Good Eats in the Mountains

If you’re ever in Banff and are looking for good places to eat with yummy, yummy food, I urge you to please, please go to Sukiyaki House. The food is authentically Japanese and the sushi rolls are made with just the right amount of rice. I find that with some other places, the sushi rolls are made with more rice than necessary, so you end up eating a rice ball instead of a proper sushi roll. So because there’s less rice packed into the rolls, the flavor of the tempura ebi surrounded by tobiko was more enhanced and tasted just delectable.

The chefs at Sukiyaki House really know what they’re doing because the tempura was lightly battered and perfectly hot and crispy. Our waiter brought our dishes out in a timely fashion, and we were pleased that the tempura and agedashi tofu came out first, so that it wouldn’t be cold if had brought everything out at once.

Another place that was simply amazing was Nourish Vegetarian Bistro & Tea House. The special of the day was the Saag Paneer Curry on Rice and man, was it ever tasty! I wish I had a picture of the plate when I was done with it because it was scraped clean. The curry wasn’t too strong, the rice fluffy and fragrant, and the pieces of saag paneer firm and creamy. It was so good that just thinking about it now makes my mouth water! D had the Baked Burrito and it was very delicious as well. There was a sprinkling of whole cashews and almonds around the burrito and the tomato sauce thick and wonderfully spiced. I’ll admit, however, that I was way too into my curry to have tasted more of the burrito, but from the bite that I had, it was pretty good.

One disappointment I had was at Evelyn’s Coffee Bar, a prominent café chain in Banff. Stopping in for a cup of coffee, we found the café small and overly crowded, but I kept thinking that their coffee would make up for it. I got myself a cup of dark roast coffee and a chocolate orange cookie. The cookies in the display were big and they looked soft and moist. I figured that I had made the right choice since I was snagging the next to last chocolate cookie. We left the café and strolled down the street. I took a sip of the coffee and was disappointed. It was much more bitter than I had thought, despite my usual preference for dark roast at other cafes. So then I took a bite of the cookie to see if it would sweeten the bitterness, but instead of soft and moist, the cookie was greasy and crispy, leaving crumbs like sand stuck on my lips. Sure, it was sweet, but I found the chocolate to be very un-chocolately and lacking in “orange” flavor. Maybe my taste buds were a bit wonky after a yummy curry lunch, but I was a bit disappointed with Evelyn’s!

Banff is rife with restaurants and cafes, but those two restaurants I mentioned above were amazing. I won’t be going back to Evelyn’s on my next trip to the mountains, but I’ll definitely be interested in trying Wild Flour Bakery!