10912 88 Avenue NW, Edmonton
If you’re looking for a good home-cooked-style meal, or something warm and welcoming, High Level Diner is the place for you. It’s located at the top of the High Level Bridge (hence the name) near the University Campus. Often frequented by students and general population in the neighbourhood, this place always seems to be busy during breakfast and brunch. It could be because of their famous cinnamon buns, or their amazing dinner fare. They even make their own Ketchup since 1982 that you can now purchase for $7.00 a bottle. Many days of the week, they have specialty items such as Fish and Chip Mondays, Turkey Tuesdays, Ukranian Thursdays, Short Rib Saturdays, Prime rib Sundays. This is on top of what they serve regularly.
Parking is a bit sparse around here. They have some parking reserved specifically for their restaurant south into their alley, and around the restaurant, there are a few parking spots that are for an hour only. Otherwise, some of the residential parking requires permits. Luckily, on my visit someone had just pulled out of their spot and I managed to sneak in. The interior is nice and quaint. In the entry way, there are bulletin boards where you can promote local events, and services. It’s nice to see them promoting local businesses, especially since they buy a lot of their ingredients locally.
It was a nice August day so we decided to sit on the patio. It wasn’t too busy when we went, so there were a lot of seating. Their summer patio was small but nice. After we were seated, we were promptly asked for drinks and we were off to look over the menu. The menu had a healthy amount of options but not too overwhelming. After some discussion, we decided on the Jambalaya and the Guinness Shepherd’s Pie with their Caesar salad on the side.
Mmm! Shepherd’s Pie! This home-style cooked Shepherd’s pie really hit home. It’s described as made with lean ground beef, veggies, and Guinness, topped with mashed potatoes then baked. The meat was perfectly seasoned. It wasn’t too bland, nor too salty. There were a lot of different vegetables inside and it was full of flavour. The gravy was really rich, and I’m not a huge fan of dark beer but you could not really taste the bitter flavour of Guinness come through the sweetness of everything else, it was really balanced!
As for the Jambalaya, a Cajun Classic, this was also pretty good! I’m a huge fan of spicy foods (or just food in general!) so this was really nice. It was a mixture of pork sausages, chicken, shrimp, tomatoes and rice, served with a home-made grilled cornbread. Everything blended well together. The sausage was nice a flavourful, and had the right amount of spice. It went really well with the tomatoes and the sauce. The chicken was just thick chunks of chicken breast, which was cooked perfectly. I find that in a dish like this, chicken can get a little bit dry. Overall, it was really tasty. The cornbread was pretty good. Not too dry. It was really useful to use to soak up the rest of the sauce at the end!
Overall, this was a great dining experience! I think I came at a time where it was not too busy so the service was really good. The waitress came and checked in on us a couple times throughout the meal just to make sure everything was good. It wasn’t too crowded or anything and the food was pretty tasty! I’d definitely come back here again!
Also, for those who want to check out the segment from “You Gotta Eat Here”, I posted the link below.
Quality of food: 3.75/5
Service: 3.6/5
Value: 3.6/5
Atmosphere: 3.6/5
Expectation: 3.6/5
Let's Eat YEG 