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...???)