Review of Southern Spice Restaurant (South Indian Cuisine)

Summary: An adequate restaurant with good value for money (and some pretty tasty offerings) that can be more than it is right now.

India is such a diverse country that even the cuisine varies from region to region. India can be roughly divided into the four corners of the compass, where each region has it’s own unique blend of spices and dishes.

Most people in Calgary are probably only familiar with North Indian cuisine, with restaurants serving up their standard fair of butter chicken, aloo gobi, mutter paneer, chana masala, etc. that taste oh-so-good but also are pretty rich.

Personally, I am originally from the south of India, so North Indian cuisine is always a treat for me. South Indian dishes tend to be heavily rice-based and plainer than their North Indian cousins. Geographically this makes sense as North India is drier and cooler (during winters), whereas southern India is pretty much a tropical paradise where rice grows abundant.

It’s great to see that Calgary is slowly developing an alternative to what’s typically offered at well-established stalwarts such as Glory of India and Namskar. We personally reviewed one such hidden-gem – Canada Dosa Corner – which became such an instant hit with all our friends that we had to seek out other similar restaurants and see if they matched up.

Walking into the restaurant is a bit discombobulating as the exterior doesn’t match the interior whatsoever. The place appears pretty unremarkable and drab from the outside, but on the inside, it’s actually quite dramatic. The high ceilings together with plenty of natural light gave the place a “tiffin hall” feel that is reminiscent of those in India. All in all, it actually worked quite well.

We had the option of either going for the buffet or a la carte. In the interests of checking out their entire offerings, we opted for the buffet, which also came with unlimited (!) dosas. We immediately went over to the buffet area to check out their offerings. I was pretty wowed by the number of the dishes in the buffet.

The buffet had all the traditional South Indian dishes like rasam, sambar, medu veda, radish curry, and paysam, which all tasted pretty authentic, but also watered down. They were spicy, but almost spicy for the sake of being spicy – like they added a couple of tablespoons of chilli powder just to bring the heat up. There was a coconut-infused broccoli dish that tasted delicious, but is traditionally prepared with carrots. It was weird though, tasting an Indian dish made from non-traditional ingredients. There was also a chowmein noodle thrown in for good measure. it wasn’t too bad, but kinda felt like French fries at a Chinese buffet. It was all fairly generic.

The dosas were another story though. Hot off the pan, they were more soft than crispy, but the stuffing of masala potato was pretty amazing. The combination of the sambar and masala dosa was also pretty tasty. The most delectable part of the night was the potato fry. It was a bit greasy, but it was the perfect combination of sweet, salty, and spicy. It wasn’t as crispy as I would have liked it to be, but that’s just nitpicking.

Overall, I felt like this place doesn’t know what it wants to be. Part of me wants to break my own rule and revisit the restaurant to give it another chance (primarily cause a brown co-worker of mine loved it), but that remains to be seen. If you want another viewpoint, Foodosophy has a great review on Southern Spice that is also slightly mixed.

Richard’s Ruminations

For whatever reason, Indian food and buffets seem to be as common a pairing as wine and cheese, and Southern Spice is no exception.  However, their offering of freshly-made dosas as part of the buffet seemed to be a nice little addition that sets them apart from your everyday self-serve-curry line.

Unlike most Indian buffet places in Calgary, this place has a very sparse selection of non-vegetarian options – in this case, only fish or chicken curry, and they were all out of chicken.  I opted not to try the fish curry either as it had eggplant in it, which, unfortunately, I am allergic to (Hmm, I did not know that.  –Kiran)

One of the downsides of a buffet is that the food could have been sitting there for quite a while – and when we went, it sure seemed like that was the case.  This doesn’t matter for curries, really, but the pakoras were not very hot and were crunchy (instead of crispy) – kind of a shame, since they tasted pretty good and would likely have been pretty awesome hot out of the fryer.  Unlike Kiran, I thought the curry noodles was one of the better tasting dishes, despite being some kind of rip-off of Chinese cuisine   (It’s hakka…)

As for the dosas – the do have the huge-ass ones available, but not as part of the buffet – instead, the buffet dosas are the size of a side plate, and come out upon order from the kitchen.  Probably smart that they come out in that size, given that it’s all-you-can-eat!  I found the dosas to be kind of greasy, soft, and a little more sour than the ones at Dosa Corner – but the filling was still quite tasty.

South Indian food doesn’t rank among my favourite cuisines, so I didn’t eat until the point of gastro-intestinal rupture, but it still seemed like a reasonably valued buffet.

Ranking

	Richard	Kiran	Kent
Ambiance	4/6	4/6	N/A
Service	1.5/3	4/6	N/A
Plating	N/A	N/A	N/A
Taste	3/6	4/6	N/A
Authenticity	5/6	5/6	N/A
Value	4.5/6	5/6	N/A
Overall	18/27 = 66%	22/30 =73 %

 

Review of Sesame Sourdough Bread – Sidewalk Citizen Bakery

If you haven’t heard of the Sidewalk Citizen Bakery, then you must ask yourself, “Why not?” You clearly aren’t in touch with the local food scene if you didn’t know that Calgary has a baker who delivers freshly-baked bread every Tuesday…as long as you are downtown.

Aviv got his start in Nov 2008 baking ten loaves of bread every Monday, and then donating the proceeds from his sales to CODE. He eventually became so successful that he decided to become a full-time baker. According to his website, he only makes:

“A variety of naturally fermented sourdough and Levain breads baked with local, organic flours with no additives. The dough is shaped by hand and undergoes a long fermentation and retardation to ensure full-flavoured loaves that delight the eye.”

This week, Aviv baked a sesame seed sourdough bread, which immediately caught my attention as sesame is new “it” thing for me. I had so much sesame-infused Asian cuisine in NYC, I was shitting out sesame seeds.

Anyway, moving along, I picked up the bread at around 10 am and immediately opened up the packaging to find this gorgeous looking loaf inside.

I was too excited to wait until I got home, so I immediately ripped out a chunk to use as a side with my soup. You could definitely smell the sesame and pick out some of the seeds inside the bread. It tasted delicious.

For the more curious, the ingredients used to bake the bread were: organic, local unbleached flour (from Highwood Crossing Farm), organic whole-wheat flour (from Heritage Harvest Farm), organic sesame seeds, Brittany sea salt and water.

After getting home, I immediately raided my fridge to find a packet of sliced gruyere. My mouth started watering. For some reason, I felt the immense need to pair the two together to create a simple snack as shown below:

I don’t know what others would say about the pairing, but I thought it was delicious – the “earthy” flavours of sesame and gruyere complemented each other well. I also washed down this snack with additional liquid calories in the form of Sorachi Ace beer. Delicious.

So, this is how it works: say you are a busy professional (me) who doesn’t really have the time to go to artisanal bakeries and buy bread made from local, organic sources. This is clearly a #firstworldproblem, but it is indeed a problem nonetheless. What is one to do?

Fear not, all you have to do is go to sidewalkcitizen.com and sign up for the Tuesday bread delivery mailing list. When you get the email advertising that week’s creation, reply back saying you want a loaf and leave your phone #. Tuesday arrives, and you receive a call from a number you don’t recognize. Pick it up; don’t ignore it even if you are in a meeting as it will likely be Sidewalk Citizen delivery. Go down to your main lobby and pick up the bread for $6.

BAM! Just like that.

 

 

 

 

Review of Brooklyn Brewery’s “Sorachi Ace” Seasonal Beer

On our recent trip to NYC, Richard and I had the opportunity to visit Brooklyn’s own craft brewery for a quick tour. BB has been around since 1988 and is also, according the website, “among America’s top 40 breweries.”

The free brewery “tour” turned out to be more a show-and-tell. Turns out the real tour ($8) is on the weekends and includes a guided tasting of four different BB beers. Nevertheless, after the show-and-tell, we headed over to the adjacent hall to grab a couple of pints, where Richard’s fellow nerdist- partner-in-crime-and-our-host-in-NYC Matt decided to grab a bottle of BB’s seasonal beer called Sorachi Ace for later consumption. Matt, being the nice guy he is, gifted the bottle to Richard, who didn’t have any room in his luggage, so I ended up carrying it in my checked luggage.

Nothing brings me greater satisfaction than topping up all the calories I lost on an hour-long bike ride with this nutrient-rich elixir called beer. This being the last weekend of summer weather in Calgary, I decided to celebrate by opening up the bottle of Sorachi Ace that Matt gifted us.

And that’s why, you never let your good friend carry your beer for you. Cause I will drink it for you, biaaatch.

The first thing I noticed when I opened the bottle was the amazing bouquet of aromas. I didn’t even have to bring the bottle to my nose – that’s how subtle, yet powerful the citrus-y scents were. Apparently, Sorachi Ace is a strain of hops that was first developed by a large Japanese brewery in 1988 that was a cross between the “British Brewers Gold and the Czech Saaz varieties” and exhibited really citrus-y notes. The strain now is now quite rare and only grown by a single farm in Oregon. The other thing I noticed was the “bottle refermented ale” description on the label….more on that later.

Here is my breakdown on the beer:

Appearance: light golden color hue with slight cloudiness most probably due to the yeast added post-bottling. Also, no matter how carefully I poured the beer, the head was impossible to get rid off. I had to wait 5 min. for the head to subside and then top up my glass. Belgian lace present – that’s the Lace-like pattern of foam, from the head of the beer, left on the glass after each sip.

Aroma: citrus-y with slight hints of peach and mango.

Taste: slightly sweet, smooth. Slightly bitter finish. The taste stayed with you for a bit. Carbonation was present, but since the beer is naturally carbonated (via the bottle refermentation), it was pleasant and mellow, unlike the sharp, pungent feel of forced-carbonation beer. The mouthfeel was great with a nice silky finish. A very nice, refreshing summer drink.

Palate: my palate isn’t very well-developed, so I have nothing really to add. I can’t taste things like grass, honey-dew, cilantro or other kinds of crazy shit the real pros taste. I think they make that shit up anyway…

Now onto the more technical stuff. As I mentioned earlier, this beer is bottle refermented, which essentially means additional yeast and sugar are added to the bottle prior to corking. This means that yeast is still fermenting the sugars and generating additional CO2 and ethanol. Bottle refermented beers, hence, do not have to force-carbonated, and thus, lack the sharp taste commodity beers have. Natural carbonation produces a more elegant, delicate mouthfeel that does not taste as harsh. Bottle conditioning also removes any oxygen from the bottle, hence prolonging the shelf life of beer.

Summary: refreshing summer drink that will leave you wanting more. Does a great job balancing all the flavours so no one particular component over powers the others. Natural carbonation and the 9.7% alc. content only add to the enjoyment. However, like all bourbon, it smells waaaay better than it tastes!

Random Finds – KeepRecipes.com

Save recipes from your favorite websites, family recipes, and other sources all on one website. It is like evernote.com, but more catered towards food creators. An iPhone/Touch app is currently not available, but is in the works. Which should make recipe viewing a lot easier than hauling the computer around.

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