For the Love of...: ...Boxwood (Calgary)

Overall - 7.5/10

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Food - 7/10

Service - 8/10

Ambiance 8/10

Boxwood's lunch menu especially their sandwiches are delicious, so we decided to try out their dinner menu.  Boasting "seasonal and sustainable" ingredients and located in a small but quaint setting it seemed the perfect choice on a warm spring evening.  Despite being the sister restaurant to River Cafe with which we were less than impressed, we walked in with an open mind.

We started with a selection of Canadian cheeses- blue cheese, brie and what we think is a pecarino (it's been a month so we've forgotten).  The cheese was served with house made crostini and honeycomb, which is always a treat. My favourite is and almost always the softer cheese, so the brie did not disappoint especially with the honeycomb.  One small but notable annoyance was the extremely tiny plates on which you were to eat your appetizers- the majority of my crumbs ended up on the table rather than the plate.

We got very excited when we saw a pork rillette on the menu, so we had to try it, being huge fans of anything meaty/fatty that can be spread on bread.  The rillette was breaded and pan fried and served with a side of fresh greens and young beets.  Delicious.

Darrin ordered the rotisserie chicken which was seasoned with Indian inspired spices (slightly reminiscent of butter chicken) and served on a base of tomato, chick pea and squash ragu.   The chicken was juicy and tender, and very flavourful.  A very good choice if you enjoy a bit of spice in your food.

I was intrigued by the roasted lamb served with a minted yoghurt.  When it came, I was a little underwhelmed with the very thin slices of lamb.  The lamb was a bland even with the mint yoghurt and green apple, I felt it needed more flavour.  Perhaps instead of the mint yoghurt, a lamb jus and a starch like sweet potato could have made it more satisfying.  The mint yoghurt was very one dimensional and needed more pizazz (maybe some honey for a little sweetness).

For dessert, we could not pass up the sticky toffee pudding that we so enjoyed in London.  It was served with vanilla ice cream and although it was drier than other puddings we've tried, the flavour was still delicious.

Lastly, we tried the cherry and vanilla pot de creme served with a house made sesame snap.  There were no complaints with this, just pure creamy heaven.

Overall, we feel that Boxwood serves up a great lunch menu at a great price ($10).  Dinner is just a bit overpriced for what you get (three slice of lamb for $18).  We left dinner satisfied but not overly impressed.