The true north, strong and free

I've been travelling a lot lately, and am very much looking forward to a long stretch of being at home. Most recently, it was lovely Edmonton, which, while it may not be much of a tourist destination, has plenty of charm. Our eating options were constrained by the fact that we were at a conference at the University of Alberta, and so didn't have much time to explore in depth. (The conference itself was very nice; I got a bunch of good ideas for my work and talked to some people about future collaboration possibilities that made me nigh giddy. There was also shockingly acceptable coffee and very good pound cake, both lemon and cinnamon, for the coffee breaks.)

For the most part, we had bad luck with our restaurant choices. I don't think Italianate food is the way to go in that part of the world. We had one memorable meal at New Asian Village, an Indian restaurant. It featured a remarkable combination of a tall and amusing waiter with a particularly excellent Canadian accent ("You've only got four place settings, hey?"); a sauna-hot seating nook surrounded by billowing fabric; a selection of 300 beers (!); and quite good food. It was a buffet night, which I normally don't go in for, but this was a fine example of the genre, and the naan was particularly tasty.

We also had some Coffee Crisp, that particularly Canadian chocolate bar, and some "All Dressed" potato chips. I liked them both. The All Dressed chips were sort of ketchupy, sort of Old-Bay-y. They reminded me a bit of the "Coney Island" chips I used to buy from my high school vending machines.

PS. I had a stereotypical set of interactions with Canadian officialdom, in which all sorts of screwups on my part and/or situations that are standardly obnoxious and irritating in the US were wonders of ease and politeness. Then in the Edmonton airport, there is a little bit of the US right there in the terminal, so that you wind up going through US customs and immigration before you even get on the plane. This is kind of neat, but unfortunately the border control guy was snide and fatuous. Then we went on to a Canadian security check, and everyone was nice again. Obviously there are some sampling problems with this study, but it was amusing. Also, pleasant. Thanks, Canada!

Posted by redfox at October 13, 2004 07:57 AM (travel) | Comments (2)

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