Tidbits

Sleepover at Ikea - Maybe this is the only way to get to the $1 early enough…
A ramen bath - Japanese spa with special baths resembling instant noodles. I wanna play!
Old age homes for dogs - 1) Old dogs don’t like to be abandoned at strange places. 2) Playing with young puppies will probably cause the older dogs to die faster due to exhaustion.
A remote-controlled pigeon - Oh the poor thing…
An article on a brilliant method of teaching grade schoolers about bats and rabies. I smell a lawsuit.
Will trade beer for Crumpler bags. Tempted by the beanbag and messenger bags…

Food in Waterloo: Part 2

July 25, 2008, 12:47 am

We’ve been fairly good this term about eating out, we do it about once a week now, on Thurs when Mike has his mandarin class. We also joined the K-W Badminton Club and usually go play Friday nights. Even so, we typically eat at home, for a couple of reasons. First, Mike declared Tuesday his cooking day, in which he would go and try a recipe from his Chinese cookbooks. I must say, Chinese cooking is great, all the ingredients are so standard and easy to come by, the steps short and simple, and best of all, they actually turn out tasty. No more flambe with watermelon vodka, no thank you. Second reason is that since Gary is here on his school term, we get supplement dishes from home. One quick veggie dish + one mom-cooked box of meat = quick filling meal for three.

For the most part, we’ve also tried most of the places in Waterloo now. We do hang out in Kitchener once in a while on weekends and eat there, so I’m going to talk about some Kitchener restaurants as well.

Dawon Restaurant

We headed to University Plaza after work as usual, and found that Charlie’s Lunchbox got replaced by this new Korean place. I’ve never actually been to Charlie’s Lunchbox before, so I assume it got replaced, instead of doing an entire menu overhaul. The decor was the same, and actually, now that I think about it, I think I have been to that place before it was Charlie’s, I think it served some Jamaican style food or something, and yeah, the decor was the same from then as well. Since it’s new, I’ll describe it more.

So the new place have a simple menu, filling just one sheet of paper on both sides. It has cheaper lunch specials of typical stuff like teriyaki chicken, bulgogi, for under $7. The regular menu has more interesting choices, a lot of soups and tofu soups, noodles, etc, ranging from $7-$10. They do come with the little side dishes, but I wasn’t impressed. I ordered the kimchee fried rice and Mike got the beef and vegetable soup. They had the stone bowl rice, which I usually get at Korean place, but Nanjing had introduced me to Kimchee Fried Rice, mostly cause it was easy to pick out from a menu consisting only of Korean or Chinese characters. (Ha, how do you order Korean food in Chinese??) I thought the rice was fairly tasty, though unlike the stuff I’ve had before. Unfortunately, it was incredibly oily, doesn’t have enough kimchee, and strangely mixed with slices of those dinky hotdog sausages. Mike’s soup was nothing special, tolerably spicy, beef was overdone.

Overall, nothing special, typical plaza fare, but I’ll go back just to try some other stuff on their menu.

China Legend

We went to this place a few time leading up to the China trip cause Mike wanted to “prepare” his stomach. Now when we go there, he orders in Mandarin. We tried not to be too adventurous there and stick with the popular stuff. Beef stew noodles, dandan mian… At least their portions are fricking huge.

David’s Gourmet

Moving out of the University Plaza, we also like the sandwiches at the various gourmet food places like Vincenzo’s. David’s Gourmet started in the plaza with the Keg and Williams near Conestoga Mall, and recently opened a location in Downtown Kitchener. Yummy, made-to-order sandwiches at $4.99. Lots of free samples scattered around the store. Can also pick out some neat drink from their large selection of health and organic drinks. Only downside is that they only serve espresso or regular coffee, unlike Vincenzo’s.

Donair And Kebab House

Moving on to Kitchener, I recently went to this Turkish place I saw advertised on a takeout flyer on the door of the fridge at work. It has this really annoying website with embedded video/audio you can’t turn off, but the food was suppose to make up for it. And indeed, it was quite tasty, though generally too rich and heavy. If only it wasn’t in the middle of nowhere, I’ll go more often. Ironically, it is next door to Taka, reviewed as the best Japanese restaurant in the area, which I’ve never been to. It was not easy, trying to decide between the two, but Turkish won, prolly cause I’m still haunted by the bout of sushi food poisoning a few months back…

Rainbow Caribbean Cuisine

A caf-style Caribbean place in Downtown Kitchener. Good food, good quantities. The servers kinda work at island pace though, even though it’s a caf line. And the patronage at certain times intimidates me.

On a sad note, A M Africa Restaurant, the Egyptian everything-comes-in-a-big-platter-and-you-eat-with-your-fingers place closed. I’ve still only been there that one time, as the style and pacing makes it only good when going with a group.

Kitchener Market

We checked out the Kitchener’s Farmer Market last Saturday near Downtown Kitchener, as Saturdays are when they have the actual market with the fresh fruits and veggies. Rest of the time, they just have an “ethnically diverse” food court open for breakfast and lunch. Some interesting food choices there, including Croatian and, gasp, Mexican. Too bad this place is only opened for lunch.

Places to Try

So newly added to the list of places we want to try:

Ellison’s Bistro across from the Kitchener bus terminal. Caribbean, European fusion. Heard about it, but never seen it as I’ve never actually been to the Kitchener bus terminal before. Felt kinda guilty when we were passing by, we stopped to read the menu, and the noticed the guy was like standing right behind the door, waiting.

Boa Nova Rodizio Grill House (Brazilian steakhouse) is practically right next door to Ellison’s. Heard it mentioned by coworkers, but never seek it out until we walked by it.

Langdon Hall for Sunday brunch. Looks fancy.