Island Food

	See those people on the left? Natives.

Guenther and I drove by David’s Fresh Cut Fries many-a-time. Once, we stopped just to check out the selection of soft drinks, Guenthy having said they sold a strange kind of soda called birch beer. If I could have likened it to anything I would have likened it to root beer with a cough syrup after taste it was that bizarre. After today, I think we both realized how foolish we had been putting it off for so long. Located in the smallest of plazas, the shanty depended on nothing but the reputation of its rich, savoury, stick to your ribs food. Never mind the condiments left open in the sun, never mind the weathered umbrellas waning over the tables, dismissive of their job to shade customers, never mind the lone picnic table beside a dumpster, never mind the flies customarily buzzing around your orders. The food is all. No, it’s not haute, and it’s totally fast (as in fast food), and you can’t really scrutinize food invented for the salt of the earth, proletariat worker who probably never knew food could be legitimately criticized. It’s just, as Guenther so poignantly put it, stick to your ribs food. It needed no appraisal, or approval, no validation, because people would still come to eat it. Why? I reckon because it’s that kind of dangerously good food; loaded with trans-fats, carbs, heart attacks, high-school cafeteria memories. When you like to indulge in the days when you could spend whatever amount of money and self-esteem on what we as adults today view as the most ‘disgusting’ eatables. That’s as close as I can come to describing this type of fare. Though I could also easily say it’s Newfoundlander food, which means it’s overly starchy and has starch where starch shouldn’t be and will clog arteries and give comas. But I say this all with the most endearing sentimentality, because I friggin’ love the stuff. Give me cholesterol or give me death.

David’s food isn’t complex, it’s certainly satisfying, and though I was kind of angry with the price when reading the menu board, I realized, after seeing the portions, it was really affordable. And if you have a hankering for fast-food, you may as well get it from a place that recalls all the flavours of thanksgiving dinner. Case in point: Guenther and I, being the ethnographic eaters we were, decided on the Newfoundland fries. What better way to know the food than to get the signature, identity associated dishes that stand in for a folkway. Yessir, we were alimental anthropologists, discovering new terrains of the table and trading pleasantries with the natives who happily shared their orders with us, who told us we were crazy for not trying David’s hamburgers, who made sure we got our fries with peas, fried onions, gravy and, of all things, thanksgiving stuffing. If not for them we would have never known that David’s was totally seasonal, that it opens when the weather turns good and closes for the winter when it dies down- whenever that may be. We chortled. They were overbearing, but only because they were happy to see new mouths; happy to see that David’s was still under discovery. We appreciated their spirit because it told us that David’s food was worth trying. Though of course, we had to pace ourselves. We wanted to try it all, but the hamburgers were big, and our orders of small fries enough to pass as a small meal.

	Surprise! Stuffing underneath.

Yes, Dave’s tried hard for what it was. Its fries were cut fresh, or so Guenther told me as he spotted the boxes of potatoes in the shack, and the options limitless- we could have cheese, we could have chili, hamburger, bacon, whatever our arteries desired. But today, stuffing was all we needed. Tucked snuggly under a blanket of gravy, diving into your peas and onion smothered fries revealed a French fry that became a vehicle for an herbiness so reminiscent of the stuff we buy on grocery store shelves and stuff inside our own selves at Thanksgiving. Mildly sweet, starchy and ambrosial, it was hard to have any qualms with this Styrofoam packed treasure. We dared wondered if the burger paddies were as fresh as the fries. What else could the affable Latina who served us do all day? Watch telenovelas? Regardless, only time would tell. We agreed to come back soon, to tell the world about the onions that weren’t stringy, but soft, and tenderly fell apart in our mouths; to tell everyone about birch beer and pineapple soda (of which I’ve never seen anywhere else). To crusade against French fry complacency and fight to make sure that every province has an embellished fry dish some day. Only time will tell.

	For you, Guenthy.

David’s Fresh Cut Fries

(519) 748-2024

36 Lancaster Street West 

Kitchener ON 

N2A 1B1

Hours: who knows?

Cash only, comrades.

Tweet

As Constant As the Northern Star

My animosity towards the all-you-can-eat sushi place in this town is dwindling. This means one of two things: that my own pre-judgments and pretentious assumptions denied my stomach the chance of really getting to know these eating places and limiting my own experience to a few terrible experiences in previous ‘hasheries.’ Today, I wasn’t pleasantly surprised, but certainly tempered against the bias that accompanies my own opinions of sushi in a place that is so far away from the ocean and fresh fish. But what does that mean anyway?

It may be a moot point even discussing Sushi Star, a restaurant that’s been around for a substantial time, and a restaurant I’ve given only the slightest of nods, having heard mixed reviews about it throughout the years. However, dear readers, I like to believe we’ve developed a good amount of rapport between the lot of us and that what I do have to say about the place has some merit.

To say I had a hankering for sushi today would be an untruth. In fact, I can’t claim to be a die hard fan, though I certainly can say I enjoy it, but not as much as the body builders who frequent the all-you-can-eat stops at least 3 times a week to keep their weight up. Today’s venture was a kind of earnest admission in order to see if the all-you-can-eat sushi place is a place even worth going to anymore, or if it’s gone the way of the great portion-givers of the West’s glorified consumer past; I speak of fast food joints, Chinese buffets, pancake houses.

So what can I say about Sushi Star that hasn’t already been said about an all-you-can-eat sushi spot? Believe me or not, there is some interesting personality accompanying Sushi Star’s food. Some peerless exceptions that make you consider the micro cultures that exist around the locales of restaurants. I normally don’t pay any mind to restaurants catering to the palettes of customers thereby changing their menus for profit because I glamorously consider it a kind of selling out, but this is stupid. Because while it could very well be perceived this way, it is exactly that dynamic that allows the all-you-can-eat to stay separate from others and in business.

Yes, there are tables with bamboo appliqués, contemporary paper lanterns hanging off the ceilings, neko fukus, pervasive dinnerware with calligraphic eggplants and Japanese characters of ‘delicious’ printed on them (purchased from the supermarket up the block), roasted rice tea, beige booths and uniformed wait staff, which are all too familiar. And on the other end of that familiar, maybe clichéd, spectrum there are the darker dining rooms in the city full of red, black and fancy wood, but these are nothing more than the Chinese whispers of sushi reviews from the past which are cause for nothing more than snap judgments for every all-you-can-eat sushi place.

Sushi Star has rare oddities, like deep fried milk for dessert, pork bone soup (sans the bones and pork, sadly), sushi rolls stuffed with nothing more than avocado and pineapple (surprisingly refreshing), plum wine (inexpensive plum wine), a selection of kind of real ramen noodles- or lo mein- or lao mian- or pulled noodles- on the menu; even purple yams. I didn’t think I’d ever find such individuality in any all-you-can-eat menu; there was even grilled saury. Never mind the misspellings on the thing, at least it was manageable. I wasn’t bombarded with infinite options like I usually am at other all-you-can-eat spots. And have no fear of being left out if you go for lunch, what’s kept exclusively to the dinner menu is comfortably small. There are only four kinds of raw fish offered (but all kinds of sushi) which I actually appreciate and interpreted as taking seriously the food offered.

Sushi Star really is its own world. It has wait staff that devotedly beckon to every whim and happily write down what you want, rather than giving a slip. I’ve commented on my displeasure at this choice of service in the past, but the wait staff had an exceptional charm.

The food wasn’t matchless, but it did offer up some great distinction: mackerel sushi with dollops of pureed ginger for example on rather thin and well balanced fingers of sticky rice (no wasabi underneath though). What really impressed my company and I was the temperature of the raw fish, never cold, but tempered to the climate of the room. Usually, we as eaters assume cold raw fish means it’s fresh, but in reality a fish pulled out of the ocean never comes from some underwater fridge. Some rolls could have used a little more rice, as the layers were so thin the nori peered through, and our curry chicken was a muddy sauce of salt. But for every yin, there’s a yang; our shredded crab pizza had a thinner base than other places and was easy to put in our mouths, the sauce of red peppers and spicy mayonnaise lending itself perfectly to the charred flavor of rice deep fried in a bread crumb coating. The deep fried scallops were a little leathery, but pea sized and easy to pop into our mouths. Dumplings were peppery but with a refreshing vinegar tang, and our seaweed salad not sweet at all like most places, but rather savory, though sometimes sinewy. The food ebbed and flowed between us. And though it wasn’t perfect, Sushi Star just has too many good qualities to disqualify altogether.

Sushi Star
450 King St. E., Kitchener, ON N2G 2L6
519 584 2341

Mon-thur 11:30-10:30
Fri-Sat 11:30-11:00
Sunday 12:00 – 10:30
Lunch Mon-Thurs 12.99 Fri-Sun 13.99
Dinner 19.99 20.99

All methods of payment accepted

 

Tweet

Some Dives Just Aren't Cool

*CLOSED (Thank Buddha)- but potentially re-opened down bridgeport E., Waterloo)
Now this place was a dive. Pink, pastel paint, checkered tiles, wallpaper from decades ago curling off walls, tables with limbs like chess pieces, over-produced novelty photographs of exotic animals hung in gold frames (of which my company contended reminded him of his parents’ basement), water stained ceilings, menus made out of construction paper, some options crossed out when whatever cooks decided they just didn’t feel like cooking them anymore. How on earth do I ever end up in these places? This is what I’m asking myself in retrospect.

So, what’s a dive, dear readers? I throw the term around a lot, and I know I owe a solid explanation, because I eat at a lot of places and a lot of them don’t care much for atmosphere which in an ironic twist of fate creates a kind of fun atmosphere, assuming you like to pretend you’re in a movie and are planning to maybe knock off a bank or leave a horse head in someone’s bed. Anyway, to me, and for the sake of all future reviews punched out by my fingers, a dive is a restaurant with a poor, neglected appearance simply because the particular proprietors, I firmly believe, depend on the quality of their food to carry the reputation of the restaurant, not the way it looks. In the popular discourse of our restaurants the omerta is as such: good looking place means good eating experience; therein lies the paradox, my eating compatriots, because some people in attempt to rearticulate that old code of honour seek out dives believing that they are as legitimate if not more than those places hiding behind fancy appearances. A poor appeal to a perceived nostalgic past, I reckon. There are tons of cultural anthropological, gastronomical reasons for why else they are the way they are but I’ll leave it at that.

All You Can Eat Hot Pot has been around for about a year’s time, albeit, a rather neglected one; at least, that was the impression I got when I entered the place. I asked for a takeout menu and was apologized to, the lone cook there offering up what single menu they did have, the same menu I asked for again when I returned to actually eat a week later but was refused. Instead I was directed to the paint chipped wall and the menus taped against it; it was there that my company and I, a fellow cook and comrade in culinary arms, chose from an array of casseroles, noodles, and appetizers. And, of course, there was the all-you-can-eat hot pot, running from 14.99 and up, depending on what meat and soup broth you chose to have with it. Though a sucker for a deal, I convinced my party and I to try the inexpensive and seemingly appetizing options on the menu. From baked eel cakes to lamb on rice, it was a plethora of potentially pleasurable eating. Yes, my theory that dives always serve the most enjoyable food was bearing out yet again. It was me, my compadre, and the two lone cooks. No one else.

We chose what we were told was the most sold dish: braised spare ribs with noodles, and to that added appetizers of salt and peppered chicken, eel cakes, and the intriguingly named Taiwanese sausage. Good portioned items for a good price; though we ended up getting the appetizers after we received our noodle entrees. To that we added a strangely brewed and fruity red tea on the verge of slimy (a symptom of over-brewed and old tea) and a dirty jug of water. This place was a dive alright. I was getting excited. Though we had our noodles in front of us we patiently waited, at least, for the first appetizer: the salt and peppered chicken. Pieces of chicken coated in a light dusting of flour, salt and pepper, deep fried and slathered with a sweet sauce I couldn’t place, the dish lacked the adroitness of conscious cooking. That is, it seemed like the two kids who cooked our food didn’t know, nor care how good food could be. They needed mentorship I thought, they needed passion. The chicken was fried to a point of being dry.

When the eel cakes arrived my friend guessed it was ketchup used for sauce, perhaps a play on the dish of fish and chips? The eel, deep fried in a tempura cake had a crisp bite that at first was reminiscent of the rind flavor of a melon, immediately overpowered by the salty fishiness of the fresh eel. An interesting medley, and if there was any point to the ketchup it was to cut through the at times off-putting fishiness.

The Taiwanese sausage, at first glance having the appearance of thick strips of bacon, had a fatty tenderness accompanying any well prepared pork. My only qualm with the dish was the sauce- another flavor I couldn’t place accompanied by an unwelcomed fruitiness.

	Ugh. Udon.

Our noodle dishes were nothing special. The ribs’ dry outer appearance suggested that they were in fact brewed with a beef broth for a long, long time, which was well respected among my company and I, and the meat itself was rather tender. The noodles used were, surprisingly, udon, something I hate to see in a Chinese dish and feel cheated against whenever I get them, the commodity being a cheap substitute for good Chinese wheat noodles. As my colleague and I debated the certainty of the broth, whether it was made from scratch or a mere facsimile (I chose the latter, my friend chose the former, suggesting the cloudiness and the flecks of beef supported its authenticity), we both agreed that there was some flavor, aside from its typical beefiness, trying to get through, and that because it was an over-stewed, oversaturated concoction, whatever it was just couldn’t get through.

It was while gazing into the abyss of that broth when I noticed a small fleck of what I thought was spice, but much to my balk, alas, was a small insect. We had a conundrum on our hands. We sympathized for the small mistake and didn’t want to make the place feel bad about something that happens from time to time, debating the best way to handle the situation until finally my friend, in his experience as a cook expressed that he would like to know any mistake so as to know better next time; I agreed.

After getting the attention of the cook and telling him the situation, he asked if we wanted him to take it out. Another bowl would have been a better gesture, but I dismissed his own complacency by telling him that it was alright, and to just be mindful for next time because some customers may not be so understanding. I continued eating, buggy soup and all, keeping my readership in heart. But if the soup bug debacle wasn’t bad enough, when reaching for my second eel cake I couldn’t help but notice, in the light of the afternoon, the small white sheen that came off a hair baked into the cake. I picked it up and pulled it out, calling the cook back. I felt for this place because it seemed to me that it was slowly disappearing, though I couldn’t know for sure how busy it may be, especially as an all-you-can-eat hot pot place, but there was always the possibility that those cooking here just didn’t care.

To my vexation the cook was unfazed, and seemed inconvenienced for having had to come and defend his meal, assuring me that it wasn’t a hair but something from clothes. With no more than a tired apology and no attempt to offer a replacement or a free meal, I decided I couldn’t finish. The place clearly didn’t care. We wondered how much farther down this rabbit hole we could have possibly gone, especially if we chose the hot pot. We didn’t bother to find out. Two strikes were enough. With stomachs half full, and like civilized culinaires, we left with grace leaving no tip but still paying for our meals. It was 18 dollars I’d never see again, which is fitting for a place I’ll never go to again either. So much for dives.

All You Can Eat Hot Pot

Mon-Fri 2 -1030
Sat-Sun 12- 1030
255 King St. Waterloo

Cash only

Tweet

The Stuff You Wake Up Craving?

During Tripitaka’s seven year pilgrimage to find scriptures for the Buddha, Sun Wukong, also known as the Monkey King, gave him some valuable advice- one of many maxims, in fact. And it was this particular passage that stuck out in my mind the one double odd day last month I hauled myself to a watering hole after a long, long shift of hard cooking.

In pleasant company, as per usual, and debating the most mundane of things, like cruiser bicycles, the legitimacy of authenticity (and whatever the hell that was), as well as vegan tattoos, a member of my company, knowing me to have a roving palette for whatever personal reason, testified absolutely, as if a truth universally acknowledged, that Big John’s submarines were the stuff dreams were made of. That John’s secret sauce (whoever John was) was the kind of sauce you wake up in the middle of the night craving. Big John’s subs was practically famous. They were the best hoagies the submarine supporter ever had and continued to have. In retrospect, I recall their telling me that their own mother frequented the same place while pregnant with them, whose cravings may have rooted themselves deep within the devotee’s DNA.

But, leaving that aside, and as skeptical as I always am when it comes to matters of food, I asked this staunch sandwich eater if they were willing to stake the reputation of the shop on it? To stake the reputation of the new owner, whom, they assured me, kept the place tasting the same? To stake even their own? They told me they’d do more than that. They would personally accompany me there and eat with me, proving just how great Big John’s Submarines was. It was then that I remembered Wu Cheng'en’s story, and Sun Wukong’s words to Tripitaka: that the men of this world stake too much on fame. And that the sometimes tyrannical gastronome in me loves expelling whatever restaurant lore potentially exists in the edible world of Kitchener-Waterloo.

To call Big John’s Submarines a dive, I think, would be too generous. Though its appearance certainly seemed neglected and unkempt, and its walls full of kitsch, like outdated, but polite, no smoking signs, bristle board menus and chipped paint, its space and the sole submarine sandwich maker (the owner himself), had the luster of a place that was there for convenience, and not adventurous eating, though there were small stalls that trimmed along the windows and door, and a lone table outside for those who wanted to sit down, it was, to my disillusionment, too similar to every sub shop, I’m sure even you, my dear readers, see, only older and paying homage to a past and a founder who offered a good service some forty odd years ago. A founder who’s picture still hung steadfast atop the old, most likely unusable cash register. Yes, the layout was vaguely familiar, and it seemed that Big John’s shouldn’t even be able to maintain itself, its fridges stocked with soft drinks and milk and its display cases stocking an effigy to today’s commodified brand named potato chips. Family’s Best was the choice offered, and I could only imagine that the place either stood behind a name that supported a kind of moral value of the establishment, or that the display was only there for keeping up appearances. Stranger still was the display case on the other end of the small room selling brass candle holders. I can’t say anything else about it besides that it was bizarre.

My company advised that my first sub be the ‘mixed (assorted)’; not only was it their favourite, but it offered inside of it, aside from onions, lettuce, processed cheese, tomatoes, salami and spiced ham, John’s secret, wake up craving in the night, sauce. I thought it was an equitable choice. There needs to be some kind of standard, and as generic as the sub seemed in regards to the rest of the menu which offers 53 sandwich combinations as well as pitas, chicken wings, salads, even pizza (which I didn’t even bother with, assuming they too were only there to fill a menu) I believed it was the perfect boilerplate conclusion. I do wish though that I had reconsidered, because as I always do, I find my curiosity for food always leaves me offering second chances. My sub, the largest option, which I neglected to measure but was near 12 inches, cost a very reasonable 6.19, and offered a drink deal along with it (the special of the day, which I enthusiastically took). My enthusiasm though could only cater towards price. Though offered a lot, and substantial in terms of being fed, the flavours were all too familiar, the coveted sauce nothing very secret. That familiar, tangy mayonnaise and vinegar that accompanied the subs in my personal yesteryear. The kind of sauce that stings the back of your throat on the way down. The thick slices of meat between a long chewy bread that stubbornly stayed together reminded me of my past frustrations eating these kinds of things, and as far as I was concerned it was a race to the finish, because I soon found the sauce overtaking all body the bread had to offer with its cheap processed composure.

The wistful memories of my companion may have been what made Big John’s subs seem so worthwhile before hand; and my own cynical eating may make Big John’s seem otherwise. Remember my fellow diners, there’s a whole plethora of cheap, affordable options that may not miss the mark, like the ‘Sicilian Connection’, ‘The Irisher,’ and ‘The Grandmaster,’ a submarine I pretended was named in honour of my old kung fu master, who lived on nothing but a slice of bread for three days while waiting to take down a whole Triad in an abandoned factory. And if the options you try aren’t what you are looking for, simply try more, the price is certainly affordable enough. Surely a good submarine is out there, we need only search for it. Like the Monkey King said, “whether by moonlight or starlight, supping the air, braving the wet, we must go on, so long as the road lasts.”

	See? Bizarre.

Big John's Submarines

(519) 578-7900

699 Belmont Ave W

Kitchener, ON

N2M 1P1

Mon-Sat: 10:30 a.m.-9:00 p.m.

Sun: Closed

Tweet