Calgary Dining: Coffee Shops

We love going out for coffee. Calgary's coffee shops are the places where we meet up with our friends most of the time.

One old favorite was the Second Cup on 17th Avenue and about 7th Street across from Mount Royal Village. I guess it's been a while because we made arrangements to meet someone there this evening. We pulled up to a rock star parking spot, but it didn't appear that we were in the right place. There wasn't even a hint that it ever used to be a Second Cup. The only signs in the windows read "For Lease".

In a discussion later Art and I recalled that a friend who is a teacher at Western Canada High School told us about about their pending closure.

So after we connected with our friend we headed, instead, to the other Second Cup on 4th Street and 24th Avenue. Art knows the owners there. It used to be my favorite place to go out for coffee and it was close to the apartment I lived in before we got married.

But there are many places to choose from, weather chain stores, or indy's. I took the opportunity to tour many of the indy places a few years ago armed with a coupon book that didn't punish single people. It had 2 for 1's with the option of 50% off of a single. That little $10 book allowed me to aquaint myself with my city, as I would study the book and locate one of it's shops on the map, before heading out. I had a lot of fun as I discovered very unique and interesting places. I miss that little coffee coupon book, which no longer printed.

Shopping: Market Mall: Largest Shopping Centre

Today we did a walk through Calgary's most recently renovated and now largest shopping centre, Market Mall. There are some unique stores there that I haven't seen anywhere else. Some higher end jewelry stores, and clothing botiques, which may be simply chains from south of the border, or East for that matter, but I am uncertain.

Of course there are all of the regular things one would expect in a mall, but our last stop was the mouth watering Cinnabon. Art has a weakness for all things baked, that are warm and sweet.

Calgary Dining Guide: City Palate: Cheap Eats Edition

I don't know how regularly the City Palate produces the Cheap Eats edition, but it is certainly a helpful resource for finding those dining venues in Calgary that offer wonderful food for reasonable prices. We have used this guide as a tour book, and stopped short of checking them off as we experienced each place.

This is worth checking out and Art's Place Guest House has a couple of the older editions on the reading shelf to assist you as you venture out to explore this wonderfully diverse city.

Dining and Shopping in Calgary: IKEA

Calgary has a new IKEA location that opened in November near the south Costco location.

IKEA has creative solutions to everything in the home from small spaces, to that prefect device for every household need, and really interesting things for children that I wish were available when I was a kid - oh, just a few short years ago.

Not only is it a fun place to shop, it is a fun place to eat, too. They have a very large cafeteria in their upstairs portion serving cafeteria food with a twist - it's European. Well I guess it's European compared to the regular cafeteria fare served at similar places around here, because it isn't so regular. But whether or not it's really European has yet to be determined by an expert, or by my 'haven't- been-to-that-part-of-Europe-yet' experience.

The desserts are a pleasure to behold, and the plates are reasonably priced. Breakfast is only $1.00. Who can beat that? Not Nellie's, not the Gallaxy, not even King's on Barlow Trail.

Dining: Luciano's

It was a tradition for a few weeks to meet with John and Rhonda from Peak Health Solutions at Luciano's on MacLeod Trail (this is the same place that we went with the Single Volunteers for Brunch on New Years' Day).

Normally we got together after their health presentations at the Carriage House for pizza and a glass of wine, but this time because our meeting was to catch up and reconnect for the New Year, we went earlier and for dinner.

Monday's Luciano's special is the thin crust pizza for $7.99. Art and I generally have the BBQ chicken one without the BBQ sauce.

Food: T&T Grocery

The T & T Grocery Story provides such an interesting selection of Asian foods. It is in the Franklin Mall, where there are many other Asian stores as well an Asian food court. There you can find Chinatown in a shopping mall. Complete with a tea and ginseng store, a tableware and kitchen shop, and a Chinese herb store, it also sports a shoe store, discount clothing shop, DVDs, CDs and Karaoke shop, computer shop, television and electronics complete with Asian personnel to serve you in their language. English might need some translation.

In the T&T supermarket you can find vegetables that I never knew existed, generally for even less than at teh Superstore.

It also has the makings of dim sum, sushi, vietnamese soups, and a Chinese bakery. The meat section displays a variety of live fish in tanks, live mollusks, as well as frozen and fresh meats. We noted that it is a great place to buy fresh salmon for less than the other grocers as well. Once in a while if we are in the area of the T&T Grocery Store just prior to them closing, we drop in and buy the days fresh sushi on discounted prices.

That is, in fact, why we were there today. Since Art's parents were in town and we had the leftover sushi rice in our fridge, we wanted to practise this skill and use it up. We bought the raw tuna, and immitation crab, and some wasabi, but had to go elsewhere for healthier avacados. It was all very delicious and we have some left over, but I do have on question: Why does this wasabi not disolve in the soy sauce?

Shopping: Chinook Centre - Second Largest Mall in Calgary

After New Year's Day Brunch with the Single Volunteers we headed to Chinook Centre, the shopping mall north of Luciano's on MacLeod Trail. The mall has now taken a second place in size and number of stores since the recent renovations and reopening of Market Mall in the North West. I was suprised to learn that the stores were open on New Year's Day. Judging by the crowds, it was well worth the store's extra hourly salary expenses to be open.

Chinook Centre was renovated a couple of years ago when they added the Chinook Paramont Theatres complete with an IMAX screen among updating and expanding everything, including the parking and parkades and the food court.

My mom, who lives in Saskatchewan, claims that they are always renovating Chinook Centre, as they seemed to be in the midst of renovations everytime her and dad passed through Calgary because before I moved here in 1995. It was Calgary's first mall, and the first time we were here as a family in the 70's it was being renovated to become an indoor mall, instead of an outdoor access mall. Indoor malls are a necessity with Calgary's winters.

Dining: Luciano's - New Year's Day Brunch (also on Sundays)

We had brunch at Lucino's today with the Single Volunteers. It has been an annual tradition since the inception of Single Volunteers to have a New Year's Day Brunch. We've been at Luciano's for 3 of those 6 years.

Luciano's is a great Italian restaurant with 2 locations inCalgary, one in the North West near the Foothills Hospital, and the other in the South West on MacLeod Trail. Both serve Sunday Brunch, but only the MacLeod Trail location has New Year's Brunch. We find it to be reasonably priced with a great deal of variety in salad items, breakfast items, desserts, roast beef and ham and all of the fixings to go with all of the above. A favorite is the chocolate fountain which flows with Callebaut milk chocolate and melons to dip in it. You can smell the chocolate from the parking lot.

As always it was wonderful to visit with the Single Volunteers folks who joined us. We heard and shared heartwarming stories of recent volunteer events including "The Magic of Christmas" and "Operation Christmas Child".