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…
Photos
Food Review: Ali Baba Steakhouse
May 19, 2007, 1:25 am
Ali Baba Steakhouse
130 King St. South
Waterloo, ON
519-886-2550
The Ali Baba Steakhouse is located across the street from the LCBO in Uptown Waterloo, near the end where Quizno is. We saw their ad for their Victoria Day Anniversary Special in the Record (second entry for 50% off) and decided to give them a try Friday night.
Walking in, I was impressed by the size and the sheer oldness of the decor (in a nice way). For a place with “Ali Baba” in the name, there is nothing Arabic about it outside of this metal plate with the restaurant name inscribed on it. Everything else is just the classic fancy English pub look, complete with oil paintings everywhere. Despite the large space, for a Friday night, the place was dead. Mike and I were the youngest people there by far next to perhaps the waitresses. And the 50’s music was driving me nuts. Think Frank Sinatra (and I only bring up this name because I read it in another review about this place, and not cause I would actually recognize the guy’s music if I heard it).
We got the onion soup and mushroom caps with crab meat for appetizer. The onion soup was good, but nothing unique. The mushroom cap sucked. I think they used “fresh” crab meat because of the bits of shell I had to pick out of my mouth… I’m actually pretty disappointed in the inability of restaurants to make decent mushroom caps! None of the places I’ve tried in Waterloo area make good mushroom cap appetizers! They are always so overpriced and dinky. I make better ones at home with barely any effort.
This place is unique in that they served a complimentary scoop of sorbet before your main course (to clean your pallet?). I thought mine was too heavy on the artificial raspberry syrup flavour.
Main was the Surf and Turf special (4oz lobster tail and 5oz filet mignon) and 20oz prime rib. The lobster tail was big enough, but did not taste like lobster at all. I dunno how long it’s been kept in the freezer… The steak was not particularly memorable, but not too dry. The only thing special about the dish was the side of fiddleheads. It tasted like choy, but looks funky because one end is like a spiral. The prime rib was decent, but the little baked potatoes was kinda gross.
The waitress tried to enhance the atmosphere by lighting candles at our table, except they use those garden-variety cheapo ones you can get from the dollar store. IE, it smelled like wax. Actually they also tried to be fancy by lighting a candle under my pot of melted butter (oil??) kinda fondue-like, to keep it liquid I guess, except the melting plasticy smell sort of made me loose my appetite.
Oh, and they also don’t have decent wine glasses, just a generic one they use for all types of wines.
On the positive side, at least the service was fast. I don’t think I’ve been served that quickly at a Western restaurant before… And this old and important-looking guy came by and visited each table asking us how we are.
On the way out, I was reading some of the newspaper clippings at the entrance. This one was raving about the place, and said that they were particularly impressed when the waitress took them to their circular booth table, and actually pull out the entire table so they can be seated, and then push it back into place after. That extra gesture really wowed him. When the waitress did it for us, I was more like, dude, why did you make the space so tight? Am I gonna have to push the table out if I want to get up to the restroom?
Urgh, I guess we are totally the wrong demographics to be visiting that place. Scratch another restaurant off the rapidly dwindling list of decent eating places in KW. And yet another place we won’t be returning to without good reason.
As you can probably tell by now, I’m a hard one to impress. 
Comments (2)
I don’t think you “get” the ambience of Ali Baba. It is quiet and retro. My wife’s fave thing is the prime rib, and mine is the fact that when I order a Caesar drink, it comes in a min pitcher. THeir fish is ok too (I don’t eat meat).
Your reviews are amazingly written, this restaurant sounds quite nice well apart from picking parts of shell out of your mouth…
The atmosphere and aurora of the restaurant sounds great, I’m thinking of including photo’s in my blog, think it would really show the atmosphere, especially with something like this review and the great way you have described it.
© Maggie Tam 2007-2011 www.onechopstick.ca
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