YYC Food Crusade: 2 Polcinella

In yesterdays post I described the adventures of my friends and me around town as a self proclaimed tour guides. There is one little detail of that quest that I purposely left out in preparation for a post today. It has been a while since I did my very first Food Crusade restaurant review and I think that it is about time for a second.

For the tour of our home town we stopped in at a restaurant that was located in the Kensington area of Calgary. There is this awesome little gourmet pizza place that is down in that area of town called Polcinella. A couple months back my dad took my family here when our cousin was in town for the weekend, I just had to go back.

On the inside it is a large open space that merges classic Italian feelings with very modern artist type overlay. One of the coolest features is that you can see straight into the kitchen and watch as the chefs slave away at your food.

Our tummies were all a grumble so even though it was only lunch time some of us ordered appetizers anyway. I did not order any for myself but my friends shared with me anyway out of the kindness of their hearts.

Mr. White had the Calamari Fritti to start. This dish was lightly breaded and well seasoned leaving a pleasant after taste in your mouth that left you craving more. Also I found that whoever cooked this is good at his or her job because it was not over cooked to the point of being rubbery like so many other places.

Sir Kenneth the Third started his meal off with the Polpette, Meat balls made of both beef and pork. They came in three and he shared with all of us, the sauce that they were cooked in was deliciously sweet. These meatballs were so good they practically melted right in your mouth.

My beautiful Wifey got the Tuscan Bruschetta for an appetizer. According to the menu the Bruschetta was house made and came served on an Italian roll. It was a little salty for my taste but delicious none the less with a bitter yet sweet after taste resonating in your mouth.

Being that Polcinella is an authentic wood stove style pizza place we all ordered ourselves a pie all of our own. When it came to these pizzas they were so delicious we were all a lot less inclined to share with others. These are one of the very few kinds of pizza that I believe are ok to eat with a knife and fork, actually I encourage it.

For myself I found my interest drawn to one interestingly described pizza on the menu called Vegetali Grigliati. It is a vegetarian style pizza loaded with red peppers, zucchini and grilled aubergine. The combination of these different vegetables made this pizza an explosion interesting tastes.

Everyone else got their pizzas and pretty much inhaled them they were so scrumptious, you can always tell when a meal is good because the table is pretty much silent. While I was choosing what I wanted to order some of what my friends did order were what I chose between.

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The main reason that I go back to this place is for their dessert, normally I do not have any kind of a sweet tooth. They make this dessert that we call the nutella pizza and this is about the only time that I will ever say this about a dessert “It is to die for!!!!”. I know that is one of the most cliché things that anyone could ever say about a dessert but it is that good.

Time to rate this restaurant I suppose

Food: 5

Service: 3

Atmosphere: 3.5

Grand Total: 11.5 out of 15

If you are looking for a pizza fix but want to avoid the grease than this is a spot that you should go check out. If you do make sure to order that damn good dessert, if you do then you will be really glad that I told you about it.

Sincerely Urban Yeti

Tablespoon of Geek: Bite sized tacos

Here we go yet another Thursday and time for me to share my exploits from being in the kitchen. Before I get started sharing one of my many recipes with you let me first start by explaining what the near future will hold. For starters if you have not been keeping up with my blog I am moving to a new house, YAY, this good news bring some other things with it. The moving day is swiftly approaching with only three weeks to pack until we can occupy our new home.

What the move means is that up until that time I will not have full access to my all the things in my kitchen. Therefore until after the big move that is happening on the 15^th of November and probably the week after I will not be able to cook anything. Really and truly I hate that I am not able to deliver what I have promised I would with this cooking segment. Sometimes life can really seem to get in the way of the life goals that we set out for ourselves.

Ok now that my sob story is done I can carry onto what I have planned out to show all of you today. Every Friday I tend to have a little geek get together that involves us all throwing dice and end up having a bunch of hungry mouths at my house. We take turns on which one of us is set to provide the nourishment each week and it just so happened to be my turn.

A couple of months ago I re-pinned on Pinterest a recipe for two bite tacos, I remembered this and decided that it would be perfect. One big problem occurred with this plan however when I went back on to Pinterest to find this recipe much to my dismay the link was broken. My only option for making this recipe was to get a little crafty and resourceful with only an image to use as a guide.

Here is my recipe Bite Sized Tacos

For any recipe it is best to start by listing the components that go into making it.

Ingredients:

1 pack of Spring Roll Pastry

1 lb of Ground Beef

½ a Green Pepper chopped

½ a Red Pepper chopped

¼ of a White Onion chopped

2 Cups of Marble Cheese

1 Jar of Salsa (you will not need the whole jar but it helps)

And as Always don’t forget to spice to taste, here is what I use

For starters put a large skillet on the stove element and bring it up to high heat with some cooking oil add turn on the oven to pre-heat at 350 degrees. Once the skillet has reached optimum temperature take the Ground eef and dump it carefully into the pan, and break it up with a spatula. The meat will start to brown and once you have separated it up a bit add the chopped up Green Pepper, Red Pepper and White Onion. Continue mixing it up with the spatula and then add the spices of your choice as well I like to add a little bit lime juice, fresh is best. To help the meat cook nicely you can add ½ a cup of water but this may mean that you have to drain the meat later or make your tack shells soggy.

The meat should be a consistent light brown once this happens then it is time to remove it from the heat. Using a muffin baking pan line all of the cups with the Spring Roll Pastry, one per cup and fold the corners in. Using a common spoon, ladle the cooked meat mixture into the pastry cups eyeball this and try not to have it over flowing. On top of the meat put a spoonful of salsa, I use a corn and bean Salsa because I find it has a little bit more kick to it and is less runny. Top them all of with a sprinkling of the shredded Marble Cheese, this is a to taste type deal so you can add as little or as much cheese as you want.

Take the filled muffin try and place it in the oven to bake for between 10 to 15 minutes, or until the cheese is nice and melted.

And Serve

This is one of those things that takes a lot of prep work to make but is great finger food for parties. The one thing I need to still figure out is what to use instead of the spring roll pastry, any ideas let me know.

Sincerely Urban Yeti

Tablespoon of Geek: Back-to-School Tuna Sandwich

The month of September is coming quickly to an end with only a couple of days left until the changeover to October happens. During this past month I have themed my “Tablespoon Of Geek” posts around what I believe to be the major event of the month, back to school. Now that the changing of the months is upon us this means that today it will be my last “Back to School” recipe post for the year. 

For those who have been keeping up my back-to-school recipes have been aimed at the broke and starving college student. Essentially the idea is to take all of those cheap bulk meals and enhance them into something that is actually tasty. With all the recipes it did not cost me more than 20 dollars for all the ingredients and made the servings large enough for at least a couple meals at that price.

Up to this point I have used the college food essentials of Kraft Dinner, Ichiban and Peanut Butter Sandwiches. Talking to my friends and speaking from my own experiences there are still a number of other things that helped to keep their bellies full during times when money was more than tight.

For today’s recipe I will be using the ever cheap can of tuna, in making Cheesy Tuna Melts.

Ingredients that are needed for two open face sandwiches will be as follows.

1 Can of tuna

2 slices of Bread

1 tbsp of Mayonase

2 tbsp of Ranch Dressing

¼ cup of chopped Celery

2 tbsps of Parmesan Cheese

2 slices of Tomato

2 slices of Swiss Cheese

1 tbsp of Honey Mustard

Turn on your oven and set it to 350 degrees this will come in handy at a later point.

Start out by getting a small to medium sized bowel and then empty the can of tuna into said bowl. Now add the Ranch Dressing, Parmesan Cheese, Honey Mustard and the Celery to the Tuna and mix it all together by use of a fork.

Slather the Mayonase onto the two slices of bread evenly on one side, then on the mayo side place the slice of tomato. The next step is to put half of the Tuna mixture on top of the tomato on each of the bread slices, and then top them both off with the swiss slices. Once this is complete place both the open face sandwiches onto a baking tray and place in the oven for 15 min.

Once the cheese is all melty on top they arready to serve and devour, so Enjoy. This dish is very salty and I find it best to serve with a side of something sweeter like a healthy choice of fruit.

Sincerely Urban Yeti

Wedding Aftermath: Photo Segment 6

Well I think that this is it, the final post about the wedding photos done by the photographer that we hired for our wedding. I know there were a lot of posts about just these photos but as of today they will finally all be posted up. There are still things about my wedding that I would like to share but this will be the final installment of the photos. Or at least the last of the photos until I can get any of the pictures that were taken by members of the family.

For those who are not keeping score I have covered the art of getting ready, the beautiful ceremony, the wonderful time at Heritage Park and all the fun we had while playing on the playground. That leaves one more event from the day of my wedding that has yet to be shared via this medium. The final installment of my wedding photos will be the reception dinner and the dance that followed it.

This episode will include the pictures of food porn, the compilation of stuff to form center pieces and the captured moments of awkward dancers. Pictures of the speakers as they performed their speeches that ranged in size from just a few jot notes scribbled on a cue card to ten pages all typed up to the note pad app on a iPad. These precious moments of Wifey and my special day captured forever to be looked back upon and laugh at.

Without further ado I present to you The Reception:

It seems like it happened so long ago since all of these events took place even though it was only just over a month ago that it all transpired. I will post more "Wedding Aftermath" to share where we found some of the awesome things we had at our wedding so we can give credit where credit is due.

Sincerely Urban Yeti