It was my two-year anniversary with Jason this past Monday, and we decided to keep things simple this year: a nice, quiet dinner date in town. My first pick was to go to Raw Bar at Hotel Arts, which is undoubtedly my favourite restaurant in Calgary – their New Year’s Eve menu is off the charts! – but sadly, it’s closed on Mondays. So I decided to look for a place we haven’t been to yet, a place perfect for our occasion. So I literally typed “best date restaurants Calgary” on Google and the first one that popped up was The Lake House. It seemed like a cute, quiet place, the menu looked fantastic considering I’m a seafood fanatic, and the restaurant’s name and location indicated that it overlooked Lake Bonavista. So Jason and I were pretty much sold and decided to look no further.
Our reservation was for 6:30 pm and we couldn’t have picked a better time. We quickly snatched the last window table and watched as the sun was setting and the water was calming. The hostess asked us if we were celebrating a special occasion and after we said yes, the server came with two glasses of bubbly! Free wine?! They already won my heart and I hadn’t even started eating yet.
Their mains offered two very delicious-sounding seafood options so it was hard decision for me. Jason, being the meat lover that he is, went with the sous-vide bison striploin. After a long internal debate, I finally went with my tummy’s instincts and ordered the seared red spring salmon and we took the Creole-style PEI mussels to start.
The mussels came in a rich tomato sauce that made us salivate. We inhaled the appetizer in an instant and cleaned the bowl with our bread. (Please excuse our table manners but the sauce was so good!) Our mains came soon after and we dug right in. I hadn’t had a salmon fillet like that in a long time… Slight crunch on the outside and so soft and moist in the inner layers. It came with a black bean sauce as well as the avocado mousse, which was a seriously great touch. Unfortunately, my photos won’t do it justice so I’ll have to let you imagine this yummy fillet drizzled with cashew crumbs and on a bed on mini crab meat dumplings. Jason’s bison came with an aged cheddar fondue which was an amazing combination, but nothing beat my salmon.
The Lake House was an honestly wonderful experience, one that you can’t get anywhere else in town, that I know of. The service makes it top three on my list of fine dine restaurants but the view of the lake takes the gold. Even Sky 360 couldn’t beat this one for me.
Disclaimer: This is not a sponsored post. The only item that was on the house was the sparkling wine, which I am much grateful for!
