The newly opened Downtownfood was part of the Big Taste Calgary and I thought I had to go and try their menu as I've heard good things about it. For Big Taste, they offered a $25 lunch consisting of Duck Confit Tacos, choice of Beef Pappardelle or Warm Bacon Salad with Chicken, and Housemade to Order Orange Maple Donuts.
At first I thought the menu was just alright from the website because the entree isn't really surprising or anything until I actually went in and looked at their detailed Big Taste Menu! It said that the beef in the Beef Pappardelle was made out of Wagyu! Now that really got me excited because I've never had Wagyu before.
For appetizers, my friend and I were served the Duck Confit Taco. This was my favourite dish out of the three!! Between the crunchy taco shell, pickled cabbage (I think?), parsley, spicy guacamole and the duck confit, everything came together!! It was like crunchy, hot, refreshing all at once in your mouth. I'm always in favour of a dish that is refreshing and spicy at the same time. If I see this dish on their regular menu, I would definitely order it again.
My friend is a HUGE fan of bacon so obviously she went for the Warm Bacon Salad. From what I can see, it looks like a really delicious salad. My friend told me that it was really good and that's coming from someone who doesn't like vegetables!
For main, I chose the Beef Pappardelle mainly because of the Wagyu beef and the fact that I personally don't like blue cheese that much (which was on the warm bacon salad). This dish was really good and I felt like a lot of effort and time went into making this dish. It's definitely better than normal pasta dishes at some Italian restaurants but I feel like it didn't give me that WOW factor. I couldn't really taste the difference between regular beef and Wagyu beef. As I said, it is one of the pasta dishes I've had!
Lastly for dessert we got the house made-to-order orange maple donuts. I felt like these donuts were special but then again didn't have the wow factor I was looking for. The exterior was super crispy (which I liked) and had little bits of orange inside the donut (either zest, pulp or both?). The addition of maple syrup was really nice, I scooped up every bit of the powdered sugar and the maple syrup!
I would definitely come back to try their other items on the regular menu (and the tacos). I like how they presented their food and the attention they paid to making the food (at least how I feel)!