortribs. "They're kind of just blah," he told the server, and I snuck a look at our intense chef and hoped she couldn't hear.

In the end we made it to the movies on time, mojitos and meltey cheese in our bellies. And our nice waiter waived the short ribs from our bill! So that's why you eat at hotel restaurants--they'll do anything to please their customers. Otherwise we might not book our business trips there again!