We Need More Napkins

For my second time in seven days, I found myself in Saskatoon for a concert by a Canadian legend, this time the mighty Leonard Cohen. My mom and her husband were up for the show as well, so we chose Calories on Broadway for dinner, a long-time city favourite.

Calories offers innovative French cuisine with a rustic prairie twist, very well exemplified by this first dish, a rillette of local pork and goose. It’s served over a red cabbage slaw with cranberries and a pungent mustard sauce. Big bold decadent flavours - exactly how I like to start a meal.

Next was a special of the day: house-cured duck with a really crisp salad of pea pods, pumpkin seeds and root vegetables. The salad was the perfect foil for the rich, smoky duck, and the dish had a very farm-to-table feel to it.

Wanting to make sure we didn’t get to the show still a bit hungry (as we were the week prior, after our tapas meal at Duck Duck Goose), we shared the moules frites, a classic preparation executed perfectly. If I had one complaint it’s that I would have preferred a more shallow bowl, as it was really difficult to mop up any of the buttery liquor until most of the mussels were already eaten. First world problems, right?

Calories is famous for its baking, particularly its cheesecakes, so my mom ordered a slice for the table to share for dessert. It was white chocolate and almond with a strawberry coulis. Perfect! It reminded me why classic cheesecakes were my absolute favourites growing up, and why, for the sake of my waistline, I only indulge in the rich dessert maybe once or twice a year.