YYC food joints
Study friendly spots for students
By Rosemary De Souza, Contributor
Ever get tired of the same study area you have in school? Or maybe some of you are used to studying at home? The New York Times reported in 2010 that “alternating the room where a person studies improves retention.” In other words, changing the environments where you study may just help you learn better.
The Guardian also reported in 2013 that one factor identified to be influential to children’s learning was “having different types of learning areas.” So before we get into that tense mid-semester time-of-year, let’s take a look at some places we can go to relax, eat breakfast or lunch, and spend some time in while studying for the toughest of classes.
Café Koi
Located on First Street and 10th Avenue S.W., Café Koi boasts a diverse menu with an added mix of several vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free options for guests. The café that has been rated with four stars on Yelp and is fairly inexpensive with menu options costing anywhere between $9 to $20.
On Mondays, however, all vegetarian and vegan entrées are $2 off while vegetarian and vegan appetizers are off by $1. So what better way to start the week than with some of their Asian-style dishes of pan-seared dumplings, yam wedges with garlic coconut and miso dips, or even their vegan noodles cooked in a “szechwan chili-fire sauce.”
Vendome
“WE ARE MORE THAN JUST A COFFEE SHOP” — the enlarged, golden, Georgia font is placed against the white background of the café’s website as the site boasts the European-inspired atmosphere found within the restaurant’s walls, located on Ninth Street and Second Avenue N.W.
This café serves everything from breakfast paninis, eggs benedicts, soups, salads, and hot meals. Their Filipino chicken adobo, Thai noodle salad bowl and meatballs, tuna poke bowl, and Middle Eastern lamb kawarma shows diverse influences in Vendome’s culinary artistry.
Regardless of their reputation to serve customers at the “highest quality,” Vendome has an average price rate from both Zomato and Yelp with a customer rating of 4.5 stars and four stars, respectively.
Wise & Wright
This health-focused casual dining concept seems to be getting Calgary’s attention as the restaurant now has 3,800 Instagram followers after opening their doors in the summer of last year.
The restaurant that is located in The Core, on Stephen Avenue, not only caters to gluten-free goers, vegans, and vegetarians but to “meat enthusiasts” as well.
Whether it is their smoked salmon with turmeric cream cheese, Moroccan chicken on a flatbread with walnut arugula pesto, roasted shallots, feta cheese and curry oil. Or their ahi poke tuna salad with mango, cherry tomatoes, cumin spiced cucumbers, miso ginger vinaigrette and avocado, Wise & Wright commits to serving fresh ingredients and “whole natural meats and recipes” to their guests.
Wise & Wright’s menu option prices range from $6 to $14 on their current 2017 summer menu.
Alforno
Ever crave a butternut squash orecchiette? How about a pappardelle ragu? A quattro formaggio? Which, by the way, is just fancy for four cheese. Alforno — located on Second Avenue and Fourth Street S.W. — is nothing less than your classic fine dining Italian restaurant with menu options that put complexity and flavour together.
The restaurant, café and bakery hybrid is owned by Teatro Group — the restaurant group that owns Vendome.
Their pizza selections range with combinations of prosciutto crudo with portobello, bacon with gorgonzola and a balsamic fig jam, or caramelized onions with roasted mushrooms, smothered with pecorino romano and fior di latte cheese.
That sounds way too good already!
Their coffee menu is no less from their flavour combinations with 12 different selections on their menu online plus a lavish list of their liquor selection that ranges from sparkling, white, red and rosé wine, brown liquor, bottled beer, cocktails, vodka, gin, rum, tequila and liqueurs — Baileys, Grand Marnier, amaretto, plus so much more.