My boyfriend’s birthday was earlier in February, but since he was out of town for work, we waited until last weekend to celebrate. We decided to celebrate his birthday our favourite way to celebrate all occasions – with food! We went out for supper at a really nice restaurant on the Friday, and then on Saturday we celebrated with some locally made doughnuts.
Friday/Braven
We went to Braven for his birthday supper on the recommendation from a friend of mine. We took an uber so we could each have some drinks, and I was honestly so confused when we pulled up! The uber stopped outside the JW Marriott hotel, and I thought maybe he was just pulling in there because it was easier than stopping on the street downtown with all the traffic. I was ready to pull out my phone when we got out of the car so I could figure out where we needed to go/how long of a walk it would be to the restaurant, but luckily Michael spotted a sign for the restaurant inside the hotel. Once we went inside it was actually really easy to locate, and probably wouldn’t have been confusing at all if I did my research properly before we went.
The interior looked really cool and it was a very cozy atmosphere. It wasn’t super loud even though it was pretty busy when we arrived, but even with how busy it was it still felt very intimate. The one downside is that the table seemed pretty small. It still fit all our dishes, but it was definitely cramped, and a larger table would’ve probably been more suitable. I think our table would have been a good size if we were just there for drinks, and we weren’t ordering any food.
Left: Blood Orange Margarita; Right: Raspberry Daiquiri 
Tagliatelle Alla “Ao” 
Cheesy cauliflower & broccoli, filet mignon, mashed potatoes, wild mushrooms
I ordered a raspberry daiquiri for my drink. It was a bit perfume-y for me, but I still enjoyed it. I ordered the “Tagliatelle Alla ‘AO'”, and it was so delicious. It had calamari, shrimp, and scallops with the pasta in a creamy rosé sauce. I’m not a huge fan of red sauces, but this one was really nice because it was creamy. Everything was cooked really well, and there was so much pasta! I absolutely love pasta, so I was definitely happy about that haha. I ate all the bits of seafood, and most of the pasta, but couldn’t quite manage to finish my entire dish (people who know me will not be shocked by this).
Michael ordered a filet mignon, which comes from the “Land and Sea” section of the menu. If you want sides with anything in this section of the menu, you have to order them separately from the “Complements” portion of the menu. Michael had ordered mashed potatoes, and cheesy cauliflower and broccoli as his sides, but the server misheard him and brought him mushrooms instead. When we informed her of the mistake, she let us keep the mushrooms without charge, which was nice! Michael let me try some of his mashed potatoes and they were heavenly – if you go and you order something from the Land and Sea part of the menu, I definitely recommend you get mashed potatoes as a side!
Saturday/Doughnut Party
We continued the birthday celebrations on Saturday by going out to check out some shops, and we ended up finally going to Doughnut Party! I’ve had their doughnuts before when my work brought some in for a birthday celebration, but I had never actually been to the shop before.
Doughnut Party is an Edmonton-based company, so if you’re ever in the city make sure you check them out – their doughnuts are seriously unreal.
It was really cute inside the shop, and it was lined up to the door, but the line moved quickly so we didn’t have to wait around for long. Whenever they ran out of a flavour, they’d immediately bring out a new tray with a fresh batch of that flavour, which is nice because you don’t have to wait around for them to make more, or risk missing out on certain flavours! I was definitely relieved when I saw them bring out another tray of a flavour I had been eying – someone ahead of us had taken the last doughnut in that flavour and I actually said “awwww” out loud haha, oops!
We were going to get just one doughnut each, but all of the flavours looked so good we couldn’t decide. So at the last minute, right before we went up to the counter, we decided to get one of each flavour…
I didn’t think to write down the flavours (I was too excited to just eat them), so I’ll do my best to get them correct by referencing their instagram page – if I get any of them wrong, I’m sorry! They do also mix up the flavours every day, so if some of these aren’t your jam then that’s okay, they aren’t the only options.
Top row, left to right: mixed berry fritter, cranberry maple, chocolate birthday cake
Bottom row, left to right: cookie beer, coconut lime rose, raspberry sugar twist.
I can’t guarantee these are 100% accurate, so if you want to get a better idea of what flavours they’ve got going, I’d highly recommend following their instagram.
I was going to type out which ones were my favourites, but then just started typing out all of them, so….that’s just proof that these doughnuts are the best there are, and you should go try them for yourself!
Have you tried doughnut party? Or do you have a favourite local doughnut shop where you’re from?
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