| If long lineups at Galaxie Diner weren’t enough, people are now queuing up for owner Brad Myhre’s new restaurant next door. Indeed, Palace of Eats is the latest, greatest addition to the row of trendy shops and nosheries on 11th Street S.W. between 14th and 15th Avenue.
Myhre annexed the space formerly occupied by Toxic clothing store next door to his 1940s all-day breakfast diner and opened the old-school luncheonette in May 2003. Designed to look like the inside of a nice boat, the 600-square-foot Palace is outfitted in beautiful dark mahogany and light oak. Especially inviting is the entrance alcove, with wooden park benches bathed in sunlight from the street-facing windows. In fact, the mahogany panels are souvenirs from the original Palace of Eats on 8th Avenue and 1st Street S.W., which experienced several incarnations from 1919 to 1964, as a grocery store lunch counter, tearoom and diner coffee shop.
The blackboard menu at the Palace of Eats isn’t extensive because Myhre wanted to focus on a few top-quality items – the house specialty is Montreal smoked meat (specially seasoned cured beef brisket). Although many delis outside Quebec claim to serve Montreal’s finest, Palace of Eats is the real deal, receiving large shipments of smoked meat once a week from la belle province.
There are two kinds of smoked meat: traditional and old-fashioned, the latter of which is peppery with a heavily spiced crust. Palace of Eats offers two sandwich sizes – full ($7) or, if you’re not ravenous but still need a smoked-meat fix, the ladies cut ($6) – served on Winnipeg rye bread with a Strubbs kosher dill pickle and side of slaw.
An open counter takes a place of pride at the front, where you can watch Québécois manager Sylvette Pitre’s art of sandwich making – wielding something akin to a sword, she hand-slices the meat to uphold tradition and preserve juiciness.
The smoked meat is piled precariously high between two delicately balanced slices of bread. Once I’m able to get my mustard-streaked fingers around the mammoth sandwich, ignoring the pieces of meat that start to mutiny to the plate, I sink my teeth into the hot, steamy, juicy delicacy. The Reuben ($8) – Swiss cheese melted on a grilled smoked meat sandwich with a full-flavoured Polish sauerkraut – is melt-in-your-mouth delicious. Four choices of mustard are available to ensure you get the desired zing.
For a lighter meal, try a bagel with Winnipeg cream cheese and thinly sliced fresh lox ($6), dotted with capers – it’s good, although a lemon slice to squeeze over the smoked salmon would have been nice. Again, everything is authentic – brick oven-baked bagels arrive every morning from Montreal Bagels on Elbow Drive S.W., whose owner once worked at Montreal’s top bagelry, St. Viateur. Bags of six Montreal bagels ($5) are available in plain, poppy seed, sesame seed and multigrain.
And when the Galaxie Diner closes its doors at 3 p.m., you can still enjoy its delicious homemade milkshakes at the Palace. The shakes are served in style in a tall parfait glass with the leftovers in a metal cup on the side, and come in vanilla, strawberry, coffee, creamsicle and chocolate ($4). Also featured are high-quality sodas from Real Brew and Stewart’s – of their various flavours, root beer is the perfect smoked-meat chaser.
The Palace is currently licensed as a take-out restaurant, with standing room at the countertop, but Myhre is working towards acquiring seating. During the summer months, patrons have been enjoying their meals en plein air, across the street in Connaught Park – tell the server you’re eating in the park and she’ll give you wicker baskets for your meal.
Palace of Eats adds great flair to eclectic 11th Street S.W. and, most importantly, brings a taste of Montreal to deli-deprived Calgarians. |
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