Jelly Modern Doughnuts

The third course in our adventures following Holy Crepe Food Truck and Big Cheese Poutinerie was the dessert round.  The husband surprised the wife by taking her to Jelly Modern Doughnuts, which was a nice finale to their meal.  Since we were both full, we only ordered the three-bite doughnuts but they did leave us wanting more.  The husband had the s'more doughnut (as depicted on the left) and the wife had the Nenshi's salted caramel doughnut (as depicted on the right).  A pleasant surprise for both of us was finding that neither doughnut was as sweet as we feared; we didn't really want to feel as if we ate blocks of sugar even if it was dessert.

Oh no - we didn't notice that this was blurry either but that just means we'll have to go back.

Seafood-free friendliness: Jelly Modern Doughnut does not have any seafood on the menu - which one would probably expect - making it very friendly for allergy-sufferers.  Hooray for dessert (although they do have sandwiches as well)!  According to their menu, they only offer chicken salad and egg salad for their sandwiches, which makes us very happy as cross-contamination between egg salad and tuna salad seems to happen more frequently than it should (which in our eyes means never).  We hope to return for larger doughnuts in a wider variety, possibly including a sandwich or two.

Big Cheese Poutinerie

After sharing our crepe at Holy Crepe Food Truck, we decided that we needed something else to complement our meal so we walked to Big Cheese Poutinerie on 17th Avenue to continue our Quebecois-themed lunch. While the wife has already determined that her favourite poutines come from Maaam Bolduc and La Banquise in Montreal and La Belle Patate in Canmore, there was definitely interest in seeing what this Calgary poutinerie had to offer.

The nice thing was that there were hardly any people at Big Cheese Poutinerie so we had some time to think about what to get.  As the husband is usually more traditional in his poutine selections (give him squeaky cheese curds, good gravy, and the occasional smoked meat over his fries and he's happy), the wife suggested ordering the Hogzilla with Carolina pulled pork, double smoked bacon, and peppercorn gravy as a compromise.  Since we were sharing the poutine, we split a large order but learnt that in the future, sharing a small poutine would suffice.

The Hogzilla poutine: Definitely larger than we anticipated and just as tasty as we hoped.

This poutine choice was delicious; however, after a few bites, we realized that the husband ended up getting more of the pulled pork and the wife got more of the bacon and gravy so if you're sharing, you might need to switch sides after a while due to the uneven layering.  The bacon added the right crunch and the small bits of pulled pork tasted great with the peppercorn gravy but it didn't seem as though there was a lot of pulled pork in the first place.  We didn't try the Montreal smoked meat poutine here so we can't compare it to our local favourite at Alberta King of Subs but the husband is willing to make another trip to Big Cheese one day (although parking is not very conducive at this location).

Seafood-free friendliness: We love that this poutinerie is absolutely seafood-free, which means that we can come back and try anything on the menu.  There are no concerns about cross-contamination with either the poutine toppings or the fries, which is already a treat in itself.  The cheese may not be as squeaky as out east but it's a step above fast-food fare with interesting selections, so we probably wouldn't mind attempting more menu items.

Famoso Neapolitan Pizzeria

This is a pizza joint that we have been wanting to check out based on the allergy chart we came across at the beginning of this year.  While a smoked salmon pizza has been added to the menu since we first saw the chart, seafood only appears in two items at Famoso Neapolitan Pizzeria, which made ordering a meal much easier for us (even if we still struggled to narrow down what we wanted).

In the end, we settled on sharing a Cappricciosa pizza as it had both meat and a good selection of different vegetables.  Though we could have had a salad with our meal, we were more interested in seeing if we could polish off the pizza without any leftovers - and we did!

Italian ham, roasted mushrooms, artichoke hearts, kalamata olives, and extra virgin olive oil.

Taste-wise, the pizza was amazingly delicious and filling.  We were worried that the kalamata olives would be too bitter for the pizza but they blended right in.  Eating-wise, the only thing that we noticed was that it got a little soggy right in the middle which necessitated a knife and fork.  Allergy-wise, we were impressed that when we mentioned the seafood allergy that the person taking our order shouted it out loud to the people making the pizzas nearby - this practically sealed the deal on the fact that we would have a good experience here.  Added to this were the great atmosphere, good pizza selection, and central location.

Seafood-free friendliness: With most pizza places offering shrimp, anchovies, and salmon as topping choices now, this is an excellent pizzeria for those with shellfish allergies and even fish allergies.  What we love is that seafood appetizers aren't served here (unlike Pulcinella) which greatly reduces the risk of cross-contamination.  We'd definitely return to Famoso, not only for being fairly seafood-free but for their wonderful pizzas!