Contemporary Home Food

I found myself at a crossroads this week, dear eaters. After last week's eating debacle, there was a great culinary weight on my shoulders. I needed to find a place where the meals would wrap their lovin’ arms around me vicariously for you; a place where I could eat good food on all of our behalves and comfort the collective stomachache that had unforeseeably plagued us (okay, maybe just me) for so long. And so I ask you this my fellow gastronomes: what do we do when we need to alleviate the poor feelings in the pit of our stomachs, when flat tires eliminate a good portion of our days, when we wake up wondering what we're doing with our lives? Of course, there are a myriad of possibilities, but for our poor stomachs' sakes, what can we do? I’ll tell you what we can do. We can eat. And we do. We eat good, comforting food. We eat for the sake of feeling like we're coming home and all is good and right in the world. This time, for me, dare I say, for all of us, home was Hometown Eatery!, conveniently located, I might add, at a crossroads. And if that's not meaningful, well I don't know what is. It was a place, if I could describe it in three words, and after eavesdropping on the waitress, of contemporary comfort food. Three words, but three very true words at that.

But what does it mean to be contemporary? It's something tossed around a lot, so much so that I'm willing to bet you're all thinking I'm just trying to sound smart, or lack the proper descriptors to really express Hometown Eatery!'s food. So maybe, just maybe, it's something a little more than contemporary- or a little less; that is, its food that seems to mediate itself between that old nostalgic comfort food and the kind of luxurious food we hear about, or are used to hearing about today and would love to eat. Hometown Eatery does a good job of closing the gap.

	Formerly Yukiko's

Still, I can't deny its au courant or contempo disposition; at least when it comes to the place you sit down and eat in. A picturesque house from the outside, its white semi-stucco walls, warm coloured light fixtures, avant-garde wall facsimiles, novelty kitchen appliances and cowboy plants, combined with those other nostalgic restaurant room pieces like menu chalk boards and swinging kitchen doors only magnify its appeal to the degree, at least to me, where it reminded me of the kinds of dining spaces seen so often in the loft apartments of television shows. Lived in, yet oh so- what's the word? Aw, yes, contemporary. Combine that with small dining room extensions that mimic intimate breakfast nooks and a kind of obligatory jazz music over the radio and you can pretty much get a feel for the kind of place it is. For a late lunch, it was buzzing, and I could only imagine how cramped- or cozy- it might get at dinner.

It seemed friendly enough. Although, I admit, there was an awkward beat when I came in and made my way to the register asking if they had a menu. In a place like this I would have expected at least one of two things: to be greeted and seated, menu placed in front of me; or, playing to some old sentimental idea of visiting my grandmother's kitchen, being told to have a seat and lovingly asked what I would like. If that sounds redundant, trust me, it isn't. My point is, I hate feeling things out when I come into a place, but maybe that's the point of Hometown's hip informality. Regardless, I like to be led to the food rather than stand around haphazardly until I gather my wits. But so it goes.

	Say something funny, listen for a laugh track~

Having found a seat, reviewing the menu and making my choice between pastas, salads and sandwiches, I made my way back to the register and ordered what seemed a hell of an intriguing idea: a grill cheese sandwich with brie instead of the typical cheddar (though that was offered). This is what I mean when I describe Hometown Eatery! as contemporary comfort food. Taking quotidian meals and elevating them to something a little less sentimental and a little more sophisticated seems almost ingenious. It wasn't a lightbulby moment for me or anything, because in the back of my mind I knew things like this existed- I just couldn't believe I hadn't really paid attention to them before. Next, and since I still have some yearnings for authenticity, I chose to have my meal accompanied with a home-brewed ice tea, because isn't that what we need when eating out? A little bit of novelty and uniqueness? Though not as tart and sweet as I would have preferred, it certainly had that mild and therefore humble flavour of being brewed at home. That is, it wasn't loaded with an overbearing, artificial sweetness found in branded ice teas, nor did it leave that chalky aftertaste like so many teas before it, or the paradoxically dry, rough feeling that makes your teeth feel like wet cobblestones when you run your tongue across them after polishing off a tall glass of the stuff. Anyway, and the lemon wedge accompanying it added the tartness I was looking for.

	Grilled brie with coleslaw for a smooth 10 dollars.

I'd lost track of the time when my meal had arrived, a grilled brie sandwich with a side of the luncheonette's original coleslaw, an epitaph to the place's previous identity and creator, Yukiko. It was crisp, much more than coleslaw dictates, but a texture I thoroughly enjoyed, bathed in a mild lemon, mayonnaise and poppy seed sauce that emulsified well and had a good creamy quality rather than wet and vinegary. One thing seemed for certain, Yukiko must have certainly had a delicate palette because it certainly showed in the food. Just eating it made me feel cleaner.

Setting my slaw aside, and giving my sandwich ample time to gain composure, I bit into a mild brie joining two slices of marbled rye bread. The balmy, grassy notes of the brie balanced well with the rye's own grain flavour and their tone never too dull due to the fact that the cheese's rind had been included in the sandwich, contributing a savoury ammoniac flavour to a sandwich that might otherwise have been a little too mellow.

	Chocolate banana cake: 6.95. Shoot.

I wasn't done there, fellow eaters; I was still very much looking forward to dessert and had my eye on a slice of caramel cheesecake. However, after an inquisitive talk with a darling waitress I turned my attention to the in house cakes offered and chose the most popular slice: chocolate banana. Another stellar combination of chocolate cake settled by ganache on a separate loaf of banana bread convinced me that Hometown had a thing for simple pairings. Whatever dryness the cake had was eluded by the rich, creamy ganache, though I admit by the end of it, its sweetness was a little too much to take. That said, the slice was a hearty size, much bigger than slices I've had elsewhere. My only qualm may have been the price, the slice costing as much as a bottle of draft sake (by the way, the place serves an array of local beers; and why not? A brewery's right across the street). Overall, lunch for one may have been a little pricey, but once and a while I suppose it's okay to spoil yourself, especially for such (did I say ingenious?) food.

Home-brew icetea: 2.50
Grilled Brie with slaw: 10.00
Banana chocolate cake: 6.95

Hometown Eatery
30 William Street West, Waterloo, ON
(519) 576-9424
Mon-Wed: 11:30am -9:00pm
Thurs & Fri: 11:30 am -10:00pm
Sat: 9:00am-10:00pm
Sun: 9:00am-9:00pm

Tweet