Don't be a Square

Vicious Circle 
1011 1 St SW
www.viciouscircle.ca

 My experience at Vicious Circle is one of love and hate. Love the food; Hate the time it takes for said food to arrive. My latest visit was no different. Though I do feel there was a slight improvement this time around. The restaurant was almost vacant when I arrived, only a couple of tables were being occupied. And remained that way for the duration of our stay. One of the coolest things at Vicious Circle is the menu; It is printed on a steel plate. Not totally sure how that one works with a couple of drunk dudes on a Friday night... But it is still cool nonetheless. Printed on both sides, the menu offers an excellent variety of pub fare. Although an update is overdue as there are several items crossed out with a jiffy marker.

I quickly settled on a BBQ steak melt upon finding my friends Jordan and Russ who arrived early to make sure we got a table (Just kidding, I was just stuck on the phone). The idea here is if you order quick enough, you might get your food faster. Well, that's the idea anyway. My meal arrived about 30 minutes later (New Record!). Marinated in a tangy BBQ sauce, tender strips of steak are served on a piece of toast with mushrooms, onions and tomatoes. It is finished by melting a medley of cheese on top. It comes with a choice salad or soup. I was informed the feature soup of the day was chicken noodle (I love chicken noodle soup!). Unless they pureed the crap out of the noodles, this most definitely was not. No matter, cream of chicken is also tasty.

Atmosphere: 5 out of 10. It's pretty cozy with the couches and what not but, like the menu, a reno is probably overdue.
Food: 6 out of 10. Average food.
Presentation: 6 out of 10. Average presentation.
Price: 6 out of 10. Average price.
Service: 5 out of 10. Needs to speed it up a little. But other than that, service was decent.
Overall: 6 out of 10. Average. Maybe just order a few martinis. If you are made of money.

Champions!

Kilkenny's Irish Pub
3630 Brentwood Rd NW
www.calgarysbestpubs.com/Kilkenny

Celebration with the other CSSC sports champs at Kilkenny's on Tuesday. I arrived at approximately 6:30 and the place was packed already! Thank goodness for Hazel and Harley who came early to save the team seats! Yay!

Upon finding my friends in the nooks and crannies of the pub, I promptly ordered my food when the first server strolled past our table. 45 minutes later, my prime and stout boxty arrived. Boxty is a traditional Irish potato pancake. Wrapped between the potato mixture are prime rib cubes, mushrooms and roasted vegetables in a Guinness gravy. Looks kind of like a taco. It was decent, not too spectacular. The steamed vegetables on the side? Not so much. It almost feels like the cook was too lazy and just loaded a couple scoops of veggies and called it a day. I realize that it was busy but that's probably not the best way to impress the patrons. As a whole, I would rate this a 5 out of 10.



After painfully watching the MC take his sweet ass time handing out the league champ shirts, we were finally called up to receive ours an hour later. We then proceeded to handing out our own team awards. Special thanks to Ali for making awards for everyone. I'm glad I had a real award (Most Improved Player) this time around rather than "Most Committed Teammate" like last year. Seriously! That's not even a compliment! It's almost as if he felt obligated to give me something because I would some how kick him off the team if I didn't.

BsB?

Buzzards Restaurant & Bar
140 10 Ave SW
www.cowboycuisine.com

Friday lunch with the work crew at Buzzards a.k.a. Bottlescrew Bills. I had the bison ravioli. It was decent. Made in house with ground bison meat, had the menu not say that it was bison, I would not have been able to tell. The ravioli was served with a creamy four cheese alfredo sauce and topped with diced tomatoes and basil leaves. I was a little hungry Friday and 4 relatively large ravioli was definitely not enough to fill me up! I probably needed 4 more.



On another note, apparently Monday and Tuesday nights is "All you can Eat Steak Night" at Buzzards for $24.95. That's right, you can have all the steak your stomach can handle while getting crunk off beers from around the world! Sounds like a pretty sweet deal... Until you think about it. Yeah. That's what I thought.

Frisbits Reunion!

St. James Corner Restaurant & Irish Pub
1219 1st. Street SW
www.jamesonspubs.com/dt

Members of the 0-18-0 summer 2008 ultimate frisbee team met at the St. James Corner Pub on Friday to do some catching up. Jill had returned to Calgary for a visit for the long weekend. Congrats on the new job by the way!

I had the chicken quesadilla. They must have had to harvest their own wheat to make the flour tortilla, grow their own vegetables in the basement and slaughter their own chicken because there was no way it could have taken them an hour to make the food. It was a little ridiculous. The food was decent. Nothing too special. It comes with a choice of sides. I had the caesar. And yeah...



I should note that their Patty's Pickles is amazing. And I don't even like pickles.

Here's a famous shot of me snatching the disc from that nasty croc at the national championship game. Yeah...