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

YYC Food Crusade: 1 Mango Shiva

There was a time when both Wifey and tried to start blogging and to make something of it, mine initially was to record my progress on my web comic (News Flash not very fast). Hers was a little different her goal was to go to a hundred local restaurants in Calgary and review them. She titled it the Food Crusade, she built a map stuck pins in it where they all were and made a plan of attack. The problem she ran into was twofold first the amount of time to actually go to each of these restaurants and review them and secondly we were poor students.

Well now I think that I am going to pick up where she left off, take all the planning that never got used and utilize it. Don’t think that I am not putting any work in myself or stealing her good idea and she wont reap the rewards, because more than likely my lovely Wifey will be at my side for all of this. I don’t plan to be anywhere near as aggressive in my goals as she had set out to be with her goal of a certain amount in a year. My goal is that I want to explore and review the many interesting food places located throughout my home town.

One of the major differences between her Crusade idea and what I am doing is that she gave herself a time restriction I am not. For my food crusade I plan on making it a compounding blog series that I will update regularly as I find interesting places to eat at.

I guess I should lay down some ground rules about what restaurants qualify and which don’t make the cut.

Rule 1: The Restaurant cannot be a chain fast food joint. This doesn’t disqualify burger joints just nothing like McDonalds, BK, Fat Burger, or Pizza Huts

Rule 2: The Restaurant cannot be part of a large franchise scheme. Therefore I cannot go to anything like The Keg, Boston Pizza, Moxies or East Side Mario’s.

Rule 3: I must order different things. Obviously we all have our likes and dislikes but this means I will not be always ordering a burger, unless that is the type of restraint or it is their specialty.

Rule 4: I must take photos of, the outside, the inside and some of the food that is ordered. I like to keep my blog looking interesting and this will help me to improve my photoskills.

Rule 5: I cannot go to anywhere solo. It is not safe to go alone here take this… Obtained Friends. I have been told that I need to get out and socialize more and this to me seems like the perfect excuse to do so.

Pretty Basic stuff huh so Time to start I guess post number 1

Mango Shiva

This is a lovely little Indian restaurant located in downtown Calgary right on the popular Stephan Ave. From the outside it looks very plain with tempting smells and delightful music wafting out it is hard to not want to enter.

Being new to the establishment my Wifey being as smart as she is asked the host what his recommendations were. Every restaurant will have its own specialties and the staff knows what their place of business’ strong suit is. The host gave us about four excellent recommendations including what his personal favorite dish was, he made it sound so appealing that I had to try it for myself.

While we were thinking over what we wanted the host brought us out a plate of something to nibble on. I didn’t catch what it was called but it was a kind of thin flat bread that was crispy and it came with a light and sweet mango sauce.

One thing defiantly tickled my fancy, when I ordered my coke they brought it to me in a glass bottle.

Both Wifey and I ordered from the recommendations given to us by the host, I had Coconut Curried Shrimp with Garlic Nan Bread while Wifey had the Butter Chicken with basmati rice. When the orders arrived they smelled so wonderful that we could not help but dive right in to them without being able to snap any pictures. The way that my shrimp tasted was superb, it was an exotic almost tropical sweet with a little kick of subtle spices. I had a taste of the butter chicken that Wifey had ordered and it had this delightful zingy taste that was not overwhelming spicy.

I almost forgot about a little something that I found very humorous and very creepy at the same time. When I went to the bathroom I discovered that the wall paper right above the urinal was a kaleidoscope image of a little guy doing the fusion dance from Dragonball Z. 

I guess I should come up with a rating system for the food crusade so as to keep consistency of my reviews. Hmm I think I will use a three category system that will include food, service and atmosphere out of five and would give an overall rating out of 15.

So Mango Shiva gets a

Food:               4.5

Service:           3

Atmosphere:   4

Total:               11.5 out of 15

I would really recommend this restaurant to anyone who is looking to take a step out of their normal culinary experiences.

Sincerely Urban Yeti