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Search results for FOOD

(NOTE: this is a new feature of the blog, featuring restaurants within driving distance of Regina -- we all need to get out of town once in awhile, right?)

The Round-up:

• Food: 3 out of 5
• Service: 3.5 out of 5
• Decor: 4 out of 5
• Total: 10.5 out of 15

Last week, I was sent a copy of Real Food for the Real Homemaker and let me tell you, this is one gem of a cookbook! I love a good, hearty, healthy, home-cooked meal almost as much as I enjoy making them so when the opportunity to get creative with new recipes in the kitchen presents itself, I jump!

Real Food for the Real Homemaker sifts through the myriad of information (and misinformation) we've all heard about fats, grains, raw milk, and organic produce and provides a condensed and sensible approach to eating healthy, hearty food that tastes like it came from Grandma's kitchen.

No offense to the authors, but this eBook is reminiscent of those coil-bound United Church Cookbooks put together by sweet little seventy-year-old members of the Ladies Guild. I mean that as the sincerest compliment!

It teaches the basics every cook should know like which kitchen tools are absolutely necessary (and which brands give you the best bang for your buck); how to practice hospitality; how to make granola, yogurt in a crock-pot, and tortillas from scratch; how to save at the grocery store, freezer cook, and substitute ingredients.

Plus, you'll enjoy over 75 home-style recipes with a healthy twist. Among them:

Breads & Breakfast Recipes
Apple Nut Muffins with Caramel Glaze
Baked French Toast
Baked Oatmeal
Banana Bread
Best-Ever Scrambled Eggs
Cinnamon Rolls with Cream Cheese Frosting
Chicken, Bacon, and Ranch Quiche
Cornbread
Egg Bake
Egg Sandwiches
Eggs in a Nest
Granola
Orange White-Chocolate Chip Scones
Perfect Pancakes
Popovers
Rolled Biscuits
Sausage Gravy
Simple Cream Biscuits
Tortillas
Yogurt

Sides, Soups, & Salad Recipes
Applesauce
Baked Beans
Caesar Salad
Cheesy Potato-Vegetable Soup
Homemade Garlic-Herb Croutons
Chicken Salad with Grapes and Apples
Chicken Stock
Chili
Cucumber Salad
Fruit Salad with Yogurt Dressing
Fruit Salsa
Ham and Cheese Soup
Italian Pasta Salad
Italian Vinaigrette
Mashed Potatoes
Mushroom Soup
Oven-Fried Potatoes
Peaches with Ginger Syrup
Quick Tomato Soup
Ranch Dressing
Roasted Root Vegetables
Ruby Red Fruit Salad
Tomato and Cucumber Salad
Vegetable Beef Soup
White Chicken Chili

Entrée Recipes Bean, Rice, and Salsa Bowls Cheeseburger Macaroni Skillet Cheesy Chicken-and-Rice Casserole Chicken and Pasta with Balsamic Vinegar Sauce Chicken Fajitas Chicken Parmesan Chicken Pot Pie Chicken Stir-Fry Couscous Chicken Pilaf Creamy Lemon Pasta Fresh Tomato-Vegetable Sauce Fried Rice Grilled Shrimp Pasta Homemade Macaroni and Cheese Meatballs Pasta al Fredo Pizza from Scratch Slow-Cooked Chicken Slow-Cooked Pork Chops with Gravy Slow-Cooked Herbed Pork Roast Stuffed Bell Peppers Tilapia Variations Toasted Tomato-Cheese Sandwiches Tuna-Stuffed Tomatoes

Dessert Recipes
Baked Apples
Butterscotch Pudding
Classic Pie Crust
“Everything” Cookies
Homemade Brownies
Lemon Cheesecake Squares
Lemon-Lime Ice
Rice Pudding
Strawberry Pie

Best of all?
Full-color photos are included with almost every recipe!
Whether you're a rookie in the kitchen, deep inside a cooking rut, attempting to replace your favorite dishes with healthy versions, or simply looking to expand your recipe repertoire, Real Food for the Real Homemaker is valuable resource for any cook and a guaranteed hit with the whole family!

For $12.95 $9.99, you get all of the following:

• Real Food for the Real Homemaker in both the KINDLE and PDF version,
• a set of beautiful recipe cards,
• an Excel program for creating shopping lists and menu planning!

If you enjoyed this post, you may wish to follow Growing Home for updates via Google Friend Connect, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google +, or have them emailed directly to your inbox. In the interest of full disclosure, some of the links in this post are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I receive an affiliate commission. I only recommend products I use personally. Your purchases through these links help support Growing Home. Thank you for your continued support!
Linking to: Raising Homemakers, Deep Roots At Home, Raising Arrows, Time Warp Wife, A Wise Woman.,Walking Redeemed, The Better Mom, The Modest Mom, The Prairie Homestead

The Round-up:

• Food - 3.5 out of 5
• Decor - 2.5 out of 5
• Service - 3 out of 5
• Total - 9 out of 15

The Round-up:

• Food - 3.5 out of 5
• Service - 3 out of 5
• Decor - 4 out of 5
• Total - 10.5 out of 15

3255 Quance Street, Regina, SK.
Phone: 306-586-7625

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I have to admit, Regina's East End isn't a part of town I visit all that often. I make the long drive down Victoria Street East once every week or two, usually to pay a visit to Costco. The rest of the time, I prefer doing my shopping in other parts of town where the traffic is a little less likely to cause a headache and a little more likely to support local business.

As a result, I often forget about one of our city's best casual restaurants. Rock Creek Tap and Grill opened about three years ago. The sight of a locally owned restaurant among the many chains that line the East End's streets was a welcome one. To boot, the food was great and the decor was classy, without being all uppity.

I've made several more trips to Rock Creek for good appetizers and great meals since then, but my last trip was almost a year ago. Until yesterday.

We arrived around 1 o'clock and the parking lot was almost totally full. A pretty good sign for a Saturday afternoon. As usual, we sat in the lounge where a table for six was easier to come by. We made ourselves comfortable and managed to score a couple of menus (literally two). Like I said, it was busy. Drinks were a bit slow to come by, as was the waitress to take our order, but thankfully we weren't in any hurry.

When it came time to order, we stuck mainly to pub-food classics, or Comfort Food, as the menu calls it: Chicken Fingers with fries; the Hickory Barbecue Chicken Burger; the Black and Blue Burger (a Cajun-style sirloin burger with blue cheese, bacon, lettuce and tomato); and the Quance Street Club (grilled chicken breast, smoked bacon, pea shoots, tomato, avocado, jack cheese and pesto aioli).

The food hit our table in good time and we dug in with gusto. Things suddenly got very quiet. Only the sound of chewing and the odd, "Mmm, this is good," broke the silence. The portions were hearty, as were the sides. I had a spicy cup of Chicken Vegetable with my Club. With four or five slices of jalapeno pepper floating in the broth, it was an interesting soup. I'll leave it at that.

Big Poppa, my dad, was making short work of his burger with yam fries next to me. Across the table my sister, normally an adventurous diner, was munching on the chicken fingers. It was a choice she didn't regret. The Calgary Boys also had no complaints about their sandwiches. Actually, they ate them so fast that I'm not totally sure what one of them ordered.

Rock Creek's menu is a savvy one -- there's the right mix of classic standbys and new inventions to keep you interested, and to keep you coming back. On the appetizer menu, you'll find everything from Cajun Blackened Guac Scallops to good-'ole nachos (with bacon and banana peppers). The lounge has food and drink specials almost every night of the week, and a bevy of fancy TVs. Can't get tickets to the next Rider game? Try hanging out here. If you can get a parking spot, that is.

www.rockcreekgrill.com

The Round-up:

• Food - 4 out of 5
• Service - 3.5 out of 5
• Decor - 3 out of 5
• Total - 1o.5 out of 15

1779 Rose St., Regina, SK.
Phone: 306-522-1818

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Another week goes by, and this blog grows another inch or two. Bear with me, folks. It is truly a work in progress.

It was tough to decide which restaurant to talk about next -- actually, that's just a cliche. It wasn't so tough this time. The Four Seas Restaurant on Rose Street downtown is a new discovery for me. Me and Big Willie have been there three times in the last three weeks. And we're now frequently trying to recruit our friends. Surely that's worth writing about.

From the outside, the Four Seas is easily forgettable. Heck, from the inside too. Mind you, the owners have done a decent job of sprucing up this old building that has clearly been through a few restaurant incarnations during its lifetime.

Anyway, the surroundings are secondary. What I really go for is the food. And what the Four Seas really does best, as far as I'm concerned, is Dim Sum.

OK, perhaps it's time for a definition. Not everyone is familiar with Dim Sum (but everyone should be!).

Essentially, Dim Sum is this: a wide range of Chinese dishes served on small plates alongside tea. You could think of it as the Chinese version of tapas. What you must not think of is Chicken Balls, Sweet and Sour Pork, or giant, greasy Egg Rolls. Dim Sum is NOT that kind of Chinese food.

The most exciting part of Dim Sum is when the waitresses come around with carts of food inside small bamboo steamers. You never know what's on the cart until they take the lid off -- and try to tempt you.

Each time I've been there are new items, but you can count on there always being Shrimp Dumplings, Pork Dumplings, Steamed Buns, Spareribs, and a few vegetable dishes. There will also be things that you have never seen before, but don't worry. The waitresses are happy to answer any questions that you have.

In larger cities with larger Chinese communities, you'll find huge, loud Dim Sum restaurants where the waitresses fly past you with carts and you practically have to scream to get their attention.

The Four Seas is on a smaller, quieter scale. It's nonetheless a welcome addition to Regina's list of restaurants. And it's definitely popular with Regina's Chinese community who fill the place by 11:30 a.m. on weekend mornings.

Big Willie, who is half-Chinese, says that the Four Seas Dim Sum reminds him of the food his grandma made when he was a kid. If that's not a compliment, I don't know what is.

The next time you find yourself bored with what Regina restaurants have to offer, head downtown for Dim Sum. A whole new culinary world awaits you....

The Round-up:

• Food - 1 out of 5
• Decor - 1 out of 5
• Service - 2.5 out of 5
• Total - 4.5 out of 15

2201 11th Avenue, Regina, SK
306-757-2288

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To me, there's something comforting about tucking into a restaurant below street level.

Those few stairs that lead down to the dining room make the noise of traffic outside seem even further away behind the glass windows. It's like discovering a secret getaway in the middle of the city.

Big Willie and I popped into J & A Restaurant across from The Bay on 11th Avenue last weekend. The place was fairly full for a Saturday so I figured we were in for a good time.

Friends told us that J & A, which specializes in Chinese cooking, does a mean dim sum. Being dim sum fans, we just had to check it out.

We settled into a table fairly quickly -- our waitress just had to wipe it clean before we could sit down. She wiped it, though I wouldn't say it was clean. But we got past that. We were hungry, after all.

We waited a few minutes for tea and then a few more minutes to order. With only two waitresses working the floor, the service wasn't exactly speedy.

Unlike most dim sum restaurants, J & A does not bring carts of hot food by your table. Instead, you are provided with a slip of paper on which to tick off your choices from the menu.

We went with a range of standbys, like dumplings and spring rolls, along with a few more unique items (like cassava cake).

As we waited for the food we started to take note of J & A's decor, which includes a strange mixture of fake flowers, pink chairs, and Walt Disney characters on the walls.

First to hit the table were the Salt and Pepper Chicken Wings. These weren't exactly proper Chinese food, but they sounded good. And they tasted good. At first.

I was on my third wing when our whole experience started to go downhill. I bit into the wing and noticed that underneath the crispy skin was a whole lot of blood. How a chicken wing can be deep fried and crispy on the outside, but bloody on the inside, I'm still not sure. I stopped eating the wings and waited for the next item to arrive.

The Vietnamese Spring Rolls were up. Three puny spring rolls came on a small white plate. That's it. No sauce, and an odd number of rolls (there were two of us, as I said).

The rolls tasted about as good as they looked. In fact, they really reminded me of frozen appetizers from Costco. I'm just saying....

We asked the waitress if she had any type of sauce for the rolls. She brought us some plum sauce. In a package.

Next we got the Cassava Cake. This dense, yellow cake was hearty and very filling. Cassava, a root vegetable common in the tropics, is mixed into a sweet cake and then cut into squares. It tasted OK but I'm no cassava expert so I'll refrain from judgement here. Big Willie grew up eating the stuff and he thought J & A's version was on the sweet side.

Next up, another item and another disappointment: the Shrimp and Vegetable Dumplings.

Unlike any other dim sum restaurant I've ever visited, J & A serves dumplings in metal steam baskets instead of traditional bamboo steamers. That's a bit of a shame because the metal seems to dry the dumplings out while bamboo seems to retain more moisture. Plus the bamboo adds a touch of authenticity.

These dumplings were overcooked and the pastry pockets weren't even staying closed. And they had almost no flavour. Good Lord, it was time to take action.

We still had at least three more items to come, but me and Big Willie had more than enough by this point. We called the waitress over, pointed out the bloody chicken and asked her not to send any more items. Oh, and Big Willie mentioned that his teacup was dirty when it came to the table.

You might be thinking that we should have pointed out the chicken incident sooner. And we probably should have. But I like to be an easygoing diner and I was willing to let it slide at first, until everything else turned out to be a disappointment too.

We asked the waitress for our bill and she brought it quickly. Thankfully, she took the chicken and the items that never made it to our table off the bill.

We settled up, threw on our jackets and made a beeline for a real dim sum restaurant: The Four Seas on Rose Street.

To read my review of Four Seas, follow this link: http://www.reginafooddude.com/2009/10/four-seas-restaurant.html

As for J & A, your quaint basement location in a convenient spot downtown almost had me at hello. Unfortunately, you blew it. Big time. We won't be back. And please lose the Mickey Mouse decorations.

The Round-up:

• Food - 4 out of 5
• Service - 3.5 out of 5
• Decor - 3.5 out of 5
• Total - 11 out of 15

1946 Hamilton Street, Regina, SK
306-352-8424

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When I first heard there was a Thai restaurant on Hamilton Street downtown, I have to admit I was a little skeptical.

I pictured a little hole-in-the-wall place that would see a lot of foot traffic during the day (but few actual customers) and almost no one at night (when Regina's downtown transforms into a semi-deserted ghost town).

Boy, was I wrong.

First of all, Hamilton Street is undergoing a huge makeover. Over the last couple of years, new shops and eateries are popping up and filling in the holes left by vacant storefronts. There are still a few gaps, but given time they'll fill in too.

Second of all, Regina's downtown office crowd loves the place. Pay a visit almost any weekday at lunch and you'll be lucky to get a table if you're not there right at noon.

If you're new to Thai food, Siam's lunch buffet is an excellent place to start. There's always a good selection of meat, vegetable, and noodle dishes (Pad Thai is a sure bet), along with a couple of appetizer and dessert items.

Best of all, you can be in and out of the place with a full belly in 30 minutes or less. And get this, the grand total for the lunch buffet comes to less than $10 per person, tax included. I know, shocking.

Hold on now, before you drop the laptop and run down to Hamilton Street I need to talk more about the food.

On a recent Saturday morning, a group of us paid a visit to Siam for a not-so-traditional brunch (there's no buffet on Saturdays, FYI). We got off to a rocky start when we showed up at 11 a.m. (opening time) and the doors were still locked for another 15 minutes.

This didn't sit well with me -- unlike my usual Saturday morning of sleep and relaxation, I'd already done two loads of laundry, shopped for groceries, and ran a couple of other errands. I was hung-ree.

Once we were seated, things went more smoothly. Our gracious waiter was patient with us as we waited for others to arrive and took our time figuring out what to eat.

We ordered a ton of food, by the way. Siam makes this relatively easy by including pictures in the menu and on nifty digital photo frames hung on the walls next to tables.

These are my top three picks, for the first-timer:

- Appetizer: Mieng Kham (Leaf Wraps): This dish is a pleasure to behold and to eat. Crispy fresh coconut, fresh ginger, red onion, Thai chili, lime, cashews, and plum sugar sauce, served on top of bok choy leaves that you roll up yourself, then pop in your mouth.

- Entrees: Larb Moo: This item technically falls under the Salad category on the menu, but its size and filling portion makes it more like a meal. Spicy ground pork is mixed with roasted rice, red onions, green onions, cilantro, and lime juice. It's got some heat but not so much as to scare the beginner away.

Pad Thai: You haven't truly lived until you've had this Thai classic. A bed of warm rice noodles is covered in fried tofu, bean sprouts, and shrimp, then layered with sauce. Practically everyone likes Pad Thai. If you're completely unsure of what to order, start here.

On the whole, Siam is one of downtown's best restaurants with a huge menu, good service, reasonable prices and decent opening hours.

OK, you're dismissed. Eat much and prosper.

www.siamrestaurant.ca

The Round-Up:

• Wine - 3.5 out of 5
• Decor - 3 out of 5
• Service - 3.5 out of 5
• Total - 10 out of 15

3809 Albert Street, Regina, SK.
Phone: 306-585-1661
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There's a new shop in town and it's garnering some attention these days. Willow Park Wines & Spirits officially opened its South Albert Street doors about a week ago.

Now before you go and point out the obvious (that this blog is supposed to be about food and restaurants) let me justify. If there is one thing that goes with food, besides a good appetite, it's wine. OK you got me there, too. Plenty of other drinks go with food -- but wine ranks right up there, that's for sure.

Willow Park is the first of Regina's new privately-owned wine stores, something the provincial government is trying out on a limited basis. So, how does it differ from the good 'ole LB?

Most noticeable are the slightly longer operating hours. Willow Park is open until 10 p.m. six nights per week (that's an hour later than SLGA stores). Plus it's open for an extra two hours on Sundays (until 7 p.m.).

Unless you're a wine connoisseur, you're unlikely to appreciate this next point: Willow Park carries many wines that you won't find on the shelves at Normanview Mall or on Victoria East. Except for a few bottles of beer, wine is all they carry so that shouldn't be a surprise. However, if there's a label you just haven't been able to find at the SLGA stores, Willow Park is a good place to take your search.

The store's interior is suited-up for wine and food tastings. Expect a number of both in the coming months.

Willow Park's geographic location, on Albert Street's busy south end, seems like a safe bet. On the other hand, the actual store itself is tucked back about 100 feet from the street in a dated strip mall. Some extra signage might go a a long way.

Whether you'll use Willow Park for your next wine purchase or stick to your neighbourhood joint remains to be seen. But a little extra competition can't hurt the marketplace.

www.willowpark.net

I was flipping through the pages of the latest Prairie Dog magazine this morning when I stumbled across a new contest.

The 2010 Best of Food poll is now open for voting online (and only online). The poll is much like the annual Best of Regina poll but this one focuses strictly on matters of the tummy. Why not? Regina's food scene has seen tremendous growth over the last three or four years. For a city of our size, our food scene is pretty rockin', I'd say.

Here's just a sample of some of the categories for which you can vote: Best Budget Lunch; Best After Work Drinking; Best Pub Grub; Best Restaurant for a Luxury Date; Best Bathrooms, and the list goes on.

PLUS, the big news, there is a grand prize (by random draw, I assume) of $1000 worth of gift certificates to Regina's eateries for one lucky winner.

Vote online by March 25 at noon.

www.prairiedogmag.com

The Round-up:

• Food - 3 out of 5
• Decor - 3.5 out of 5
• Service - 3 out of 5
• Overall - 9.5 out of 15

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Several months ago a food-loving group was created on Facebook. Its name was the "Cathedral Village Needs a Cheap Breakfast Place", or something like that. It seems that the Village just hadn't been the same since the Quality Tea Room shut down several years back.

I quickly joined the group, as did several hundred other Regina folks (What did we ever do before Facebook groups became the new face of activism, by the way?).
The Facebook fan page continued to grow, many of its members calling for a cheap plate of hash browns and bacon... like now.

Well, some wishes do come true.

The Mercury Cafe and Grill opened its doors in April. The place seemed to spring up overnight on the corner of 13th and Robinson streets in a spot that has housed numerous other restaurants.

The Mercury is a diner, no doubt about that. From the bright red vinyl booths to the formica and chrome tables, stepping into The Mercury is like stepping back 50 or 60 years in time. The Mercury is also under the same ownership as Regina's well-loved Novia Cafe, another all-out diner. This is a good thing -- who better to start a new diner than the folks who run one of the city's oldest and best?

I've been to The Mercury twice now, once for breakfast and once for supper. It's hard to find the right word to describe both experiences. It wasn't fantastic, but it wasn't horrible either. Perhaps satisfactory is the right word.

Weekend breakfast bustles and hustles in The Mercury. If you're not there by 11 on a Sunday, you're going to wait in line for awhile. Granted, The Mercury could easily jam a few more tables into the dining room in order to shave some time off the waiting game.

Your choices for breakfast are classic standbys: bacon and eggs; hash browns; pancakes; an omelette. You get the picture. Now, is it cheap? That depends on your definition of cheap. Most items run around the $8-9 mark, plus the cost of coffee and/or juice. I've had cheaper, but I've also had more expensive.

Service can be a little disorganized, but hopefully the servers work that out amongst themselves as the restaurant irons out the operating wrinkles. We had to wait 30 minutes for any food to hit the table at breakfast, almost enough to push us to the breaking point, but not quite. Fortunately, our waitress took good care of us in the meantime.

Now let's talk about supper for a moment. Once again, there are few surprises on the evening menu. Nachos; chicken wings; chicken fingers; burgers; clubhouse sandwiches; and grilled cheese are a few of the choices.

We ordered up a plate of nachos to get things started. With a $10 price tag, we pictured a nice platter of cheesy chips and veggies. We couldn't have been more wrong. A dinner plate with a puny pile of nachos on it was what we got. Even worse: the scarce bits of cheese on the chips were overcooked and rubbery. Epic fail, my friends. Epic fail.

Next up: the burgers. Now this is where the action is at. Tender homemade beef patties are smooshed between fresh buns with all the fixins. I went for the Mushroom Swiss. Big Willie had The Mercury Burger (two patties with fried onions, mushrooms, shaved ham, Swiss and cheddar cheese). All burgers come with a side. We went for the french fries and they were done to perfection.

Big Poppa (my dad) went for the open-faced Hot Turkey Sandwich... which came with hot chicken, oddly enough. But he got past that.

All in all, The Mercury offers up decent food in a comfortable room. The motto seems to be: come as you are, eat what you will. Now if they'd only fine-tune the nachos and up the portion size for most of the breakfast menu, we might have a sure-fire winner on our hands.

(no website)

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the fantastic makeover given to Cafe Orange on Robinson Street, near the 13th Avenue Safeway.

The place has been all dolled up and looks like it's ready to roll. The problem? They're only serving coffee and some rather lackluster desserts at the moment.

When I stopped in on June 25 to order a coffee (which was very good, I might add), the woman working the till told me that food service would be a reality by Canada Day, or perhaps a day or so later.

I went by Cafe Orange again earlier today (July 7, for the record) just to see what the situation was. Once more, I was told that food service is coming soon. Hopefully by Friday... maybe Monday.

This strikes me as more than a little strange. Customers have been looking forward to the new Cafe Orange for months. A little suspense can be a good thing. But keep people waiting for too long and they'll eventually lose interest.

Cafe Orange, it's time to fire up the ovens, take off the training wheels, and become a full-fledged restaurant. You reopened a month ago. You have the potential to be one of the city's best restaurants.

Now please serve us some food so that we can judge for ourselves.