Liquid Nitrogen Ice Cream Heaven from Blue Giraffe Creamery

Blue Giraffe Creamery Truck

Although the food truck landscape has expanded drastically in Edmonton, I have still longed for a food truck that is focused solely on dessert. Enter Blue Giraffe Creamery, a new food truck own and run by University of Alberta Business student, Avery Daugela, focusing on all natural, preservative free ice cream made to order with liquid nitrogen!

Avery, who is currently studying entrepreneurship and still has one semester left in school was inspired by her sister, who told her of a store in Australia that she visited that made ice cream only with liquid nitrogen. Wanting to get her feet work on starting her own business, she decided that a liquid nitrogen ice cream truck would be a unique and inexpensive way to start her own business.

Sip 'n Savour at The Taste of Edmonton 2013

Smoked Jerky with Apple Puree

I have attend Taste of Edmonton for many years, but the last few years have bemoaned the fact that most of the food vendors have served the same item year after year. The point of the event is to allow restaurants to showcase what they have to the Edmonton public who might never have stepped a foot inside their restaurants, and hopefully garner them some new customers. For the customers, it allows us to try a myriad of different food and see if there are restaurants that we like, but had never visited previously. However, it seems as though most restaurants have shied away from changing their menu year after year, and have opted to stick with items they know were popular in the past and sold well. As a result, I've found the past few years that I've attended fairly boring, eating the same items over and over again.

Indian Food on Brick Lane at The Monsoon

Poppadums

London is abundant with Indian restaurants, which a wander down Brick Lane confirms, as a multitude of Indian restaurants compete and vie for business. Their strategy is aggressive, with staff standing outside their respective restaurants trying to woo perspective customers by offering them a variety of different deals from free alcoholic beverages, to a percentage of the total bill, anything to get you through their restaurant doors. We opted to stop and try The Monsoon, an Indian restaurant who promised not only one free alcoholic beverage per person but also 30% off our total food bill.

Palatable Parkallen Restaurant

Hummus

Although I’d heard good things about Parkallen Restaurant from friends, I’d never actually gone. So when a Groupon for Parkallen Resturant went on sale, I took the opportunity to finally visit. The décor and furnishings inside the restaurant didn’t evoke a Lebanese or even Mediterranean feel, with only the hookahs located by the bar to signal that it was a Lebanese restaurant. In the middle was a large glass wine cellar, with a very impressive looking collection of wines, champagne and other liquors.

Revisiting Afternoon Tea at Claridges

Rose Champagne

Having visited on our first trip to London and had a great experience previously, I wanted to revisit to see if it was as good as I remembered it being on our first visit. After experiencing a disappointing afternoon tea experience our first week in London at Fortnum and Mason, I was really looking forward to afternoon tea at Claridges and knew this time not to eat before I went.