Banff- return with a few interesting stops

The previous post on this series is here..

We had started Friday afternoon to go from SFO to Calgary. We were coming back Monday afternoon. That meant we had half a day to spend on the return.

Given we were used to waking up early the last two days, we did the same on Monday, checked out and started driving towards Calgary from Banff.

First stop was Lake Minnewanka. We were pretty much the only folks there. We did a short hike around the lake and realized it was getting pretty hot and we were hungry.

There is a steam boat ride on this lake which is a family owned business (or so it appeared). When the family showed up, we started out of the park!

Our plan was to go to a place called Cochrane on the way to get ice cream at McKays. Every person we knew from this area had told us "do not miss this ice cream!"

Thing was that this shop opened at 10AM. We would be at least an hour early after we drove from Banff to Cochrane. We walked around the closed shops on what was the main storefront in this cute town and decided to have breakfast at a place called Sunny side up. The service was fast and the food and hot cocoa were excellent. We had managed to kill an hour. 

Then it was ice cream time! The folks were right. This ice cream was delicious. It was finished in record time.

We were still too early for our flight. The new friends we made at ink pots, had suggested that we check out downtown Calgary on the way back if we had time. They had mentioned something about a Rodeo and Cowboy festival called Stampede that we might see. 

We spent a good 15 minutes trying to find a parking spot. The whole place was festive! There were cowboy hat stores on the streets, everyone dressed up for the event, square dancing lessons on the street, etc.  

 

We spent a good hour walking around downtown, checking out what I thought was Canadian crows (turns out they were part of the crow family), enjoying the skycrapers.. and we said a quick goodbye and went to the airport!

A video of the morning..

This was a good vacation. I was hesitant to go on such a hectic trip, but San convinced me to go! Good thing I listened.  

We did get COVID the day after we landed and the next 10 days was a blank! Chances are we got it in SFO as masks were mandatory in Canada and optional in the US! 

I for one am glad that these posts are delayed. COVID put a negative touch to the whole trip, but looking back, the trip in itself was amazing and we had a great time! 

We will definitely visit Alberta again in a few years, just to go to Jasper National park and also spend a few more days instead of doing a "sampler weekend trip".

Now the blog has to catch up on a few more hikes we did locally! 

Food to spice up your memories!

The previous post in this series is here..

If you are in Banff and feel like having great food, just hit Indian Curry house. I am not saying it because it is a desi place. It is just great food, period!

We were lucky to try this place out on day 1. It is not on the ground floor with a view of the restaurant from teh street. This is on the top floor of the main storefront with shops. We did not know what to make of the staircase we had to climb between two souvenir shops to get there at first.

Ok, the bear is a distraction for this post.. but it happened to be right at the entrance.. Banff seems to have these bears for kids to take pictures with at every popular spot. Every visitor center has one of these.

We were welcomed with a smile even though there were lots of groups waiting. We were lucky it was only the two of us. So "Table for two" was easy. We took a corner spot.

The view from the windows with the snow covered peaks was something! We had literally just reached Baff from Calgary and we were still getting used to the fact that all places in Banff have amazing views! 

The service was nice. We asked for some hot masala Chai asap as we did not know how long it would take for the food to show up. The guy asked us if we want extra ginger in it. Our first thought was "are you guys for real? please.. thanks for asking!". The Chai did not disappoint after that long flight and drive!

The food came reasonably fast.. the best part was the taste. I think this is the happiest photo of me in the trip.. 

The butter naan and paneer butter masala are the best I have tasted in the last 5 years. Truly mouth watering. They got the smoky flavor in the butter paneer just right!  Given this is a favorite dish by which I measure places by, this restaurant is somewhere up there in my ranking!

We loved this place. San usually wants to try out different cuisines in new places.. if the food was not this great, we would have switched to Italian, Mexican, Thai, Chinese, etc. over next few days..probably in that very order.. But given she loved the chaat, on day 2 after we came back from a long journey, we just stopped right here. This time we tried daal and butter rotis and rice and a lot more chai. We even took some parathas to go for the next mornings hike as we had a 4:30 AM start. That was amazing as well.

We wanted to ask about the owner after we had the food and he came and talked to us. He has been doing this for 12 years. Turns out the owner is a south Indian guy by the name of Vivek. We had a nice chat with this guy and he gave us some tips on other places to see on the last day out on the way out of Banff and his entire staff was very nice! 

We never thought we would find a place like this in Banff with amazing desi food. San thinks I was pampered on this trip in every way, and she is right!

The best thing I have to thank her for on this trip is finding this place! I am still drooling thinking of that paneer butter masala..

Next time we visit Banff, know where I am headed, right after checking into the hotel!

Strongly recommend this place! 

ps. If you are a group of 8+, don't extrapolate the time based on our experience. Larger groups were waiting outside to be seated for 30 mins. If you are group of 4 or less, you can get in and out pretty fast!

pps. if you have food allergies, you can tell the folks here and they accomodate. Another big plus, at least for me!

A prequel to all road trips

It has been close to two years since we went on a long road trip as a family! Thanks to COVID and one kid being in college in the mid-west and the other one being in 11th grade and busier than most CEO's, any trip was challenging.

San gave the usual ultimatum and the kids relented and agreed to come out for a weekend. So we drove to Disney, spent a day there (if you can call it that) and drove back. The Disney experience post COVID will be a post in itself.. this is the prequel..

Before every such long road trip, I get to make sandwiches for the family with some potato box curry.. It has to be the box curry and not the boiled and peeled masala curry. The masala curry is easier to make and it doesn't make a difference as a filling, but the kids insist on it being box curry.. apparently they can taste the % differnence in the potato roasted surface area within the filling! Whatever..

and a video of the making... one handed videos are challenging to make. Seem to have lost the touch... used to do these easily years ago..

Did enjoy making it for old times sake and we all ate it on the drive to LA. This way there is only one rest room stop for 10 minutes and we keep going! We usually make it in under 6 hours, but got stuck in LA traffic this time and made it in a little over 7 hours. 

Enjoyed the drive. There were no fights, no arguments, just eating sandwiches, snacks and keep going!

As long as I agreed not to open my mouth and sing, all was well. Did keep that promise, even though there was a lot of temptation to launch into song, listening to what was playing in the car. 

My next project is to make my own almond caramel sea salt bars, so I don't have to buy the expensive Kind bars which still might have peanuts in them. That will be the weekend project.. 

The trip is done and will post about it next..