Good eating in Saskatoon?

[Zucchini Mama]

Merlin. Yes the Saskatoon Station Place still exists.  I put in 4 months there, so help me God, I'll never set foot in another Greek run establishment in Saskatoon again.  St. Tropez is still here and doing well.  The downtown core is in a state of change as the city with all of it's wisdom is redeveloping a large portion of the south downtown core.  So that should bring some new business for St Tropez in the future.

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I can't believe St. Tropez is still open. Wow, what a time capsule that must be!

You know, after living in Saskatoon during my university years I ended up on a holiday in Greece and it was like coming home! The first time I had a "Greek salad" in Greece was a revelation-"Oh, this is what it's supposed to taste like!" The same with souvlaki, and lemon chicken that melts in your mouth, sun ripened tomatoes, thick Greek yogurt and wild honey, the sunsets in Oia...I have such good memories and eating at Nino's had just made me appreciate it that much more!

Zuke

[Zucchini Mama]

Saskatchewan News

Couple of new places I've read about in Saskatchewan in the Fall Issue of "Flavours" Magazine: "World-travelled[sic]" chef Rob Fuller, who cooked for Mohamed al Fayed on a yacht is now at Thyme's Short in Regina. Boffins at Innovation place in Saskatoon "offers a full-service lunch and dinner menu, full of local ingredients and Canadian Classics". Anyone heard any buzz on these places? Junior?

Zuke

[snacky_cat]

Saskatchewan News

Couple of new places I've read about in Saskatchewan in the Fall Issue of "Flavours" Magazine: "World-travelled[sic]" chef  Rob Fuller, who cooked for Mohamed al Fayed on a yacht is now at Thyme's Short in Regina. Boffins at Innovation place in Saskatoon "offers a full-service lunch and dinner menu, full of local ingredients and Canadian Classics".  Anyone heard any buzz on these places? Junior?

Zuke

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I'll give you the report on Boffins next weekend, Zuke! A plane-load of colleagues and myself are off to U. Sask. for the AGM of a large scientific project we all work on. The two-day meeting is punctuated with a formal dinner at Boffins, which is a rather appropriate locale (vocabulary lesson for those who knoweth not what a boffin is: boffin=research scientist.)

They have a website, with some nice photos and PDFs of all their menus. Looks yummy! We're being served some sort of "Saskatchewan red meat" according to the vegetarian warning email that went out to the group this morning, so I have all my fingers and toes crossed for the bison ribeye steak

[Zucchini Mama]

Saskatchewan News

Couple of new places I've read about in Saskatchewan in the Fall Issue of "Flavours" Magazine: "World-travelled[sic]" chef  Rob Fuller, who cooked for Mohamed al Fayed on a yacht is now at Thyme's Short in Regina. Boffins at Innovation place in Saskatoon "offers a full-service lunch and dinner menu, full of local ingredients and Canadian Classics".  Anyone heard any buzz on these places? Junior?

Zuke

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I'll give you the report on Boffins next weekend, Zuke! A plane-load of colleagues and myself are off to U. Sask. for the AGM of a large scientific project we all work on. The two-day meeting is punctuated with a formal dinner at Boffins, which is a rather appropriate locale (vocabulary lesson for those who knoweth not what a boffin is: boffin=research scientist.)

They have a website, with some nice photos and PDFs of all their menus. Looks yummy! We're being served some sort of "Saskatchewan red meat" according to the vegetarian warning email that went out to the group this morning, so I have all my fingers and toes crossed for the bison ribeye steak

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Yay! It really looks cozy in the pictures in the magazine. I hope you get the bison, it sounds good.

Now I know what the name means! Have a fun trip.

Zuke

[snacky_cat]

I have returned from the wind-swept prairie to file my report on Boffins, which hosted about 50 of us for a private function last Thursday night.

The room is ideally suited to these sorts of private get-togethers - we sat at big rectangular 8-tops, close enough to other tables to lean over and steal their bottle of wine, but not so close as to be privvy to all their conversations. It made for a much nicer feel than most group sit-down dinners, where you're sprinkled at round tables like at a wedding and you feel like the chicken dance could erupt at any moment. I'm not sure what the place would be like on an "ordinary" evening - it's pretty spacious and is located in an out-of-the-way bit of the campus, so I can't imagine it being too busy in there.

The room itself is lovely - totally un-Vancouver. It's all warm woods and and a mix of art deco/arts and crafts furnishing and decoration. I'm a big dork for the Frank Lloyd Wright/Charles Rennie Mackintosh school of design, so I felt right at home.

The food was decent - it was what I would expect of a big catered affair. Nothing impressive, a few blips that go along with serving 50 plates to people and constantly having to pause service while some scientist gets up and gives a speech for 10 minutes.

We started with a roasted butternut squash soup, which tasted like all the other roasted butternut squash soups I have had - nothing out of this world, but yummy. I had a couple of "crunchies" in my soup - I didn't investigate too closely (while scientific observation is a virtue, poking in your soup in the middle of speeches by two Order of Canada recipeients is treading a fine line...), but I think they were spice shavings. One of them seemed like a raisin-sized chunk of cinammon stick. Next up was a house salad, some greens (along with a little nest of my arch-enemy - sprouts!) and a simple vinaigrette.

Dinner was indeed bison - instead of the rib-eye steak on the menu, we were served a bison tenderloin. It was accompanied by some roasted veg, mashed potatoes, and a polenta stack topped with a bit of basil. The bison met with mixed reviews - everyone enjoyed the flavour, but we weren't able to select our level of "doneness" (I really need some sort of culinary dictionary). I guess the kitchen erred on the side of well-done, so a few of the steaks ended up overly chewy. The wonderful tenderloin at the Hammie has ruined me, so when I couldn't cut this tenderloin with my fork and have it melt apart in my mouth, I was a little miffed. Sides were tasty, though again the polenta could take a lesson from the Hammie. It needed a bit more flavour, and the cylinder of it (2 in. high, 1.5 in diameter or so) was a bit too much mush for moi.

Dessert was a creme brulee with a saskatoon berry (only one) hiding in the centre. It was a little thicker than most CBs I've noshed on before - closer to a cheesecake in consistency. I was getting pretty full so I just ate the crust layer off mine. My tablemate ate his and finished off another coworker's, and he said the second one was way too sweet.

And that's the Boffins report. If I were to rate it on the dining-out scale, I'd give the food a C+. If, however, I switch to the group-dinners-associated-with-scientific-meetings scale, I'd give it an A-. It's probably worth checking out on a non-catered-party evening to see how it compares.

[Junior]

Up until a little while ago Boffin's is/was a private club for people from Innovation Place and the University. So I have been unable to eat there. I don't know exactly when but the restaurant is now open to the public.

As for Regina, I do not know much about the new chefs there as I (to be honest) have no reason to go to Regina. Other than Rider games I suppose.