Moose Jaw

On Saturday we had a lovely late afternoon/evening in Moose Jaw.  Christopher had bought me an evening in the spa, with a massage, for one of my Christmas gifts.  It also included a three course dinner and breakfast the next morning. 

We arrived in Moose Jaw around 3:30 p.m. on Saturday (after leaving Saskatoon) and we were hunnnnngry!  We wanted to eat a late dinner, so we roamed around main street looking to have a snack.  We stopped at Corner Stone Bar & Grill, but just had a drink and then headed to Deja Vu Cafe. 

This place was featured on You Gotta Eat Here.  We shared fried pickles, fries and gravy, and a small order of chicken fingers:

The food was pretty good!  Unfortunately we weren't big fans of the Temple Gardens Mineral Spa in Moose Jaw.  We thought the hotel was rundown and dumpy.  The massage was great though!

We had dinner around 9:00 at Harwood's in the spa/hotel.

The lighting wasn't great, but I snapped a few pictures of the food anyway.  They brought out bread to start ... I had ordered the bruschetta as an appetizer before I knew they'd be bringing bread.

For our main courses, I had rack of lamb, and Christopher had ribs.

We were too full for dessert, so the server packed it up to go.  We then forgot it in our hotel room fridge when we left the next day :-(  When the server saw me taking pictures of the food, she insisted on snapping a few pictures with us in them as well.  We had fun, and ended up with some silly pictures, as well as some nice ones:

The next morning we dined at Harwood's again.  We shared a fruit plate and a breakfast sandwich.

Have you been to the Moose Jaw spa?  What did you think?  

If you aren't from around here, have you even heard of the city of Moose Jaw?

Ukrainian, Thai, Thai, and Korean

Recently our eats have been fantastic.  We've had Ukrainian food:

A giant homemade perogy with homemade cabbage rolls, loaded!

We had Thai food twice, with fresh rolls, a noodle dish and a veggie dish the first time (Viet Thai):

And a super roll (fresh roll stuffed with a spring roll), naam sot, and roummit the second time (Keo's Kitchen):

Then came the Korean food (Seoul): 

How was your weekend?  

Did you eat anything memorable over the weekend?

Goodbye Grandma

On Tuesday after work I found out that my grandma (mom's mom) passed away earlier that day.  She was nearly 90 years old, still sharp as a 30 year old, emailing, keeping up with popular culture, etc.. It was amazing visiting with her, because she never seemed like she was old.  I have so many memories of my grandma, including staying with her in the summer for a week visit, and going bowling with her.  My grandma was an incredible cook, and my strongest memory is of making potato soup with her.  We would pick the parsley from the garden and dry it before going on to use it in the soup.  My grandma was Ukrainian, and her perogies were dynamite.   Another fascinating thing about my grandma, is that her mother only died less than 4 years ago!  Talk about good genes!

This is a 4 generation picture (my mom couldn't be there, otherwise we could have taken a 5 generation shot) of my great-grandma on her 101st birthday (left), my sister and nephew, and my grandma (right).

She will be greatly missed.

I love you grandma.

Sunday Stuff

After eating the seafood feast on new years eve, I wasn't feeling well.  I got a fever, was exhausted, and had severe hunger pangs, but no desire to eat.  It was awful.  I don't know if it was a food aversion, something that just didn't agree with me, or an actual flu.  This happened earlier in December as well, so I'm beginning to wonder.  Anyway, I'm just starting to get better and finally cooked something decent today.  No more rich or restaurant foods for us for a few days, but home-cooked meals are allowed.

Today I made Julia Child's boeuf bourguignon.  We enjoyed it over boiled new potatoes.

Something else that happened today ... we booked a pretty luxurious trip to Mexico for this spring.  We'll be staying at the Now Amber resort in Puerto Vallarta - it looks pretty spectacular, and we're excited!!  With it being absolutely frigid today, we're looking forward to some tropical heat!

Speaking of the tropics, we plan to retire somewhere tropical (many years from now), and Christopher says we'll be golfing multiple times per week.  In order to prepare for this, I need to improve my game ... which is pretty much non existent at the moment.  We've been hitting the indoor golf place in order for me to learn.

I'm looking forward to trying out a real course this summer, or perhaps before in Mexico, as our trip includes the green fees/cart for one round per day!

In other news, I'm back to work tomorrow after two weeks of holidays.  Can you believe it's 2014!?

How was your weekend?

Trip to Saskatoon

The weekend following Christmas, we drove to Saskatoon to visit family and spend a couple nights in the Radisson downtown.  We were pleasantly surprised to see that a very kind soul had upgraded us to a pretty spectacular room:

We visited my mom Friday evening and were very hungry after, but it was late, and not much was open.  We got some Thai takeout and ate at the table in the hotel room.  

The next morning we didn't make it down to the hotel restaurant (Aroma) for breakfast, so instead ordered off of their lunch menu.  It was hard to choose what to order, as everything looked good, but I had the spaghetti with meatballs.

Christopher had a lobster grilled cheese with beet salad.  We were VERY impressed with this meal, and would order both dishes again.  I loved that the spaghetti sauce had a touch of cream or something in it, that just took it to the next level. 

We had dinner at my aunt and uncle's house, where we enjoyed hot turkey sandwiches (my favourite), and a great visit.  My aunt makes the best gravy, and she explained her method to me.  I'll try it out next time I make a turkey.

Late on Saturday evening we had a few snacks off of Aroma's late night menu.  We tried the potato and pork belly skins, and the organic beef tenderloin carpaccio.  Both were fabulous!

Before visiting my mom on Sunday morning, we ate a 3rd meal at Aroma, because we were just so impressed with the service and high quality of their food.

We had a nice visit, and then stopped for fancy coffees before making the drive back home.

When you stay in a hotel, do you usually eat there too? 

(We don't usually, except maybe for breakfast, but the food in this hotel is too good not to!)

Five on Friday

1)  I'm not one to buy products from home based parties ... in fact, I don't even attend these parties;  however, occasionally I'll happen upon a product from one of these companies that I end up really liking.  Christopher often delivers to the same homes or business quite regularly, and one kind woman gives him Epicure products every Christmas.  One thing he received this year was this mustard:

It is sooooo good!  We have been enjoying it with mini meatballs.

2)  The weekend following Christmas, we went to Saskatoon (more on that in the next post).  When we drove back into town, we stopped at Christopher's parents' house so he could shovel their walk for them, and they invited us to stay for roast beef dinner - mmmmmm!  It had been years since I had roast beef dinner, so I was pretty excited. 

3)  The 25 most popular food trucks for 2013 ... and 9 of them are in NYC!

4)  Cora's seems to be a pretty popular breakfast joint.  We just got one in Regina recently and it's been lined up every day.  A friend and I decided to try getting in on Monday, and were able to after a 30 minute wait.

I don't see what the big deal is ... the food was average, and the service wasn't great.  The waitress dropped a piece of bacon on the floor right in front of our table, picked it up and took it away, but never replaced it!?  It's not that I needed the extra piece of bacon, but she should have at least offered to replace it.

5)  It's become a bit of a tradition for us to stay in on New Years Eve and cook up a seafood feast.  This New Years we started with escargot, tuna sashimi, and assorted cheeses:

The main course consisted of lobster, king crab, tiger shrimp, roasted asparagus, and bread.

What did you do on New Years Eve?  

What are you up to this weekend?