Exotica

Just over a week ago, I was in Banff for a work conference/workshop thing (yes, I know, life is terribly tough isn’t it?) and on the second night that we were there, we were taken out to one of the local restaurants for dinner.

We were told where we were going, some place called Grizzly’s. Now I had heard of this place once before when we were in Banff. On that occasion, I was there with the family and we were looking for a restaurant that we’d been to on a previous visit, one where we could have fondue. It happened to be closed for renovations and so enquires were made about other options that would enable us to have a fondue dinner.

The name Grizzly’s came up. I overheard another group talking about it at that time and telling how there were phones at every table so that guests could ring each other … because it was a swinger’s place. We decided to eat elsewhere that night.

So now I was headed off to a restaurant with a group of people from work and in my mind that place was a swinger’s joint. Nervous? Hell yes!

Fortunately when we walked in there wasn’t really much sign that it was actually a swinger’s place, other perhaps than the photos in the front of the restaurant that referred to some hedonist’s holiday place and the odd little promotional item that one could buy – a pink “Grizzly’s” g-string. We settled in to our seats and I glanced about nervously, noting that there were indeed telephones by all of the tables.

But putting that out of my mind, I focused on the menu. There was a range of different options for the fondue, but only one that truly caught my eye.

Exotic Fondue. A mixture of meats to be cooked and enjoyed. There were a few raised eyebrows as people saw it and a couple of us decided that it had to be tried.
Rattlesnake, Frog’s Leg, Ostrich, Venison, Buffalo, Alligator and Shark. How the hell could I pass that up. Of the lot, I’d only eaten Shark, Buffalo and Venison before. We were sadly informed that they were out of rattlesnake though. We had to put up with mere Python instead.

Of course, as you can probably imagine, most of the discussion centered around whether everything was just going to taste like chicken and I can only gladly say that it didn’t. I would have to say that the alligator was my favourite and that the frog leg and snake were the most disappointing. But heh, at least I can say that I’ve tried them!

And the telephones you ask? How can I not address that further? Well the fact is that the place was set up as a night club in the 60’s and that the owners were in fact swingers. The phones were indeed there to help people get together, but we were assured that no actually swinging (ie sex) had taken place at the establishment itself. It wouldn’t have worried me if it had, after all, I’m sure they’ve washed the tables.