Chianti Cafe and Restaurant (Whyte Ave) : Review

Hi!!!

Chianti on Whyte

Its been a while, I am behind on my review posts. There was a hot water main broke at work last week, right above my desk space. So I've been busy with the clean up and what not. 

Today review is Chianti Cafe and Restaurant on Whyte Ave.  I have been here a couple of times before and all of my previous visit were quite good, but nothing spectacular. The food were good but not THAT good, to be honest. However the portion were quite big and it is not expensive with most pastas cost around 11-13 dollars. To be honest, the service was slow, but tolerable. We were there on Tuesday night at 5:30pm and the place was packed! What I didn't expect.  

Menu

Chianti has quite an extensive list of pasta menu that will boggling your mind, and you will most likely have a hard time choosing what you want (I took sooooo long). I ordered the last item on the seafood section which is Gamberi Con Salsiccia ~ Prawns, spicy Italian Sausage, Feta cheese, Black Olives, Red Pepper, and spinach with Rose Sauce Over Fettuccini, $18 (Ok its $17.99) o(；ﾟoﾟ)ツ The food doesn't take long at all (maybe 5 minutes), which make me wonder if they start cooking fresh pasta or not. In the menu, I believe, its said that all their pastas are made in house. What this mean is that they might have soft pasta on hand which will take less time to cook. 

Gamberi Con Salsiccia - 1

Gamberi con Salsiccia - 2

Gamberi Con Salsiccia - It is a good dish but there is something missing. I think that the rose sauce is just ok. The prawn and italian sausage is very tasty. What I am most dissapoint about is that, the fettuccini was cold. It seem like the pasta were precook and was just splash over with hot pasta sauce and just hope that the pasta will be hot too. It is not the case, and you might be able to tell from the picture, the fettucini that is not cover looks abit dry, which is precisely what its felt like. Overall I did actually enjoy the dish, but would I order it again? Probably not. 

Coffee and Dessert menu

I then got a dessert! This is the first time that I have dessert here (I think). I got Chocolate Mousse (Rich and Velvety - Made with Callebaut Chocolate). Please click on the menu picture to enlarge, you can see all item on this menu. 

Chocolate Mousse

After my first bite of this chocolate mousse, I think that they should change the description on the menu to "VERY VERY RICH...". This chocolate mousse is very very good ... for about 5 minutes. Then it just get too rich. I should have order coffee to go with it, then it would be perfect.

Artistic Chocolate Mousse

Final words: Overall I think Chianti is a good place to go for casual italian dinner. It is not too expensive, big portion and good/ok service. The decor is very fitting for a casual Italian restaurant (I didn't post picture on inside the place because their were too many people, please go to chianti website at http://www.chianticafe.ca/edmonton-gallery.htm to see more picture).

I would give this place around 7/10 (from my past experience as well)

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Other Reviews 
http://www.yelp.ca/biz/chianti-cafe-and-restaurant-edmonton

Beard Papa's WEM : Review

I was hyped and excited to go to Beard Papa's at West Edmonton Mall for some great cream puff. The self proclaim "world best cream puff" originated in Japan and have spread all over the world, boasting great vanilla, macha and daily special flavour including but not limit to: mango, strawberry, and chocolate. However, it was a disappointment at first bite. Here is my review for Beard Papa's at WEM (opposite to McDonald, side entrance of Galaxy land, close to ice rink). I want to apology for not having my camera with me when I visit the place but I took some picture of the cream puff when I got home.

After dinner in chinatown, my gf and I headed to West Edmonton Mall to fulfill the cream puff craving. We were excite to go to Beard Papa's, especially since most of my friends that tried it in Vancouver said their cream puffs are amazing (including my better half). We were there at 8:15, just 45 minutes before it close. The store is clean (should be expected for new store). There was only one store clerk serving the location at the time. Once we approach the counter, she let us know that since the store is closing for the day soon, all big cream puff are only $2.00 instead of $2.59 (?) for vanilla cream or $2.99 for macha cream (green tea) or mango cream (special flavour of the day).

The puff pastry itself looks nice but probably been sitting on the counter for a while. So we decided to get 5 cream puffs, 2 vanilla, 2 green tea, and 1 mango. The clerk promptly filled the cream puffs (2 squeeze) and pretty much try to fill it as much as she could. I don't know if this is how they do it normally, or she was just giving us more filling because its almost time to close. Cream puff were sprinkle with icing sugar and green tea powder. My gf really wanted to eat it right then. I told her to wait until we get in the car because then it will be easier to eat, man was I wrong.

Oozing Vanilla Cream Puff

I was expecting a rich creamy filling for this great looking creampuff (most of my friends told me that the cream is very rich and can be almost ice-cream like). However, the filling end up being quite liquid, as you can see its oozing out when you break the cream puff in half (this is only 5 min after we purchased the puff). We end up making big messed in the car. (＞△＜｡) Thats not the only thing, the texture of the filling is quite grainy and is not very smooth (this is what I would expect to be in a cream puff), especially the green tea cream. I am glad that they gave us lots of filling, BUT overfilling the cream puff did not help with cream explosion.

Cream puff filling

Taste wise:

Puff pastry: Soft, and nicely baked. Would be a lot better if its warm. The texture is still nice and would go really well with heavy cream filling.

Filling in general: not cold, runny liquid, grainy and not very smooth. Worst of all, it will cause big mess all over your hand.

Vanilla cream puff: Quite tasty actually (neglet the texture). Nonetheless, it is not really better than generic vanilla cream puff that you can find from a chinese bakery in chinatown. If factor in the texture of the cream, it is worst. (5/10)

Mango cream puff: Didn't expect it to go well with the puff pastry, but it actually did. The smoothest of them all, and less runny than both vanilla and green tea. Still, not up to par with average cream puff. (5/10)

Green Tea cream puff (macha): I was actually very excite to try this. To my disappointment the cream is SUPER grainy. This could be due to the fact that they put in alot of macha powder. Although the flavour of the macha is there, the cream itself was disgusting and runny as hell. Boooooooo ╮(｡´ω`)╭ (4/10)

Runny green tea cream

Overall : 4/10

What a disappointment. We were expecting good cream puff, but end up with the opposite. The runny cream was not enjoyable to eat. Not only that, both of us got stomach ache right after too. I thought it might be because we had it after Chinese food, but I also end up with stomach ache the next day as well when I ate two more. I don't know if this is what its like at other location (I hope so), or it could be my luck with a bad batch/day or cream puff... I don't know. But, I will never again buy cream puff from this location. Let me know if you have different experience, since you might be able to convince me to go there again. Sorry if my picture make it looks good and make you guys want to go and eat there. Cheers

More pictures below and :

http://www.flickr.com/photos/eternity-ply/sets/72157626244214683/

Big mess

Mango Cream Puff

Other Review:

http://www.yelp.ca/biz/beard-papas-edmonton