9929 109 St NW, Edmonton

Last week me and Jamie decided to go to Pampa during lunch for Downtown Dining Week. It’s 15$ compared to the regular 25$ for lunch. Pampa is located right on 109th street right off Jasper. There is some meter parking in front (but be wary of tow-away times), and around the perimeter. I live really close, so we just walked that day. They are on open table, and I highly suggest making reservations because they can get really full during peak hours. They have some private rooms, a front bar area, and a seating area in front of the grills.

EDIT: I also went again the following week for their 2nd annual bacon feast! It’s only happening for the month of April so there’s still a few weeks to try it. They have 2 additional meats: the bacon-wrapped boneless veal leg, and the marinated crispy pork belly. They also have a chocolate cake that is filled with bacon-infused caramel sauce. Delicious! Another cool thing is that they also offer a cooking class! You can learn trade secrets on how to prepare and grill Brazilian-style BBQ, make meat-stuffed bread, and tropical guava cheesecake for dessert! It definitely sounds like it’d be a cool and fun experience!

They have a relatively extensive drink menu, where they make unique cocktails. Most of the cocktails are at least 2oz and around ~10$ for the most part, so per oz it’s pretty average. This can quickly escape you though, because a few drinks in and you’d be 30$ down the drain!

The interior is nicely decorated, with some large tables and smaller tables. There is a large salad bar area, where they offer 50+ fresh and house-made salad bar items, featuring different kinds of salads, vegetables, Brazilian back bean stew, white rice, and artisan breads. The first time I came here, I did peak around and try a bit of all the different kinds of salads, but honestly, I just get a few greens to make my plate look nice, get a bit of rice and then wait for the meat to circle around.

For Downtown Dining week, there were three charcoal-grilled meats, which included the parmesan-crusted pork loin, the citrus-marinated chicken drumsticks, and coarse sea salt seasoned signature beef rumpsteak. For those of you who have never been here, you’re given a little paper chip that is red or green on either side. If you want meat, then you flip it on the green side, and if you have enough on your plate, you flip it to the red side. The servers come by and see your chip and serve you the various kinds of meat should you request it.

As you can see from my plate, I went pretty light on the salad bar… having actually gotten no salad. I did get some bean salad and a bit of pasta salad, which were both pretty good. Mainly, I just wanted some sort of carb to eat with the meat! So I went with a piece of artisan bread and some white rice.

My favourite for that day would have to be the Chicken drumsticks. These had a nice skin on them and were very tender on the inside. Definitely a great piece of meat, and went great with rice and salad. Probably had at least 8 of these.

My second favourite would have to be the parmesan-crusted porkloin. This was so tender and delicious. Salty and savoury and went nicely with some of the salad-bar items. Definitely recommend getting this cut. Lastly was their signature beef rumpsteak. Probably my least favourite meat, but still very good. It had a nice flavour, and was very tender. Unfortunately, I forgot to ask to take a photo.

Overall, I enjoyed my experience at Pampa, mainly because it was Downtown Dining Week. For dinner, you get 10 options of meat, which, in addition to the five that I’ve mentioned, is the bottom sirloin, garlic rump steak, strip loin, bacon-wrapped chicken thighs, and marinated leg of lamb. If you’ve never been to Pampa before, I highly suggest that you go for lunch first before trying dinner. If you’re able to, I’d highly recommend going during lunch for Downtown Dining week. For 15 dollars, you get the experience of Pampa for a very reasonable price. And if you can eat a lot, it’s definitely worth it!

Edit: When I was back the following week for dinner, I would have to say the bacon-wrapped chicken thighs were amazing! Hands down my favourite thing of the night. The crispy pork belly was also very very good. The night was very well topped off with the chocolate cake, which was also very good.

I really liked the gluten-free cheese buns that Pampa has! They are delicious and really light. Definitely great on their own and to snack on throughout the meal! The danger here is that you don’t want to fill up on these before the meats come around!

 

The Pampa Pork sausage. It was pretty tasty, but I found it to be a bit on the dry side. The great thing with Pampa is that you can try a bit of everything and if you don’t like it, it’s still okay because you can get other things!

Marinated Crispy Pork Belly was also on top of my list. It is currently only offered during their April Bacon Feast so you still have a weeks to try it! It’s really nice and crispy, and incredibly rich. You can’t do too many of these because it’s so rich but good to have a few pieces.

The Chocolate Petite Gateau was a great way to end the night! Really decadent and delicious, and I actually really enjoyed the bits of bacon throughout. Even though I was super full, I still polished this thing off!