Restaurant Review: Joodam

Location: 1003 9 Avenue SE
Website: https://www.joodam.ca/

This is probably the most impromptu place I’ve wanted to go to and went to. Usually I see a place on Instagram or another social media platform and think about how I want to go for months. I add it to my list and then we forget about it. However, since we were in the Inglewood area, I thought I would try to convince Mackenzie to go.

Joodam is a Korean-Italian fusion restaurant. I find a lot of Asian restaurants (mostly Japanese and Korean) doing Italian fusion as those flavours seem to pair really well together.

I knew nothing beyond the few Instagram stories I had seen. I knew I for sure wanted the cheese corn, but beyond that, I had no idea.

I had just seen the steak on my Instagram and was kind of considering it, but Mackenzie asked me a very good question: did I want the steak or did I want to order more off the menu. Of course as a foodie and a reviewer, trying more dishes is the “correct” route.

We decided on three dishes: Korean Fried Chicken, Potato Pancake, and Corn Brie Cheese. I honestly did not think that that would be enough…oh how wrong I was.

The menu includes a QR code you can scan to access the menu online which includes a picture of each of the dishes. I really liked how that made Korean food more accessible. While I like being the one who gets to explain what certain dishes are, I still appreciate restaurants trying to make the effort to provide pictures to showcase their menu items. The sentiment that we eat with our eyes is so true.

The Korean Fried Chicken came first. If I haven’t ever mentioned this in a review, I am now. When it comes to fried chicken, I strongly believe that the Koreans do it best. It is perfectly succulent inside with an audibly crunchy outside. The batter is light and not overwhelming like with Kentucky Fried Chicken (aka, not thick af or overly seasoned). Very simply put the Korean Fried Chicken were battered and fried chicken thighs (best cut in my opinion) and served with a Korean sweet chili sauce that was not unlike the spicy sauce from Wow Chicken. I wish we had a little more sauce, but it was super delicious.

Even though I didn’t look at the photos on the website, I know that Mackenzie loves potatoes so we had to try the Potato Pancake. Even if we did look at the picture, we would’ve been disappointed by the dish that actually was presented to us. It definitely didn’t look as aesthetic. However, I was so impressed with how thin the potato strands were. That meant the outside ones got super crispy. It didn’t feel like the potatoes were fully cooked as there was still that raw taste and crunch. The other thing I would’ve really like was for the potatoes to be better seasoned. It was very apparent based on the blandness of the inside that the potato pancake that it was relying on the toppings. The pancake was supposedly topped with chopped bacon, sour cream sauce, grana padano, and chopped parsley. The photo shows that there are cherry tomatoes and our actual dish came with tomatoes on it, but that isn’t one of the things listed. The pancake was also much more sparsely adorned than in the picture on their website; there wasn’t as much cheese, I couldn’t find any of the advertised sour cream sauce, there was literally 3 cherry tomatoes cut in half, and a sad sprinkling of parsley. Other than the crunchiness and the thinness of the potato strands were, I was not a fan of this dish.

Last, but not least came the dish that I was most excited to try: the Corn Brie Cheese! The dish is as the name implies – cheesy corn with a mini wheel of brie at its centre. I have wanted to try Korean cheese corn for a very long time and had definitely gotten my hopes up. I want to say I was surprised at how sweet it was, but at the same time, I was not. When the dish arrived, the first thing I did was cut into the brie to mix it with the cheese. However, it was not nearly as melty and hot as I thought and it ended up just having to be cut into chunks and mixed with the seasoned and already somewhat cheese corn. The menu says it’s served with garlic crostini; it was not that. Instead, we got slices of untoasted baguette, which I don’t hate, but it would’ve been a lot better toasted and garlicky. The corn itself consisted of shredded mozzarella, red bell pepper, sprinkled with cayenne pepper (which I couldn’t even taste – it was definitely not spicy), and the whole dish (including the brie) was drizzled with maple syrup. I found the dish too be very sweet overall and because I had gotten my hopes up, and a particular taste profile in mind, this was a little disappointing. That is not to say that it wasn’t good, but it wasn’t what I expected either.

Overall, I had a really nice time dining here. Maybe I didn’t choose all the right dishes for the experience I was looking for, but that’s okay because I fully intend to come back and try so much more off their menu. However, based on this experience, I would rate the experience as 8/10.

Korean Fried Chicken

Potato Pancake

Corn Brie Cheese

Cafe Review: The Stoop

Location: 1027 Russet Road NE
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thestoopyyc/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_rid=6c2c56e5-8095-4d8f-9b61-232bdfce3bac

This place is also not the easiest to find both on Google Maps or online as there are several hits for that name around the world. The easiest way to get there is to look up “POW Pizza” in Renfrew as it is in the same building.

A part of me wants to keep this place a secret so that it’ll always be that cute, quiet neighbourhood coffeehouse, but that is awfully selfish and I truly believe that this place deserves all the love and support it can get.

The first time Mackenzie and I came here it was pretty quiet. I got the Capocollo breakfast sandwich and Mackenzie got the Chorizo breakfast sandwich. Since the menu isn’t posted online or on their Instagram page, I’m doing this from memory as best as I can, so forgive me if I’ve missed a couple of things. My sandwich had Capocollo, egg, cheese, pistou, and tomato. It was fresh and light and satisfyingly filling. Honestly, I cannot remember what was in Mackenzie’s sandwich apart from egg, chorizo, a spicy mayo, and cheese. Both were delicious, but I think I wouldn’t have been able to finish Mackenzie’s sandwich if I had ordered that for myself. It was just a little too rich for me. We didn’t end up ordering any sides, but did get coffees. They use Fratello which I have come to quite enjoy. Honestly, I don’t think I’m able to really differentiate between each of the coffee blends out there. I just know when a coffee is not good.

Today, we went with my sister and Mackenzie. Mackenzie went back and forth on which sandwich to get and I ultimately convinced him to go with the vegetarian sandwich which contained tomato, egg, cheese, crispy sweet potato, spinach, and some kind of a sauce that is slipping my mind. My sister and I got the Capocollo one. This time we ordered some sides to share. My sister went with the Mexican street corn and I went with the tater tots. The corn was really bright and fresh and was a little odd to have for breakfast, but it was delicious all the same. I couldn’t tell (or remember) if the cheese was feta or cotja, but it wasn’t too salty and was a little creamy, which was a nice balance to the acidity of the rest of the dish. The tots really hit the spot and were well seasoned and crispy.

If breakfast is this good, I would love to come back for lunch some time. The restaurant itself, if I’m remembering the entrance correctly, isn’t really accessible for individuals arriving by wheelchair, as there is a little step up into the restaurant, though I think if you went at it with enough momentum, it might be possible to make it over the step. The restaurant itself is pretty small and there isn’t too much space to move around in there but it wouldn’t be hard to move a chair aside to accommodate a wheelchair if necessary.

I’d rate this place a 8.75/10 and would definitely come back.

Capocollo Breakfast Sandwich and Mexican Street Corn

Tomato Breakfast Sandwich

Tater Tots

Restaurant Review: Big Catch

Location: 130, 8835 Macleod Trail SW
Website: http://www.bigcatchcalgary.ca/

Before I even launch into this, I’m going to say: if you try navigating here DO NOT USE APPLE MAPS. I normally don’t but since it was in my calendar, I just clicked it and let it start navigating. BAD IDEA.

This place isn’t very easy to find in the first place, but Apple maps makes it worse. It’s located in a strip mall in the same parking lot as the Save on Foods on Macleod Trail and next to a Tim Hortons.

The other thing to note is that this place only opens on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays for dinner.

I’m always down for trying a new place, but an initial perusal of the menu didn’t get me all that excited. When we finally arrived, I let my sister take the lead on ordering since a friend of hers frequented this place and had some favourites that had her come back time and time again.

While there are servers at the restaurant, it works somewhat like Point Sushi, except that you scan a QR code for the menu, order and submit it all online. Once you’ve submitted your order, you get an email to confirm that the order was received along with an approximate ETA as well as your total for the meal. Since it was an online order, we decided to order drinks and dessert all in the same order. It was also interesting/nice that they tried to indicate which items were not gluten free or contained soy or had nuts or so on. At the top of the menu you can select if you have allergies, sensitivities, or other dietary restrictions, which I felt was very considerate.

We ended up ordering the Tokyo Smoke and Autumn Haze Premium Oshi sushis, an Assorted Tempura, Dynamite Roll, and Kyushu-style Chicken Nanban. Both oshi sushis were only 8 pieces; the Dynamite Roll had 6 pieces.

My sister also got a drink: a fresh lime yuzunade. It was actually a lot sweeter than the name implied with the combo of lime and yuzu, but it was so good I considered getting one for myself, but ultimately didn’t because I wasn’t sure how that would work with the online order system.

The first dish to arrive was the Kyushu-style Chicken Nanban. Like me, you may be wondering what the difference between Karaage and Nanban is. A quick Google search indicates that Nanban reflects a Portuguese influence and is coated with egg and a starch before frying whereas Karaage is marinaded chicken that has been lightly coated with a starch and deep fried. Similar to the Karaage the Nanban is served with a creamy dipping sauce, in this case, a house made Japanese tartar sauce. The dish was presented with the tartar sauce on top of the chicken which I didn’t love for a couple of reasons. If we had eaten it slower, the sauce would’ve made the batter soggy, but in this case, this was a non-issue. The bigger issue was the fact that the pieces underneath did not get any of the tartar sauce. It was a good dish, but not super memorable.

The Nanban was followed by the Assorted Tempura. It contained exactly 3 shrimps and three veggies: red bell pepper, zucchini, and yam. It was a pretty good tempura, better than most, but I still don’t know if it was worth $11 for it.

The rolls all arrived together on one plate and was very aesthetic.

For the Tokyo Smoke, we chose to go with Atlantic salmon as it was the cheaper of the two choices, the other being Sockeye (the roll was already $16.75 and we didn’t need to make it more expensive). It was an Atlantic salmon and torch seared tuna, smoky aburi miso sauce, oroshi-ponzu, garlic sesame, and micro shungiku. If none of that made any sense to you, it didn’t mean much to me either. To break it down, aburi simply means “flame seared” so in the context of “smoky aburi miso sauce”, it is a bit redundant. Oroshi-ponzu is a ponzu sauce (a sour dipping sauce consisting of soy sauce and vinegar as it’s base) that contains grated daikon. And micro shungiku are a type of microgreen derived from the chrysanthemum plant.

The Autumn Haze was very similar to the Tokyo Smoke with a sweet mirin glazed torch seared salmon toro topped with mizore radish.

Of the two I couldn’t remember which of them I liked better, but one was definitely better. I want to say the Autumn Haze, but I can’t say with certainty.

The Dynamite Roll was definitely more for Mackenzie and I feel like it was pretty average. Not bad but not mind-blowingly good either.

We finished the meal off with a sweet potato panna cotta. This, I have to say, was the highlight of the meal. The sweet potato was mixed with white chocolate to form the custard base and it was also blended with lavender to create a puree to top the panna cotta. Mackenzie laughs every time when he asks me how a dessert is and my answer is “not too sweet”, but honestly, for someone who doesn’t like sweets all that much, that is the highest form of compliment for a dish ahaha.

I don’t think I would ever really come back to this place. It was expensive, the food was just okay, and the space was rather small and difficult to access (both in terms of driving there and for a wheelchair or mobility aid to make it through the place without some difficulty). Based on this experience, I’d give this place a 7.5/10.

Order Confirmation Screen

Kyushu-style Chicken Nanban

Assorted Tempura

Tokyo Smoke, Autumn Haze, and Dynamite Roll

Sweet Potato Panna Cotta