Roaming report - Sunny Saskatchewan

Like I said in my previous post, I spent the August long weekend in Saskatchewan visiting my soon-to-be pilot hubby (that's right, I'm married to an almost pilot :D). Now that you know why I was in Saskatchewan, you can forgive me for forgetting to take some photos of the places we ate at (I was excited to see him), but I do know all the places we went and remember if they were any good.

First off lets start with Moose Jaw. Yes Moose Jaw is a place, it's in Saskatchewan, about 45min west of Regina (I only say that because more often than not I get the puzzled look when people ask me where I went). My first dilemma was how on earth do I get from Regina airport to Moose Jaw (hubby was in class all day, and I would have to wait a couple of hours in the airport before he could pick me up). Well a quick look on the Regina airport website and I found I had two shuttle options; Hobo express or Roaming Buffalo.

I decided on the Roaming Buffalo and was pleasantly surprised. Dane is, I believe, the man who runs the company and was very pleasant on the phone when I was booking, explained clearly where he would meet me, and arrived just as I collected my bag (he had a little sign with the company logo and name). He is a very friendly man, helped me with my bags, and we had a great little conversation on the way to Moose Jaw. Total cost from the airport to downtown Moose Jaw was $70 and it was well worth it.




I still had a bit of time until my husband would be able to come get me, so I "roamed" around downtown a little bit until deciding to rest in a cute little coffee shop called Coffee Encounters. Sadly I have no photos of this place, but I can say it is very nice inside. It is clean, plenty of seating options, friendly staff and a pretty extensive drink/food menu. I normally hate iced coffee, but since it was so hot I did actually order an Iced Cookies'n'Cream mocha (so not just coffee and ice), and it was amazing!

We had lunch at a place called Browns Social House. Now as you will see the place looks really nice, very well decorated, but that pretty much was it.

(Street view)

(Neat lighting fixtures above the bar)

(Bar)

(Another shot of the bar and kitchen)

(High tables)

(Booths in the background)

(Another shot of the high tables)

(Back of the leather chairs)

 As you can see the restaurant itself looks really nice, and it was, however the service and food fell short, very short. I don't ask for much when I go out, but at the very least, greet me with a smile, when we entered into the restaurant it felt as if we were annoying the hostess with our want for a table. No smile, just asked us how many and brought us to our table. Our waitress at the beginning, seemed like she was having a bad day, again no smile just what do you want to drink/eat and that was about it. When she came back with the bill then she seemed a bit more pleasant (maybe she realized how miserable she was coming off, or perhaps she realized it was tip time, don't worry we tipped her a good amount) Looking around the restaurant all of the waitresses seemed to have the same attitude, no one smiling, everyone seemed pretty miserable, and I even heard one of them very loudly complaining about a customer behind the bar (as you can see above, the bar is very open).

 As for our food, when we finally got it after seeing it sit on the shelf for at least 10 min until someone finally decided to walk over and bring it to us, was sub-par at best (or pedestrian and pedantic as my husband would say). I almost got up myself and got the food. It wasn't busy, I totally understand when it is busy, the poor wait staff are run off their feet, you may have to wait a bit, but this particular day was not busy, several of the wait staff walked past our food before finally grabbing it.

 I ordered the charred pepperoni pizza, and the hubby ordered the chicken club burger. Mine sounded really good, and I saw someone else's before I ordered mine and it looked really good, but it was not. It reminded me of a pizza bagel bites, you know the ones you buy frozen and nuke in the microwave (I don't want to insult the pizza bagel bite people, because honestly I would have been happier if that's what I got), the only good thing I can say about it was it was on for $9 instead of the usual $14.95. At least my husband somewhat enjoyed his chicken club.

 Never have I ever experienced such terrible service.  Again, if it were a busy day I could totally understand having to wait to be served, but it wasn't (I could count on both hand, with fingers to spare, the amount of tables occupied in the restaurant and there had to be at least four or five waitresses, just look at the pictures above, and you can see how empty this place was), everyone there seemed to be absolutely miserable, and it was as if we were annoying them by coming and in and ordering food. Maybe it's a horrible place to work, or maybe they just don't care, but this is a restaurant that I will never step foot in again, and honestly, I would suggest you save yourselves the time and money and go else where. (Now this may seem a bit harsh, but I have worked in the service industry, I know how miserable and hard and tiring it can be, and I've been to enough busy restaurants to know how hard the staff work, and there are two things I can say, I always had a smile on my face, and a pleasant demeanor, and same goes with any other restaurant staff I have encountered)


The following day we headed to Saskatoon. We stayed in a pretty amazing hotel called The James hotel (if you get a chance definitely stay there!) My only complaint of the hotel was that the elevators were painfully long to wait for, normally I would just take the stairs, but being on the 10th floor and feeling lazy I waited (and waited and waited), other than that the hotel was superb, great staff, clean and very fancy!

(Front entrance)

Above are all photos of the front entrance/desk, very chic eh!

(Our home for the night)

Two photos of the entrance to the room and the tv/desk area.

(Amazing king sized bed)

Lovely bathroom with a huge soaker tub (and yes I did use it and yes the Lush bag does contain a bubble bar and a face mask, wow you guys know me too well!)

Once we had settled into the hotel, we ventured out for a quick bite. We came upon a double decker bus called Saskatoon Bus Stop Refreshments, so we gave it a go.

(The bus itself, very eye catching)

(The menu)

(The "Soon to be world famous" Riverbank Frank $5.50)

The ice cream did look really good, but I needed something "meatier" since it was going to be my lunch, and as an adult I know (well sometimes) that ice cream is not a lunch, so I went with the "Soon to be World Famous" Riverbank Frank. You get to pick four toppings (additional are $0.25 and cheddar cheese is $1.50). Now coming from Toronto and being very used to the "Street Meat" where they range in price from $2.50-$3.50, and all the toppings you can handle, I figured this hot dog must be really really good. In reality it was ok. The bun for me was way too tough and chewy, I would be trying to bite through it and the hot dog would be slipping out the other side. The hot dog itself was good, but I gotta say the dogs you get in TO are better. I would probably never get another hot dog from there again, but I would go and try the ice cream or a shake.

For dinner that night we headed out to The Granary for some Prime Rib. This is another place where I forgot to take pictures, we were out with another couple and I got lost in conversation, by the time I was done eating I realized I had forgotten to take any pictures (thank goodness for websites!) We got a starter of bacon wrapped scallops, which were cooked perfectly and the delicateness of the scallops were balanced perfectly with the crispness of the bacon. For my main I did go with the Prime Rib (I love me some prime rib), and it was cooked perfectly for me (medium rare), it was tender, moist and full of flavour. The hubster ordered the bison meatloaf (any fancy meat on the menu and you can almost guarantee he will order it). It was also good, moist, flavourful and not gamy at all.


Now on to Regina, we went out in search of the TripAdvisor top restaurant (it just so happened to be an ice cream stand YAY!) It's called Milky Way Ice Cream and my goodness is it ever amazing!

(Menu)

As you can sorta see from the one picture above, the line-up was huge. Three windows were open, and more and more people kept lining up, but saying that, the line moved fast. Most people seemed to be ordering the soft serve swirl cones, but we both ordered, after much debate, the cyclones, which is their version of a Dairy Queen Blizzard (or perhaps it's the other way around). I went with the cyclone of the week; Saskatoon Banana Pie and my husband went with the Skor (I think it was anyways, it was chocolate bar something).  The ice cream itself is incredibly smooth, creamy and rich. The toppings were a bonus. Mine reminded me of something I used to eat when I was a kid, banana and whipped cream (you know when you have taste recall and it takes you back to the place where you used to really enjoy a particular food, this was it for me), really nice chunks of banana and the Saskatoon berries, were almost like blueberries but not quite. I very much enjoyed mine. Hubbies was just as good, with a good amount of chocolate bar throughout. The one thing I will say is it's a lot (they are small), and neither one of us could finish them. So if you happen to be in Regina in the summer swing by this place, you will not be disappointed. 

So there you have it, my trip to Sunny Saskatchewan (it really was very sunny), I hope you all enjoyed reading it, as much as I enjoyed researching it!