Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Staycation Part 1

 Hey! I'm a little slow at this whole getting back to blogging business, but I assure you, I'm committed. Just not as committed as I am to the other deadlines I have, but you know how it is. So, we took our annual road trip vacation at the very beginning of the summer this year, in order to fit in a bunch of other fun things like the Folk Fest and kids' summer camps, but it's left all of us yearning for adventure. So, on the August long weekend, after going to a birthday party at the local pool, we packed into the car and pointed it towards beautiful Stavely, Alberta.

Stavely! I've lived in these parts for pretty much my whole life and had never heard of Stavely. And for fairly good reason. About 10 minutes south of Nanton (which is worth stopping in if only for their excellent candy story and insanely overpriced antique shops), Stavely is a blip on the map. Their main street consists of the grain elevator you see above, a Chinese Western restaurant, the hotel/tavern, one antique store that seems to be perpetually closed, and another one that specializes in guns and features a shirtless, beer-drinking dude sitting in a lawn chair outside, frightening away would-be customers. And there's a Hugarian restaurant called Judit's Kitchen, which is the whole reason we drove out there.


Judit's is pretty new, and it's also pretty awesome. I thought it would be run by an old Hungarian granny, but this traditional European restaurant is actually operated by a nice young couple that I'd put in their early 30s. The food is very traditional: goulash, stews, fruit soups, schnitzel, etc. It's really reasonably priced and, I can only assume because I'm not Hungarian, super authentic. I had the cold fruit soup, which was filled with yummy berries and plums.


I also had the beef stew. And yes, that is homemade spaetzle. For those of you who have children so picky that they won't even eat the pure starchy goodness that is spaetzle, there are also cheeseburgers and fries on the menu to keep your little ones happy as you dig into your goulash.


So yeah, Stavely. This is the scene across the street from the restaurant. I wouldn't call the town quaint, but it certainly is interesting. Next time I'm going to force my husband to take me out to the Gopher Hole Museum in Torrington. I'll keep you posted.

2 comments:

TheFitHousewife said...

Mmmm..is that whipped cream on top of your soup?! Yum. Gotta love the small town restaurant charm :)

Elizabeth said...

Yep, whipped cream. The soup is sweet (and spicy -- tons of cloves), so it worked, but I could have definitely done without the cream.