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Edo Japan

“Delight in this flavourful combination of fresh cut carrots, broccoli flowerets, chopped mushrooms and cabbage – grilled to perfection!”

Fresh Grilled Vegetables

4/5

While looking for fast food options I tried out Edo, where they have fresh grilled veggies on their menu, which I have with yakisoba. It’s a combination of “freshly sliced carrots, broccoli florets, chopped mushrooms, and shredded cabbage steamed and grilled”, on your choice of rice or noodles with teriyaki sauce (if you’d like). I liked it before, not having meat hardly made a difference to me now. They also serve avocado and cucumber sushi, which was one of my saving graces for sushi cravings since I avoid seafood in my diet.


Thai Orchid Room

$14.95
“Coconut milk curry made with cilantro and spinach, sauteed with fresh mixed vegetables and tofu.”

Green Curry Vegetable (Gaeng Kiaw Wan Pak)

5/5

Okay seriously, this is all-in-all the best food I have ever eaten, I cannot put into words how perfectly creamy, perfectly spicy, and perfectly delicious it is. I’ve never gotten past the thai green curry dish to try anything else there because I simply love it so much. If there’s sauce leftover I will drink it straight. This veggie dish can come with tofu – needless to say, the best tofu I’ve ever had. It’s deep fried tofu, I think a combination of chewy and bready is the best way I can describe it but it certainly doesn’t have the awful texture most tofu has. It comes with jasmine rice, which is probably as good as jasmine rice will ever get. I know Thai Orchid can be pricey, it’s a fancy place, I’ve never had anything bad to say about the staff and service. I don’t know what else to say, it’s simply all kinds of amazing.

I would also like to mention that Thai Orchid Room has been on Medicine Hat Media’s Top Restaurant Picks for the last three years since it started.


Free-Range Eggs

The eggs people normally buy for cheapest price come from the 98% of Canadian egg-laying hens kept in crammed wire battery cages. While some people shop according to price, I would like to inform them of why their choice is important and which side they are supporting.

Battery cage conditions prevent chickens from performing their normal behaviors such as standing, stretching, privacy, grooming, dust and water bathing, wing flapping, nesting, developing healthy social relationships, and going outside. Common problems from this deprivation include osteoporosis, metabolic and respiratory diseases, painful foot lesions, and slow death via starvation and paralysis due to spinal compression. These environmental conditions leads to fear, apathy, boredom, and abnormal, often harmful behaviors, resulting in hens plucking each others feathers out, sometimes creating open wounds, some engaging in cannibalism, and when victimized the hen has no area to escape to. To prevent these frustration attacks portions of their beaks are sliced or lasered off, some are also starved to increase production (called forced molting) and they may have no lighting to save on costs.

There is an alternative, known as free-range eggs, where the chickens have access to the outside, more space per chicken and a much higher quality of life. These eggs have harder shells and yolks with an orange color, they are superior in nutritional content due to the greens and insects in the diet, having higher levels of Omega 3, Vitamins A and E, with lower levels of total fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, and Omega 6. Free range eggs are more expensive but that little extra worth goes a long way in support for a better life of hens who lay our eggs. Also, if you can purchase eggs locally that would be twice as nice! If it’s at all a topic of interest to you I encourage people to do their own research, battery cages are far worse than I went into detail with.

note: “free-run” means they have space to walk, which is better than battery cages, but unlike “free-range” they aren’t necessarily allowed to go outside.

Images taken from Wikipedia: Free Range Chicken Flock & Industrial Chicken Coop


Mother Nature’s Cafe

$10.95
“Grilled vegetables, caramelized onions, balsamic goat cheese & freshly picked basil.”

Roasted Red Pepper Panini

4/5

My first time here, quite a nice cafe jointed to a beautiful garden center. It has a gorgeous display of loose leaf teas, I found the orange pekoe quite nice. The full panini comes with a side of greens, soup and beverage, I tried one of the greens and unfortunately it wasn’t for me. The panini was amazing, every ingredient with its distinct flavor creating an experience of awesome for each of my taste buds. What caught my eye mostly about this place, as I’ve been following them on Facebook, is that they have quite a fair share of non-meat options, though I think they specialize in daily soups and teas which means a limited menu. The staff was super nice, and it was almost full on the Monday noon time I attended. Due to the location, which honestly is still closer to most than Crescent Heights, I probably wouldn’t go out of my way to go there, although it is tasty and I do hope to try again, perhaps if I were shopping for gardening supplies with a friend it would be a good place to stop.


abc Country Restaurant

$10.99
“A garden burger patty made of soy protein, onions, cooked brown rice, mushrooms, spinach, rolled oats, mozzarella cheese, feta cheese, olive oil, parmesan cheese and garlic on a toasted multigrain bun with burger sauce.”

Gardenburger

3 / 5

Gardenburgers are my favorite kind of veggie burgers because they don’t try to imitate meat, but rather make something different and delicious. This certain patty looks and tastes like the actual Gardenburger brand patties you can buy from the store, which Superstore apparently doesn’t stock any more so if you know where some are please comment and tell me where, I miss them! Anyway, it has the traditional toppings (lettuce, tomatoes, onions), and some special burger and mayo sauce. It wasn’t exactly bad in anyway, but it wasn’t trying to be anything special. I would like to mention that burger combos at ABC come with endless wedges/fries (which were good but not special either). Given the chance, I wouldn’t order this again, I have many other preferences which I will cover in the future. The restaurant was empty between lunch and supper on a Saturday when we went, so the service was good.


Twist

$10.99
“Pasta with chicken, mushrooms and veggies in a creamy sundried tomato sauce with a sprinkling of fresh parmesan.”

Amalfi Pasta

3.5 / 5

This would be my first time at the Twist Wine Bistro and Restaurant, a cozy small place downtown. When I first saw the menu I was skeptical of my options; deep fried cheese, deep fried artichoke, or deep fried yams. Twist serves authentic Italian cuisine so I was unsure of what I would like, knowing I like cheese I figured I would go with that but at the time they didn’t have manchego cheese so feeling somewhat frustrated I got the pasta of the day minus the chicken. I prefer to order meals where the meat isn’t the focus, but they were very accommodating and put in extra veggies without me requesting it. I had a good share of red wine, and some bread with oil dip as an appetizer. The bread and oil were straight forward, I had some difficulty scooping up the stuff at the bottom so that was a waste of calories. I think the pasta would have been better with a different type of noodle, I guess that’s more of a personal preference, same with not liking olives. It had a nice subtle rose sauce and a variety of vegetables, it was good but not incredibly delicious, I wouldn’t order it again. The place was basically empty on that Thursday night, the service was great.


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