A new Thai stop in Marda Loop
One of Calgary’s great hidden gem restaurants for the past eight years has been Thai Nongkhai at 7400 Macleod Trail S. Run by Peerachat (King) and Peerakarn Promcharoenwatana, it’s a delightful Thai restaurant — great food, nice service, lovely room. It’s part of the family of restaurants that includes Thai Sa-on, Thai Boat and the new Thai Onzon in Cochrane. But it’s in a strip mall that runs perpendicular to Macleod Trail, so it remains unknown to many.
The Promcharoenwatanas have been looking for a second, more visible location for a number of years. They regularly scanned the Internet and real estate papers looking at every restaurant that came up for sale. And a few weeks ago, they ran across a listing that appealed to them. Rasoi, the contemporary Indian restaurant in the heart of Marda Loop at 2215 33rd Avenue S.W., was for sale.
The Promcharoenwatanas quickly reached an agreement with the previous owners and took over at the end of March. They moved in and altered the kitchen, bringing in more equipment and adding more burners for Thai woks, and opened De Thai (403-705-2203) a few days ago. They did most of the work themselves, keeping most of the former southeast Asian decor in the dining area. At 40 seats, it’s much smaller than Thai Nongkhai, but it fills a big gap in the Marda Loop area for Thai food.
The De Thai name is a creation of Peerakarn’s, who also creates all the dishes for both restaurants. The name is a little French and a little Thai at the same time. As for Peerakarn’s menu at De Thai, it’s similar in style and price to Thai Nongkhai, including a mix of spicy and mild dishes and all the curries, noodles and stir-fries of the original. To accommodate the growth, two new chefs have been brought in from Thailand and two more are on the way. Peerakarn will oversee the cooks in both locations, ensuring standard flavours throughout. And more service staff will be hired.
As for drinks, De Thai carries Thai beer and a short list of well-selected wines. If you’d like to bring your own, corkage is priced at $12 per bottle.
For over 30 years, Bernard Callebaut has been garnering awards at international chocolate competitions. And he’s still doing it, proving that he remains one of the best chocolatiers in the world and his Willow Park store — Papa Chocolat — is one of the best shops. At the Academy of Chocolate’s recent biannual awards event, Callebaut’s “Winston” chocolate, in the category of “Best Chocolate Filled — Alcohol” brought home a silver medal. (The Academy of Chocolate is a British-based industry organization dedicated to increasing the appreciation of fine chocolate.)
The Winston, an homage to Britain’s Winston Churchill, features a dried grape that’s been soaked in single malt whisky, wrapped in a semisweet chocolate ganache and set in a semi-sweet chocolate shell. Most of the ingredients used are organic and exceed Fair Trade standards.
If you have an appetite for chef competitions, one of the best in town is an annual event at the Art Gallery of Calgary called AGC Cooks. Six of Calgary’s finest chefs — Kyle Groves (Catch), Dave Bohati (Market), James Waters (Home), Jinhee Lee (Raw Bar), John Michael MacNeil (Teatro) and Michael Batke (Charcut) — will prepare four-course meals over an evening at the gallery. Their respective sommeliers will pair wines with the dishes, and the food and wine will be scored by a team of judges, as well as AGC supporters. To add to the challenge, the chefs will be given a secret ingredient a few days ahead of the event to include in their dishes.
AGC Cooks, which is a fundraiser for the gallery, is May 8. For details and tickets, contact AGC at 403-770-1350.
A beer-focused, joint-effort, five-course, chef fundraiser will be held at Craft Beer Market (345 10th Avenue S.W.) April 23. Host chef Paul McGreevy will welcome Rogelio Herrera (Alloy, Candela), Xavier Lacaze (formerly of Muse and Home, soon of Briggs Kitchen) and John Jackson and Connie DeSousa (Charcut) to create the meal. Each dish will be paired with a beer from Quebec’s Dieu du Ciel, chosen from the over 120 beers Craft has on tap at any given time. For details and tickets, go to www.craftbeermarket.ca. Proceeds go to the Calgary Food Bank.