Sunday, July 21, 2019

2 Meh Meals in Saskatoon, and 1 Great One

Last weekend we were in Saskatoon to see my mom.  For dinner on Friday evening we tried a new-to-us restaurant, Primal Pasta.  We were pretty excited to go to this place, as they make all the pasta in-house, and had good reviews.  Unfortunately, we were disappointed in our meal.

To start we had the caponata with buffalo mozzarella and bread:


It was decent, although for the price, we expected more (both in amount of mozzarella, and quality of the dish).  The bread was soft, and pretty good.

I ordered the rigatoni with goat cheese, mushrooms, tomatoes, greens and truffle oil:


And Christopher had the squid ink puttanesca conchiglie bottarga, with olives and capers:


Mine was alright, but not worth the price, as we could easily make this dish at home for a couple of dollars; it was was very basic.  Christopher's pasta was really under cooked; the shells were crunchy!  He is a puttanesca lover, but this one just didn't cut it.  We would have mentioned something to the server if it wasn't 20 minutes before closing time.  Since it was late and we were tired, we just ate quickly so we could get to our hotel to sleep.

Next time we want fresh pasta in Saskatoon, we'll go back to Little Grouse on the Prairie.

Unfortunately we had another mediocre meal the next morning, this time at Park Cafe.  It's hard to screw up an omelette and hashbrowns, but this place just doesn't have it down yet ...


The eggs were super dry, and the potatoes were bland.

The next day we had an excellent meal though!  We picked up a pizza from a newer place called Thirteen Pies.  My brother-in-law Riley recommended this restaurant to us.  The pizza is made with a sourdough crust - mmm!


We went inside to order the pizza to-go, and then sat and enjoyed a beverage while waiting for it.  The service was wonderful, and when the pizza came out it smelled amazing!  We couldn't wait to get it back to our hotel room to dig in.

If the pizzas have the same base (tomato sauce, or white sauce), you can get 1/2 and 1/2 to try two kinds.  We had The Killer Cheese (fior de latte, mozza, provolone, truffle honey, leeks, white sauce), and The White Walker (roasted mushrooms, provolone, mozzerela, ricotta, white sauce, truffle oil), and we couldn't pick a favourite of the two.  Both were fantastic!  It's Brooklyn-style pizza, but I think it is better than any pizza I've ever had in Brooklyn.

The sourdough crust was excellent.  We're looking forward to going back to Thirteen Pies many, many more times in the future.

The photo isn't great as it was dark, but the pizza is well worth a visit.


Our server at Thirteen Pies was surprised that we had a bad meal at Primal Pasta, and he encouraged us to give it another try sometime, so we might head back to Primal Pasta to see if they can impress us on a second visit.

Have you tried any new restaurants lately?  
Where is the best pizza in your city?

1 comment:

Lisa from Lisa's Yarns said...

Bummer about the 2 meh meals but that pizza sounded awesome! I tried a new Southeastern Asia spot last Sunday and while it was good, I didn't love it as much as the owner's other place, Hola Arepa. But it was fun to try a new place. My book club went to a super popular pizza place called Pizzeria Lola last week. The owner won a James Beard award this year. She has 3 pizza-centered restaurants, although one of the places has a more expanded menu. And she's opening a Mexican restaurant this fall. I can't wait to go there when it opens as I know they are going to make their own corn tortillas. I also tried another new tapas restaurant called Colita which was AMAZING. The entire place is GF. It was awesome to order anything I wanted. I would go back there in a heart beat.

There are so many competing views on the best pizza in Minneapolis but I think Pizzeria Lola is probably the best. They definitely have the best GF pizza out of all the places I've been!!