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| - OEB is an experience. An experience you need to have if you come to Calgary!
Walking up to this downtown location you'll spot the bright colors of the dining room through the large windows that face the street. Lively and upbeat music is playing, crisp white and egg yolk yellow colored booths in the shape of waffles and eggs stand tall and whimsical, a bustling kitchen with cooks who look like they could burst into song at any moment, and a service team with some of the most inordinately large smiles I've seen dance around the dining room. Imagine a scene out of a movie made in partnership between Disney and the makers of Pee Wee's Playhouse, and you'll catch my drift.
What stood out to me right off the bat though, was the LARGE menu featuring a ton of locally sourced goodies including pork from Alberta used to make house-cured bacon and sausages, duck sourced from a nearby province, and more!
Looking at the photos, their Boxes (or bowls if enjoyed at the restaurant) are all the rage. Think breakfast poutines made with a base of herby potatotes twice fried in duck fat topped with perfectly poached eggs, brown butter hollandaise, and other assorted condiments like house-cured bacon lardons, duck confit, and pork belly!
Pro-Tip: All the boxes come with the potatoes even if it's not listed as an ingredient.
I went with the "Gold Digga" which had roasted pork belly and black truffle in addition to the eggs and potatoes. It arrived in all its glory with two perfectly poached eggs on top under a blanket of creamy hollandaise. The pork belly was a real nice upgrade cut into thick cubes that were nicely rendered. Fries were crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside with a real herbaceous seasoning and that was a bit overwhelming. That said the fry on em really let them stand up to the holandaise. The dish was so hot that the cheese curds had mostly melted upon arrival. Sadly I did not get to taste the squeak my Canadian friends rave about.
All that said, I think I ordered the wrong dish for me.
The menu is clearly chef-driven (there's rabbit mortadella on the menu and sous vide confit!), and I think while these boxes are surely inspired, if you were to go with one of the more culinarily inspired choices like the duck confit box, wild boar spalla, or duck & egg, I bet you'd have a home run.
OEB is a real experience and it's a lot of fun. There was so much goodness on the menu I was sad that I dined solo! The service by Jillian was awesome though, and I really had a nice time sitting in the window and people watching the downtown streets of Calgary.
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