Alberta Beef and Flapjacks

I went away to Alberta this weekend, for a wedding. Wedding food is often very good, but can also be very bad. But it wasn't just the reception meal that was of note on this trip. No, there were plenty of good eats out west.

Craig picked me up from the airport in Edmonton, and we drove north to Athabasca. We decided to stop for dinner in the dirtiest small-town bar we could find. In the perhaps ironically-named Legal, AB, we found Kilgour's, a local watering hole that welcomed customers with the words "keep your city...out of our country" above the door. This was the place. We walked in to the turned heads of a table full of good-ol' boys, perhaps past their prime, but all wearing cowboy hats regardless. The bartender was very friendly, and also wearing a cowboy hat and boots. He was even a bit bowlegged. I ordered the cheeseburger, and Craig had the steak sandwhich.

30mins later, we finally had our order. At first we thought it was because we were from out of town, but everyone's orders all came at once, so it was likely the cook really was just overworked. The burger was just fine, nothing out of the ordinary.

While we were there, some dude won $400 at the VLT! Of course, the two sad-looking old folks who had been at the machines all day didn't win a thing. They just kept feeding the 20s in to the machines. When they got their meal, they leaned their chairs up to the machine to reserve them, supposedly, and moved over to eat at the counter and play on the terminal there. Addicts. But the guy who won just walked in, sat down, put in a fiver, and bang, he was up to $400! He played a little more, but he cashed out well ahead.

When we got up to Athabasca, the menu was mostly pancakes (or maybe flapjacks, as you might call them if they are made on a barbecue or over a campfire) and sausages. We had a couple of those breakfast cookouts, and we did hit up the local family restaurant, The Green Spot, for less than enthralling open-faced hot turkey sandwhiches. The mushroom gravy was outstanding though. Usually gravy doesn't have much flavour, but this was good stuff. It made the dry fries bearable.

The wedding meal was very good. There is a reason Alberta is known for its beef. There were fine pasta salads, Yorkshire pudding, potatoes, corn and mixed vegetables. The dessert was some kind of maple cake that was rich and sweet, in a very good way. The wedding cake itself was a simple chocolate cake (vanilla on the second layer, but I didn't have any of that). It didn't have the usual crazy-butter icing wedding cakes tend to have, but it was still good.

The other thing that happened on this trip was that I ran on Friday morning before breakfast. Usually I eat first and ask questions (the kind you ask on a 10-mile run) later, but because we were meeting up with others for pancakes, I decided to get the run out of the way first thing. I only did 30mins anyway, but still, I felt a little empty inside. I like a good meal.