We did it! On Saturday Marissa was feeling better and we decided to visit the Stampede – her first time there!
We tried a bunch of food, walked around, enjoyed looking at the rides (but didn’t feel like going on them) and enjoyed the various misters several times over.
1. Butter Chicken Bites AGAIN (Tikka N Tequila)
Since they were the best thing I tried in my first trip, we decided to start with these again. They were still excellent, and you can see my first post for more details on this great tasting dish.
2. Mac & Cheese Samosa (Tikka N Tequila)
I don’t like most things that are stuffed with mac and cheese. The breading, pastry, or shell usually distracts or gets in the way of the macaroni itself, and it might as well not be there.
This is the exception. We got it alongside the butter chicken bites and they went great together. It’s great, crunchy, cheesy, noodle-y, and overall highly recommended.
8 out of 10
3. Potato-less Cheese Curd Poutine (Cheese Curds)
It’s a poutine, but instead of french fries for the starch it uses batter – coating the cheese curds themselves and deep fried. If you like curds, their presence in this dish is much stronger and it is crunchy, delicious, and filling.
There were a couple small flaws, some of the curds were too big to easily eat and had to be split into 2 or even 3 pieces. The gravy was also very ‘meh’. That said I still would choose it again over a regular poutine, and I might try to make a higher quality version myself at home.
7 out of 10
4. Butterbeer Ice Cream (Soft Serve)
It was HOT on Saturday when we visited, and we inevitably wanted something cold (alongside lemonade) to help us endure it. So we saw the signs showing off this dish and (at the time) no lineup.
I love butterscotch flavor, which it basically is, and this lived up to my hopes. Despite the heat, it only really started to melt after three quarters of it was eaten.
Not much else to say, it’s ice cream, it’s simple, it’s good!
6 out of 10
5. Garlic Parmesan Freakk Fries (Freakk Fries)
The last significant dish of the day, these fries were very interesting to us, and they looked delicious. They tasted delicious too, crispy on the outside, soft on the inside, and with great sauce.
Sadly, it was too oily for us to finish it completely. We liked it, but next time we’d either get it earlier in our visit and/or just gotten ketchup or another lighter sauce on it. Still very enjoyable.
7 out of 10.
Other Food We Tried
Some small things we got without intent to review or take pictures of, I figured I might as well mention them.
- Lemonade – always delicious, and necessary during the heat .We got peach flavor this time and I liked it.
- Mango Smoothie – made with real mangos and tasted like it, it was delicious.
- Pulled Pork and Ribs – I had never had a meat-focused dish at stampede, and was already full before getting some. So I got it to go, brought it home, and managed to eat it later that night. Quite good, but nothing to write home (or online) about.
Final Thoughts
This was a lot of fun, and Marissa and I hope to do this again next week. We are not into the night life, so Calgary is a good-but-standard fair for us. She might only go once per year, I might go twice to try more food. If there is one thing I learned this year it’s that, when it comes to deep fried food, weird or novel is not always a good thing. I’ll try to take a more discerning eye into it next year, I might make a priority list of what I want to try.
Thanks for reading!