Restaurant Review: Fifendekel
FIFENDEKEL 9114 51st Avenue | fifendekel.ca Instagram: @fifendekel Co-Diners: The E.A.T Crew
Who doesn't love a fresh and classic sandwich? Who doesn't love a freshly baked pie? Fifendekel is one of those places that has been around forever, to the point where you might not regularly think of them. But maybe you should. Sandwiches and pie are their literal bread and butter! The Edmonton Journal named Fifendekel the Best Sub/Sandwich Shop 2021 which goes to show that even though they've been around for 41 years, this sandwich shop is still doing something incredibly right. While I've eaten their catering at work meetings many times in the past, I'm not sure that I'd ever visited their actual location. I was happy to pop in on a Saturday afternoon for lunch! Speaking of locations, Fifendekel has four of them in the city - you can find them in practically every corner of town. However, I believe that their southside shop in Coronet Industrial is the oldest. Yes, it's a bit of a weird area filled with a bunch of warehouses, but it's surprising the amount of cool businesses that can be found in these types of areas. Not everyone can be located on the coolest street in town and you will certainly miss out if you don't venture off of the beaten path. The restaurant itself is large and spacious on the inside with many tables for seating. There's room for everyone! The casual room feels like it was updated recently with modern paint colours and art framed in fun primary-coloured frames. Because of the large space I did find the lighting a bit dark as there isn't much natural light toward the back of the restaurant. Approaching the counter, it becomes immediately apparent that this is where all of the magic is happening. One counter is dedicated to creating customized sandwiches while the opposite side is a gleaming showcase of pie slices. The staff working was quite young and while they got the job done effectively, I found that they didn't have any desire to answer questions and seemed inconvenienced by much else than staying on task. I was excited to order a sandwich because the sandwiches are the main thing! It had to be the Auto Bahn ($9.99) for me because it felt the most special. As you can tell, there's an underlying German vibe at Fifendekel.
I was first asked the type of bread that I wanted. Fifendekel offers; white, 60% wheat, multigrain, rye, gluten-free, and their in-store baked and hand sliced sunflower bread. Clearly the best choice is the housemade sunflower bread. They didn't have it. The person making my sandwich seemed annoyed that I even asked for it. So I settled for multigrain. Made right in front of me, I was able to choose and customize the exact toppings that I wanted on my sandwich, creating my own handheld masterpiece. There were quite a lot of choices and I selected mustard & mayo, tomato, lettuce, sprouts, pickles, and both cheddar and havarti cheese. It was a tall stack! I enjoyed this incredibly fresh sandwich very much. While they didn't have the bread that I wanted, the multigrain was lovely and soft. It seemed to have been baked recently and was a delightful container for the rest of the sandwich - not too crusty or dense. The deli meats were of high quality. Their roast beef is touted as Alberta's best and oven roasted. All of the vegetables were beautifully bright, lending themselves to a rainbow of freshness between bread slices. This was an excellent, well-made sandwich. It's what a sandwich is supposed to be. I would have liked if the sandwich came with a little side of chips or something, that would be a really nice touch. We were struggling with what to order for my son and no one suggested The Essentials sandwich, which is purposely made for kids. I only realized that this was an option later. The staff just didn't seem very engaged or interested in being helpful.
Of course soups and salads are a main meal component at Fifendekel. A sandwich with a soup or a salad is basically the most classic lunch that there is. After some consideration I decided to try the Curry Pasta Salad ($4.15 for regular size) which was the feature salad for the day. It looked pretty good!
This pasta salad was a delight! The creamy curry sauce was distinct and flavourful, coating every piece of pasta thoroughly. There were nice crisp vegetables throughout and the biggest surprise were the raisins! I did not expect to find raisins in this salad but I loved them. They added little bursts of sweetness which balanced beautifully with the sweetness from the curry. I know that people "don't like raisins in things" but in this case it was a success. I wanted to try the Dekeled Eggs, a mini ham and cheddar quiche but they didn't have any. The other very important aspect of Fifendekel is the pie. The whole thing is the pie! In fact, the restaurant started because they used to make ice cream and they wanted pie to go with the ice cream. Not the other way around! Today their menu boasts at least 16 different types of pie with various rotating feature pies all the time. They also offer a wide array of baked goods including their World Famous Butter Tarts ($2.35). With a name like that, I obviously had to try one. Of all the pies, I was most excited to try their Flapper Pie ($6.05 for a slice)... But they didn't have any. This was disappointing. (The disappointments were starting to add up...) I'm sure that their fruit pies are fabulous (I see you, cherry pie) but my heart was set. Determined to get my hands on a slice of flapper pie, I actually returned to Fifendekel two days later on Monday and was in luck.
Just look at that toasty mountain of meringue!!! So what is flapper pie? It's an incredibly western Canadian creation and a staple of Canadian prairie culture. The first time I ever heard of it was when I moved to Saskatchewan. Popularized in the 1920s, today you can find the pie in Alberta and Saskatchewan without too much effort but would be hard pressed to locate it elsewhere in Canada. Flapper pie consists of vanilla custard topped with meringue on a graham cracker crust. The version at Fifendekel is tall and fluffy, served in generous slices. The uniform toasting of the meringue is nothing short of impressive, with sprinkles of graham cracker crust on top for good measure. Each bite was as light as air with a subtly sweet creaminess from the vanilla custard. The graham cracker crust wasn't too thick and it didn't take over, instead it allowed the rest to shine. Are you even from the Canadian prairies if you've never had this? No. No, you're not. Another quintessentially Canadian treat is the butter tart, this time with origins from Ontario. Similar to Quebec's tarte au sucre (except with no flour in the filling) and the USA's pecan pie (except with no nuts on top), butter tarts are made with butter, sugar, and eggs in a pastry shell. The addition of raisins to the filling tend to be polarizing. I enjoyed the Fifendekel version very much. Their pastry is light, buttery, and flaky in the most desirable way and I'm sure that this translates across all of their pies. The filling was a gooey sweet perfection... And yes... There were raisins. I liked them! They added an additional level of texture that I think was needed so I wasn't offended by them.
My visit to Fifendekel wasn't a perfect one but the food that I had was quite good. The restaurant promises a fast, friendly, and flavourful experience and I will gladly give them two out of the three. An ideal place for lunch and certainly a much better alternative to fast food, Fifendekel is a mainstay in the community that has stood the test of time.
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