Lulu Bar is a relatively new restaurant on 17th Avenue with a trendy and lively vibe and a great patio that basically extends the restaurant onto the sidewalk through a couple garage doors. C and I were seated upstairs at a small table against the wall. Not ideal in my mind, but manageable. C didn’t have a great view because I arrived there first and took the chair that looked over the restaurant – she got to look at a wall.
There are so many restaurants on our list still to try, so we went all out, knowing we might not be back for a while. The menu has a lot of delicious sounding options including snacks, shareable and full meals. It was actually hard to decide because everything sounded good and there were enough vegetarian options for C. Our server was awesome – genuinely friendly and interested in our opinions about the food. Too often servers tend to ask the typical questions – What are you doing after this? What are your plans for the weekend? Meh. Don’t ask me if you really don’t care… But our server on this day was new to Calgary and actually interested in our thoughts about Lulu and other restaurants in town. She even split our bill without us asking! That was a nice surprise 🙂
Anyways, about the food LOL…
We shared the coconut squid ($13) with pineapple, pickled jalapeno, crispy garlic, and coriander. I have seen this dish raved about over social media. It was good, but I didn’t think it was amazing, especially compared to some of the other dishes we really enjoyed. The sprinkled seasoning added the flavour and punch of heat, but otherwise it tasted like battered, fried squid. The sweet pineapple against the spicy seasoning made for a refreshing flavour combination.
The king oyster mushroom skewer ($6) with japanese leek and mushroom tare was mushroomy for sure. For a vegetarian or vegan option it’s great, but personally I wouldn’t enjoy eating that much of a mushroom with such a chewy texture.
The house spam skewer ($6) with toasted nori and ginger dill pickles was awesome (main image at the top of this post). If you’re a fan of musubi then you need to try this. The meat is dense and flavoured perfectly. They should make musubi with it and set up a food truck 🙂
The sweet potato ($10) with yuzu cashew cream, fermented chills, and toasted sweet rice was delectable! I could seriously just order a bowl of that and be happy. Warm comfort food at it’s best, everything in that bowl went well together.
The vegetarian dumplings ($13) with mushroom, charred cabbage, bamboo shoot, and vinegar were hidden under dried cabbage leaves (or something like that)… the dumplings are beautifully hand crafted – they should be shown off and noticed. We moved the leaves out of the way to take our photos. I quite enjoyed these puppies, but they were C’s so I only ate one.
I actually felt like they covered up some of their beautiful food with something less visually appealing – from the dumplings, to the bok choy, to the chicken – the dishes were topped with ingredients that were not always necessary to the dish and that definitely took away from it’s beauty.
The grilled bok choy ($12) with spicy crying tiger dressing, shallot and mint was tasty for sure. I just have to figure out what’s in the dressing and it’s something I could definitely make at home on the BBQ.
I was a pig and ate the whole plate of mochiko chicken ($25). With pickled bean salad, chili vinegar and a sesame buttermilk dressing on the side, the dish tasted much better than its description. I was so full and almost packed half of it to go, but C convinced me just to eat it. This dish is a fair and full meal – you could share some appies and eat this as a main and you’d be happy to roll out of there satiated. The mochiko chicken is sweet and crispy on the outside, tender on the inside. It pairs well with everything else on the plate and the sesame buttermilk helps to tone down the sweetness of the chicken. So. Good.
My faves: Mochiko chicken, sweet potato, spam skewer, vegetarian dumplings.
Despite the fact that it was so loud upstairs that we sometimes couldn’t hear each other and had to ask one another to repeat what we said, and despite the fact that this made us feel old… we definitely enjoyed the food. I would recommend Lulu Bar for the food and it looks like they have some nice cocktails and desserts as well.
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