Heffalumps' Wanderings

Pearl Garden Whatever your name is

heffalumps — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 21:00:52 +0000

Put on the Brakes! After years of patronage to Singapore Sam aka Pearl Garden we’re going to stop going.The first thing was after a dim sum outing both myself and my partner in crime had lip swelling… we’re not allergic to any foods. We didn’t get stomach sick but the last straw was when we reserved a peking duck for NYE. But when we got there, we were presented with a pathetic burnt bird. We asked for another one and they said it was the last one so we said we’d like a discount as we reserved it for special occasion. The guy could not care less. He told us to speak to the boss. The hostess/ owner always recognizes us as regular dim summers and always speaks to us so we thought she could squeeze out a small discount. She looked at us like she’s never seen us before and said she can’t do anything about it. Seeing as no one else would be open, we reluctantly took the bird as we did not want to show up empty handed. Shame on you Pearl Garden for treating loyal regular diners in this poor fashion. We’ll more than likely check ou the new NE places for dim sum. Either way we’re not coming back!

Samosa Factory…….. whew

heffalumps — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 20:59:56 +0000

How do you go from 40 mini beef samosas for $15 to 25 samosas for the same price? That’s bit far fetched. I love em but not that much. Still on a quest for samosas. Any suggestions?

Alberta King of Subs

heffalumps — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 20:56:24 +0000

Alberta King of Subs

Category: Sandwiches

11/18/2009

We’ve tried Alberta King of Subs before but we decided to go back and try Alberta King of Subs before posting.. Last time we went there, our big complaint was bread the subs were on. These guys are known for their poutine and authentic Montreal smoked meat..

No doubt about it, their montreal smoked meat is tasty. We had the smoked meat and onion daily special 6 ” sub. We also had the small poutine which the server said looks small but is not. The sub was tasty but soggy. The bread is still dismal. It just can’t support the meat and the fixings. The poutine had excellent gravy, fresh cut fries and cheese curds but coming in $5.75 for a small poutine is disappointing. The amount of curds could have been more. The size is small and if you’re going to pay an arm and a leg for poutine you might as well have the large is wish 7.25 but significantly larger and a better deal. No one I saw while I was there ordered the small. My lunch for a sub and poutine with a drink came out to be a little over $16. This is for take out. I find this a little too pricey for a sandwich and fries. I could have a Thai buffet or an Indian buffet for this price. If you’re into meat only I’d visit this place and if you don’t mind paying an arm and leg for poutine then try this place. I’d come back … but only if someone else is paying. Otherwise I’d save my money and go eat somewhere else.

Zen 8 Made my Blood Boil

heffalumps — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 01:36:51 +0000

As a late Mother’s Day meal, DH wanted to take me here so I was stoked. DH called at 10:30 am and wanted to make a reservation but was told by the male manager that if he walked in 1140 he could probably grab a table. I arrived 1130 and the hostess looked me over and decided im not corporate enough and preceded to tell me that every single one of her tables were booked up and that we could sit at the bar. I looked around and the tables were all empty. I had told the waitress that we had already called and told her that we were told we could probably get a table if we arrived early enough. Her reply was oh He probably meant this table… and smacked the bar with her hand. OK so she thinks I’m not well dressed nough and stupid. I waited by the bar and when DH arrived he went back to the manager and asked if we couldnt have a table and manager said the walkins already took the tables. This was after I had come into the resturant. The hostesses were incrediblly snooty. While I was speaking to the 5″2 female Asian hostess, she walked away from me. Being treated a second class citizens left a bitter taste in our mouths and we voted with our feet. We would rather go hungry then spend money at a resturant that thinks it’s better than us. Ok we didn’t go hungry we just went to another sushi resturant.

Worst dim sum Evahhh Unforgetable

heffalumps — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 01:35:30 +0000

Not sure if it was because it was not the weekend but we got a tummy ache. hai gow= shrimp dumpling= dirty shrimp with intestines chai sui cheung fun= small, very oily and the meat was definitely NOT chai sui… and slightly off I’d like to know why we got 3 tiny strips and the gwi low got 4 pieces??? nor mi gi= sticky rice= bland and small sui mai= small and salty and oily wong hai gok+ fried shrimp dumpling… over fried but the at the shrimp was decent. Why are their ” lobster fried dumplings” shrimp. If it’s shrimp then call it shrimp fried dumplings If you go… go with a large group.. they seem to give better food if you are in a group. Otherwise fuggetaboutit!

horrible horrible and more horrible sumo on 10 should be sumo on zero

heffalumps — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 01:33:10 +0000

horrible horrible and more horrible” – Edit review
July 17, 2010 – Doesn’t like it – Nice looking resturant and friendly waitress. Unfortunately the food sucked. We questioned the freshness and should have just left it. We both ended sick afterwards. squid, and tempura anything fried was poorly done in a sea of grease and overly sauced. maki rolls all looked the same. The rice was hard and appearance was like globs of huge rice rolls with more grease and mayonaise. I would completely agree with another review who said the rolls looked like they were put together poorly. Even my “salad” which consisted of lettuce and lettuce was globbed with dressing. The AYCE is totally not worth it. Save your stomach and keep walking.

Bye Bye Bye Joey’s Only

heffalumps — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 06:01:05 +0000

Don’t just hate when you wanna like a place so you go back to see if it’s as good as you thought the first time. Taking the kids to fish and chips place should be an adventure. oh Yeah it was an adventure not the kind you would like though

For the kid’s meal, you get your choice of entree, drink, desert and fun activity pack for 5.99. Some of the entrees we chose were the battered shrimp. We were told later that they had run out of fun packs and when I asked for a discount they said nope. More importantly, my complaint is with the food for the kids. The shrimp were refried, dark, greasy and really we could not even stomach it. So why a child? Do they think that children cannot tell the difference between freshly fried and refried. It was nasty.
This time our fish and chips were quite greasy.

Joey’s Only on 52 st in the YYC you can kiss me Bye Bye Bye

Happy Hill

heffalumps — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 04:32:56 +0000

Happy Hill

806 Centre Street North
Calgary, AB T2E, Canada
(403) 276-3288

In an attempt to find a dim sum place, we thought we would try out Happy Hill. Unfortunately we found out that we weren’t that happy when we ate their the last time. Happy Hill would be described as mediocre dim sum. The out dated decor of faded pastelly pink greeted us. We were seated right away as the resturant was half empty. We got our little slip of paper to order on. The menu items were reduced to itsy teeny teeny type. We ordered 5 dishes and we made sure with the waitress we were getting what we thought we were ordering. Ordering by paper is horrible because you never see the food and everything is described as shrimp dumpling. The squid we ordered was tentacles. We said we didn’t want that and she said oh well you have to order from the menu if you squid. When we looked at the menu for squid it was $13.00… What? Ok that’s crazy. Cancel that dish.

Jun Gui Gi … Sticky rice rolls..3.. flavorful and had

Cha Sui Cheung Fun.. cold super thin pork fatty slices… We didn’t like this so much

Sui Mai.. big juicy… we did like these

Di Gee Gow.. nice dumplings

Tofu Shrimp.. small tofu squares with shrimp.. oil tasted oldish.

The bathrooms were cold and quite dirty. They look a bit neglected.

Can’t say we’d be back anytime soon. There’s limited happiness on this hill.

Buffet Yangtze

heffalumps — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 04:27:24 +0000

Buffet Yangtze

901 64 Avenue Northeast
Calgary, AB T2E, Canada
(403) 275-3382

hmm buffet lunch for 8.95 Monday to Wednesday. Wow. You can’t really beat that price. There’s a lot to choose from. You have to know what to eat. Not everything tastes great.

They have 8 buffet bar carts. There’s Chinese Canadian dishes. There’s commercial dim sum dumplings. There’s a salad bar. There a sushi bar.. ewww. There’s ice cream and desert bar.They have the western fries/ onion rings… bar which we didn’t touch. The steam buns bar. You get the idea.

If you tread carefully, you can have a really good lunch.

Don’t expect friendly service though. The boys did say Thanks when we left but without eye contact and feeling they might have just said see ya.

Joe EEE Baby

heffalumps — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 06:02:24 +0000

Joey Baby Don’t get crazy.Detours Fences. I get Defensive.

I can’t help hearing Concrete Blonde’s song when someone says Joey to me.

Joey’s Restaurants

530-1440 52 St NE
CALGARY, Alberta
T2A 4T8
(403) 571-3434

Stripmall joints… I always wonder who goes there.

Walking by, I notice they are having a sale. Who doesn’t love a sale? $8 lunch menu. I go in to check it out and am floored by the 80′s decor. I was thinking yeah maybe not a good idea. Luckily I’m distracted by the insane amount of bright colors on the walls and the mutilple fish cartoon replicas of the Joey’s only mascot… I think it’s a half drunk flounder.

They have about 8 choices on this menu including chicken and rib. Why would I try chicken or rib when I’m at a fish place? So I have their signature fish and chips. It’s the first one listed on the special $8 menu. All their stuff is fried in 100% canola oil. So that’s plus one already. There wasn’t anyone there so it was nice and quick from pay at the cashier to getting my order. The fish and chips were nice, light, crispy. The oil was fresh which was super important so that’s another point. I don’t know what the dine in experience is like but I’d try it after this take out. I only have one small tiny tiny complaint if it can be called that and I think the oil could have been hotter to avoid the greasiness factor. If the oil is super hot you don’t get all that grease blotting factor. But since it’s fresh and crispy and yummy tasting that’s really what I care about. The resturant seemed pretty clean. If you can get over the crazy fish themed decoration you’re good to go