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Added by Hike Bike Travelon February 4, 2013
Saved under Food, Recipes and Restaurants
Tags: food scene, restaurants, Saskatchewan, Saskatoon

took me aback. I figured since it was a prairie city, seemingly in the middle of nowhere – that there would be a backwoods feel to the whole food scene.

But was I ever wrong.

Within an hour of landing I was enjoying a fantastic lunch at Souleio’s on 3rd Avenue South in downtown Saskatoon. It’s open from 8 am until 5 pm daily so it’s a great place to go for breakfast and lunch. The restaurant is bright and sunny with high ceilings – a reflection of the fact that souleio means sun. I enjoyed a falafel in a fresh pita with a delicious lemony tahini sauce on my first visit. I stopped for lunch on another day and swooned over the chicken salad sandwich with harissa and pickled carrots on homemade multigrain bread. If I lived in Saskatoon I would be hanging out at this place a lot!

Souleio’s

Dinner on the first night was supposed to have been at- a locally owned and operated restaurant in the Riversdale neighbourhood – an area with a long history that’s undergoing renewal. Unfortunately The Hollows is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays but by all reports this is one of Saskatoon’s top restaurants to visit. The chefs/owners – Christie Peters and Kyle Michael – have kept the original signage and much of the original decor – so it’s an easy place to mistake for a Chinese food restaurant. Christie and Kyle have embraced the farm to fork way of eating and look for as many ingredients as they can find in the Saskatoon area. On the menu you might see plants grown from heirloom seeds, flowers, saps, roots, local fish and sustainably raised meat, poultry and eggs.

The Hollows

on Broadway is another restaurant I wish I could clone and take to Calgary. It was our back-up choice when we couldn’t get into The Hollows. My dinner was an outstanding dish – roasted garlic stuffed organic chicken breast with organic quinoa on an amazing sweet potato and squash puree.

The owners Rémi Cousyn and Janis Cousyn are obviously great believers in showcasing Saskatchewan. Also on the menu you’ll find Saskatchewan pickerel, elk and roast beef . On their website they detail all the local gardens and farms they support. Lunch and brunch menus look mouthwatering and some effort has been put into offering an interesting assortment of wines.

Roasted garlic stuffed chicken breast with quinoa

In the mornings I went on the search for non-Starbucks coffee places. One I found wasa building for community and a co-working space. Part of it is a cafe – and the coffee is excellent – but they don’t have much to offer in the way of muffins, scones etc. The day I was there one type of scone and assorted cookies were the only things available. Still I like their philosophy and would return again just for the coffee and interesting background conversation.

The Two Twenty

Another excellent breakfast restaurant is Poached Breakfast Bistro on Second Avenue South. The breakfast menu is heavy on eggs – no big surprise there considering the name. The breakfasts are first rate and if you’re not a vegetarian you have to try a side order of the pecan and maple bacon roll-ups – a little taste of fat and calorie heaven.

This restaurant is very unique. Beginning at 4 pm every day – and lasting until 2 am the place becomes- a cocktail house with an urban, edgy martini bar. Need food in the evening. Make a selection from their charcuterie menu. And come back to Poached at 8 am. I love the feel of the place – and the concept.

Inside Poached Breakfast Bistro

Pecan and maple bacon roll-ups

I didn’t have a chance to eat at the Two Gun Quiche House (on 20th Street West) – named after Morris Abraham Cohen – a tough guy with a colourful career including that of bodyguard for China’s first President – Sun Yat-sen. But I did try their soup at theSoup cook off. And it was my favourite. I’ve heard loads of good things about the place in talking with the locals and I wouldn’t miss a meal on my next trip through Saskatoon.

Two Gun Quiche House

Roasted tomato soup with goat cheese dumplings and fresh basil whipped cream – at WinterShines

I never made it to theon 20th Street West either. But it’s the winner of six Best of Saskatoon awards – Best Basic Breakfast, Best Eggs, Best Lunch, Friendliest Staff, Best Hash Browns …so if you want the classic diner experience this is the place to go.

Park Cafe and Diner

In the mood for a beer and pub food??

, located in the historic Hotel Senator in downtown Saskatoon is the place to go for a beer. There are over 100 international beers offered and 60 beers on tap. Corbin – a fellowwho lived in Saskatoon as a kid recommends the Paddock Wood microbrew. And since I’m not a beer drinker I would definitely take his advice. The pub also offers free WiFi.

Winston’s Pub

I was only in Saskatoon for three days so I’ve obviously eaten at only a handful of restaurants. But the ones I sampled rival any in a big city. So should you happen to be driving through Saskatoon or there on a visit, take the time to try out some of my suggestions. I guarantee you won’t be disappointed.

Leigh McAdam

Please note – I was a guest of Tourism SaskatoonBUT all opinions are my own. No one is telling me what to say!

Vote for my article on WorldTravelist.com, sharing the best travel content on the web.

About Hike Bike Travel
Avid world traveler. Craves adventure – & the odd wildly epic day. Gardener. Reader. Wine lover. Next big project – a book on 100 Canadian outdoor adventures.
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Remember back in the ’80s when we saw over-sized cell phones and longed for the day when they would be less cumbersome? Welcome to the future. Cell phones are lighter and thinner and definitely pack more punch than the phone we saw Zach Morris use on Saved By the Bell. However, despite becoming thinner, the trend is once again pointing towards larger phones. There are several 5-inch-plus devices from all the major manufacturers, most notably (no pun intended) the Samsung Note II. I recently had the privilege of spending some time using the LG Optimus G Pro and found that, while the device has its flaws, I do appreciate the larger sized “phablet” device as they are begrudgingly called by many people.

The Good

Performance: The LG Optimus G Pro is powered by a 1.7 GHz Snapdragon 600 processor, carries 2GB of RAM and an Adreno 320 chip to handle graphic processing. The G Pro arrives with Android 4.1.2 and, combined with its fast processor and large amount of RAM, performance on the device was great. I experienced little to no lag when moving between screens, browsing the web and opening applications.  I expect that the performance will only get better if LG decides to update the software for the phone.

Display: The Pro G sports a large 5.5-inch IPS screen with a full HD 1080p resolution, giving it a pixel per inch value of 400. The display remained easy to read in various lighting conditions and when viewed from different angles. I found the colors on the phone to be very vibrant. The text was clear and crisp, making it a pleasure to read books on the G Pro.

Build: There are many factors that determine the build quality of a device. Some are subjective, like how a phones feels when you hold it, but we all agree durability and comfort using our phone is important when shelling out large sums of money for a device. The G Pro weighs in at 173g, which is slightly less that the Note II, but it still feels solid. LG uses a thin aluminum frame to separate the Corning Gorilla glass from the plastic removable battery cover on the back. I typically use a case on my device, but the G Pro feels durable enough to stand on its own without a case.

Network: What good is a phone with great specifications if it’s crippled by the network it’s running on? Fortunately, the AT&T network in my area is rock solid. While traveling the county, I consistently had a strong signal and only fell below two bars of service a couple of times. The data speeds I received far exceeded my expectations; I averaged 27MBs down and 12MBs up on the AT&T 4G network.

Battery: The G Pro sports a healthy 3140mAh battery, and after 8 hours of moderate use, I found I still had around 30% battery available. Power users many need to have a charging cable nearby, but they still should make it a majority of the day without needing to charge the phone.

Quick key button: LG added a button on the left side of the G Pro to provide a quick shortcut to applications. The default is set to QuickMemo, but it can be customized to launch any application. I applaud LG for having a dedicated button, but all too often, I found myself accidentally hitting the button and unable to navigate on my device. I typically keep my phone in my front pant pocket, and there were many instances when I took the phone out of my pocket and found the phone had launched QuickMemo. It would be nice if the button was either on the top or bottom of the phone instead of the side.

Interface: A good user interface is crucial to any device, and this is one area where I feel LG dropped the ball.  The LG software overlay seemed antiquated, and it was not as intuitive as I would have hoped. The G Pro remains outdated, arriving with only Android 4.1.2 instead of 4.2, which is already shipping on many other devices. LG hasn’t mentioned anything regarding what devices will receive the new Android 4.3 software update, but given the Optimus G Pro is a high-end device, it’s quite possible that it will see this update sometime in the future. Hopefully the UI will get a slight tweak as well in the near future.

Pen: A 5-inch smartphone lends itself to using a stylus. Given there is a QuickMemo app, it was surprising to find the G Pro does not ship with a built-in pen. This is one glaring area whee the Note II outshines the Optimus G Pro. Hopefully we will see a pen included in the next iteration of the device.

If I were to sum up the Optimus G Pro in one word, it would be “competitive.” The Optimus G Pro falls into a market that may not appeal to everyone. We all want the most for our money, but not everyone is willing to carry a smartphone that barely fits in your purse or pant pocket. LG may not have the same amount of money other manufacturers have to promote their product, but do you really need that when you have a quality product that sells itself once you’ve used it? The Optimus G Pro isn’t in the limelight as much as the Note II, but when you compare specs and build, they are very similar. The Optimus G Pro is a great “little” device for those looking for a less expensive upgrade to a new “phablet” smartphone. You can find the Optimus G Pro on AT&T for $99 on-contract and $439 off-contract. There’s also a new White color option available.

That said, as much as I like it, my mom likes it, and my friends like it, you may not. But I do encourage you to try it, especially if you have some romaine hearts around. When you’re done with the grilling, you can either serve them whole (one romaine heart per person), or slice them crosswise, and toss them in a bowl for a grilled salad.

Grilled Romaine Lettuce Recipe

Prep time: 10 minutes Cook time: 10 minutes Yield: Serves 3-4.

What are romaine hearts? Just the inner leaves of romaine lettuce that stay somewhat tightly together, not the outer leaves.

Ingredients 3 to 4 romaine hearts 3 Tbsp olive oil 1 Tbsp red wine vinegar (or cider vinegar) 2 teaspoons chopped fresh herbs such as rosemary, thyme, oregano (or 1 teaspoon dried mixed herbs) 1/4 teaspoon salt Pinch freshly ground black pepper

Method

1 Prep the romaine hearts—pull off any old leaves. Chop off the top 1 or 2 inches of the lettuce head, and shave off the browned part of the root end, leaving the root end intact so that the lettuce head stays together.

2 Prepare your grill for high, direct heat. Paint the lettuce hearts all over with the vinaigrette. Prepare the vinaigrette. Put the oil, vinegar, herbs, salt and pepper in a small bowl and whisk with a fork to combine.

3 Grill the romaine hearts until lightly browned on all sides, turning every minute or two until done.

Serve immediately. You can either serve the hearts whole, or chop them and toss them for a salad.

Hello! All photos and content are copyright protected. Please do not use our photos without prior written permission. If you wish to republish this recipe, please rewrite the recipe in your own unique words and link back to the source recipe here on Simply Recipes. Thank you!

If you ever doubted Google’s commitment to improving the quality of smartphone cameras, doubt no more. Executives are usually careful to dance around wording when it comes to future products, going out of their way to avoid the subject, but in a conversation on Google+ today about photography, Senior VP of Engineering at Google, Vic Gundotra, made some vague comments about future Nexus phones that have us excited.

Despite massive improvements to the camera software on Nexus phones, and iterative improvements to the hardware, image quality hasn’t changed much from Nexus to Nexus. In a casual conversation over on his Google+ page today, in response to someday leaving professional cameras like DSLRs at home and carrying nothing but your Nexus for all your photography needs, Vic Gundotra says Google is working on it.

Whether or not we see a new Nexus device this year with some sort of revolutionary technology or vastly improved camera quality is still anyone’s guess, but the fact that Google is concerned about it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise. Google’s placed a lot of emphasis on the new Photo Sphere mode in Jelly Bean, and has always spent time discussing the camera on Nexus devices when they are announced.

I’d love to see what Google has been working on in the camera department when they release the next Nexus phone and possibly the Motorola X Phone as well this year. Here’s to hoping “insanely great cameras” are just around the corner.

Just what the world needed, right?

I feel ya.  I promise I do.  To be honest, I get as tired as you get reading the same stories and the same memes over and over again ad nauseam .  I’m in a lot of groups and over time you see the same stuff get repeated a lot .  It gets old sometimes.  Sometimes you just want people in your circles to start talking about something else for a change.  Go back to posting some funny cat videos and some recipes, maybe.  Or maybe you should just close up the laptop and cue up an episode of Walking Dead or Thrones .  Knock yourself out.

I’m not going anywhere, though, because like a lot of friends I’ve come to know over the last few years, I paid a steep price for my exit from religious indoctrination.  When you go through as tough a time as I did leaving your faith, you learn the value of talking through the process with others.  And it helps to have more people writing as former insiders.  I spent the first 35 years of my life inside Evangelical culture in the heart of the Deep South.  I was a devout believer for at least 20 of those years, and while I’ve since left the faith of my youth, I still live in the thickest of religious contexts in this country.  Most of those closest to me are still happy members of that society.  So I’ve got one foot in and one foot out; I’m a cultural amphibian, if you will.  I have to interact with devout Southern Baptists, Pentecostals, Methodists, and Presbyterians on a daily basis, knowing full well that the only reason they’re comfortable talking to me is because they assume I’m one of them .  That’s a natural assumption to make around here.  I look and sound just like them, so they think I also believe all the same things they believe because most everyone else they know does, too.  Life for a non-believer in a place like this can be very difficult.  And if for some reason you work up the nerve to tell people you’re not a member of their religion, you’re in for some special treatment.  Needless to say, there aren’t many “out” atheists in Mississippi.

Which is why this blog exists.  I started writing under the name Godless in Dixie a little over a year ago because I wanted to see more written about the struggles and challenges of being a skeptic in the Bible Belt.  Most of us around here can’t speak openly about these things because the social and professional cost can be ridiculously high.  I’ve suffered losses in both of those areas, so I know all too well what that’s like.  The emotional and psychological toll can be pretty high.  Most who make their way out of the dogmatic beliefs of their upbringing learn to keep their differences to themselves.  But they have a story to tell, and some of us have to be “out” for their sakes, to give them a voice.  Losing your religion can be traumatic in a place like this, and my friends who have been through that (and are still going through it) need all the help they can get.  As long as they’re still closeted for fear of retribution and marginalization, we need another blog that brings these struggles to light.

A “War” That’s Been Spreading

To be honest, when I started writing about this I assumed it would only be relevant to people in the Deep South.  More than anything I wanted to create a group identity under which other closeted atheists could gather and connect with each other for moral support and encouragement.  I knew I wasn’t the only one who is “godless in Dixie,” so I started this blog as a means of finding others like me.  What surprised me was how many people who aren’t from the Deep South could identify with what I write because they, too, wrestle with the exact same things with which I wrestled, and their emotional journeys paralleled my own with remarkable similarity.  It turns out the Bible Belt isn’t just a location in the Southeastern United States.  It’s a cultural force that’s been growing in strength in pockets all over the country.  It has been increasingly making its influence felt in my country’s political process for the last three decades, which means that now we all have to learn how to understand and deal with this culture whether we like it or not.

At one point or another I’ve been entrenched on either side of this conflict, which means I’m in a good position to translate communications and understand tactical maneuvers employed by both sides.  Some might see me as a spy embedded deep in enemy territory, but in reality these are my friends and family we’re talking about, and to me they are nothing of the sort.  Evangelicalism is my native tongue, as a friend recently put it.  I’ll admit it grows stranger and stranger to me with each passing year that I grow into my secular humanism, and over time it gets more and more difficult to remember what it was like to think the way I used to think.  But while it’s still somewhat fresh (and while I’m still living where I’m currently living) I need to write about the issues I faced as I clawed and climbed my way out of this life-consuming ideology.  It helps those who are still going through it, and it reminds the ones who have recently freed themselves that they are not alone.

Despite what all my friends and family seem to think, I don’t write to persuade people to leave their faith.  While I personally am convinced they can have a happier and more fulfilling life outside of their religion, I also know the benefits that my loved ones draw from their faith, and I know the hardships that accompany leaving it (mostly in the form of social ostracism).  I’m not out to steal sheep.  I’m out to let the ones who are already walking away on their own know that they’re not alone.  Sometimes the atheist community can be so focused in their opposition to Fundamentalism’s cultural mission creep that they fail to empathize with those of us who had to work so very hard to untangle ourselves from such a mangled web of emotional and psychological manipulation.  Leaving your faith can come at a high cost.  Not everybody understands that, but I do.

I’m not a naturally confrontational person.  In fact, I’m conciliatory to a fault.  I’m a lover, not a fighter.  But here lately, my circumstances seem determined to change that. I didn’t ask to be involved in this culture war, but it came to my doorstep anyway .  So now I’m in it.  It has taken too much from me and from the people I love for me to shut up about it any time soon.

The fallout from my leaving the faith (or rather its leaving me) continues to this day.  For that reason, you’ll see in this space a continued unfolding of my own thinking through and wrestling with the dogmatic assertions of my former life.  Living in Mississippi, I am surrounded by people who associate moral fortitude with Christian orthodoxy and therefore cannot imagine that people like me have real hearts or backbones.  They say some of the most awful things to us and about us without showing the slightest awareness that they’ve just spoken of us like we are empty shells with cold, dead eyes.  Privilege blindness can make people say and do ruthless things, only in this case they are convinced they’re showing love.  That makes it next to impossible to call it out for what it is.  But that’s not going to stop me from trying to do it anyway!

What to Expect from Godless in Dixie

Over the next few weeks I’ll be sharing about the ways I think Christians misunderstand who we are.  I feel I can speak from knowledge about this because I used to be a devoted believer myself.  I wasn’t one of those who flitted through my religion like a transient spectator.  I was down on the field, getting into the game.  I was a practitioner for many years, and I even accumulated degrees and leadership responsibilities to go with it.  So I feel I’m entitled and authorized to speak about Evangelical theology and about the many ways it gets atheists wrong.  I’ll also write some about the struggles that skeptics in highly religious regions like my own will face in restoring the separation of church and state, a concept which the Baptists practically invented but have almost completely discarded in favor of a more theocratic ideal.  I’ll write about what it’s like coming out of your faith only to meet with the many forms of social coercion foisted upon those who dare to expatriate from their respective tribal identities.  I’ll even share some of what I’ve written to my loved ones in order to explain for their benefit why I no longer believe.  I don’t expect them to ever see things the way I see them, but I do ask for them to show me the same courtesy and respect that I extend to them.  I’ll be sharing these things with the rest of the world because they just might help others find the words to say what they want to say to their own families and friends.  As always, I welcome input and advice, and I’m sure my readers would appreciate the same.  These aren’t easy things to navigate, and honestly I feel like most people don’t do it well.  But life’s too short not to try your hardest to live at peace with the ones you love, and it’s definitely too short not to live at peace with yourself.  Striking that balance is the goal of what I write.  So hold me to it, m’kay?

–Neil

Right ear is better in picking up rapid speech while the left ear is better at picking up sounds and music.

This causes the vomer bone to rock, which loosens your congestion and clears you up. After 20 seconds, you’ll feel your sinuses start to drain.

At this sleeping position, it will keep you from suffering from acid reflux. This position, your stomach is lower than your esophagus which help keep stomach acid from sliding up your throat.

Alcohol dilutes the blood in the part of your ear called the cupula, which regulates balance. This is the reason why after drinking lots of liquor, you will feel really dizzy. Putting your hand on something stable gives your brain another reference point. It gives the brain a second opinion thus making you feel in balance. The nerves in the hand are sensitive thus making this kind of body hack more effective than conventional foot on the floor wisdom.

The thumb has a pulse of its own. Blowing your thumb will calm it down and eventually, it will calm your heart too!

Press your tongue flat against the roof of your mouth and cover as much surface area as possible. Brain freeze occurs because the nerves in the roof of mouth get extremely cold when you are consuming, eating or even drinking ice cold foods/drinks. When this happens, your brain thinks that your whole body is cold. It compensates by overheating which causes your head to hurt. By doing the hack above, you will chill your brain and feel better.

Staying hydrated before a meal can prevent you from overeating. This is a time tested method.

When the nerves in the ear get stimulated, they create a reflex in the throat thus causes a muscle spams which cures the itch.

Coughing causes a sudden but temporary rise in pressure at your chest. It inhibits the pain conducting work of the spinal cord that leads to pain free injections.