[Hidden Gems] Vendome Cafe: Not Your Average Hipster Breakfast

Summary: Situated in the historic Vendome Block in Sunnyside, this deceptively spacious cafe is a visual feast on the inside and the outside. Oh, and the food is fucking delicious too.

The past two months have been a process of “discovering” some of the best hidden gems Calgary has to offer. Whilst Vendome might not necessarily be unknown, it is definitely “hidden.” For one, when I showed up at 10 am to meet Shane and his soon bride-to-be, Tara, there was hardly a line-up. We were through ordering our food within 7 min. of getting there and were seated within 10 min. This was refreshing compared to the epic wait times one experiences at the more well-known joints in Bridgeland like OEB, Blue Star, or Diner Deluxe that are over-crowded with dirty hipsters. It could also be that we went on the May-long weekend, but I am choosing to believe otherwise.

Walking in, you are immediately greeted with a long spacious hallway that serves as the kitchen and the ordering area. There’s also tons of space to line up so you aren’t standing out in the cold if it is a busy weekend. The large blackboard is neatly broken down into four different categories depending on the mood you are in. You pay for your food right after ordering, which is brilliant, cause then you aren’t stuck in another line after your meal or waiting for your extremely busy server to take payment.

The exterior of the building was restored to its historic appearance in 1989 and I loved the contrast between the old and the new. It is also much more spacious than it looks from outside. There wasn’t a table for 4 in the main hallway, but there was plenty of room around the corner with a table for 4 just waiting for us. This section of the cafe was even cooler as it had the look and feel of a contemporary modern art gallery with large mirrors and paintings on the white facade. There was also plenty of natural light let in by the large windows that further enhanced the bright and airy feel of the place. I later found out that Teatro and Vendome have the same management and that this wing was added at a later stage – which helps explain the “contemporary” feel to this side of the cafe.

I ordered the vegetarian eggs benny which came on a toasted ciabatta (or sourdough, I can’t remember) bun with olives, red peppers, zucchini, and tomatoes, served with a side of home-style potatoes. The presentation was absolutely gorgeous, and if we still had the “Plating” category, this would have gotten 4.5/5.

I also ordered an additional side of toast that came with mango chutney:

Shane ordered the gorgeous-looking French toast with caramelized bananas and cream:

And Tara ordered eggs sunny side up:

To say that I was blown away with the first bite I took would be an understatement. The combination of the roasted veggies with the hollandaise sauce and eggs was mind-blowing. I love it when all the flavours come together in your mouth to create this indescribable (for me anyways) cornucopia of tastes and flavours. Amazing. The hollandaise sauce was light and airy, but I could have used a bit more tang: it wasn’t necessarily as memorable on its own. The home-style fries, however, didn’t deliver the same impact as the main dish. While not bad, there was nothing really memorable about them that stuck in my head.

The side of toast with mango chutney was interesting. It was sweet yet tangy and reminded of mango nectar boiled down to a thicker consistency. I didn’t ask Shane and Tara to type up what they thought of their food, but I am pretty sure they enjoyed their food just as much as I did.

Summary

I had a great time at Vendome. Of all the breakfast/brunch places I have checked out, this my favourite of them all. You can’t beat/find ambiance like this elsewhere in Calgary and the combination of delicious food and quick service put it ahead of the rest of the pack. A definite MUST try!

Ranking

	Kiran
Ambiance	5/5
Service	4.5/5
Taste	4/5
Originality	4.5/5
Value	4/5
Overall	22/25 = 88%

Mighty Fine Breakfast @MightySkillet

Summary: a solid breakfast that will refuel your soft, puny body after a night of hard partying in your friends’ mom’s basement

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Now that we are bonafide ballers after 5 years of working as engineers, we at TSD like to refuel our bodies with a solid brekky after a hard night of partying it up in Richard’s mom’s basement.  This week I felt like checking out @MightySkillet, as it was a gorgeous Sunday morning and they were parked right at Central Memorial Park.

I ordered the vegetarian version of their Eggs Benny for $8, whereas Richard and Kent ordered the Corned Beef Kraven and a Fistfulla Benny, respectively. While waiting for our orders, we started shooting the shit with the owners/chefs. Turns out they were line cooks at a bar/restaurant in the neighbourhood. The owner of that restaurant approached them to start a food truck but they didn’t like the deal he offered, so the guys at Mighty Skillet decided to strike out on their own. The rest as they say, is history.

Kiran’s Few Words

The interesting and most obvious thing about Mighty Skillet is the size of their truck. I think this has got to be the tiniest food truck I have seen to date…I guess these guys have nothing to prove. Haha. Jokes aside though, like all other food truck owners, they were amazed at how quickly and easily they were able to receive their permits from the City.

Another cool about the Skillet is that they make their own hot sauce. Any place that makes their own hot sauce gets instant respect in my eyes. The hot sauce went especially well with the eggs benny and the hollandaise sauce. It was hot but not too spicy and it punched up the flavours quite a bit. The eggs were poached perfectly and quite well. The hollandaise sauce was light and airy, and the fact that it came out of a truck is a testament to these guys’ skills.

The only complaint I have is that the eggs benny came on a “bed” of hash browns, which didn’t look much like hash browns. At first, I was a bit confused about what I was eating since it looked like steak. But turned out it was the hash browns and they were chewy and rubber-y. It was still palatable, but definitely not the hash browns I was hoping for. Elsie Hui posted something similar to that effect on her own blog as well.

Richard’s Ruminations

It was a nice sunny spring morning in Central Memorial park, when all of a sudden – FUCKING THOR’S HAMMER DROPPED FROM THE SKY IN FOOD TRUCK FORM.  If you weren’t ready to rock out to heavy metal and crush 3 lbs of bacon while watching the Avengers, you would be after seeing this truck.  Actually, when we were there, the tunes they were playing were more along the lines of Best Coast and Arcade Fire, but you get the drift.  In any case, it’s a sweet looking truck, and their superhero spatulas and arms-off coveralls help round out their look (the resemblance to Holy Smoke’s uniform is pure coincidence).

These guys apparently just dropped their jobs to start up this food truck – in November.  Gutsy time of year to start up an outdoor food service in Calgary, I’d say – but it seems to have paid off, as their hard work has apparently earned them a coveted spot with two other lucky trucks right in the heart of the stampede grounds during this year’s Stampede – keep an eye out for them!

I ordered the corned beef and hash browns, which happened to include other niceties like fried eggs and fresh tomatoes.  It was a pretty solid dish – the eggs were really nicely done and the tomatoes were deliciously juicy – but the medium-cut corned beef was just alright.  The hash browns, as Kiran mentioned, were curiously dark and certainly didn’t look much like hash browns, the potato type OR the McDonalds type.  I thought they were quite nicely seasoned, but people who like a potatoey flavour in their potatoes might find them lacking.

Sadly, they didn’t offer coffee when we were there – apparently they used to have their own blend of coffee but apparently the coffee machine drew too much power for their tiny truck to handle.  Hopefully they get that worked out in the future!  In any case, their drinks were surprisingly affordably priced at $1 for a juice – not too common these days!  The meals themselves weren’t super-cheap, but the numbers seemed typical for “food truck pricing.”

Kent’s 2 Cents

You can trade a fistfulla dollars for a fistfulla benny. What’s not to like.

Final Thoughts

In YYC’s burgeoning food truck boom, the Mighty Skillet flexes its mighty skills in breakfast-making to make its mark on the city. 

-Kiran

Review of Jacqueline Suzanne’s Weekend Brunch

Summary: a mediocre brunch experience that left me wanting for more.

I love Inglewood, especially all the boutique restaurants, art galleries, and stores that have opened up in that area of the last 2-3 years. I always knew Inglewood was cool, but it wasn’t until my field assignment – where I would rotate in and out of Calgary on a two on, two off basis – that I truly got to explore one of our oldest neighbourhoods. Having finally gotten the chance to explore that community in greater depth, I “discovered” all the cool restaurants like Nectar (now Without Papers), Sugo, Bite Groceteria, and of course, the subject of the current blog post, Jacqueline Suzanne’s.

I had managed to secure a brunch-for-two groupon a couple of months ago, so figured a lazy Saturday morning after the company Christmas party would be a great time to check out Jacqueline Suzanne’s brunch offerings. The usual deal is a three course brunch for $25 that you can get anytime, but in this case, the offer was $25 brunch for two people.

JS is a bistro, but the ambiance inside is quite different from all the bistros I have been to in my life. Most bistros have a light and airy feel, with plenty of windows to let natural light in. However, JS was quite dark; the interior is perhaps more suited to a romantic evening dinner than a weekend brunch. It was a cloudy but bright day outside, so the contrast was even more jarring. Honestly, I personally felt that I had inadvertently walked into a gypsy fortune teller’s lair. My gf better described it as “charmingly antiquated”…

Nevertheless, we were here for the food, not the ambiance. Although we didn’t have any reservations, we were seated pretty quickly and without much fuss. As we had a groupon, we had to choose from a pre-set three course breakfast menu. M. and I got the “Breakfast Martini” for our first “course”, which ended up being a delicious choice. I am a big fan of boozy starts to the day…something I picked up in NYC this year where bottomless mimosas seem to be de rigeur during weekend brunch.

We then headed straight to the main course, which consisted of typical fair such as eggs benny, crepes and/or French toast. Our server seemed pretty new/inexperienced, so he had a hard time time with the menu – he either didn’t know or wasn’t sure about what was in the dishes. We just ended up ordering the vegetarian eggs benedict with hash-browns on the side. Our plates came out without much delay and looked pretty tantalizing. I have never eaten eggs benny before, esp with Hollandaise sauce, so I was looking forward to it.

The dish was adequately plated. It also tasted quite adequate; to be honest, I don’t remember much about it. It came with a slice of watermelon, which in retrospect, was out of place and AND season. All in all, it was tasty, but nothing overtly memorable.

At about this time, the place began started filling up rapidly, and subsequently, the service level started dropping rapidly. After what seemed like an inordinate amount of time, I finally managed to wave down our server to ask about their dessert offerings. M. got crème brulee and whereas I went with a chocolate cheesecake. Unfortunately, I forgot to take photos in my excitement as this was probably the best tasting part of the meal. It was positively heavenly. I had a taste of M’s brulee: silky, smooth, and just the right amount of sweetness. The cheesecake was also pretty delicious, but once again, unmemorable.  

At right about this time, we made the executive decision to pay our bill and get the hell out as we didn’t want to get stuck at brunch rush. I had to pay $10 for both our coffees in addition to the groupon – I guess that’s pretty standard nowadays for unlimited refills. It just hurts when it’s mediocre coffee.

Summary

I had been meaning to check out JS for a long time but was left a bit disappointed. I had had high hopes for this place but was left unsatisfied, especially with the food. It was a pretty great deal IF you had a groupon, but otherwise, $50 for brunch for two is a bit pricey in my opinion. To be fair, the ambiance and decor is a personal preference, so you can’t really fault them for that. F-log-for-thought, for instance, really seemed to have enjoyed and appreciated the space as well as the food. Anh Chu, over at icameforthefood.com seemed to have similar thoughts as myself regarding the food, although she was more apologetic in her tone for having knocked on a local, independent restaurant. Vincci over at Ceci nést pas un food blog has much better photos than my shitty smartphone ones and a much more intelligent critique of the eggs benny. At the end of the day though, the proof is in the pudding, and in this case, the pudding was only mediocre at best…

The only caveat is that my opinion is relegated to the brunch menu – the lunch and dinner offerings could be much better, but based on other bloggers’ reviews, I wouldn’t expect anything drastically different from what’s been said before. However, I don’t really plan on visiting this place again, so if you have eaten there for lunch or dinner, feel free to comment below!

Ranking

	Kiran
Ambiance	3/6
Service	4/6
Plating	3.5/6
Taste	4/6
Originality	4/6
Value	3.5/6
Overall	22.5/36 = 61%