Ichi Rock (Calgary)

Ichi Rock is a small-ish Japanese restaurant located in the heart of downtown Calgary. While they call themselves an izakaya (an izakaya is traditionally more of a bar with 'tapas-style' food), this restaurant has a nice mix of entrees and sushi, and therefore caters well for customers who are looking for a full meal and/or sushi fix.

Assortment of special maki: Spicy Tuna, Sakura Blossom, Sakana A-ge

The place is stylish but very cozy; dimly lit with a red-and-black theme, and just maybe a dozen tables spaced closely together. 

Front of the restaurant

Tables & Seating

We went on a Friday night at 8pm (with reservations). Upon arrival the restaurant wasn't busy at all (just a couple other tables seated), so there wouldn't have been a wait anyway. The staff was very friendly; the bar is located right by the entrance & faces the diners, and the chefs cheerfully greet you as you enter/exit the restaurant.
 

Bar

They have a lot of options on their menu --- standard appetizers, sushi & sashimi, noodles, rice entrees, and of course their izakaya-type items. 

Menu

I was tempted by their Seafood Okonomiyaki ($15.95) since this seems to be a rare find in Calgary... I haven't really seen it in any Japanese restaurants, and when okonomiyaki is done right, it is a damn good thing. (Okonomiyaki: basically a Japanese pancake made with a savory batter and fillings of your choice cooked into it). But I didn't really want to fill up on one dish and not to get to try the others, so I ended up opting out - maybe next time.


On the other hand, the boyfriend went for the Chicken Karage ($6.95) to start. Unfortunately, we were both really disappointed with this dish. While the chicken had clearly been freshly fried, the preparation otherwise just seemed to miss the mark; the few scant pieces of chicken looked like they had been lightly dredged in plain flour or cornstarch and tasted mostly of oil and plain salt. :( Bummer. While I'm definitely a fan of not over-battering deep fried foods, this just really lacked the crunch that you want in karage.

Chicken Karage ($6.95)

Luckily, the rest of the meal was really a lot better. We ordered some maki was well, and this definitely fared to be a much better choice.

The presentation of the maki was gorgeous (pictured at top). I am rarely particularly critical of food presentation, but this was really notably good. We ordered four rolls between the two of us, which were laid out on a large serving plate to share, and decorated beautifully with the assorted sauces and seaweed salad. Nice.

My first roll was the Sakura Blossom ($13.95). This one had mango, avocado, scallop, and roe in the middle, topped with raw salmon, served with wasabi mayo. Pretty good -- the combination of mango with sushi has really grown on me; the sweetness of the mango goes surprisingly well with scallop. The fish and scallop were both reasonably fresh and overall I did like this roll.

Sakura Blossom Roll ($13.95)

The second roll that I got was the Sakana A-ge ($12.95). This is one of their more fish-heavy rolls (which I like) -- fried salmon & tuna inside, topped with tuna, and garnished with some deep-fried onion. The boyfriend is a fan of mostly-fish rolls too, so he ended up ordering one for himself. We liked this one too; the partially cooked salmon & tuna on the inside had a nice texture.

Sakana A-ge Roll ($12.95)

The boyfriend also ordered a Spicy Tuna roll ($5.75) which was pretty standard: tuna, cucumber, lettuce, and spicy sauce. I tried a piece and it was good as well; the tuna was fresh and just the right amount of fattiness like in the Sakana A-ge roll. To be honest, this was probably just a lot better bang-for-your buck compared to the other special rolls (considering most of them are $12-14), and turned out to be a really pleasant surprise in that way. Yum.

Spicy Tuna Roll ($5.95)

The menu was overall on the pricier side for most of their items, but the food was for the most part very enjoyable. The special maki was good in that the fish was fresh and they used just the right amount of rice, but at $12-14 per small roll, you definitely have to order at least 2-3 per person to make for a meal. That being said, I did appreciate that they had a wide variety of unique options on their menu, and I'd definitely like to come back and try some of their other appetizers and izakaya dishes someday.

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TL;DR
Food 4/5 - Good maki with decent quality seafood - really nice presentation. They have a fairly large assortment of choices for appetizer/izakaya items, but still lots of entrees (rice & noodles) and sushi too. My pick: Sakura blossom roll ($13.95), or many of the 'regular' rolls if you want better value / cheaper meal (Spicy Tuna roll for $5.75, Crispy Tuna roll for $6)
Value/Price 3/5 - slightly pricier (~$12-14 for their special maki, ~$8-16 for their izakaya items)
Ambiance 4/5 - Cozy (smaller restaurant) but still somewhat trendy-looking
Service/Wait 4/5 - No wait (but we went at 8pm), friendly service, food arrived quickly.
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Overall 4/5

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Ichi Rock
923 6 Ave SW
Calgary, AB
(403) 453-0852

Vietnam Palace (Calgary)

Great pho is one of the things that I really don't take advantage enough of as a Calgarian. If Calgary can get one thing right, it's definitely a good bowl of pho. Sure, we have some good Korean and Japanese restaurants here, but the sheer abundance of authentic Viet restos in our city is what allows for some competition between restaurants, which yields some really delicious and cheap options to be found in our city.

Seafood Noodle Soup ($12.50) with sprouts and basil mixed in

To start off, I have to say that Vietnam Palace was not a place that I'd had on my short list of restaurants to try. I've driven past by it a number of times while driving to Sura (Korean food) and had made a mental note of its existence, but after checking out some reviews on Urbanspoon, I wasn't racing to go try it out (especially since there are so many great Viet places right in Chinatown, much closer to where I live).

But so it happened that my mum had scored a pair of vouchers for Vietnam Palace. And since my dad doesn't like Vietnamese food (huh?!), my parents weren't planning to go, so my mom asked me if I'd like to go with the boyfriend instead. --- Umm, hells yah!

$10-Off Vouchers my mom gave me

We went on a Friday night around 7pm. There is a moderate-sized parking lot outside, so parking wasn't an issue at all. No wait time either once we got inside -- we went in and were immediately seated at a booth by a friendly waitress who brought us our tea and our menus right away.

Restaurant Entrance. Plenty of parking in their parking lot out front.

I'll just be upfront here: I was a little surprised at the outstandingly tacky decor. Now, don't get me wrong.... I'm here to eat pho, not the wallpaper, and I'm certainly not expecting any fancy ambiance, but this place is really hit-you-over-the-head with its tackiness. It's actually kind of charming and quirky in its own way: back-lit menus near by the kitchens, mismatched couch upholstery, some funky Asian-inspired transparent booth dividers, and pink-painted walls. I think the redeeming factor here was that it was brightly lit unlike many hole-in-the-wall Viet places, so it looks more clean(??) and spacious(???)... .... ... Not sure, also it doesn't matter.

Restaurant Interior: what's with the booth dividers?

Now the waitresses there were quite nice. They don't speak a lot of English but just enough that you can easily order, and they were pleasant, cheerful, and efficient even though there were just the two of them and they each had their hands pretty full.. Overall, it was very standard no-fuss Asian-restaurant type service -- they take your order, give you your food, and leave you alone. Works for me.

Anyways. Menu menu menu. Lots of options at this place (there were more pages to the menu than pictured below), so it was kind of hard to decide. We decided to split an appetizer and each order an entree.

Menu: Appetizers

Menu: Noodle Soups

Menu: Satay Noodle Soups & Vermicelli Entrees

Menu: Vermicelli Entrees

With appetizers, we decided to go with two salad rolls ($4.50) to keep things light. These arrived right away, presumably made ahead of time. Unfortunately, these were kind of a dud. They were room temperature, filled with mostly vermicelli, a bit of lettuce and carrot, and had just two pieces of halved shrimp plus a tiny tiny shred of sliced chicken per salad roll. I was pretty disappointed -- especially at $2.50 per roll, this was a pretty big flop. Will not order again.

Salad Rolls (two for $4.50)

Moving on. For an entree, I decided to go for pho of some sort. My usual pho go-to is some variation of rare beef noodle soup, but today their #27 Seafood Noodle Soup ($10.50) and its picture in the menu was really calling out to me. Okay, sure. I kind of wanted a cold vermicelli entree too, but figured that that's what stealing-off-the-boyfriend's-plate is good for.

Seafood Noodle Soup ($10.50)

The seafood noodle soup was pretty tasty. Their broth was very flavorful without being too salty or too greasy, and made for a nice light dinner. The seafood assortment included imitation crab meat, shrimp, and squid in a reasonable portion, topped with thinly sliced white onions and scallions. Served up with your standard bean sprouts, fresh basil, and chili pepper to be mixed into the soup (pictured at top). Plenty and plenty of noodles.

The boyfriend ordered #56 Grilled Combo Vermicelli ($12.99), which had a portion of each of the meats (pork, chicken, beef, shrimp), a spring roll, and assorted veggies (lettuce, carrots, sprouts). Topped with thinly sliced green onions and crushed peanuts.

Grilled Combo Vermicelli ($12.99)

The grilled combo vermicelli was pretty good too; each of the meats were nicely charred, well-seasoned, and not too greasy. The spring roll was better than the salad rolls we'd had as our appetizer (this was at least clearly freshly fried and the correct temperature), but was at the same time pretty standard fare and nothing to write home about. The balance of meat-to-veggies-to-noodles was fine, although my boyfriend did comment on the huge portion of noodles. For 13 bucks, this entree was a little on the pricey side if compared to other Viet places in the city with comparable/better quality, so I guess that was the only downside.

Lots of carb-inhaling later, I managed to finish all of the seafood, all of the broth (I love pho broth), but struggled in the final leg of the race with the hefty portion of noodles, as I always do when I go on my pho-eating adventures. Sometimes I get my unfinished-food receptacle boyfriend to eat the noodles for me (before I've stripped them of soup), but on that day he was so full himself that he didn't want to bother.

Failure at finishing all the noodles. :(

Overall, I'd say that this place is just OK. The salad rolls were a disappointing way to start off the meal, but the entrees were both reasonably well-made. I liked that the noodle entrees weren't greasy, and that there were plenty of options and variations to choose from. It would have been nice to see some portion size options, as some other noodle houses offer; both our entrees were definitely too big, and had I been given the option, I definitely would've selected a smaller size. A final note is that the pricing at Vietnamese Palace is somewhat higher than other Vietnamese restaurants in the city, while not really offering any more in quality (or quantity, not that anyone should ever need that much food). I guess I'd stop by again if I were in the neighborhood or if a friend wanted to go, but I probably wouldn't go out of my way to visit here again.

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TL;DR
Food 3/5 - Pretty standard pho and cold vermicelli; nothing to write home about. Good soup base. Enjoyed that none of it was greasy (probably had to do with our menu choices too). Salad rolls were too warm and lacked non-filler ingredients. - My pick: #56 Grilled Combo Vermicelli
Value/Price 3/5 ($8-15)
Ambiance 3/5 - Quirky, weird renovation: makes the place less dingy than some other hole-in-the-wall pho places, but just looks kinda odd. Spacious and comfortable.
Service/Wait 4/5 - No wait on a Friday night. Parking was fine. Exactly what you expect in a pho restaurant: take your order, give you food, leave you alone.
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Overall 3/5

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Vietnam Palace Grill & Noodle House
308 16 Ave NW
Calgary, AB
(403) 276-9990

Montreal Bagels (Calgary)

Montreal-style bagels are a wonderful type of hand rolled, wood-fired bagel that don't seem to have gotten to be popular quite yet in Calgary. The flavor of the bagel is usually sweeter than your typical grocery-store bagel, as they have been boiled in honey-sweetened water. They are also comparatively chewier and denser than your typical bagels, which give the bagels a bit of a bite and an interesting texture of crunchiness and chewiness after you toast them.

Sesame Bagel ($0.90)

Cut over to Montreal Bagels, a fairly hidden gem of Calgary. Having loved the famous St-Viateur and Fairmount Bagel bakeries in Montreal, I'd thought that bagels of equal quality would be hard to find elsewhere (especially Eastern Canada)......WRONG. These folks make some amazing bagels in this small shop. The owner apparently used to work for St-Viateur, and sure enough, the quality of the bagels at this Calgary establishment up to snuff.

It is a pretty inconspicuous place with just a few parking spaces out front, it's not really the kind of joint that you drive past, press your face against your car window, and demand to try sometime because of a flashy sign or exciting menu board. It just says Montreal Bagels. And damn straight that's what it is. Once you walk inside, you will see their wood-fired oven in the back, a small display case in the front, a few straggling tables and chairs for sit-down customers (that you never see used), and their plain-jane menu board.

Front of Montreal Bagels

Wood-fired oven and workers in the back

Your options are: plain, sesame, poppyseed, and multigrain. 90 cents a piece, or you can get them by the half dozen ($4.25), or dozen ($8). Tuesday special gets you a dozen for $7. There are also a few other "prepared" sandwich options on the board (with butter, cream cheese, lox, etc), but I don't think I've ever seen a single customer seated at the few tables that are at the front of the store. This is more the type of place where you pop in and out of and enjoy your goodies at home, or in my case, enjoy in the car on the way home (more on that in a second).

Simple Menu Board (Tuesday Special is $7 for a dozen, at the bottom there)

If you show up at the right time, you can snag a bagel that is still hand-searingly-hot-out-of-oven. Yum. And that's exactly what has happened a few times now when I've gone early in the afternoon. The folks that work there are very friendly and they will offer to make up a fresh batch for you if they have just run out of a certain flavor and you are willing to wait 20-30 minutes. Side note: this place is cash-only.

My favorite is the sesame bagel, with the poppyseed as a close second. Whenever I get a superfresh batch, I can't help but eat one immediately in the car because they smell so damn good and are nice and crunchy-chewy and warm. My recommendation for once you get them home is to toast them, smear them with herb & garlic cream cheese (Boursin is amazing) and top with smoked salmon. Delicious!

In the car, tearing into the bag for a fresh-out-of-the-oven bagel

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TL;DR
Food 4/5 - Authentic Montreal-style bagels -- such a surprising find in Calgary! Steady supply of fresh-out-of-the-oven bagels available frequently throughout the day. My pick: Sesame Bagel
Value/Price 5/5  ($0.90 per bagel)
Ambiance N/A
Service/Wait N/A
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Overall 4/5

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Montreal Bagels
103 8408 Elbow Drive SW
Calgary, AB
(403) 212-4060