August 1st, 2020: Bison Restaurant

Location: 211 Bear St, Banff, AB

Hours: Usually 5pm - 9pm

Price: $$$

To start: warm sugar snap peas $18

I absolutely love sugar snap peas so I had to try their version cooked in miso butter and okanagan cherries, topped with mint, sesame seeds and tempura bits. The peas themselves were very tender and flavourful, however, I found it a tad salty (probably from the miso). I also frequently roast fruit at home just to concentrate the sweetness of it, so these cherries hit the perfect spot. Only thing I did not enjoy was the tempura bits, because they got soggy real quick in the miso butter. 7/10

Appetizer: elk tartare $20

Very quintessentially Canadian dish. I don't think I have ever had elk in the States. The tartare is topped with mustard greens and shallots, and is paired with an egg yolk aioli and crispy bread. I found the meat to be quite chewy and also a bit salty as well, probably from the mustard seeds in the tartare itself. The aioli was the best thing on this plate to be honest. It was rich, creamy and took away some of the saltiness in the tartare. 6/10

Main Course: bison ribeye $66

Bison is another one of those local Canadian dishes. It comes with crispy potatoes, steakhouse butter and some roasted broccoli. The meat was a perfect medium rare, but once again, quite salty. Unlike beef ribeye which is usually tender, I found this ribeye to be quite chewy. It was a rather lean cut as well, so I found that strange because usually it is the fat/tendon that tends to be chewy. I really liked the crispy potatoes though - it paired nicely with the butter. 6/10