An Unexpected Job Requirement

In February and March when I was looking for an internship, I read a lot of job postings. They all seemed the same, or at least, close to the same. Need writing skills, familiarity with InDesign, web publishing experience, blah, blah, blah. The posting for my job was pretty much the same. However, one skill I think that should be on their requirements, or at least, strongly encouraged as an asset, is to be a foodie.

In my interview among other interesting questions they asked me, Laura asked me where I liked to eat. I'm a huge Thai food fan so I mostly talked about that, they seemed sort of impressed that I knew so much about eating Thai and so I came to work thinking I sort of knew a bit about eating in Calgary.

I don't know squat. My office knows everything.

Whenever there is a birthday in the office, we all go out to lunch. The birthday person gets to choose a restaurant they like in the surrounding area. Now before I started work, the places I knew to eat around here were as follows; Julio's, Crave, and Oolong Tea House (mmm, special brownies). Yes, I did know there were other places to eat around here, I walk past them everyday, but I didn't actually think to try them. Then the birthdays began rolling in, and I learned. Here are a few of the places we have been for birthdays so far:

Niko's
This was my first birthday lunch. A nice easy way to break me in I thought, as Niko's is mostly nice, predictable Italian food. Aka - pasta. It's like Chianti's but more upscale. I enjoyed it, I thought it was yummy, though apparently the menu us far too ordinary.

Tandoori Hut
This lunch was just yesterday, for one of my editors. Tandoori is an Indian buffet. Previous to this, I had never eaten Indian food. I had happened to mention this at a previous lunch, and instantly, my two editors informed me they would make sure I tried it several times before I left. Tandoori has a lunch buffet. This means I had to go up and figure out what goes where on my plate (I watched the person in front of me very closely).
Overall I enjoyed it. I still prefer Thai but it was delicious. Although, I have been informed by my coworkers that Tandoori Hut isn't the best Indian. They put Glory of India and The Clay Oven on my list.

Pulcinella
This is thus far, my favourite restaurant I have tried.
We went here for our publisher's birthday. I remember when the e-mail went around and I just stared at the name. Pulce-what? What kind of food could that be? When we walked over, I studied the sign carefully. It read, "Pulcinella: Authentic Napoletana Pizza." So we were having pizza, cool. It seemed a bit simple for my coworkers but whatever. I had no idea what Napoletana meant but I guessed it had something to do with Italy.
Turns out Pulcinella is two things; an Italian pizza place that is actually monitored by the Italian government to make sure it is in fact, authentic, and an upstairs private dining room that will open into an Italian eatery, but right now is just available for private functions.
We went for the latter, which means we were served several courses of fine Italian food. My favourites were the green olive bruschetta, the bell peppers stuffed with pruisciutto and goat cheese, and the tiramisu. I had never eaten tiramisu before, and I had no idea I liked green olives until then. I was marveling over this discovery when my editor turns to me and says, totally deadpan;

"Don't worry Elena, we'll have you turned into a foodie by the time you leave."

I wasn't sure if it was meant to be a threat or a kind gesture. But if these threats include more yumminess like goat cheese and green olives, I'm all for it.