Holiday quickies
Posted by John Manzo on December 26, 2007
Brian and I took the heathen’s route and ate Chinese yesterday (Christmas). We had dim sum at a place called Happy Hill (806 Centre St N- this is the cusp of an area I’d like to call “Chinatown North,” which would encompass everything from the bridge north to around 20th Ave), and it was okay. Not the best we’ve had but far from the worst. Best was probably the prawn and watercress har gow, with lots of fat shrimps and plenty of green stuff too. Other items are better elsewhere; we had chicken mushroom congee and it had none of the depth of flavour of congee at places like Calgary Court and Sun Chiu Kee (same owners); I’ve also had more rich-tasting congee at Double Happiness in Centre City “mall” (home of Han’s, also on my faves list). In fact, the congee at Wrapture, while not on the menu every day, is pretty damn good also, especially for a place that’s not remotely Chinese. Incidentally I know I’m not putting links in here, but most of these places don’t have websites. Google for info or click on the “places I like” tab and see if I have it there.
Today, I just had lunch at a new place called “Shawarma Knight” (1512 14th St SW- next to Vogglio d’Pizza) that does a very good donair. I had eschewed these for years, preferring the non-ground purity of “shawarma” instead, but my recent trip to Germany made me fall in love with the donair, even if the Turkish by way of Berlin “Doner Kebab” is nothing like what you get in North America. Here’s a photo of the biggest one I consumed over there, in Koeln:
By comparison, ones here are made with pita bread, have meat that isn’t as finely shaved, and have rather different sauces and veggie toppings. The one I got today was with garlic, hot, and “sweet” sauce which is some concoction of canned milk, sugar and vinegar- yes, it sounds vile, but I gave in and tried it a few weeks ago, and dammit, this stuff works. I’ll do a photo essay on the Calgary donair scene sometime, promise.
These quickies aren’t that quick, are they? QUICKLY: I finished the last book of the His Dark Materials trilogy last night at around 2AM so I am now obliged to see The Golden Compass, and am anticipating heartbreaking disappointment, because these books are much, MUCH denser than the Harry Potter series and they deserve three films of their own, if not more. I saw the first few minutes of TGC online (never mind how!), and if the opening scene is this f’ed up, I’m not really looking forward to this. But I have to see it. I just found out that I have a daemon named Olyandria, she’s a raccoon apparently, and so we’ll be heading to the cinema this afternoon.
And on that note I gotta run.
