| If you find the first date thing a little daunting, like I do, take the Sleepless in Seattle approach and add beer. Don’t commit an entire evening to a first date. Rather than sitting down to a full meal, order a couple of premium beers and a light snack. Here are three ideal beer-date venues.
· Belgo (501 8 Avenue S.W.) – This place brings to mind some of the best cafés in France and Belgium, right down to the French Canadian accents of its waiters. With most restaurants, both cheese and beer are an afterthought, but at Belgo both are given the spotlight. The beer selection has its own spiral-bound menu featuring notes on flavour profiles and suggested cheese and food pairings. The menu is geared to the beer-educated and the daring. You really have to try hard to order a bad beer. Each beer is given the royal rub-down with its own branded glass specially shaped to accentuate its unique characteristics and aromas of its corresponding beer. This is a very European approach that is just beginning to make inroads (thankfully) in Canada. Pair your beer with Belgo’s cheese plate. A great item for sharing, it consists of a choice of cheeses, beautifully presented with fruit, nuts and a delicious fig jam. Discover cheese’s true soulmate, beer, the carbonation of which is a classic contrast to the richness of cheese.
Try ordering some more eccentric beers like a Triple Karmeliet. This beer is a delicate, light golden ale that pours with a billowy dense head. Its unique recipe, which includes barley, wheat and oats in malted and un-malted forms, tastes lemony with a pleasing spicy dryness. It also doesn’t hurt that it is served in of one of the most beautiful beer glasses in the world, a sexy hourglass-shaped goblet with four fleurs-de-lis etched on the bottom half of the glass. Even if your date claims not to like beer, Boon Kriek is an exceptional cherry beer with a champagne lightness that walks a line between sweet and sour.
· Pulcinella (1147 Kensington Crescent N.W.) – Another European getaway in Calgary, this one with a southern Italian flare. A cozy yet vibrant restaurant, Pulcinella has a bright white interior and dark wood floors, and the room has an indescribable positive energy. The restaurant also has a number of backlit black-and-white photos picturing life in Italy in the ’50s that gives it an added "Cinema Paradisio" feel.
Pulcinella prides itself on its authentic Napoletana pizza, however, the antipasto appetizer plate here is also a real treat, loaded with bocconcini, numerous kinds of olives, sundried tomatoes, pickled eggplant, prosciutto and other Italian goodies. The drink menu has an Italian flare with an extensive Italian-only wine list and two Italian beers, Moretti and Nastro Auzzurro.
· Ming (520 17 Avenue S.W.) – Moving away from the European theme, Ming offers two getaways in the same location. Ming features swanky stainless-steel and granite décor with dimly set romantic lights, but its pièce de résistance is the very large red upholstered booth that houses a number of conical tables lit from underneath. As it looks like something from a James Bond movie, and Ming was recently voted best cocktail bar in Fast Forward’s Best of Calgary 2007, a martini, shaken not stirred, is an apt drink to consume here.
Ming’s patios are both small, but that’s not a detriment. They have a cozy, relaxed feel – a different vibe from the interior. Its location on 17 Avenue provides one of the best quiet places in Calgary to people watch on long, hot summer evenings. Try the Hoegaarden. This liquid sunshine nectar is a fantastic wheat beer and the gargantuan glass alone, makes it a great patio sipper. As for a light snack, the appetizer menu is original, and the house specialty of sweet-potato fries served with banana ketchup is a great change of pace. The establishment also serves a yam dip, veggie samosas and a host of other Asian fusion tidbits. |
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