Longshots November 30th

I've heard rumblings on twitter and from word of mouth that there was a place in town that served Poutine Wings.. Yes, gravy, cheese, and fried chicken wings. This place is Longshots. This is the reason behind my adventure. I must try these wings.

If you haven't been to Longshots before it's across the street from the Bridgeport Inn down town, close to Mrs. B's (I'll do a review of that place sometime I'm sure). This place is a sports bar, and it's a Rough Rider fan's place to be come game time..

I've been to this pub many times, and every single time I have had great service. The staff is friendly, sociable and make you feel like this is a place where your business is wanted and appreciated. A few weeks back we had a tweetup at this pub, they reserved a section for us and we had a great time. Well, I had a great time. I got extremely intoxicated and danced. There's video somewhere online of this.

But this post is not about me tapping my toes while intoxicated. It's about food!
So I ordered the Poutine Wings and since I didn't feel right rating just wings I also ordered a clubhouse with a Potato and Bacon cream soup.

Okay, the waitress wouldn't say that these taste good, only that they were different. This is the best way to describe it. Gravy? Good! Cheese? Yes Please!! Wings? Yep! Gravy, cheese and wings? NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO. It doesn't work. I applaud the attempt of thinking outside the box but it should be put back in the box, sealed, and stored away in a terrible memory. I talked to Nolan afterwards (we are all on a first name basis or nickname on this blog now keep up) and he said the Salt and Pepper is the way to go or their Rough Riders wings which are concocted with some sort of hot sauce I am going to assume is green.

The clubhouse was good.. I talked to Alex and David about this. It's rare you'll find an amazing clubhouse (I DID AT TABLE 63!!) It's either good or processed. This was good. It filled the right spot and I would order it again for the sake of knowing I'm getting something that isn't terrible. Now the highlight of the night was the soup. Cream of Potato and Bacon. This was the best thing I ate tonight. It filled the void I had from working in the cold today and it really warmed me up. There's something nostalgic about a cream based soup, especially in winter time.

Longshots is a great pub, I would honestly say for the atmosphere, food, and general good times this is one of the better spots to go for a bite to eat and a pint of your favourite Ale (bud light here, so if you see me you already know what I like to drink and yes I'll have one. Thanks for offering.)

I like the idea of going outside of the standard presentations of chicken wings but Poutine Wings fell flat, the clubhouse wasn't processed so it was good but not amazing and the potato and bacon soup was the highlight.

Sidenote: While most places in town celebrate wing Wednesday Longshots doesn't. They use Sunday as that special day of fried goodness. Also before Longshots came to be the location housed a steak house that was named Cedars.

Table 63 - November 24

For lunch today I went to Table 63 which is located at the Quality Hotel. Now I've been in Fort McMurray for a while now and I've been to this restaurant when it was a different name, and when it was a changed name. It always looked the same, but had the same poor food. I was hoping to see some sort of improvement and I was blown away. They have transformed the restaurant with a whole new renovation. It looks classy, it's open, sophisticated and a real attempt to bring some class to the hotel. I must say that an issue I had when I first went is I wasn't sure if I was to wait to be seated or to just seat myself. What I did after waiting at the front was I stood at a table until she said I could sit there.

They have a lunch buffet on I think every week day but I decided against it. I would also like to mention that the buffet they do have there is much smaller than the saw ridge's but I cannot tell you what was served or how it tasted. What I can tell you is they removed the bathrooms and opened up that area and the whole restaurant looks amazing.

I decided for something simple. Clubhouse on whole wheat with a poutine.

The fries are dipped in beer batter and are absolutely amazing. The clubhouse has to be one of the best I've ever had in my lifetime of clubhouses. I cannot explain to you in every precise detail how much I loved this sandwich fry combination. I was in food heaven. I've had clubhouses that have been horrible and fries that you need to drown in ketchup to get through but this here, this was enjoyable from the beginning to the end. My bill was over 20 dollars. I know that the sandwich with fries was supposed to be about 13 dollars but I think they charged me for a poutine and then a pop which seems kinda odd.. it should have been an extra dollar or two at the most on the sandwich but it wasn't.

It was still worth it though. This is the first meal I've had since I started this blog that I can sit here and fully say I loved it. I loved the restaurant, the food, the atmosphere, everything.  Go check out Table 63, try the fries and eat the clubhouse, I promise you that you'll love it. If you don't you're no friend of mine mister.

Side note: I used to work at the Quality when it was called the Mackenzie Park Inn. I was a front desk supervisor and I was totally awesome. 

Wok Box - November 23rd and delivery from Boston Pizza Timberlea

Today for lunch I went down to the Wok Box. In case you're not aware of the location it is down in the business corner like across the street from Keyano. It's also right beside Adult Source Video (where I worked for a couple of days a long long time ago). When I walked in I saw a poster they have pushing some new food to try. The poster was colorful, and eye catching so I decided to try the Firecracker Stirfry.

(picture taken from http://www.wokbox.ca)

I have to tell you, I've had okay food from Wok Box (butter chicken), I've had great food at Wok Box (mongolian beef) and now I can say I've had horrible food (firecracker stirfry).

The sauce is very spicy, hence the term firecracker and it's something I did enjoy out of it. It has pieces of bacon (poorly cooked and not really appealing) and chinese sausage (quite tasteless). The issue I have with this meal was the green stuff in it. I don't know if that's kim chee. Is it? If that's not Kim Chee then  I am going to classify as seaweed (it tasted salt watery and disgusting). There was something else in my meal that Sean said was Kim Chee and it was cold and horrible to have in a mouthful of hot spicy noodles.

I ate less than half my meal and when we were driving up to work we went to the McDonald's drive through and I had a quarter pounder with cheese and bacon and nothing else on it and I want to tell you I don't know if it was because of my previous poor food choice but that hamburger was simply amazing. AMAZING!

I am on the fence with the wok box. I appreciate what they are trying to do with their menu, it's broad in it's options which can be a good thing but I've found it more often than not missing the ideal mark. If the food you are looking for is authentic then you came to the wrong place. If you want something that's a knock off, then this is up your ally. If you've only experienced butter chicken from wok box you honestly have no idea how amazing it is and what you really are missing.

Now tonight we ordered Boston Pizza for supper.

I'm not going to get into what the food tasted like (it was okay, never amazing, but serviceable). What I want to talk about is how they have a hard time getting the order right. After Megan read back the order to me and I confirmed it with her she still punched it in as 1 chicken fingers when 2 orders was placed, also I ordered a salad to go with my hamburger and it came with just the burger. No fries, salad, no note telling me to go fuck myself. NOTHING. Also, the delivery was about an hour. I've had worst times but it seems the bare minimum for delivery is an hour.

Unfortunately when it comes to delivery there aren't as many options as there is to eat out. I didn't want to dedicate a full blog to delivery food but I mean it's not always bad to get food delivered. While waiting I watched hockey, ran on the treadmill, and talked about sports and music with my good friend Steve. 

If you want to try the Wok Box, I'm not saying don't try it, just please avoid the Firecracker Stirfry and the butter chicken and if you're doing the delivery route with Boston Pizza read back the order, ensure it's right and be prepared to be waiting for at least an hour.

Side note: The location that is the Wok Box used to be 2 different bars, one of which hosted open mic nights about 10 years ago. Does anyone remember the names of those bars? 

Frontier Dining - November 16th

I get an hour long lunch break. Now I know some of you are dying to have an hour long lunch break, or some already have them and like them. Me personally? I hate them. If I bring a lunch, I am done eating within 20 minutes and then I have 40 minutes to kill. My work place doesn't have a lunch room or anywhere to really go and relax. So I have to go out for lunches.

Today I went to: Frontier Dining!

Yes, this is the place that is a "steakhouse with Chinese cuisine" They seriously need a different name, different place mats, different decor. If one restaurant was able to get a restaurant makeover I would submit Frontier Dining.

I ordered a small Wor Won ton. Now even though it the title has small in it, it's a meal:

Besides the typical won tons, you get pork, chicken, shrimp bokchoy, some noodle things and a whole lot of flavor. Heres a great idea: Get some hot sauce to go with it. It will blow your mind. I absolutely LOVE this wonton. I will admit I am not a connoisseur when it comes to won tons, but I know what I like and I like this.

The soup and a glass of pop was like $16.00 which isn't on the cheap end of lunch but I mean you go get a sandwich somewhere else it'll cost you like 10 bucks. This soup really hits the spot on a cold day. I cannot recommend it enough.

The service was good, they don't seem to be pushy but they also never come by to check if everything's okay with the food or if you need another drink. Which could be a good thing seeing how so it's not free refills on the pop.

So while the decor is to be desired, the name of the place should be changed, and the service while adequate could be more conscientious of the patrons, the wor won ton soup is worth it all.

Sidenote: Frontier Dining was one of the very last restaurants to give into the no smoking policy. Want to know other ones? OJ's and Dairy Queen. Yeah, Dairy Queen.

Moxies - November 10th

I got off of work and it was decided my friends and I wanted to go out, have a meal, and get drunk.
This is what we did.
The place that we went to was Moxies. In case you haven't gone down to Moxies since they have done their renovations I recommend you do. The atmosphere in the lounge area is great, the lighting is great, the seating makes sense, it just works.
Our server was Jasmine, and she was super nice, pretty quick with our drinks and just someone who looked after us fairly well.
David went with his usual chicken tenders and beef vindaloo, Al went with chicken fingers and fries, Bill did fish and chips, Spank had the beef dip, and Rojo had dry ribs. Now before I get into my meal I just want to say that spank gave his beef dip a 4 spanks out of 10. And Rojo said that the dry ribs while had a lot of meat on them weren't salted enough for him.
Moxies has a holiday feature menu that ends in late December so I decided to try a starter from that. I got the Lettuce Wraps:

As Spank pointed out, it looked like I was given a head of lettuce. Now I've never had a lettuce wrap before but I was really looking forward to trying something new. The chicken and noodles were spicy and had a lot of flavour which was great to see. The only issue I have with this starter is that it's extremely messy. I ended up having the sauce spill out of my wrap, over my hands and the table. I know, classy right? I asked for some moist towelettes and Jasmine was great and hooked me up with 4! 

For my starter I went with something I normally wouldn't order. I got the Citrus Chicken Salad:

the salad had a lot of flavour to it, but it could have used more avocado. The avocado that was in the salad was extremely mushy and it didn't look too appealing. So to sum up the avocado situation: I wanted more but it was mushy and unappealing. The greens seemed fresh, I didn't see any bad pieces that I seem to have a tendency of finding, and the tomato was a nice touch. I did have a problem with the chicken though. It lacked flavour. They nailed it with the chicken in the lettuce wraps and then came up short with the salad.

Would I recommend Moxies? Absolutely. Great renovation makes it feel more updated, casual, and an excellent atmosphere. Mix that in with good service and why wouldn't you want to come here? Would I recommend the food I had? I recommend the lettuce wraps, I do not recommend the salad. I've had great food from Moxies in the past but while doing this blog I'm trying to step out of my comfort zone and try new food and perhaps come across something great (lettuce wraps). To find something new and exciting it is certainly worth trying something different.

A note about Moxies: They are one of the few restaurants that do not post their food content (calories, sodium, etc) If you search around on the internet there are people who have tried to get nutritional information about their food and they refused to do it. This is one of the reasons why I try to stay clear of Moxies, it's great food but sometimes I like to know what I'm eating.

Be well, and eat even better.

November 09 2011 - Alexander's

With news that there was an accident on the NB bridge after I got off work I decided it'd be best to hit up my friend Sean to see if he wanted to meet downtown for supper and to wait out the traffic. Not only was he game but he even offered to pay. What a guy! He suggested Alexander's and I decided that since he was paying he should have the say.

Now if you've never been to Alexander's let me give you a heads up as to the location of the pub. It's at the Merrit hotel kitty corner from Keyano College. The parking isn't that great, but honestly, it's Fort McMurray, tell me where there's great parking. Please. The decor seems to be a toss up between a sports bar (various tv's hanging everywhere) and a lounge, low lighting, an area for open mic night. I honestly think the idea behind Alexander's is trying to get anybody in, doesn't matter what kind of crowd, as long as they come in.

Our waitress was great, we got our beer and we ordered soup for starters. I must say, the Clam Chowder was pretty great. I don't have a whole lot to compare it too because I've never tried it before but I really did enjoy this bowl of chowder. I ordered the blackened chicken melt as my meal and it seemed like it was an attempt at chicken in a grilled cheese situation. The toast was soggy from the butter and it wasn't appealing to eat. The flavors were fine, you can't screw up chicken and melted cheese too badly. I just think that the sandwich presented to me could have been executed in a better fashion. No one likes soggy toast, unless you're putting it in tea.

Also worth noting, we had no silverwear and when our food was brought to us the guy asked, "Oh is there something wrong?" and I said, "Could I get silverware please?" His response as he went to go get me my silverware: "Silverware, now that's a novel idea" What do I do to respond to this?

To sum it up, Alexander's wasn't horrible, it wasn't great. Service was good to great, food was poor to great. Would I recommend it? Not really. Would I ever go back? Yeah I would there are only so many options in town and there are certainly worse places out there.

Side note: I'm trying to figure out how to add my sarcasm, humor, and attitude into a blog. It'll get better. I promise.