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Slow South Indian Cuisine

Slow-roasted tandoori chicken at Calgary’s Masala Bhavan As I place my order at compact Masala Bhavan, I’m advised the tandoori chicken, marinated overnight, will take 15-20 minutes to roast in a clay oven. Fine by me; just means my meal is being made to order. It’s a big, sizzling platter of food—four messy bone-in legs for $16, rounded out by four chewy pieces of naan and a refreshing goblet…

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Calgary's Best Tacos

Birria and cactus choices at Tacos Mexico Don’t know why, but the word “authentic” is tied to Mexican cuisine like barnacles to a boat. You don’t hear much about authentic Korean food or authentic French fare. But Mexican without the attached “a” word is like fries without ketchup. I’m not even certain what authentic means, especially in a country that must boast a dozen regional cuisines. Sure…

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A&W: Best Fast-Food Burger

A&W: Canada’s original and best burger chain Fast-food chains violate everything Marathon Mouth stands for, principally independently owned and operated places to eat and drink. But my sister has been relentlessly championing the burgers at A&W, a nearly 70-year-old Canadian chain. So when she proclaimed the new Steakhouse Teen Burger the “best burger around,” I had to check it out. First, a…

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Calgary's Best Brewpub Pizzas and Beers

Last Best pizza and beer There are many classic culinary pairings: bacon and eggs, burgers and fries, mac and cheese, peanut butter and jam. To this mix we can add beer and pizza, a longtime partnership that’s only getting stronger in Calgary as more craft breweries add gourmet pizzas to their pub food menus. So much so that you can go for the beer but stay for the pie. Here’s a half dozen…

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Calgary's Best Taproom Beer and Burgers

You can’t beat Citizen Brewing’s happy-hour burger and beer Pretty much any Calgary taproom worth its salt has at least one burger on its food menu. Here are four of the best pairings. This one’s a slam dunk. Annex Ales (4323 1 Street SE) is arguably the most adventurous craft brewery in Calgary. The attached Lil’ Empire serves some of the city’s finest burgers. Try a small-batch, seasonal brew…

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Patient Perfection at Calgary's Q.Lab Coffee

Q.Lab is all, and only, about coffee You don’t go to Q.Lab, just to drink coffee. You go for the whole ceremonial experience. Sound pretentious? No, simply a laser focus on painstakingly producing the best possible cup of coffee… without the distraction of offering food. And that takes time. When I order a pour-over at Q.Lab’s tasting lab/café in Calgary’s Beltline, I’m asked to choose from…

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Calgary Cowtown Goes Vegan

Monster Reuben at Vegan Street Vegan Street is the name of the Inglewood restaurant. But it could just as easily be describing the influx of such eateries along busy 9th Avenue SE. The others include Canela Vegan Bakery and the Attic, the latter a Vegan Street sister spot that serves evening, plant-based pastas and pizzas. Together, they reflect the growing popularity, especially among the…

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Calgary's Hottest Chicken Sandwiches

Does JINBAR produce Calgary’s best hot chicken sandwich? In recent years, it seems, every other fast-food outlet and casual restaurant started introducing hot fried chicken sandwiches to their menus. A staple of Nashville dining, these spicy creations have migrated north, quickly becoming commonplace in Calgary. Here are three local standouts that, I reckon, could compete with anything south of…

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Happy With a Lonely Mouth

A fabulous bowl of Happy Hour curry udon at Lonely Mouth Bar Marathon Mouth (that’s me), meet Lonely Mouth. The latter is a 17th Avenue SW Calgary bar that offers Japanese-inspired meals and inscrutable reasons for the name: “When you’re not hungry, but you eat because your mouth is lonely.” I ponder this riddle as I tuck into one of the best happy-hour deals in Calgary (2-5 pm). This includes…

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Give Me Mo of Those Nepalese Dumplings

Ever heard of momo cuisine? Me neither��until I discovered it was Nepalese stuffed dumplings and had to check it out. Fortunately, there was a compromise—a platter of some 10 chicken dumplings, done in three styles and topped with an artful bit of salad. Better yet, this luncheon special was only $13. Still, when I walked into Calgary Momo House, in a distant northwest mall, I was overwhelmed by…

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Ryuko Rocks

At Ryuko, fabulous lunchtime Japanese spread for only $18 I’ve never been a big fan of sushi, largely because of the cost and the quality. Well, I’ve found a newish Japanese restaurant in southwest Calgary that blows this argument out of the water. Indeed, a recent meal at Ryuko, in Christie Park, is arguably my best lunch deal and experience of the year to date. It starts when I walk down the…

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Calgary's Creme Cream Puffs Blows Up on TikTok

Sublime cream puffs at Creme There’s nothing like TikTok to turbocharge the marketing of a wee Calgary bakery. That’s what Crème Cream Puffs owner Carly Hamilton recently discovered when she posted a video of her little industrial-area shop, just off Macleod Trail. Two weeks later, sales of her inspired cream puffs and macarons had increased 600 per cent, with 105,000 likes and counting. That’s…

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Hungry Thaiger is a Thai Ghost Kitchen Winner

Hungry Thaiger is a fabulous family-run Thai ghost kitchen in southwest Calgary I’m a sucker for ghost kitchens, pop-up restaurants, micro bakeries and pretty much any home-based food joints. Why? It’s largely because I’ve dispensed with the middleperson and am directly dealing, and chatting, with the owner, who is often the cook. In a lot of cases, I’m picking up the meal at the proprietor’s…

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Late-Night Yemeni Coffeehouse a Unique Experience

10:30 pm and Qamaria Yemeni Coffee is just starting to fill up It’s 10:30 at night, and I should be tucked in bed. I’m also 10-plus hours beyond my usual last caffeine hit of the day. Yet here I am, about to order a high-dose coffee and, what the hell, a sugar blast of cake. Welcome to Qamaria, Calgary’s first entry into the late-night Yemeni coffeehouse craze sweeping the U.S. Here, people…

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Buchanan's Still Calgary's Best Burger

It doesn’t get any better than Buchanan’s sirloin burger A $25 burger? No thanks. Unless the same excellent burger and fries can be had for a happy-hour deal of $15. Then sign me up. Especially if it’s Buchanan’s famed charbroiled Angus sirloin bacon cheeseburger. It was arguably the city’s finest deluxe burger when the elegant chop house and whisky bar opened on the edge of downtown Calgary in…

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Best Indian Food in Calgary: Deepak's Dhaba

Chef Deepak welcomes me to his outstanding Indian restaurant in north-centre Calgary Gotta say, Deepak’s Dhaba blew me away. Everything about my recent lunch at this Indian restaurant was exceptional. Indeed, if I include a delightful chat with chef/owner Deepak Singh Kalsi, it’s arguably my best Calgary dining experience thus far in a busy 2025. Yes, Deepak’s Dhaba offers standard roadside…

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Happy Hour Tacos in Calgary at Native Tongues

That’s me ordering $1 food-truck tacos near Walla Walla, Washington In my early days of road-trip dining in the southwest U.S., I’d occasionally stop at a rusty Mexican food truck for a paper plate full of tacos at a picnic table. Little envelopes of goodness, such as grilled pork pastor, often for as little as $1. Four bucks was a big feed, even in U.S. dollars. Times have certainly changed,…