Arnold Nowicki
09/03/2021
I hardly ever gamble these days, so I'm only commenting on the restaurants.
One is in a comfortable airy and spacious (great for social distancing) dining room sided by a long bar. The other is a cafeteria and sandwich topping bar with fast foodsuper low prices.
Both exceeded expectations. Excellent food quality, service, menu selection and below average prices. The Chinese food from the full menu
Also, the first bar (in Calgary*) I've seen stock Hennessy XO rather than only VSOP or nothing. A glass was a shockingly reasonable $23 when XO retails st over $300 a bottle in AB, which allowed me to sample this amazing cognac this one time celebrating Remembrance Day with a fellow vet**. They presented the bottle for inspection (on request) in the nearly forgotten traditional manner. Classic good manners!
They have a strange fetish for Grey Goose though, decorating the entire back side of their roughly 50' bar with identical unopened stacked bottles.
I guess they'll never run out of vodka, but it's odd that they've tied up that much money in inventory they're not selling. Perhaps the gamblers.
*As a general rule, I don't attend bars but for food or when living above one, but I make a point of asking after that and Scotch whenever passing through. There is one restaurant on the second floor of the only indoor mall in Edmonton Chinatown with Hennessy VSOP in their display window adjacent the entrance.
If any afficienado readers (or sommeliers) would comment on this review - particularly affluent ones - I'd like to know where it is sold uncorked. I'm guessing: places requiring that this shabby, 'poor boy,' see a tailor before admittance...?