Birthday Dinner at The Three Ravens.

Today I turned the tender age of 23, so Danny and I dolled ourselves up, put on our good shoes (or in my case totally inappropriate heels to walk up a dirt track in) and treated ourselves to the most amazing dinner at The Banff Centre. The Three Ravens is one of the top rated restaurants in Banff, and it is no wonder why, as you are about to find out. Prepare to get very very hungry!

We started off with a bread and a platter of four separate homemade butters which we were left to guess the flavours of. These consisted of classic salted butter, pesto butter, cranberry butter and apple butter - pretty impressive! This was then followed by a rabbit terrine and tiny pickled tomato amuse bouche which was bloody delicious. Then the appetizers. I had ricotta stuffed eggplant tempura with noodles, edamame, mushrooms and a really yummy broth and Danny had tuna confit with cucumber consommé, melon, strawberry caviar and taro chips. I cannot explain to you enough how amazing those dishes were, both for the tastebuds and the eyes.

Following the appetizers I had vanilla bourbon glazed duck with potato pave, kumquat chutney, seasonal vegetables and a grand marina jus; Danny had the Alberta lamb duo which was a friction taste sensation. This involved a tandoori spice crusted lamb chop (probably the best thing I've ever tasted), garam masala braised lamb shoulder, saffron rice, cucumber yoghurt and a curry garlic jus. I'm aware I'm going into way more detail than you are probably even interested in but I just want you to get an idea of how much thought and effort has gone into all of these dishes and how much we loved it.

Lastly we had a sharing platter of desserts, which I think is a super good idea. I don't know about you, but when I look at a dessert menu there are usually at least two things that I cannot choose between, and this eliminates that issue. Our tasters were a dark chocolate delice which is kind of like a really rich chocolate mousse cake with 24carat gold on it(!!!), rosemary semifreddo, an orange panna cotta, and then the lovely waitress threw in the spiced zucchini cake as an extra little birthday gift. We washed everything down with a delicious bottle of Marlborough Pinot Noir, which of course was good. It's wine, what could go wrong!?

I know I've written an insane amount about one meal out, but it was just absolute perfection from our greeting at the front door, to the waitress helping us put our coats on as we left. The food is the best I have ever eaten, the service was so much fun and incredibly helpful and the views of the mountain were just stunning. It is certainly the best place to go for a special occasion, and I am so happy we managed to get a reservation and had an unforgettable evening. But now I will shut up because I have said more than enough, and I shall just leave you to drool over the pictures...