As a young city, we tend to focus on the new and shiny, but there’s something special about those old-school Calgary restaurant institutions that have seemingly been around forever. There was a time when the neighbourhood of Bridgeland was known as Calgary’s “Little Italy,” and remnants of that era like La Brezza and Villa Firenze still stand along 1st Avenue, though they’re now surrounded by a wider diversity of businesses than they would have been 30 years ago.
“We thought that we were out of restaurants but Claudio ran into Franco, who he worked for years ago as the maitre d’ at La Dolce Vita before we opened Da Paolo,” May Carnali says. “We thought it would be a good fit.”The best part about the Carnalis’ move over to LDV is that they’ve made the food feel fresh and exciting, without messing with the traditional Italian vibe. They kept on skilled pizza chef Tesfit Okbamicael, who works the wood-fired oven to create perfect thin-crust pizzas .
On July 1, Deng opened his take-out shop but was short on sales until a customer’s Facebook post urging people to support the shop brought in lines that snaked down the sidewalk. Deng and his wife Helen quickly won fans through their kindness and generosity as well as the quality of their dumplings, stuffed with freshly-made pork, beef, and vegetable filling. Deng’s sells steamed dumplings, wonton soup, and siomai as well as bags of frozen dumplings to cook at home.
The original Deng’s Dumplings location is at 6208 Rundlehorn Dr. N.E. and can be reached at 403-798-1465.