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Exploring Old Strathcona with a custom food experience

More items are being added to the menu that is Edmonton’s food scene all the time. Thanks to our dedicated team of food loving tour leaders we are always investigating the new offerings around town. We do a super fun tasting of food and beverages at five “downtown delights” along Jasper Avenue downtown on weekdays in the summer. We have a year round Sunday brunch offering coming in the Strathcona district this spring AND, we will create custom tours by request year round. Recently, we developed a tour especially for the Young Presidents Organization. We started with beer, pretzels and a tour of Situation Brewing. We visited Porc Sale to learn about the art of charcuterie and sausage-making with chef Mark Kalynchuk, nibbled on sweet delights from Amy Nachtigall at her newly opened Sugared and Spiced bakery and finished with…

17 Local Gift Ideas to Source in Canmore during Holiday Season

Ready, set – SHOP. Time is of the essence. Callandra, our operations manager, and I had some meetings in Canmore today AND we managed to sneak in a little holiday shopping too. We are talented that way. What follows are some of the fun things we found. We hope these ideas will inspire you to…

Long Table, Short Drive – our Edmonton Food Tours team attends a Kitchen by Brad Long Table Dinner

Elk Island has 800 bison, 300 elk, 200 deer and about 1000 beavers in Canada’s only full fenced national park. The park is only a 30 minute drive from downtown Edmonton and is 194 square kilometres in size. One of our country’s oldest parks, early naturalists recognized the unique character of this land in what is known as the beaver hills. Formed by a collision of three glaciers, rolling hills and thousands of sloughs and ponds were left behind in this small district which is completely surrounded by Prairie otherwise. Our Edmonton Food Tours team – Karen Anderson, Liane Faulder, Cindy Lazarenko, Suzanne Dennis, Howard Kowalchuk and Debra Anzinger –  pulled in on a windless, 25 degree Celsius Saturday evening. It had been a dry summer so there were no mosquitos to pester and only the promise of a dinner laden…

Enjoy an Edible Escapes weekend in Chicago this October with Alberta Food Tours’ guide Liane Faulder

There are some cities you just don’t want to miss. Chicago is one of them. From Thursday, October 12 to Monday October 16, 2017, Alberta Food Tours invites you to join our guide Liane Faulder as she travels with a small group of devoted food adventurers to experience one of the great eating – and entertainment – centers in the United States. Liane has been a writer with The Edmonton Journal for over 30 years and has led 10 previous culinary excursions across Canada, the United States and Europe. Chicago has been on her bucket list for a long time and Alberta Food Tours, Inc. president Karen Anderson has designed this itinerary after three research trips in 2015 and 2016. With some 2.7 million residents, Chicago is big enough to be home to a large number of innovative chefs experimenting with new…

Edmonton’s 104th Street is a magical place in the summer

Edmonton’s 104th Street is a magical place in the summer. With numerous cafes spilling out onto the sidewalk, it is a hot spot for people watching, while also offering the perfect opportunity to indulge in a range of high-quality food and drink. You can sip cocktails while sampling tapas at Tzin Wine and Tapas, relish a craft brew with poutine at Blue Plate Diner, or choose from a selection of Canadian and international cheeses at Cavern, paired with a glass of thoughtfully curated wine. Perhaps the best way to get a good sense of 104th Street is to visit the bustling City Market held every Saturday between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. between the May long weekend and Thanksgiving. Some 20,000 visitors will join you of a pleasant day. All of you will be able to pick up a great…

Craving Kensington – Fun things to do in one of our favourite Calgary neighbourhoods

Calgary is a sprawling city of just over 825 square kilometres . The downtown is filled with skyscrapers but just a short walk or bike ride across The Peace Bridge lies a compact liveable, walkable area known as Kensington. The fact that Calgary has a string of neighbourhoods like this circling it like pearls on a necklace surprises many. This is where locals hang out and this is why we like to share areas like this with visitors to the city. As our friend Kenny Dunn at Eating Europe says, It’s nice to take a break from being a tourist. Calgary Food Tours has offered food tours in Kensington for a few years now. We love our long-standing partners and in an effort to help more people attend the previously only daytime offering, we recently moved the hours of operation to Thursday evenings,…

A visit to Edmonton’s historic Old Strathcona neighbourhood

The Old Strathcona Farmers Market sells food and crafts, absolutely. But visitors to this hopping space in the heart of Edmonton’s south side are guaranteed to leave the site inspired by not only the quality of the offerings but the stories of the folks who toil at the booths. Vendors like Graham Sparrow, who has put years of sweat equity into his organic farm – Sparrow’s Nest – and brings both passion and fresh flavour to the fruits and vegetables he hauls into town weekly. And Laurel Ferster and Zinovia Hardy of Calico Baking Co. – who have perfected a range of artisanal breads, scones, croissants and tarts that sell out most Saturdays at the market.  “People don’t have to go to France for world-class bread,” says Ferster with confidence. “They can go and see the two gals at the market.” So…

Canmore Food Tours is featured on “On The Road Canada” Tough Rides with Ryan Pyle

We are thrilled to be part of an incredible web series called On The Road Canada with Ryan Pyle and Lu Fei. Ryan Pyle is famous for his Tough Rides and Extreme Treks brands and in this gruelling adventure he and his sidekick Lu road motorcycles across Canada from Newfoundland to Tofino on Vancouver Island. They even ventured North to the Arctic. We were able to share a little more cushy adventure when they stopped off in Canmore to enjoy some of Alberta’s finest food on our Canmore Tasting Trail food tour. Our partners El Gaucho and PD3 byBlake are featured in the video. The whole town looks spectacular and after our tour, they also quenched their thirst at The Grizzly Paw Brewing Company. Check out the fun video above. If you are lucky enough to live here, it will make you…

Our favourite things to do in Calgary during the holiday season and all winter long

When the temperatures plummet in Calgary that means one thing and one things only – it’s time to embrace the season. Winter is loaded with fun things to do in Calgary and here are few of our favourites. Skating – Every community in Calgary has a volunteer committee to create and maintain an outdoor skating…

Canada voted #1 country to visit for 2017 by Lonely Planet

From Arctic to Atlantic to Pacific and every place in between, Canada, the world’s second largest country, celebrated its 150th birthday in 2017. Lonely Planet thought that was a good reason to name Canada the number one place to travel to next that year. The tipping point for that decision was the fact that access to all of our national parks were absolutely free for the whole sesquicentennial year. We have a lot of national parks – 44 of them to be precise. Our 150th birthday may be over but our great country and province are still here. Alberta is blessed with some of the country’s most magnificent national parks. (We think they might actually be the best in the world.) Waterton stands guard at our Southern border. Banff and Jasper cover vast territory in the West and Wood Buffalo looms in the…