Sushi 99: if it only meant percent

I could have busted into the joint like Chow Yun Fat, guns blazing! Take my word for it, dear readers, I could have; and I definitely would have if I had the foresight to know what the food was like. Even the Yun would have no qualms about putting the poor place and all its chaininess and corporate investment out of business. But who am I kidding? I've eaten at enough all-you-can eat sushi joints in this town to have a good amount of perspective. Or all-you-can-eat sushi joints at all for that matter. Who hasn't? Shoot. I'm willing to bet that even if I did have the perspective to predict what this place WAS like, just like the Fat (whom I assume could do that sort of thing) I wouldn't have even bothered. That's how the Chun rolls, and that's how I like to pretend I roll. But I won't point fingers, comrades. Not today; not this time. Not when I'm foolish enough to sacrifice quality for quantity in hopes that quality will persist, especially on my prodigal freeter budget. A budget I owe to the trials of graduate school, and the unexpected tribulations of having to stay there longer than even I had anticipated. And for that, as I did a year ago, I apologize, yet again for making you wait so long for yet another adventure in food land. And I apologize for any mediocrity that nestles snugly between the lines of my poor, poor blog, especially in this post. Blame it on the uninspiring food, and the supposed 3 year olds in the kitchen who were allowed to make it. But again, look who's pointing fingers: your dear narrator. But, how can I not? It's what I do; it's what you come for. Nothing in this life brings me more joy than helping you save a good dollar, and getting to eat in the process (you thought I was going to say 'and get a good meal.' Ridiculous).

I've been waiting diligently for a meal at Sushi 99. Since I found out I'd be stuck writing about the similarities between television cooking and hardcore pornography for another month; since my sister told me to wait for her so that we could go together, since I told myself that I would not go out to eat anywhere until I had the funds, until I had a job to justify my post-grad, post poverty, post-parasite single spending. I tried. At least I finished a small book about porn and food. I may be the only non-feminist to have accomplished such, but I'm not here to brag, I'm here to chew Sushi 99 out.
I'm getting ahead of myself, aren't I? I'm ruining the experience for you. Or am I? Consider this: you could stop reading right here. Right now. I'm giving you the option. This post won't be pretty. I do it for you after all, dear readers. Always, always for you. I swear I already said that (I know I did).

A gastronome shouldn't expect much from the appearance of a place. A gastronome should never let the appearance of the place be a qualifying factor for the legitimacy of its food, nor its quality. And yet, I fool myself every time by assuming that the looks of the place have some meaning for the quality of food offered. This I say as an aside because in my travels all over “food-dom” I find, or at least I stand by the belief that, hole-in-the-wall places have delicious food and that decked out places do not. This is not entirely true. Though I admit, outer appearance in a restaurant is certainly a symptom of the belief that a shiny place equals shiny food. To be honest, it goes both ways- a bad looking place could very well serve bad food, or good food for that matter; but for me, my support for the hole-in-the-wall eatery panders to the fantasy of sincere, genuine, authentic food, which in the town of Kitchener-Waterloo is another ruse for a roving, post-colonial palette; just a simple romance to make my adventures with food a little more magical. Alas, Sushi 99 couldn't cut it. When I saw that first plate of poorly packed nigiri-sushi I had a sneaking suspicion I was only kidding myself, yet again. Yes friends, the uniformed black and white servers and the all in black in-house manager confidently striding through the isles to make sure everyone was fed, wasn't enough to make me feel that everyone was working to their fullest potential. Nor did the deep browns of the walls' trims and the proverbial colour of red paneling (to represent whatever it is that is Asian nowadays) do anything to change my mind. When I got that first morsel all I thought was, Weezee, you bastard. You've been tricked again. Tricked by yet another corporate investment, tricked by a place that reeks of franchise, not mirin and barley tea (though they did serve barley tea, not genmaicha which is particular to almost all "Japanese" restaurants in town). Tricked by a ceiling with planks of wood that careen to represent perhaps the shape of a caricatured fish or the character of those famous Shinto shrines known as torii, believed to mark the separation between the sacred and the profane. If that were the case, everything under the ceiling must have been profane, because there was nothing sacred about the food I ate. No aesthetic appeal, no effort in preparation, not even a dab of wasabi between raw fish and packed rice, which I'm confident wasn't cooked, discovered after noticing what looked like cracks in between grains, which in my experience of cooking rice professionally is a huge indicator that: no, rice is not cooked.

If you're after any kind of authenticity, dear readers, you won't find it at Sushi 99, though I can't say that they claim to serve any kind of genuine Japanese food, or be Japanese food for that matter. And if I may digress, as I so often do: it shouldn't matter who the people are. That there were no Japanese people in the kitchen making my sushi didn't matter. That I eavesdropped on the Mandarin conversation of boss and employee says nothing about the quality of the food, though it may say something about Sushi 99's intentions of hiding behind particular conventions in order to appeal to an eating audience- an ignorant eating audience who is idiotic enough to see Asians behind a counter taking fish from a pile of pre-sliced tuna and stacking it onto a bed of shitty rice and believing they are sushi chefs.

Please. Let's not kid ourselves.

I certainly didn't. Especially when I saw how unevenly my rolls were cut. Which brings me to my point: what makes my food matter is the skill behind it. No chefs or cooks, or sushi savants, or whatever, were even qualified to cut a roll, let alone roll it. It was nothing more than an assembly line, which in sushi places in Japan- shoot, even Vancouver- at least employ qualified sushi chefs. I couldn't help but think how much Sushi 99 hid behind its appearance; its entire construction being nothing more than a compromise for taste or passionately prepared food. It seems that in this place of all-you-can-eat sushi, there was nothing more than cooking complacency, a need to get orders to tables on a Friday afternoon and an even bigger need to rush people out in order to make room for more people and profit. I didn't think it was worth it, but certainly the huge teenage crowd that stuffed the joint did. I can't blame them. Cheap food and even cheaper palettes. I recall a young girl raving about her lunch next to me. Reach for the stars, kid. Maybe read a little Hume when you have the time, too. See what it means to have a little taste. Or not, what do I care? I'm pretty sour by this point in the entry anyway.

In retrospect, my memory seems a little relentless. After all, Sushi 99 is a new restaurant and it is another all you can eat food chain, with lucky cats and a big dining room and cheap prices. On a Friday afternoon it only makes sense that the food seem a little lacking in some areas, especially since there appeared to be no genuine chefdom going on anywhere near the kitchen. Now, I couldn't see inside the kitchen, but judging by the quality of the cooked foods I received I'm willing to bet guidance was devoid even in that of most coveted food spaces. It's difficult to redeem any of this experience. Sure, my lunch cost 13.99 (12.99 on any other day of the week; but, it was Friday, and for some reason that warrants charging more) and I received all I could eat (for 1.5 hours, which servers neglected to tell me about, and which I luckily read on the lunch menu by chance, so I really couldn't eat all I could eat- I do wonder what they would have done if I did order past my time limit?), but that hardly makes up for the food I wasn't nearly satisfied with. The alleged Japanese pancakes- fried eel fried in a batter in the shape of a pancake was chewy and raw, seaweed salad (to my usual dismay) was nothing but some seaweed topping a filler of iceberg lettuce, and the nigiri sushi didn't even hold against the poorly packed oblong rice, which I assume happened throughout my meal for one of two reasons: no wasabi (which is a stretch), or, that the rice wasn't cooked properly. But it was Friday, right? So, I should go easy on the place. Easy on the place. Easy. Tempura’d vegetables were too thick and thus not crispy and firm, but semi cooked when coming to the table. Dumplings were soft, too. Other kitchen appetizers such as spring onions wrapped in beef were chewy and the onions burnt, eggplant cut awkwardly and difficult- no, frustrating- to handle with chopsticks; and the vegetable udon was too overpowering to finish, its broth tasting of bad kelp and really fishy stock. As for actual sushi rolls, the poster child of the all-you-can-eat sushi joint, were poor all around. Not only did they exude sloppy preparation and hold, but they thoroughly lacked a good amount of rice, so much so that one could easily see the hue of seaweed beyond the rice when picking up the roll; and if that wasn't bad enough, sometimes the rice stuck to the serving place pulling off of the seaweed wrapped portions themselves.

	Poorly cut, poorly rolled.

Now I know for a fact that Japanese food prides itself on its aesthetic construction, so much so that larger food portions are usually compromised in order to express this dynamic, and obviously justify the price of Japanese food. That's why I have a love hate relationship with bento lunches.

Delicious food
so much money,
never enough to eat.

Did I just write a haiku? Anyway, it seems Sushi 99 capitalized on that idea, or at least on the part of Japanese cuisine that seems to charge a lot for so little. Sure, it was all I could eat, but not when I'm rushed, and not when my sushi looks like sushi first did when it was discovered by some old Japanese woman who hid her rice from thieves in a bird's nest which later brought bits of fish back thus inventing the dish (mere folky speculation).

	Spring onions wrapped in beef were chewy and the onions burnt.

I can only think of one thing on the menu that warranted some attention, and that was the dessert of deep fried ice cream and deep fried bananas. Needless to say, I expected a hardy batter to surround both, but what I got was a weak scoop engulfed by an even weaker, mushier tempura and a half of a quarter (try to imagine that) of a banana deep fried in the same batter, drizzled with chocolate sauce. Another disappointment, especially when so many restaurants in this town offer the same dessert.
Up until the end of the meal, service was pretty punctual. Actually, too punctual (it did forget an order of soup, but hey, that's the nature of the all-you-can eat beast, I reckon). Some would call it over-service. I would call it over-service. I can understand the need to clear tables and make room for more food, but I draw the line when I can't hold a conversation with my company for more than five minutes before random hands (manager's included, which was very uncomfortable) dive down in between us to collect our plates. I did not take this as one of two possibilities; they simply wanted us to eat and get out, not to enjoy ourselves and the experience of what looks like a fine sushi establishment; not to be bogged down with dirty dishes at our table. Again. Please. I'm nothing if not a gentleman. My comrade and I ate with a good deal of grace. This type of service was probably the most irritating I've ever experienced. I didn't tip, because I knew I wasn't coming back.

Alas, dear readers, did I break your hearts? Sushi 99 certainly broke mine. Fear not, there is a world elsewhere, so Shakespeare says. And there are definitely many times of day to eat. Perhaps you could try Sushi 99 on a Monday at lunch, or a Thursday at night and tell me how it goes. Until then, eat well. Oh, and I've missed you.

Bill (without tip): 16.09.

Sushi 99
(519) 725-7799
36 Northfield Dr East
Waterloo, ON N2L 6A1

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The Life and Death of Great American Kung Fu Classes

Yesterday was my Old Master's birthday. None of us know how old he is, even today. I biked an hour to see him, which doesn't seem like a long way to go, but riding on the expressway by bike speaks volumes if you ask me. Anyway, he changed my life. It was the least I could do.

Passing this abandoned class, once the "Double Dragon" Kung-Fu studio (true story), I felt a pang of sadness. I've biked by it many times before. Very Karate Kid- big bulky guys in sleek black kung fu uniforms teaching hyper aggressive kids. Sometimes, if I was lucky, I'd catch one of the monks from Mommy and Uncle's temple stepping into the Cash4You next door and give them a good bow. It was always nice to see them outside temple.

Kung fu's everywhere in popular culture and it does good on screen to try and teach the values of kung fu- the things people usually laugh about in real life, but the same kind of things I've been told numerous times by my Old Master. Eat bitter, protect each other, the metaphors go on. It's a shame that these kinds of truths are starin' us in the face, but we hardly believe them. Unless of course you're lucky enough to be taught by a man that was orphaned in red China and worked his way to fame by way of martial arts, fighting for Mao, fighting for a shitty bowl of egg drop soup after 13 hour days in factories.

Without kung fu, I'm willing to bet a lot of people wouldn't have made it. These are the kinds of perspectives people need today. How kung fu can really communicate this? I don't know. The only way might be to devote your life to it. To really devote your life to it, and that takes a lot of guts, because it can leave you poor. Very poor. So my heart went out to this studio, even if the kung fu taught was bad.

My friend and I often have arguments about kung fu's use, and in today's age it may not be practical, especially when students don't practice hard enough, but it's certainly got me through some bad times. Not in literal fighting, but in having some sort of spirit and giving me perspective to soldier on. If I have a soul, it's because of kung fu, it's because of my Old Master, it's because of places like that studio that do a good job, especially on my Old Master's birthday, of giving me the perspective to carry on, so long as the road lasts.

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Farmer's Shitty Market

If a city lacks the ethos of community, then there's no point in creating spaces that attempt to foster community- as far as I'm concerned, they're nothing more than marketable attempts at nostalgia for the sake of profit. What happens when you put people without a proper ethos for community in a space that is supposed to foster that ethos an attempt to re-root it? A bunch of rude behaviour; individuals who do not know each other and therefore cannot recognize each other and therefore have no sense of caring to show respect for each other in a civil space, but instead ignore each other, walk ignorantly in front of people, cut them off, and have no qualms about what they just did. These "community spaces" become places of obligation, and bad manners, where people can act poorly towards each other- because they don’t know what community traditionally implies, or historically was, instead today associating it with commodities (cities can be commodities) that say ‘nostalgia’- and therefore think there is no harm of getting in trouble or being shamed by the community because people simply just don't really know each other. Hence, there is no real ethos of community. Cities only kid themselves when they market this idea, unawares it seems of the sense of community diminished by none other than an urbanized life. So as far as I'm concerned, places like farmer's markets in cities are nothing more than carnivelesque spaces where low behaviours flourish and are accepted, especially today when our more or less anti-social public personas just don't talk to each other and expect customer service from merchants who half the time can't speak a lick of English and respond with rude remarks.

Cities only market these spaces so they can make some kind of buck. Shit man, the sinister planner would sell you the rope you were gonna hang him with just to make a buck. These "plans" for community are nothing more than a bunch of flashy rhetoric for profiteering. If planners really gave two shits, they'd stop spewing out crap about grass-roots and at least preach that it takes proper education from the media, and family to foster a sense of relationship and general comradeship in the outside, anti-social, put-on-air space of the public, and that, more importantly, it's going to take a lot of time (generations maybe). But if you don't bring attention to this subject you merely have the shitty continuation of bad behaviours, tourist traps and ridiculous spectacles. But hey, at least the city is making money right? Phh. Some days, I have no truck about dropping out of urban planning.

With that, I've been going to the St. Jacob's Farmer's Market for 10 years with my grandmother to buy tomatoes, only to notice the disrespect towards the old, and disrespect of merchants, and disrespect of space- littered horse shit and god knows what- and I still can't come to terms with that place as having any sense of value or convenience. Nothing it seems is genuine there; vegetables have stickers on them which makes me question their authenticity (or if they were stolen from the back of a produce truck). It'd do that place some good to have a strip-mall or hotel built over it, then maybe it'd at least be a little more civil, and I wouldn't have to put up with one of the rudest spaces in Kitchener-Waterloo.

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Bummer

My thesis needs to be rewritten, which means this next month is a wash, which means I can't go on any ballin' food adventures, not only because I have loads of academic work, but I can't work as planned, take said money and contribute to the food economy. Bummer. So, for the few of you ghosts that frequent my blog: I'm sorry. And if I take doubly long, I'm doubly sorry.

♥Weezee

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Tea in the Suburbs

I can appreciate a poorly planned suburb, but only when someone in all that sprawl decides to run a tea shop out of their house. Tea shops in these here parts are not a rare breed. I could count a handful, which, considering the territory is pretty decent. There are the small dives that serve multiple teas as options to their menus, accompanied by fancy teapots to distract you from the ill-prepared brew, the Asian-pop tea shops, better known as bubble tea shops, which cater to the stereotyped infantilized young adults who like to order ridiculously priced oblong cuts of white bread slathered in chocolate spread, prepackaged spring rolls and powdered noodled soups, who all-the-while love having their ears bleed while listening to unnecessarily loud Asian music- from J-pop to mandorap (Chinese rap music)- nursing their taro milk teas with tapioca pearls. And of course, specialty coffee shops which pride themselves on choices of loose leaf teas and chai tea or matcha lattes. Tea is pretty accessible in the global market, and due to its gentrification (something I've bitched about many-a-time on this blog) in the West is a popular sign of a kind of savvy, zen, above everybody else sophistication. Having a tea instead of a coffee today says not only good health, but expresses control, calm and an identity unassociated from that of the work obsessed Westerner. Well that's bunk! It’s nothing more than playing with signs and having people agreeing to buy into them! In the consumer world- in Waterloo at least- tea has no real depth! It's fallen victim to not only poor preparation, but semiotic banter. You may buy loose leaf, but when it boils down to it you get poorly watered, over saturated, bittered tea that tastes like, well tea. That is, a hot liquid prepared in boiled water that more or less tastes the same in any flavour, thanks to the chalky nature of the steeped bag, with beautiful cardboard flavoured undertones. I buy tea on the go too; but when I do, I often ask myself after the first sip why I agreed to the mess in the first place, especially when the torpid teen behind the counter doesn't know how to properly prepare a tea, or the odd adult patron, who may potentially know tea, assumes the customer doesn't and compromises any flavours for convenience and profit. I guess I always assume I can either learn how to better prepare the drink, because those who serve me, I assume, are professionals; or that someone somewhere will finally give me a good brew. It's gotten bad, dear readers. So bad that when I do go out, I depend on either espressos, or asking for a pot of boiled water and my tea on the side, removing the lid and patiently watching the steam until it drifts side to side in order to gauge some semblance of proper temperature. But even that's a difficult task, especially in a public space where people are coming and going, messing with my air flow. I told you. I take tea seriously. It was all up to me in my home before today.

Thankfully, lately I've developed somewhat of a cabin fever when it comes to preparing tea; bored with the flavours I have, and the routines of preparation I commonly go through to prepare a decent cup, I was hoping for something new in the way of tea. And I found it in the most unexpected and apprehensive of places. In a duplex, in a new suburb, beside other kinds of businesses in duplexes in that same suburb supported by nothing more than a flimsy banner over the entrance saying "Tina's Tea" followed by a phone number. Not even a website (Do you see what consumer culture has done to me? Not even the little guy, who in this case has excellent tea kung fu, has a chance at business because I equate simple advertisements or signage as sign of poor quality). Yeah, yeah, I know. Never judge a book by its cover. Well, luckily, a while ago, while perusing forests for morels, I came across this humbling, now coveted tea cul-de-sac.

Tina's Tea, formally known on the shop's business card as Tina Tea Room, is an attempt at giving patrons a proper cup of tea, for a reasonable cost, in my own tea drinking opinion. Because anyone can dunk a bag in boiling water or drench leaves with the same; but it takes a special someone to do it properly- to know the kind of tea, the proper temperature that accompanies its preparation and the proper time it needs to steep. Let's face it, people are lazy. I'm lazy, you're lazy, we're all lazy in our own right, and unless you like doing something as mundane as preparing tea, you're not gonna do it right. But you're gonna let someone do it for you, provided the price is right, and the tea holds its own kind of flavour. Not chalky cardboard bag flavour. That and the fact that unless you were raised by Asians in the desert, or are have some kind of tea aficionado grandfather, or like to read extensively in order to quench your own voluptuous obsessive compulsive perfectionist tea yearnings, you probably don't know how to make a proper cup of tea. Again, probably because you don't care. That's why Tina Tea Room works well for both kinds of consumers: for the kind that appreciates the art of a good cup of tea, and for the other kind that likes tasty things and impressing those they dine with with tasty things (Y'know? Dudes that take out dudettes and try to impress them with "sophisticating" things. That scenario could certainly play out in this case).


With its bashful beige walls and three meager wicker tables, Tina Tea Room is a more than intimate space. It's a testament to the devoted few that still wish for the experience of a proper tea and a residue of what's left of the tea shops that catered to the hundreds that frequented them at a time during China's folkloric past. Yup, I was a regular 孔乙己,making whatever due I could through poor academic work, wearing poor clothes (a symptom of expensive academics), and regaling my drinking compadre with maxims of Confucius. Only instead of booze, I was drinking tea, and instead of peas, I was eating a bowl of dried cranberries and apricots, admiring the mess of old lady Victorian trinkets, porcelain waterfalls, multiple origami cranes, plastic plants and Chinese charms that were placed tenderly around the dining room. A humble attempt at decoration, which not only made the experience seem more intimate, but a sincere expression that our proprietor, Tina herself, was doing her best to make hers a legitimate, serious business. And like I've said many-a-time: I've come to expect the most authentic food establishments to neglect appearance and 'proper design' in favour of putting food first. Of course, that just may be my own cognitive dissonance. But in my experience, interior has never been the thing of any small mom and pop's Chinese/Korean/Vietnamese restaurant in my opinion. Weezee legend holds it's only a cover for mediocre eats- or tea in this case. There's no need to play the association game in a humbling tea shop. If you want to associate a physical space with your taste and cultural capital, save it for some fancy five star restaurant, comrades. You won't get it here. What you will get however, is dedicated service, a woman who doesn't let your cup run empty (which is a feat for the cup sized tea pot you're given), and the experience of feeling like you're being spoiled by an older, babying aunt serving tea- your assuming, attractive, Chinese aunt serving tea. I certainly wasn't complaining, not in this intimate space; not with the 3 Japanese girls giggling sweet nothings about Justin Bieber in Japanese beside me; not with the constant bowls of dried fruit (something Tina gave my party and I on the house- a cheap 2 dollars on the menu).

It wasn't all this simple however; we essentially started our visit tip-toe-ing in, slowly opening the door, asking if it was alright to enter, and taking our shoes off before climbing the stairs to our seats. Tina was more than happy to accompany us; after given a menu, and unwittingly given a pot of Tie Guan Yin (an oolong) tea, we were well on our way to figuring out what kind of teas the place served. This was partly my fault however; I was somewhat dismissive when asked what tea we'd like to drink, assuming the host was fluent in English and would riddle the menu off from memory. Ah, the joys of food and language barriers. I've lost a small fortune through these kinds of misunderstandings; but, they were delicious misunderstandings nonetheless.


Tina Tea Room's tea selection is very limited; however, that may either be a symptom of its newness, or Tina's seriousness in regards to tea, brewing tea, and drinking tea. What is offered for drink is rather high in quality and consisting of the purest kinds of teas. I say pure in respect to teas that aren't made up of filler like fruit and useless herby flavours, but strictly leaves and different levels of fermenting processes. That's why a 1.5 litre pot can run a patron from 10.00 to 20.00 dollars, which equates to 5 small pots of tea in one sitting. That said, it's sufficient between a small group of two or three, or someone who's ready to get their drink on. One can even purchase a single cup of Long Jing (Dragon Well) tea for 2.00 dollars. But only Long Jing. Nothing else. I would have liked to see more options in that regard, but I'm sure there's a particular etiquette and reasoning I'm unaware of. Our own tea had a trace of the bitterness any drinker would hate to find in their brew. Still, being unfamiliar with oolongs, I was unsure if that was a characteristic of the tea itself, or a miscalculation on the brewer's part. If there was one good quality of the tea being served to us it was that it never lost its strength, and that was probably a result of being given fresh brewed tea constantly, which worried my company and me at one point because we were confident we were racking up a large bill. However, our being first time customers, we were pleasantly surprised by our cheap bill of 10.00 dollars, even after all the tea we drank and the excessive amounts of dried fruit we were given to snack on, not to mention the some odd 10 sweet red bean spring rolls we were given to try- another compliment of the place's wonderful host. Tina was the most accommodating gastronome I had ever met, and it did this heart good. She even refused our generous tip by the time we ended our stint. She even left the tea room several times, leaving us alone like two good big boys, while she cooked in her kitchen basement and we listened gingerly to the sounds of her sizzling wok through the floorboards (okay, not floorboards- good, wood paneled flooring. I'm a sucker for metaphor though and literary romance, you all know that). Being left alone as two strangers in an empty tea room in the late afternoon didn't feel strange at all, but rather, like home.


And if you're feeling a bit peckish, no worries. Tina Tea Room plays well to the tea time dynamic by offering snacks for hungry customers. Be forewarned however, these things are not meant as substitutes for meals, though I'm sure you could buy enough to fill you up. But I am a puritan, and believe in a bourgeoisie ethos, and thereby believe (in my own opinion) that one as a frequenter of tea shops should come to converse and appreciate the art of fine tea and merely nibble on the foods offered. The menu is pretty scattershot, but very cheap for the amount of food you're given, and I say take advantage of this before business picks up and portions become smaller. I always assume the worst under the shadow of late capitalism, especially in the food industry where things on average reach a markup of 60%. But that's boring! Let me tell you about the oddities that run the menu of Tina Tea Room; there are the things that one expects in theme with a tea room run by a Chinese woman like dried fruit, fried dumplings, and sweet spring rolls, and the things that makes one turn their head and have a what the *f moment like French fries, chips and cheetos, and chicken nuggets. But, those three options are as weird as the menu gets. These, as the Chinese say, xiao chi 小吃 (lit. small eats, col. snacks) run from a mere .50 cents to 3.50; and ironically the only thing that is 3.50 is the chicken nuggets. All very affordable, all dwarfed under the menu by the tea, which as far as I'm concerned is how it should be. Otherwise, those strange menu options are attempts to gauge an audience and are very liable to change, I just hope more people visit so I have a place to go and drink. You know my history of eating at places that don't last longer than two months, six at most. And Tina Tea Room is definitely a place I wouldn't mind visiting at least once a week. The tea may be limited (for now) but the company certainly isn't.

Bill: One pot of tea (1.5l): 10.00 dollars

Tina Tea Room
F33-619 Wild Ginger Ave.
Waterloo, On
N2V 2X1
Tel: (519) 279-4465
Cell: (519) 573-8368
Email (that's right, email): hym199732@hotmail.com

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Tomu Sushi

Yeah, so what? I caved. You wanna fight about it? I was trained by a kung fu grandmaster; taught meditation by Laos monks; learned to cook from an old Thai woman; learned to eat from a kid from Hong Kong. So if I wanna write about a place 3 times, I'll damn well write about a place three times.

If you haven't already figured it out (assuming you're hopelessly devoted to my blog- which would be pretty stellar) I'm talking about none-other than that place I bitched about not even a month ago: (and if the title of this entry didn't already give it away) Tomu Sushi. Previously, Sushi Nara. Previously (in my mind) place that refused me cold radish soup. But hey, this isn't about my personal vendetta- it's about you, my dear food readers and eaters and everything inbetweeners.

Long story short: me Mam (that's folk talk for 'mother') had a hankerin’ for taking me out for dinner. It was a special occasion, that's all I'm sayin'. And she wouldn't take ‘no’ for an answer. This went on for a solid three days, and so, I caved and opted out for Tomu Sushi because (a): I hadn't had sushi in a while, and (b): my damned anal retentive workaholism had a hankerin’ for gastronomically deconstructing the F* out of this place. And deconstruct I will. Why else blog? To legitimize my eating? No way . . .

Typical layout: open concept kitchen with a bar for the more intimate sushi eaters (if you don't know what I mean, go to a sushi bar), a major dining area, and like any other sushi place, booths surrounding the restaurant for those ‘oh so intimate’ dining experiences. Sprinkle that with a typical array of cloth samurai and geisha paintings, some lanterns in place of lights and a kitchen staff of Koreans and you have the clichéd dynamic of a typical North American sushi restaurant, at least in this town anyway. Don't get me wrong, there are one or two restaurants claiming to be Japanese run by Japanese owners; and don't get me wrong even more, race has nothing to do with cooking ability, but do get me wrong when I say this: people do, for whatever reason, expect more authentic dining experiences if the cooks match the 'ethnic' cuisine being prepared, which in its own right is a whole-lot-a-hoopla, because there ain’t no such thing as authenticity in the Western, globalized world, comrades. You can pretend there is and impress a lady friend with your Bourdieuian tastes, but when it boils down to it, you is just kiddin' yo-self. My advice? Throw authenticity out the window, because you'll be pulling hairs otherwise. Just chase the flavours, friend, because though part of the dining experience may be the adventure of the space and the people making the food, Othering ain't even a good indulgent (and if that ain't a noun, it is now).But that's enough white guilt for one entry.

A part of me- a huge part of me- misses the decor of Sushi Nara, which was, more or less, a cold looking dining area with sea green coloured walls and booths, humble steel chairs and wood trims with a strange burnt motif, of which has still remained in the refurnished Tomu Sushi, now coloured with deep reds and dark blues- perhaps an expression of the freshness of sushi and the spiciness of Korean (ha, who am I kidding?). However, the new layout takes itself very seriously and makes it a more appealing dining spot for the contemporary, "oh my God I fear ugly places because that is a reflection of sanitation," diners.

	Side dishes: the pièce de résistance.

A side note: when I say these next things, I may seem harsh, but at least I'm being honest. The wait staff was a wait staff. Overly accommodating at times, confusing at others; constantly switching servers on us. Confusing at times, and a little condescending with their baby talk comments. Baby talk comments? Whatever do you mean, Weezee? I mean this: when I break a pair of shitty disposable chopsticks and rub them together I am not trying to create fire, I'm filing off the shitty splinters. When I stir the miso soup (a typically overplayed inclusion with any friggin’ dumb meal at a sushi restaurant, which I friggin hate- did I mention that?) with said chopsticks, it is not the equivalent of an ape discovering some giant monolithic black slab in the middle of the desert for the first time. So I don't need overly mom friendly comments of, "that's right, you stir the miso soup with the chopsticks" from some Korean waitress who sees my whiteness as some signification of my ignorance about Japanese dining etiquette, because I'm willing to bet that kid never read Empire of Signs. No, no- me blushing wasn't because I was shy and proud, but because I was pretty damn offended. There are better ways to get tips. But hey, now I just sound like one big fathead. Of which I am. Maybe it was her first day, I dunno. She did seem to confuse requests for spoons with requests for forks. I sympathize, I do. I always do. It's tough manning a dining room full of what? 3 tables? Still, the wait staff wasn't all that bad. Service was rather quick, and when expressing displeasure with the salmon we had received, were immediately offered to choose from something else on the menu, and when refusing, humbly given a discount. A courteous call, not only on the wait staff’s part, but the restaurant as a whole. Though I'm positive the cooks probably heard about it later. And on that note, let's get to the food!

	Hwae Dup Bap. I think it means 'delicious!'

For the most part, Tomu Sushi plays well to the Japanese dining experience: bento dinners, teriyaki dinners, sushi love boats, with only a small sprinkling of Korean influence placed in some meal combinations. But hey, what the masses don't know, don't hurt 'em. And like I said, it's all about the flavour. The pièce de résistance for this place however, though it was pawned off as a sushi restaurant implying Japanese cuisine, was the fact that it offered Korean side dishes with my meal. This was an exceptionally exciting surprise for me. Not because the side dishes were to die for- the seaweed was too fishy, the kimchi, not spicy or sour enough- but because they were offered at all. Period. We did get some pickled soy beans, which had a unique earthy flavour. Somehow, and I don't know how, even after being pickled, they still managed to retain that fresh flavour that often accompanies peas eaten right off the vine. I loved them! Unfortunately, side dishes are random, so when you go, you better hope the ones offered are good. There was also a Korean dinner section on the menu, which aside from the huge menu options, was a welcomed choice. So welcomed in fact, I ditched my original plan for sushi and opted for a hearty Korean meal of Hwae Dup Bap: essentially a salad characterized with hearty vegetebles- slices of carrots, radish, cabbage and iceburg lettuce- sprinkled with pieces of raw fish, accompanied by a nutty, spicy Korean sauce. And of course there was rice. I had my cake, and ate it too and finished it off with a warm bottle of sake. Like drinking hugs. For 12.95 the dish was more than satisfying. I absolutely loved it. The dish complimented the heat of the day very well (I should have opted for some unagi too- if you catch my meaning), especially when one often equates that kind of weather with freshness, and Hwae Dup Bap, with its astounding colour palette communicating freshness and tricking the eye into believing so. For 14.95 however, the salmon teriyaki was less than satisfying. Maybe it was just a bad night. As always, I like to give every cook the benefit of the doubt. Salmon is after all a touchy fish, especially when you commodify it into something that could easily be cooked and readied in a slim 15 minutes. Or maybe, just maybe, the quality is always the same. As me Mam says, the problem with people and dining out is that a lot of people who can't cook go out to eat, so anything is good. Anything goes. Ignorance is bliss and all that jazz. Truer words Mumzie, truer words. (Now you know where I get my harsh food criticisms from) I feel my mother, an Italian woman schooled in the art of domesticity and cooking for a large family knows a thing or two about eating and is justified in her response. The customer IS always right. Sure, if it was a fish she never ate I might have said otherwise. But let's not allow one bad food experience to dampen our palettes (poor metaphor Weezee, poor metaphor). With Tomu Sushi's extensive menu, there is something for everybody (price wise too). My mom just didn't find it yet. And I truly believe dining is in part the responsibility of the gastroneme. If you don't know how something cooks (like, salmon) you run the risk of being unawares of its complicated preparation and increasing your chances for a satisfying meal. Personally, I love being leery when I go out to eat. Maybe because I work hard for what little money I have and want every dish to be worth it. Then again, I also like a little adventure and playing Thai lottery when I can't read a menu, choosing a random number instead. Just be forewarned. Not all cooks are chefs. Not all cooks have Red Seals. Not all cooks have the passion! However, let's not stray too far. I can't talk food theory all day. I mean, I could. But I wouldn't put my dear readers through it. We did what we set out to do: get a solid experience at the replacement Sushi Nara. Tomu Sushi. Not bad. I do not however, have any motivation, like I did for Sushi Nara, of going back. Nothing really stood out that hasn't already been eaten somewhere else. Man, I wish I tried that cold soup.

Bill (for two, including sake, with discount off of displeasing meal): 28. 85.

Tomu Sushi
(519) 746 1566
347 Erb Street West Unit# 4
N2L 1W4
Waterloo, On

Mon: closed
Tues-Sat: 11am-10pm
Sun:12pm-9pm

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Chippy Fishies

Now I admit, I've never had fish and chips. I have no nostalgic memories of driving to the coast of Canada, to back-woods, to whale watching conventions (like there's such a thing), all-the-while making short stops at quaint little stalls where one can gorge on fried clams or baked haddock or baked whatever. I consider myself, at self deprecating times, a rather diasporic eater. I like to eat; but wherever I go I never really amalgamate myself well into the dining atmosphere. People consider me a foodie fanboy. I know a lot about the food I eat, and like Tom Cruise ala Jerry McGuire, ala Tom Cruise crazy interviews on psychology: you guys don't even know the history of food, I do, I studied it! You don’t know what it's like to be ME out here for YOU? It is an up at dawn, pride swallowing siege that I can never fully tell you about!

Maybe, I should eat at more Italian places. Or maybe I should stop victimizing myself for the sake of propaganda, like some kid at G20 smashing windows for no apparent reason. Now I KNOW that wasn't too soon. I pay money, I get food. People aren't racist; I've never been kicked out of a restaurant. (Again though, I have been refused dishes based on my whiteness. I rebuke my previous statement.) Maybe if I wore a suit and tie and took a beautiful woman to a place with a room full of uglies I'd get a lot of stares, but why go through the effort of being something I'm not- which is poor, and hungry, and stupid with money when I'm hungry. After all, all I ever want to do is eat. This time, all I wanted to do was eat fish and chips, because A: I never had fish and chips before- that is, I never ordered fish and chips at a fish and chips restaurant (I always imagined in my mind they'd taste tangy and salty and crispy and like newspaper) and B: I was hoping- it was a long shot- I was hoping I'd run into the girl of my dreams- at an empty fish and chips restaurant, sprinkled with old people. It wasn't totally empty. Also, it was 3 in the afternoon. But it definitely felt like it was for old people. Wait, wait. That's too insensitive. The restaurant was geared more towards an older, family oriented demographic. Yellow walls, pastel coloured, fleur upholstered booths, faux wood grained tables and all around trims, IKEAesque paintings of flowers and meadows; did I mention the fake flowers? There was one bonzai tree. That was also fake. It was kinda cool though. I mean, I heard Koreans ran the place, bonzai plants are kind of Korean. Who am I kidding? I'm being totally insensitive again. I feel I can really salvage this word diarrhea by saying that the restaurant that is Fish and Chips- no wait... Golden Fish & Chips- the restaurant I am talking about- really applies smart business strategies when attempting to maintain a customer base and maintaining that same customer loyalty. Not only with good food, but with appealing (to old people) atmospheres. If I may justify this with a little academic referencing . . .

"Without offering these unique selling propositions based on the idea of culinary art many . . . businesses would cease to exist as viable concerns. . . . the art of presentation and overall packaging is one where the product (the restaurant) is imbued with a unique personality and identity . . . for it is not food alone that is important . . . but the complete dining concept which needs to reconcile artistic and business tensions" (Gillespie,Cailein H. "Gastrosophy and Entrepreneurial Fashion and Fiction," British Food Journal, 1994, 96, 10, 19-23).

That's why they pay me the big bucks!

	The general layout gave me the sudden urge to play BINGO.

I had dreams for Golden Fish & Chips. Or rather, dreams of Golden Fish & Chips. I imagined that behind those plastic curtains, they'd have tiled floors, cool, florescent lighting, stiff chairs, and tables with plastic mats and a swinging door that gave way to the kitchen, of which I could, as I always do, peer into, happily watching the cooks. Alas, that poor swinging door was in fact, plastic drapes, which I eerily watched just for one glimpse of the kitchen. Instead, I glimpsed the waitress- too many times. And either A: flattered her, or B: made her feel terribly uncomfortable. I opt for neither. She was pretty complacent. It was probably a psychological effect of the boring colour scheme. Her service was good though- and that's all I'll say about that. Oh, and that she was very nice when I, for whatever reason, could not discern baked from deep fried. There was a point where she had to open the menu for me like a child. And THAT is all I will say about that. Again, very nice. Very helpful.

	Ahoy, Matees!

So, for the first time in my life, at the tender age of 25, I ordered my first big boy meal of fish and chips. Salmon and chips actually, tenderly accompanied with a side of bland coleslaw (you too can imitate this treat by adding some plane boring mayonnaise and maybe salt and maybe sugar) some pre-packaged tartar sauce (too tangy for my wussy palette), and a cool can of coca cola- an unfortunate 1.50. The fish was good. I say that with as much 'meh' as is expected. Lightly battered, good, but nothing out of the ordinary, which should be considered as a win, assembled into one big chip. Indeed, I expected dainty fingers of little fishies that I could pick up and tuck snuggly in my mouth. I was forced to break that (good) flaky salmon up with a forked and knife. It was okay. I'm being picky is all. It's only aesthetics. Geez, listen to me. Only aesthetics? What's the point of eating out then? Honestly? Phhhhhhh. To be fair though, I received no fish nor any chips wrapped in newsprint, nor any kind of waxy paper- that was reserved for my company's fried clams, crispy on the outside, quite fishy and wet on the inside (maybe it was a bad day- maybe I hate clams- p.s., it was an appetizer and it was 7.49. Hey, whatever! Times are tough! BP man, BP. Killin' the oceans. And I DEFINITELY know that joke's not too soon). Instead, I got some ugly plate reminiscent of 70s dinnerware any friggin' hipster would eat the F* up! damn hipsters . . .

The chips, English slang (i.e., pertaining to those who live in jolly old England) for French fries- slang for potatoes cut into wedges and deep fried (i.e., not pertaining to those who live in fathead, Foucault loving France)- were the favourite part of my meal. Maybe because I biked all over town beforehand, fixed a flat tire, skipped out on breakfast, and needed some heavy carbohydrates to prevent me from going into some kind of shock; but now I'm just being really defeatist. I really liked the fries. I especially liked smothering them in vinegar and salt; they didn't seem to lose too much of their body. Crispy on outside, soft on inside. Is how it should be, I reckon. It was a satisfying meal for 9.99. Still, considering that, I would have liked a little more. Maybe it was the small side of coleslaw that got my attention. Or, OR! Maybe the chips were so delicious, I merely wanted more. Maybe I'm one cheap/poor/stingy son of a bitch. You'll never know. You only know me through my misadventures with food on this blog. Now, I've not much other spots to compare Golden Fish & Chips to (yet), but I'm glad I went (aren’t I always); it's been around for a while, and if it ain't gone, and don't look run down inside, then that must speak volumes for the place. I'm glad though that those fried little fishy cakies called me into that food pond like the sweet melodic sounds of some Sirenic beauty waiting to get the sexual innuendo eaten out of her. Man, I feel like a sailor.

Bill (with tip): a cool 14.98. Ouch, my wallet.

Golden Fish & Chips 
(519) 888-6660‎
Bridgeport Road West,
Waterloo, ON 
N2J 2J9

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Nara No More

	Again, glad I had my cellphone (with poor quality camera) on me.

Apparently Sushi Nara is no more. Yeah, I would have found out sooner, except cash doesn't come out of my ass. Honestly, how am I, young kung food adherent, expected to make good reliable blog entries when dives never meet lease contract terms? Apologies dear readers. Apologies that I, your dear narrator didn't have the foresight to see this one coming. I'm as equally disappointed. I almost regret having past by leisurely this morning, only to view the new sign TOMU SUSHI (more or less with the same interior- at least, that's what I saw peering through the window). Now I'll never be able to try their cold radish soup. This is why owners should never refuse food for a patron even if they feel it's too cold for the season and the white devil can't handle it. I bet they're feeling "it" now now- not as much as they're feeling the pang of not meeting a payment. Such a sad thing to happen to a restaurant. Like I've said before they come and go, especially if they don't have the goods to offer anything original. But this place did! My worldview is smashed. At least until I check out TOMU SUSHI. Though I've the sneaky suspicion it won't measure up. It's more Japanese than Korean/Japanese (so I've read). And Japanese restaurants in these parts are notorious for bogus prices and small portions. Phhh.

Tomu Sushi
(519) 746 1566
347 Erb Street West (Apartment 4)
Waterloo, On

. . . like it even matters.

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Salty Fish and Saving Face

I've tender memories of Jia Jia Lok. My first time, I had a dish made more or less of scraps (so my friend told me), a choice delicacy for the unfamiliar Hong Kong palate (i.e., white person). Shanghai noodles is the popular name. White man acclaim is merely its rearticulation. The second time I went it was raining, I had a bowl of congee, and it was love. After that, it was a free for all: spaghetti with Bolognese, spaghetti with a huge steak on top, stir fried mushrooms with rice- surely reminiscent of the earthly flavours of the fungus that grew behind the mountains of Hong Kong, picked by honest, hardworking, calloused hands; cooked with a whole lot of oyster sauce, and a whole lot of Hong Kong cacophony. You know Cantonese people- they're loud. They're not angry. Eating's always a celebration. Maybe that's why I like Jia Jia Lok's so much. Maybe that's why I like the bright orange bristle board menus taped to the place's salmon coloured walls, the old chairs, the lucky cats, the doily curtains, the restaurant's new sign with a smiling, seemingly misplaced dolphin caricature. Why I like the husband and wife duo who've run the place for so long- just like Yuen Wah and Qiu Yuen. They're not yelling at each other; that's love they're speaking. Sure, most of the time it's an order for coca cola. But dig a little deeper. When it's not that, it's Cantonese sweet nothings. For the regular Cantonese diner, it's like a lullaby. I've never minded the lack of television, the lack of music, the surplus shouting. The odd spitting sound here and there would otherwise seem out of place, but I trust the cook.

After four years of neglecting the place, not much had changed (again, except for the sign), and I couldn't have been happier when I came back to visit. I needed something truly Cantonese, truly Hong Kong, I wanted to make a connection. The hostess is never one to deny a patron their choice of meal, no matter how unfamiliar they are with it. In one dive I was turned down a request for cold soup in the winter because my whiteness supposedly couldn't take it. But here, my brevity is always appreciated, as much as my familiar request for a cool glass of yin yang coffee. I wanted to feel like Francis Ng, or Alex Fong, working the beat. It's hot, it's late, I need something with preserve, something salty to match my coffee's bitter sweet.

This time, I opted for something surprisingly more adventurous than I could have guessed. Hong Kong Style Eggplant with Salty Fish. I thought: just stir-fried halibut. Sounds good. But it was better. Not because the portion was deliciously big, not because the fish wasn't a generic, bland white fish- but salty sardines stir-fried with ground pork. But because it was something like I've never eaten in my life. Sure, sure. And I'm talking to you, sole Cantonese reader of this blog. The one who eats stir-fried sardines all the time. I know to you it's nothing. But to me, it was everything. A challenge for face. I've bragged about the kung fu of cooking many times in my life. But the kung fu of eating? Not until this fateful day when the pungent, sea salty aroma of that sauce begged to be mixed with the white rice it covered, and demanded that I eat it with a fork rather than chopsticks (chopsticks aren't really impressive anymore anyway; in my experience, those from Asia only stare because they can't believe I'd even bother eating with chopsticks when utensils are so much more convenient for my bourgeois hands. But I've read Barthes; I can't pierce any anthropomorphized food anymore. All meals have a spirit. Itadakimasu, after all). Never in my life, have I experienced such reflexivity in my food. The meager 8.95 dish humbled me with its face-smashing aroma. I thought I had Asian food down. Apparently I was wrong. Even after I've scraped the flesh off of pig's feet with my teeth, like moss off a rock; even after I've cut up a cow's tongue and stir-fried it with margarine, sugar, oyster sauce and salt, there are still things in this food filled world worth eking out. Even in my own back yard.

Even after all that, and a modest portion of my meal still left, being the stubborn kung foodie that I am. I couldn't lose face. I couldn't let Qiu Yuen down. I told her it was delicious. And asked that it be packed up because I was just too full to finish. Too much coffee and too much tea. Jia Jia Lok was still her dojo (did I just mix cultural metaphors?). And me, the humble student looking to best my old food master. If only I were in Hong Kong right now I could train my palette even harder. Alas, I'll have to live vicariously through Jia Jia Lok's mom and pop duo. Duo of the most sincere, moving, realistic Hong Kong eatery in town (as far as this young master is concerned).

		He's eating beef soup. Just so you know.

Jia Jia Lok
(519) 888-9926
King Street North
Waterloo, ON N2J 4V2 

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The Chinese Soul Food

I'm a little bummed- I saw the cherriest tea set at Bombay over the weekend, and before that a slammin' pair of gold rimmed shot glasses, with the illinist Chinese characters inscribed. I'm sure though whatever it read it referred to some Chinese hotel somewhere in the world, because it certainly didn't say Happy New Year- but then again, how would I know? It was in traditional Chinese, and I can't read traditional Chinese. Point being, I couldn't buy the junk- or, that is, I chose not to buy the junk because mommy wouldn't let me hear the end of it.
So I like novelty. So I like drinkware. So I like feeling like some badass Japanese kid with an uncle in the Yakuza who drinks green tea out of scotch glasses and bobs the tea bag up and down ever so tenderly while talking about my new ride and how it drifts better than animals covered in BP oil. Too soon?

Fantasy is a fun part of eating. I find it plays well to the Bourgeois ethos, and is good for a rainy day, especially when you're bummed and feel like experiencing the ambiance of a Wong Kar-wai flick (Not ANOTHER Wong Kar-wai reference, Weezee). Oh yes, another Wong Kar-wai reference. Because it fits snuggly into this post. And I've waited patiently for the opportunity.

A good requisite for the gastronomicist is at least one underrated, assumed to be overrated, sub-par dish, bought at the same place over and over again for a number of reasons. I know what you're thinkin'. Congee. It's got to be congee. A good guess. I'd expect that assumption, judging by this blog's history. But, contrarily, it has always been a personal dream of mine to find a seat somewhere in this town that serves a bowl of noodles I can run to every time I scrape my knee. Yes, like the lap of some woman, I can come to this particular place and, having bruised my soul, cry away my sorrows in the comfort of some doilied apron which smells an awful lot like a good bowl of noodles.This is what a bowl of noodles does for me. The ultimate comfort food. Perhaps the monolith of all comfort food. No, no. That's a huge claim, and I'm only one man. One lonely, noodle, Wong Kar-wai loving man. This is what comfort food- specifically every person's poster-child comfort food- should do for them. So much so that they need no one to share it with, or at least the most genuine friends. Not some stranger you've just met and started hanging out with; because they won't understand your character enough yet, nor your choice in food. And if food isn't a big part of their life, they definitely won't understand. These are the kinds of people that drink soup broth after a bowl of noodles unawares of the MSG content, and what's more, are so reserved that they have to drink said soup broth with a spoon, rather than putting the bowl's edge to their lips and chugging it, like a Vietnamese kid squatting and slurping in the street. Two strikes. But the third comes when these kinds of people can't appreciate the nuances of a bowl of noodles. They say, "It's not flavourful enough" or "it just tastes like soup", or they have the audacity to compare it to another kind of soup from another kind of place: "Pho's better." Please. Let's not compare apples and oranges, though I'm told they're similar after all. But if you can't appreciate the crispness of the stems of cucumber or the nutty aroma of chili peppers that were first dry roasted in a wok and then chopped and placed in the soup itself along with strips of seaweed and, of all things, whole peanuts, then maybe you're not meant to eat. Maybe you're just meant to not go hungry.

But I don't want to split hairs. Quite frankly, if you're that complacent I'd go so far as to liken you to a kid who spends his days in his grandparents' front yard knocking bird feeders around for pleasure, unaware of what it's like to starve and be greatful to have food. Damned kid. Poor birds. So, dear readers, be leery of these people. They may not be the best dinner company. They're best left to places where the menu wows them with flashy rhetoric and small exploitative, marked up portions featuring tuna prepared three different ways.

Chen's Restaurant (A.K.A. Chen's Oriental Cuisine, A.K.A Orange Restaurant if you want to talk semiotics and signage colour, not to mention the oppressive Saidian use of 'Oriental' and the owner's Asianness, but I'll save that type of analysis for school) isn't anything out of the ordinary, but it's good for a rainy day. Great for a bowl of noodles. My first venture there resulted in my running into a banker explaining to me how the owner (most likely named Chen) felt a need to make authentic Chinese. I was excited. Perusing the menu through the glass I saw the usual: mushroom fried rise, lemon chicken, blah blah blah, as I often say. If anything was authentic, it sure was redundant, and cooks who open up similar places in these parts need to be careful of what they offer, because it's easy to be out cooked, especially if everyone has the same generic things on the menu. Taste may be the only factor in winning a customer, or patriotism, but when Chen's is a new restaurant taking the place of a Mexican restaurant six months prior and a kebab place six months prior to that, patriotism is going to be something difficult to hold at arm's length. But that's just the food, right? The place plays well to the aesthetics of cheeky Chineseness in the West. TV screens on the walls, a buffet behind a sneeze guard glass, lantern hearts in the window, bright warm colours, and imperial tea cups paired with mismatched dinnerware. A novelty I always enjoy in quick fix Chinese food joints. That's one of the reasons I like going to them. The more impoverished and humble the dinnerware, the better I can pretend I'm a 24 year old cop in Hong Kong working the beat and looking for love. That's another Wong Kar-wai reference for ya...
But hey, it all contributes to the character of the space and my delicious bowl of noodles. As the old kung fu saying goes: strong foundation builds high beauty. Restaurants may have existed since the dawn of the city, but there's more to just eating when we go out to eat. For me, it's recreational identity. I like to pretend I know what I'm talking about when I'm eating.
And of course there's the bowl of noodles. Which is the entire point of this entry. If there's anything, in my limited experience of eating at the place, worth checking out Chen's for it's their 5 dollar bowl of noodles- 7 if you want it with meat (beef or pork) and a tea stained egg (which unfortunately, usually comes whole and cold in the centre, but I'm willing to let that slide). You can't miss it. There's a poorly printed photo of it on the window. You just go in and say, "gimme the soup." Learn how to say it in Chinese, impress your non-Chinese friends. This soup, as far as I'm concerned, is Chinese soul food; and maybe I say that because every time I get it I'm a little sad, stressed out, love-lorn (haha, yeah right!), but I've been there several times and haven't tried anything else, maybe because, as far as I'm concerned, there's nothing else worth eating, or nothing else I haven't already had somewhere else. And anyway, where else can I talk Chinese better than someone else- I speak of course about my conversations with the owner's 3 year old kid. He'll catch up, it's just a matter of time. Then I'll really have a reason for feeling sorry for myself, and crying into a big bowl of delicious Chinese noodles.

Chen's Restaurant 

117 University Plaza
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
(519) 729-8226
Mon-Fri 11:00am-11:00pm
Sat 9:00am-11:00pm
Sun closed
 

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ハッピーバースデー!

Yeah, Yeah, I know what you're thinkin'. Everybody who's anybody has been to the Cake Box! (Why does that sound vaguely familiar? Why does vaguely familiar sound vaguely familiar? What can I say? I'm a hack!)

I recall my first experience visiting the Cake Box and feeling exceptionally out of place; I had just finished work, smelt of lime, fish sauce and 7Up, was in ragged, chemical splashed/bleached clothes (God bless kitchens) and was coerced by my eldest sister to tag along in order to pick out a proper colour swatch for a baptismal cake, as well as pleasant party favours that say, "Hey, man, we're Christian, my kid's going to Heaven someday, and he's got good taste in confectionary." It's always a fun novelty when people assume that when you cook, you have an insurmountable amount of knowledge about anything food. I was humble then. Now, I'm a total snob. Not connoisseur, but snob. Connoisseur implies practice, training, mastery; snob entails arrogantly assuming you know everything. I was never really arrogant; but people just stopped believing I wasn't an expert. It must have meant I was kind of an expert. I have lonely Friday nights and interest in food to thank for that.

My first experience with the pastries of the Cake Box was approximately three years ago when my sister had, from some rather wealthy friends I assume, received a birthday care package full of cupcakes from the joint. Everything from rocky road (whatever that really means for flavour) and chocolate mint. It was all down hill from there. But I say that in a good way. I was strung out on those things for days. I acted like it was no big deal, but I'd never tried anything- cakewise- more delicious. When I think of cupcakes I think of over sugared, saturated, usually dried pastries with a rather distinct- that meaning artificial- flavour. What is that artificial flavour you ask? Oh, you know it. Like the Japanese technique of KIME, it's something that must be experienced over and over again, felt by the body, before fully understood. I liken it to those decorative rose flowers put on cakes that kids always try to eat, the ones which are exceptionally chalky and usually give the eater cotton mouth, cut inner cheeks or the rare chipped tooth. That artificiality. The kind that when you first bite into something artificial and overly sweet you think, "Oh goodness, I want more!" And then you eat more and then reflect, Oh God why did I kiss her? I mean, why did I eat that much? You belly-acher, you. Now, I can't speak for the cakes, because I, unfortunately, never did get the chance to try the cake my sister bought, but I did manage to have my way with the typical short-bread-esque decorated cookie. You know? The food in the shape of food? Refer to Barthes. I can't articulate anything anymore, anyway. Where was I? Oh yeah- shortbread cookie on a stick. typical, familiar, not undelicious. But it's the cupcakes I'm after. The cupcakes I have to talk about. Flavours so faithful to the real flavours of the things they imitate, it's uncanny. Eating a chocolate mint cupcake made me wonder what came first, the cupcake or the chocolate and the mint. Was the cupcake the fruit of the chocolate mint tree? The flavours were so poignant, so real that I finally understood the notion and culinary theory of using real ingredients. We say it so often, but are the ingredients we use really "authentic" or genuine. These things made me believe it, or were so good at imitating things like lemons that I'm just another gastronomic dupe.

	Slim pickings.

For $2.25 a pop, I'd rather not know the beautiful (maybe ugly) truth. Yes, the place is pricey; yes, the place plays to the heart of puritans who watch Martha Stewart and believe they can, just by shopping and eating in the space, transform themselves into the idealized hostesses of a Victorian past. Pastels, contemporary furniture, cakes on display like out of bridal magazines, a pleasant all female staff that encourage customers to take pictures of the wonderful displays and edibles they gingerly make- but this is where I launch into a tirade. Because though it is my dream as a man to work at the Cake Box, I never can. Because the confectionary coalition of the Cake Box, I fear, enjoys the gender stereotypes that cater to a nostalgic past. When women were domesticated and therefore the only ones allowed in the culinary space. Pastels, paisley and Rococo are only things a woman can understand; the same goes for marriage, and cakes, and cute-commodified confectionaries like cookie shaped flowers, and tiny little cakes.

At least, this is exactly what I have deduced from visiting the Cake Box since its opening. Or maybe, just maybe, dear readers I'm a little bitter because I've never worked there and probably never will, sadly. Because for me, there is nothing more lovely than waking up, going into a kitchen where sweetness wafts through the air, a cup of French roast waits for me, and baking the most delicious cupcakes, as well as painstakingly putting little silver candy balls on frosted trims, talking about who's dating whom and how much I absolutely love what's going on in the world of celebrity. Oh goodness. But I'm far too manly for that. At least, that's the impression that I get. But I don't want to be too manly. I want to bake, I yearn to bake. Regrettably, I'm doomed to, like so many other customers, sit in the comfy chairs and at the conventional tables of the Cake Box, order an espresso, have a cupcake or two and watch the counter of the five young women who make more of the thing I'm eating that very moment. Like watching the girl you love kiss the guy you hate. That girl, the tenderly decorated cake; that guy, those stupid girls who have my dream job. That and working at Tsukiji as a fish monger. Okay, so I have a lot of dream jobs. But as far as I'm concerned, these kinds of double standards don't fly with me. Shoot. Hiring only women to contribute to an image, or make a space seem more welcoming. Phhh. They don't even say hello when you come in. They just look up and rock paper scissors to see who's gonna be the unlucky one to take the next order. If it were my place, I'd force them to all say hello; and if they didn't, like some English lady of the house I'd say, "say 'hello' girls." And then the girls would say, "Hello girls" and we'd all have a laugh. That's at least welcoming. But I'm not insinuating anything. I just hope I'm wrong and places don't hire based on ridiculous prejudices, not in the great equal West anyway. No way. My maleness can't work against me. Absolutely not. That's crazy. It's probably for the best I don't work at the place anyway. I'd eat the owner out of house and home. Literally; I heard they live on the upper floor of the cake shop.

At least, like some sad Bourgesian character I can go, buy a cupcake once in a while, put it in a nice little package, give it to a friend for their birthday, and live vicariously through the girls who tenderly package it for me.

All in all, the Cake Box isn't a bad place, not in the least. I can't say I've found a better place with more delicious cupcakes in the entire city. Pricey but expected. It keeps the unserious customers out. But this is at least one place that lives up to the old cliché that you get what you pay for.

So that's that. Yes, it's been around for a while, it does well, and there's probably been a billion other pieces written about. But none from this fella's mouth. None this real like the city it's situated in (Oh? Don't get the allusion? Guess you're not a fan then), none this honest; and for that, I make no apology (why does THAT sound vaguely familiar too?).

The Cake Box271 King Street West
Kitchener, ON N2G 1B1
(519) 579-6230
 

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