Beloved Punjarby's

Along 34^th avenue there is an Indian restaurant that is located in what I understand to be an old Arby’s. We have been going there for close to a decade and while it seemed to have the original Arby’s décor until maybe prior to 2009, it has definitely been ‘fancied up’.

When we ask friends who’ve never been there to meet us, we always tell them we call it “Punjarby’s” as they will recognize the smoked colored glass dome in the front. It never fails to work. The restaurant is actually called Punjab Sweets & Restaurant. I don’t know who originally owned it, but over a long period of time the counter was fronted by a lady who I think was Russian and was, well, stern I think would be a charitable description.

Buffet Table No. 1

Anywho, the internet says they’ve changed ownership and this appears to have been met with the fear that things have changed. Since it’s our favorite place for Indian food and we’ve been trying to get out more with baby friendly friends, we invited one of our tight baby friends to come with us. We met in Alberta Health’s “Mom School” and have become really great friends. They were game to bring their baby and so we made a date for Saturday night. Welllllllll, Saturday afternoon at 4:30 to be precise. We basically eat on the Golden Girls schedule these days. No disrespect to my ladies.

Buffet Table No. 2

The great thing about this place is that it is usually packed to the gills and does a bumpin’ take out business so the food is often being emptied out of the steam trays before it has any kind of chance to sit and get stale. Tonight was no exception. My beloved butter chicken tasted just as I had remembered, and the décor has certainly upped it’s game. No more Formica tables, cracked pink leatherette chairs and Christmas lights. No siree, now it’s all moody earthtones and fancy fabric draping.

Baby's favorite dessert: gulab jamun

We grabbed a booth, put one baby in a lobster chair and one in a high chair. Then we loaded them and ourselves up with all the goodness. The fish pakora seemed like a new addition and OH MY WORD; I had three helpings. It was aaaamazing. The palak paneer was solid, and my baby gobbled up a lot of sweet rice. Our friends, who had never been before, also had a solid time and their baby was super great throughout the meal. Their daughter especially enjoyed the dessert: gulab jamun - a kind of donut hole soaked in syrup. Our baby? Well, thankfully, no one was sitting in the booth behind us, as he kept projectile rocketing his food tray over the divider.

All in all we would rate it:

Did they have a highchair?             Yes (5/5)

Did it look like it had been wiped down this calendar year? Yes (5/5)

Change tables: Big zero here and the bathrooms were in general so frightful, I kind of want to take away points L (0) = 0/5

How was the staff? Lots of water top ups, admiration for the babies and naan basket never went empty 

(5/5)

Was the food awesome? Yes (5/5)

Total: 20/25

Our recommendation: bringing a baby may be stressful if you need to change them, but at the same time the place is so chaotic, if they lose their minds no one will notice and that is sometimes worth a change in the back of the car.

Noodles for the win!

Once again we found ourselves at Friday. Exhausted. Too tired to think about cooking. Thanh Thanh to the rescue!

Thanh Thanh Oriental Noodle House is a Vietnamese restaurant that has been around since at least the 90s. When T first moved to the big city and saw the bright lights, it was one of his regular haunts grinding as a junior designer. In my current day job, it is where we go for our twice a year team lunches. And where I go at least once or twice a month for a fix of spicy beef satay soup. But I’m getting ahead of myself!

Mesmerizing!

When we walked in a huge fish tank greeted us. The baby was faaaaaascinated with the fish. So much so that he cried a little when we left to be seated. Helpfully, we sat him facing the tank so he could wave at the fishies throughout our meal.

Burns like hell, tastes like Heaven. 

While I am not the biggest fan of spicy food, there is something about the spicy beef satay soup at Thanh Thanh that is like a dragon I’m constantly chasing. It’s addictive. When I was pregnant I once ate it three days in a row, with the leftovers for lunch for each of those three days. Yes, I am ‘fessing up to eating it 6 times in 3 days.  It’s that good. BELIEVE ME. It’s so flavorful with coconut, beef, heat, peanuts and delicioso noodles.

Before

So aaaaaaaanyways, it was all I wanted to order. Baby loves spring rolls so we ordered 6 of them and mashed them up in a bowl for him. He devoured about 4 of them!

After

T ordered the soup lover’s delight because in all his years of eating there, he’d never tried it. 

Solid, solid pho.

He usually orders the Szechuan chicken but felt the need to try something new. He’s a big fan of pho and felt the most basic version of it there would be a good barometer against other restaurants. He thought it was delicious; Solid broth, safe ingredients, not the ‘adventure choice’ (read: no tripe). Next time, it’s on like Donkey Kong.

All in all I would rate it:

Did they have a highchair?             Yes (5/5)

Did it look like it had been wiped down this calendar year? Yes (5/5)

Change tables: one in the ladies room (+2.5), none in the men’s room L (0) = 2.5/5

Did the wait staff give us stink eye? They rolled with the tossing of the chopsticks, brought us new 

ones twice and told us he was cute. No extreme fawning (4/5)

Was the food awesome? Yes (5/5)

Total: 21.5/25

Our recommendation: bring the kids and go for the adventure choice! Try something new!

End of the week pizza

So last Friday after a looooooong week at work I picked up little A, jumped on the first bus headed to Whyte ave and called the hubster to meet us there for supper. Anywhere. Anywhere that served pizza.

Specifically, Famoso.

A and I had to kill about 30 minutes so we headed over to the Chapters to run off some steam in their toy department. It was brilliant. They had a baby grand piano set up and he bashed away for ten solid minutes. I especially enjoyed how the toy department people had located it on the very outer fringes of the toy department, nearest the Starbucks. The stink eye those latte-drinking, headphone wearing, laptop typing folks gave us – OY! I kept telling A, “louder, LOUDER”. I think the Chapters folks are trolling them.

After A’s repeated attempts to eat a dozen crayons from the drawing table, and with a few tears as we left the corn popper behind, we headed over to Famoso, a great little Edmonton grown pizza chain. I was worried it was going to be a hassle to snag a table, but by slipping in at 5:30 we got one of the very last ones.

Famoso is famous for its wood fired oven where pizzas are cooked in roughly 90 seconds, and their fancypants imported flour. It’s called 00 and that’s all I’m willing to find out about it. What I love about them is their non-standard toppings. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Famoso is sort of half-fast food, half-sit down restaurant. It works like this:

-you get a table

-you go up to the counter and order your food and drinks

-you sit back down and they bring it all over to you

-if you want something more, you can order it from the waitress

-when you are done, you go back up to the counter and pay your tab. (Although sometimes I have paid right away after ordering when I know I’m in a bit of a rush).

Yay! Menus are fun!

We ordered the Spicy Thai pizza, which is our alltime fave. It has mildly spiced peanut sauce, fire-roasted chicken, fior-di-latte, smoked mozzarella. Topped with matchstick carrots, bean sprouts, cilantro, crushed peanuts, and a lime wedge. Unconventional and DEEEEELICIOUS. We also tried one of their new offerings, The Korean BBQ pork, which has slow-roasted spiced pork butt, Korean BBQ sauce, fior-di-latte, green onion, cheddar cheese,  and hoisin sauce. We also split a Caesar salad. 

Spicy Thai, forgot to take photos of the Korean pizza

For drinks, momma was relieved to see Bellini in single size bottles, and T ordered a Moretti beer.

Besides feeling that I deserved a peachy, raspberry, sparkling wine drink because my week had been so mentally taxing, the single serve bottle was aluminum and became a useful plaything for A to entertain himself with while we waited for dinner. Because we had forgotten to pack a toy. Again. And since his Raffi addiction is out of control and I just upped my data limit again and didn’t need to go over it by streaming ‘six little ducks’, I was pretty happy for him to roll it around and repeatedly drop it on the floor to watch it bounce and roll.

Momma's little helper.

Dinner arrived pretty quickly (10min) (also, thank Goddess). A’s dislike of salad did not magically disappear with the arrival of our Caesar salad, but we picked out some bacon and parm for him and he gobbled them up. He was pretty wild about the spicy Thai (beansprouts ERMAGAD), but the Korean BBQ must have been too spicy for him as he cried and needed to be watered down after a few misadventurous bites.

Me: I continue to carry the torch for the spicy Thai and would eat it every day. The Korean BBQ? Sweet and yummy but too ‘saucy’ as it soaked the dough and gave it the consistency of being undercooked. Also, I got a few bites of the spice and I think our pizza maker must have had a really liberal hand. It buuuuuuuuurned.

I really wanted to have dessert as their dark chocolate salted caramel gelato is drooooooooooooool. But A was at the end of his rope and it was time to get.out.of.there. before we hit meltdown level 9. And we couldn’t get the waitresses attention. So after drying a few tears (mine), hubster ran up to pay and we booted it out of there.

All in all I would rate it:

1. Did they have a highchair?             Yes (5/5)

2. Did it look like it had been wiped down this calendar year? Yes* (5/5) *It’s only January

3. Change tables: (2.5/5)

Ladies room: Yes (+2.5)

Mens room: No.  Tdot wasn’t able to get into the men’s stall but the waitress told us there wasn’t one (0)

4. Did the wait staff give us stink eye? No, but they didn’t fawn over my baby and I really wanted to order that gelato (3.5/5)

5. Was the food awesome? Yes, even despite the spiciness and sort of sogginess (5/5)

Total: BUT WAIT, SURPRISE ENDING!

When we got home, Tdot realized I must have biffed his wallet from his coat while wrangling our baby gear and baby. He madly dashed back to the restaurant in mild panic while I called them to ask them to keep a look out for it. To our deep, deep relief, it had been turned in and they had it. Even more of a bonus: no money was stolen out of it. YAAAAAY for good people. YAAAAAAY for wallet karma coming back to us! AND he brought home the Salted Carmel Gelato!!! WIN WIN WIN!

Bonus points: 5/5.

Total: 26/25

Our recommendation: go eat there and bring your baby!