We hadn’t been out for curry in a long time. I can’t believe I’m gonna admit this but I think I was sick of curry after eating all the left-overs after the house party.  No sense in making yourself angry at the one thing you love more than life itself. Plus, I needed time off to grow a moustache to promote prostate cancer awareness for Movember (Be a man. Get your prostate checked.). Additionally, Ren has just bought a new house and has been hard at work prepping his pad for all the lovely ladies he hopes to have over to impress. I hope they like carpeted bathrooms.  (matt)

Bwahahaha....jerk.  It needs some reno's.....but it's pretty swanky.  I've got an entire wall of those mirrored tiles.....loads of flowery wallpaper and curtains, and creepy carpet in one bathroom to keep your feet warm while you pee. (ren)

One of the benefits of Ren’s new home is its proximity to curry houses. Ren has become one of the “Knights-who-say-NE” and is surrounded by a wealth of masala. Fortunately for me, he alerted me of a new place he found while exploring his new neighborhood.  (matt)

I was driving home one day and noticed the Istanbul Kebab House on 4th and 40th NW.  Thinking it would be a good place to check out for a donner kebab I stopped on my way home from work.  When pulling in, I noticed the distinctive shapes of Devanāgarī writing.(the alphabet used for hindi, gujrati, sanskrit....etc).   However they were using the writing style to write english words and I wasn't really sure if it said Crown MeaL house or Crown MeaT house.   So I checked it out and grabbed a takeout menu.  (ren)

C.R.O.W.N. Meal House will never win any restaurant naming awards. Well, actually, I don’t think those awards actually exist, so it’s likely no one will win them.  But if they did exist, this place would never be considered. First off, acronyms are never a good idea. People think you're hiding something. For all I know, C.R.O.W.N could stand for Cholera Rotovirus Or Whipworm Nematodes.  The one place that can actually pull off the acronym in Calgary is F.A.T.S  (Fifth Avenue Tenth Street) Bar and Grill in Kensington. That’s actually a useful acronym.  And, how about Meal House? That only tells me they serve food. For all I know it’s a soup kitchen. The only thing going for this place is their signage. Distinctly Hindi stylized lettering screams Indian cuisine.  (matt)

Yeah...the name is a little shady.  I was kinda hoping it said MeaT house...cause I've never really seen an indian place play up the meat side of the menu.  The meat dishes are, as often as not, listed collectively as “non-veg” which sort of trivializes the differences between, chicken, beef, lamb, fish, and goat.  (ren)

Ren picked up a take-out menu and I came over to his place armed with my latest DVD purchase, the 1936 Flash Gordon Serial. Ace! After perusing the menu for a few moments, Ren asked me to call in the order while he shampooed his bathroom carpet.  Here’s the actual transcript from my phone conversation:

Matt: Aw, yes. I’d like to order Take out
CROWN Staffmember: Its East Indian food, is that okay?
Matt: Aw, yes. Indian food is fine.
Staffmember: What can I get you?
Matt: I’ll have one Goat Madras and one Prawn Malai Curry.
Staffmember: Can you just order by number? It’ll be easier for you and easier for me.
Matt: Um, number 31 and 38?!? Those come with rice I guess.
Staffmember: Uh..
Matt: It says here free rice or palao on orders over $20
Staffmember: Oh, yeah.  Free rice.  That will be 30 minutes.  Bye.
Matt: Wait, do you want my name?
Staffmember: Yeah maybe.
Matt: It’s Matt.
Staffmember: Okay give us 30 minutes.

If you haven’t surmised it yet, the conversation violated a number of basic rules of restauranteering. Namely:  A restaurateur should have confidence in their menu. Asking potential customers if they are okay eating the food you specialize in, is a grievous oversight.  Imagine going to a steakhouse and being cautioned by the Maitre D’, “We feature Beef, is that a problem?”

“Yes. I would like a plate of Alphaghetti instead.”

Restaurant Staff should be familiar with the menu and ordering policies.
The fact that I seemed to be more familiar with the menu items than the staff was scary. Gordon Ramsay would have ripped these guys a new asshole.

Restaurant Staff should be able to match up orders to patrons.
Identifying who your takeout customer is, is simply put, important.    (matt)

I got a good laugh out of that.  Just another problem with the vague name.  Along with skylark, this is a restaurant that we would have never picked out as indian just by scanning the yellow pages restaurant section.  I'm sure it gets tiresome picking out appropriately “ethnic names for your ethnic restaurants, but sometimes you just have to suck it up....otherwise you're stuck asking everyone if they actually want the type of food that you make.  (ren)
 
When we arrived at the restaurant some 40 minutes after ordering, we were informed that the order would be another 10 minutes.  We used the opportunity to check out some of the neighbouring stores and restaurants. The strip mall featured the aforementioned highly touted Kebab house, an intriguing Fish and Chips place, a video store and a bizarre hair salon that can provide you with video of what your hair could look like if you chose one of 25 different styles.  It appears as if at one point, they had claimed they could provide this service in 5 minutes while you wait, but there was clearly an incident because the timeline has been crossed out with a Sharpie. Bizarre. (matt)

I think i've found the perfect christmas gift for all my friends and relatives.  I'm going to steal a pic of each of them and let them sample the 25 marvelous hairstyles themselves.  Why does this seem like its probably a fat kid with an imac in the back room just photo-chopping these together?   While we were waiting for the meal we overheard a discussion about someone's desire to change the opening hours.  It was concluded that all they needed to do was change the numbers on the door and scribble over the hours on their printed takeout menus.  (which has already been done once, changing the closing from 11pm to 10pm.)  (ren)

We also heard some arguing in the kitchen about the contents of our order.  We could feel a score of “5 feet” coming on like a heart attack. When we finally got our food home we opened up the bag to find 4 complimentary spring rolls. A nice touch, but hardly Indian. Nor were they very tasty. My Prawn Malai Curry was alright but nothing special. The shrimp were a bit rubbery. The sauce, while oily, was actually pretty spicy. Naan and rice were average. Ren’s goat Madras had some decent chunks in it. (matt)

The goat madras was pretty tasty.  It was pretty oily though and I suffered a bit at hockey later in the evening.  The goat chunks were pretty big and meaty, and no bone shards.  Woohoo.  The rice was .... rice. Nothing special.  The beer was tasty, Sleeman's Porter....but my brother left them in my fridge so I cannot give CROWN any credit for them.   The flash gordon was pretty good.  Funny as all hell.  Gotta love the battles with the giant monsters....er....extreme closeups of iguanas.  Bwahaha.  I was voting for my new DVD purchase....the Fu-Manchu Tu-fer.  Featuring Christopher Lee doing his most insulting “Asian-person”  imitation, I'm sure its fantastic.  (ren)

Due to the proximity to ren's house we really wanted to like this place, but for 32 dollars between the two of us, we can’t really give C.R.O.W.N more than a six.  Food not that great, the wait for food, longer than promised, and the istanbul kebab house is just about next door....and while its not curry, it's freaken tasty. 

Score: 6 F.E.E.T on T.E.N.

Rating: