Woah-oh Black Betty!

Yee-haw it's Stampede time y'all! Another year of the same old 10 days of hectic, relentless partying. 10 days during which Calgarians in their right mind get out of town as fast as they possibly can. Normally, I'm part of that crowd but I guess employment takes priority this summer. Which means I am even closer to the chaos! We ran out of cream today and being the baker, I volunteered to go get more. I mean, cream is pretty much essential when both of your desserts are 90% composed of it. Anyways I drove around the block like 3 times just trying to find parking (as it was relatively near the Stampede grounds). And to make things worse they only had 2 500mL containers left. Oh what a gongshow. This story actually doesn't have any point to it so if you are expecting some amazing conclusion, sorry to crush your dreams. What I'm really trying to say is, you should all come to Calgary to experience the wonderful event that also happens to be the "Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth!" the Calgary Stampede. As cynical as I am, it does do great things for the overall city morale. People get the chance to unwind, let loose (which occasionally can be taken too far, but hey, what the heck) and have a riot for 10 days. Then the pregnancy and divorce rates go up and.....life kinda just goes back to what it was before, if not worse ;) But for those 10 days, it's all worth it! Look at me, Negative Nelly, Debbie Downer. Or just a realist. I know, I could probably use a lesson in letting loose myself. What you have to understand is, as a native Calgarian that has lived in the city my entire life, Stampede is one of those "been there, done that" scenarios. However if you are visiting from out of town, by all means come and enjoy yourself. There's so much to do, with no shortage of good times and memories, that's for sure. So in a nutshell, read this critically and take note of the bias in my pessimistic blabber. Yahoo! No, not referring to the search engine here, Google is better anyways. 

Ok now to tie this all together. Yesterday ended up being a day of eating out. After Jimmy's falafel for lunch, we decided to try Black Betty Burger and Winebar for dinner. And the particularly nice part about our restaurant of choice was it's location. Conveniently removed from the hectic, relentless partying previously mentioned. Yee-haw to that indeed!

The Black Betty Burger complete with one wicked pickle!

I know it's a little detail, but I appreciated the micro-planed parm. It just shows that they took the effort rather than going with the fake, pre-shredded stuff.

Although I wasn't expecting an earth-shattering culinary experience, I was excited to see what Black Betty had to offer. Indeed nothing earth-shattering, but yummy and comforting nonetheless. I opted for the truffle grilled cheese slathered with truffled dijon mustard and oozing with aged cheddar and brie cheeses. I mean really, how can you mess up a grilled cheese? The side caesar salad was also good. I liked the addition of sun-dried tomatoes and rye bread croutons.

Dessert was a salted caramel, chocolate ganache pie of sorts. It was fine but I'm glad we shared it because after a few bites, I'd had enough. A good few bites but it was definitely pretty one-note. Sugary and rich with nothing to cut it - no depth. But coming from a place that specializes in burgers, grilled cheese and such, really I was just impressed that they actually made their dessert in-house.

 

The service was also excellent. Our waitress was super friendly and chatty and we even had a nice talk with the GM over the course of the evening. So no complaints there. Overall it was definitely a very pleasant supper out. Now back to some home cooked food...if I can even remember how. Sure hope I can considering I get paid to do it (at work that is).  Although technically I am a baker, not a cook. Well there will be no shortage of bread and desserts then. Let them eat cake! And if you go to the Stampede, I'm sure you can probably even find yourself some deep-fried cake! FYI there are deep-fried Wagon Wheels this year (terrifying, I know). Howdee!