Rostizado, Mexican Food and A Recipe for The Rocío Cocktail

The recipe comes first here, of course. The Rocío (meaning 'dew') was the cocktail that welcomed us to the media launch at Rostizado. Me being me, of course, had to be a snoopy McSnoop, and I convinced the lovely bartender to hand over his recipe for this delicious aperol-tequila-camomile-vanilla-prosecco cocktail. A quick please-please-please-pretty-please to Dani, one of the owners of Rostizado, and I had permission to publish the recipe. As Dani reckons, all their restaurants are about sharing, anyway. So thanks to the team at Rostizado, for this lovely recipe and an excellent evening. Keep reading for some mouthwatering photographs. 

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Tutti Frutti Frozen Yogurt

Tutti Frutti frozen yogurt has been a favourite with Aditi and me, ever since we were introduced to this cool chain of self serve frozen yogurt by Marlow Moo. Aditi and I both love the Whyte Avenue location, as its close to school, and to the hopping, fun area that I love spending time at. We go there fairly often, and love the cool, family friendly space that has enough space to play and eat. 

TF then opened up in Southgate, making it even more scarily accessible to my froyo crazy little bat. Now, every single trip to Southgate elicits the plaintive whine for TF yogurt... and to be honest, I don't mind giving in everytime once or twice. The Whyte Aveneue location of TF is a lot bigger than Southgate, but Southgate is easier in terms of access for me. 

And now, to make things better, TF is now open in West Edmonton Mall. I go to West Ed fairly often, maybe not as often as Southgate, but enough to want to have a sweetener (no pun, honest) for Aditi to induce her to put up with my endless shopping. I will make no bones about the fact that I do love shopping, and WEM is definitely my mecca :) Having a TF Froyo here makes things a lot easier. And the fact that its practically right under Williams Sonoma and the soon to arrive Pottery Barn is just topping on the yogurt. Its by far and away Aditi's favourite place in the world, and the little bat has tried practically every single flavour on offer. So how could I refuse when I blackmailed my way in was kindly invited to their opening?

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Pinkberry Frozen Yogurt

Aditi eeeee, and me too were very excited when we recieved our invitation to the opening of Pinkberry Frozen Yogurt in West Edmonton Mall. My daughter's only four, but considers herself quite the frozen yogurt connoisseur (and yes, she can say 'connoisseur' too, insert proud mommy emoticon here) and she was pretty sure that the invitation was hers actually, and I was her accompanying guest :) Which, of course, I was proud to be.

As it turns out, Pinkberry couldn't have chosen a better week to open in Edmonton. With temperatures soaring in the mid-thirties, it was hot outside and all thoughts were always with cold, frozen treats. Aditi and I were pretty hot when we arrived at WEM, even though we were sitting in the back of the bus where, ocasionally, there is a breeze happening. We were both, therefore, rather relieved when we entered the air conditioned environs of WEM, and we skittered along to the Pinkberry booth.

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Kids and Restaurants - A Love/ Hate Relationship?

I love my four year old child. I love eating out at fancy restaurants. As it turns out, recently, I have found that one is not compatible with the other. Its one of the reasons I decided to write this post. This post is not an attempt at sneak reviews of restaurants. I may link to a few, but only if our experience was positive. I am not out to be a vengeful parent here, rather I am trying to understand this wave of kid-unfriendliness that seems to be sweeping about.

Adz at Scog's in West Kirby

Before my daughter was born, my husband and I were like any other middle income professionals in England. We ate out a fair amount. It was mostly in pubs, and local eateries, and on special ocasions, we splashed out on fairly expensive restaurants and dinners. We ate lunch at restaurants, almost every day of the week, thanks to an abundance of lovely and low priced places close to our work. We loved the ease of heading out at short notice, and finding new places to eat. I wouldn't call us foodies in a broad sense that its used today, but we knew what we liked, and we enjoyed the experience.

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Hangouts: Chai Pani, Edmonton

Recently, Lis from the Daring Kitchen asked for people to write for their Food Talk section. I jumped at the chance, as I have been trying to refine my writing skills, not just food writing, but writing in general. I chose the topic 'Chai' or 'Indian Tea', and you can read the article here.

I hope you enjoy it, and please feel free to come by and give me your criticisms, I always welcome feedback and appreciate it very much.

As a bit of a tie-in to the chai theme, I also wanted to let you all know about some of the places I enjoy hanging out in Edmonton. I am no reviewer, and neither am I am expert on various cuisines. But I know what I like, and so this feature is going to be on a recent addition to Edmonton's food and cafe scene, Chai Pani on Whyte Avenue.

'Pappppooo, chai pani leke aana' (Pappu, bring some tea-water) is a relatively familiar phrase for those of us who have lived in India. In fact, shopping in India can be so enjoyable, as most of the places we visit serve us chai pani, or thanda (cold drink) Its not only Indian, though, as a lot of far Eastern countries have a similar concept of cafes, or a place to have chai pani attached to them.

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