Blue Star Diner wooed us with its breakfast, but it’s the tacos and whiskey that have us going steady.

The Bridgeland hotspot (and sister restaurant to Dairy Lane Café) is open for dinner now with a menu that is tightly packed with casual eats that let local, fresh ingredients shine. There are burgers including chorizo, chicken, lamb and three veggie varieties and six types of tacos with toppings including battered avocado, braised pork shoulder, and cilantro sour cream. Wash it all down with an old-fashioned or rusty nail from the whiskey cocktail menu.

If you happen to drink too much, head back to the same place the next morning for a healthy hangover breakfast. —Jaelyn Molyneux

Blues Star Diner, 809 1 Ave. N.E., Calgary, 403-261-9998, www.bluestardiner.ca

We the people support the Commonwealth and not just the one that will eventually be ruled by Wills and Kate.

We also plan on throwing our support behind Commonwealth Bar & Stage, the club that has moved into hallowed ground once occupied by the Warehouse. The 25,000-square-foot party space is the brainchild of HiFi Club owners Smalltown DJSs and as such is built for a good time. There is a main stage level, a downstairs DJ room and a street level lounge. The Cafeteria serves finger foods including beer nuts and meatballs all created by Una Pizza + Wine chefs to be eaten quickly during brief breaks in the dancing beats.

It’s a bar where commoners are treated like kings. —Jaelyn Molyneux

Commonwealth Bar & Stage, 733 10 Ave. S.W., Calgary, www.commonwealthbar.ca

If you live in the northeast and make the pilgrimage to Manchester for the city’s best barbecue, you can save your gas money. Holy Smoke Barbecue & Smoke Pit has a second location on 16th Avenue Northeast.

The menu offers up the same Sophie’s Choice of smoked meat with pulled pork and beef brisket. That decision is solved by The Manwich that combines both meats. The more difficult dilemma is which of the more than a dozen homemade sauces do you slather on.  Will it be the tangy Jack Daniels or the sweet South Carolina? Maybe a combination of both?

Whatever sauce you choose, your smoked meat will taste like summer in a sandwich even when there is snow on the ground. —Jaelyn Molyneux

Holy Smoke Barbecue & Smoke Pit, 420 16 Ave. N.E., Calgary, 403-263-4659, www.holysmokebbq.ca

It’s time to cleanse our palate from bulk purchased mini-sized candy bars with some serious sweets.

Organic dark chocolate and salted caramel spread from
Wild Sweets is some serious chocolate. It comes from Vancouver-based chefs Dominique and Cindy Duby’s kitchen lab where they combine molecular science and gastronomy to get the flavours and textures just right.

Those of us with restraint can drizzle the sauce over brownies, spread it on toast or serve it warm over ice cream and fruit. The rest of us can just pick up a spoon. —Jaelyn Molyneux

$9.50 at CRMR at Home, 330 17 Ave. S.W., Calgary, 403-532-0241, www.crmr.com/athome

If you build it, we will come and eat.

The renovation dust has settled at the Community Natural Foods 10th Street location and from the sawing in hammering the Community Café has emerged. In keeping with the grocery store's nearly 35-year tradition, the café takes organic, all-natural ingredients and whips them into ready-to-serve meals. The wood-fired pizza oven cranks out pies sold by the slice. There’s a build-your–own burrito counter, a smoothie station and a salad bar with all the fixings. Hot entrees include artichoke lasagna and butter chicken, all of which can be packed to go or eaten in at the café’s smattering of tables.

Letting someone else do the cooking just moved to the top of our grocery list. —Jaelyn Molyneux

Community Natural Foods, 1304 10 Ave. S.W., Calgary, 403-930-6363, www.communitynaturalfoods.com

Living la dolce vita is all about noshing on saltimbocca, sipping Spumante and spending time with friends. Feel free to substitute lattes, gelato or a selection of cheeses for any of the above. Or, have it all at Borgo Trattoria.

Open from early morning pastries through afternoon snacks and past dinner and drinks, Chef Giuseppe Di Gennaro’s new restaurant in Mount Royal Village embraces the social side of Italian life.

Borgo’s menu lets you eat family-style. Build your own meal by ordering small bites, meats, pasta, salads and soups by portion or piece based on the size of your group and the appetites they brought.

Remember living the good life means saving room for panna cotta. —Jaelyn Molyneux

Borgo Trattoria, 818 16 Ave. S.W., Calgary, 403-245-2202, www.borgo.ca

Everybody has go-to recipe, that one fail-proof dish that will impress at a potluck and have your pals asking how you pulled it off.

Now more than 200 of those delicious dishes are being shared in Club Club’s Community Cookbook. The three crafty editors took the concept of collaboration to the people asking for recipe submissions from foodie friends, professional chefs and perfect strangers. After nine months of collecting, the recipes of 110 contributors were put together in one coil bound book that covers all the meal bases from roasted radishes and chiffon cakes to bourbon lemonade and barbecued ribs.

If ever there was an excuse for a kitchen party. —Jaelyn Molyneux

$16 at www.club-club.tumblr.com

The owners of UNA Pizza + Wine bring a dose of the cosmopolitan cool of Buenos Aires or Rio de Janeiro to 17th Avenue Southwest in its new Latin American-inspired restaurant and bar, Ox & Angela.

Think leather tufted banquets, a collage of ornate mirrors and a menu that includes empanadas with braised ox-tail, chorizo with stewed peppers and pan-fried fava beans. Cocktails are sweet and spicy with concoctions including pineapple and passion fruit muddled with mint and rum then topped with sparkling wine and vodka martinis shaken with cucumber, ginger and chilies.

Happy hour just found some Latin soul. —Jaelyn Molyneux

Ox & Angela, 528 17 Ave. S.W., Calgary, 403-457-1432, www.oxandangela.com

Alberta’s super sweet corn is ready to be ripped from its stalks.

This weekend, a three-hour roadtrip will get you to the Corn Capital of Canada where the Taber Corn Fest has revelers stuffing cobs in coveralls and competing in various cook-offs. To celebrate harvest closer to home and with as much urban sophistication as you can muster gnawing on the juicy cob, buy a bag of the husked veggie and arm yourself with noshing implements.

This kit comes with corn holders to stab into the ends of cob for a better grip and dishes to roll the ear around in melted butter. Add salt and it’s the best snack since popping kernels became a thing. —Jaelyn Molyneux

$3.99 at Canadian Tire, www.canadiantire.ca

This summer Calgary’s food scene got its license to drive. The Calgary mayor green-lit the food trucks, a pilot project to cut the red tape and get us restaurants on wheels. Follow the trucks on Twitter to find out when they are parked.

Alley Burger
The pork burger from Charcut that first gained fame when the restaurant started serving it out of their backdoor late at night. @AlleyBurger

Fries and Dolls
Gluten-free fries are named for Hollywood starlets including the Farrah with garlic and the Sophia with parmesan and truffle oil. @Fries_n_Dolls

Perogy Boyz
Eastern European food pockets have simple fillings such as potato and cheese or gourmet stuffings including ground duck and Saskatoon berries. @perogyboyz

Pimentos Mobile Pizzeria
Chef Mario’s pizzeria on wheels has been serving pies topped with pomodoro, fresh basil, prosciutto and more since 2009. @chefmariomobile

Los Compadres MX
This mobile taqueria fills tortillas with sirloin, chorizo, cheese and marinated pork. There are also French baguette sandwiches and churros. @loscompadresmx
—Jaelyn Molyneux