The Owl Could Be Wiser

Just when I thought I had uptown Waterloo licked, it hit me with another new restaurant. I should count myself lucky. We should all count ourselves lucky. We have somewhere to eat yet again. But what newest installation rests in the cultured culinary court of our uptown? Another Korean restaurant. Yes, you heard me, and I’ll whole heartedly accept your hating me for reviewing a Korean place so soon, but what else could I do? Nothing else is new. For me, anyway. 

I’ll be adult about this. No I won’t, I’ll be totally immature. To add insult to injury, the joint’s a chain. A chain you’d be better off confusing for an ESL cram school, what with its owl in graduate cap mascot and all. 

There’s a lesson here. Yearning for more Korean places leads the universe to deliver more Korean places, and that can be a bad thing, especially when all Korean places seem to be doing the same thing. The ‘Famous’ Owl of Minerva Korean Restaurant & Bar is a little bit of an exception, because it has the most expansive, different menu I’ve seen, all while offering the same things we’ve already seen. But hey, why travel blocks away to one Korean place when you can just go up the street to the other? That’s one redeemable quality, I suppose. 

Its large dining hall shares a familiar vibe with the other washed out Korean joints of bigger cities. Intense lighting, a cool open, airy chamber, and an ambience that eliminates the time of day, all copy the same atmosphere portrayed by the restaurants of Korean dramas, all of which were playing on the multiple televisions resting on the place’s walls. Exposed brick, red and yellow swatches, regal chairs and tables echoing a woody Korean aesthetic all echo something we’ve seen before, and I suppose that’s the point. It can be comforting in its familiarity, but paradoxically agitating if you’ve been eating in these places for far too long and are tired of the performative bellowing Korean hellos. I wouldn’t expect any different, however. If you want something hardy and familiar, then it’s the place to be. 

It does fall shorter than I’d like though. Yes, it has a large menu, but mixing and matching is few and far between, especially if you want to stay under a 20 dollar budget. You can squeak by if you’re really clever, and compromising. Bowls of soup and rice aren’t partner to bowls of noodles, so if you want meat dishes, be prepared to pay a little more. Oh, and if you love black bean noodles, look somewhere else. But that’s a small flaw for the amount of options. 

I ordered an honest bowl of instant ramen noodles, because I’m a sucker for inexpensive dishes, and apparently a bigger glutton for punishment. Set in a stoneware bowl was a quota of noodles lumped together with slices of rice cake, dumpling and a soft boiled egg, all in a bath of boiling fuzzy foam and salty spiced broth. The bowl lacked any balance. No vegetables, no real meat, and in a bowl too hot to warrant eating immediately, so much so that by the time the bubbles settled down, the thing became a kind of starchy porridge. 

In between that and my plate of spicy ricecakes I consumed a smattering of side dishes, meager and all too similar in flavor, featuring a spectrum from spicy to sweet to brakish. I’d expect better from such an established place, especially since other places in town offer great arrays, and half the time, it’s the side dishes customers come for. 

My plate of ricecakes, combined with vegetables and fish slices, smothered in a spicy, sandy sauce, was my favourite choice. It had balance and clear, simple flavours of sweet, savoury, and spicy, calmed by sesame. Texturally, it was a treat with chewy cakes, firm fish, and crunchy vegetables. But regardless, with a stiff opposition of already established Korean restaurants in town, I’d expect more wisdom with cuisine from a place as 'famous' as the Owl of Minerva. 

The Famous Owl of Minerva Korean Restaurant & Bar
2 King St N, 
Waterloo, ON 
N2J 2W7 
519-886-7275 

11am-11pm every day 

ANY PAYMENT

Tweet

Shameless Plug

I'm on twitter now. Because I figured, hey, I could be more important. Check the column on the left!

Tweet

Responsible Eating

I knew I’d need a good amount of perspective before writing about a place like Bread Heads. I planned on indifferently stating the obvious- that Bread Heads made bread. That’s it. But the pangs of disappointment that came from its owner regarding people who ate there and wrote about it without really thinking about how personal food is to each and every one of us reminded me that I was still pretty responsible when it came to eating anybody’s food. That is, as much as I like admitting that I review with the notion of entertaining my readers first, I do have to consider that even if I don’t like the way something’s done, it doesn’t mean that it’s done badly. The demarcation of food writing allows a lot of wiggle room for this dynamic, choosing your own palette in favour of what you are given to order.

With all that in mind, I took the long way home after spending the better part of my evening sitting against a communally mounted table that shared its space with only six chairs, the most unambitious wood fired oven I’ve seen in the city, and a bread cart displaying the leftovers of what the bakery could turn out for the entire day. Yes, I walked through a graveyard, drank some tea, and thought long and hard about how I could give Bread Heads the good honest review it deserved.

What I respect the most about Bread Heads is the thought that goes into what it offers, even if a miniscule amount compared to the bakeries in town. But that is only in Bread Heads’ static bakery, because aside from that, it has its own mobile cart bringing bread to the people of our fair city. In its bakery, it is a more delimited story. The space is small and cozy, heated throughout by the oven that is fed wood throughout the day. It offers a choice amount of baked bread, but not without having thought about what is best suited to the day. Organic whole wheat loaves are the choice. One type of loaf supports the place, reinforced by offerings of particular baked goods that suit the hot environment: muffins, scones, squares, nothing too baroque. Entrees come in the form of sandwiches and melts, using the buns baked for sale, as well as a smattering of thin crust pizzas which I found to be the most indulging. All these things are apt to change, so although choices seem small day by day, there is always something new the next. 

I chose the day’s pizza special: the harvest. A pizza topped with local vegetables, sheep’s cheese made in Stratford, and a balsamic vinegar reduction. I appreciated the spot’s attempt, no matter how bootless, to seek out the business of the community, and give the food an identity from home. More importantly however, was that it was done with finesse and in good taste. 

It was the fastest pizza ever made for me too. It was not more than 5 minutes before a 9 inch pie was placed in front of me. A sparse, but harmonized amount of cubed roasted vegetables decorated the thing, signaling my mental bellyaching about why there looked to be so little, but soon absolved when I realized that there was no need for so much with such a thin, light crust, speckled with spots of char from the hot oven. Its roasted qualities didn’t interfere with the balmy butter quality that mimicked the comforting character of an English muffin. There was no raw dough here, only light leavened crust, sweetened by the mild nature of the cheese and the reduced balsamic vinegar that was drizzled all over it. I’d otherwise dread telling you the price, but the quality ingredients perfectly justified the payment, and maybe coming back for a muffin and a cup of coffee. 

Bread Heads
16 Duke Street East 
Kitchener, ON 
N2H 2G8 

Hours? I dunno. 

Any payment

Tweet

The Guanaquita

I can’t contextualize Guanaquita Restaurant’s space as much as I’d like to. It’s a hodge-podge of South American culture. I think. It’s a static space of South American otherness. El Salvadorian otherness, actually. It’s a deep lofty dining hall where one could easily have lived. Today, I interpreted it as a room of micro-table culture. At one end, before its discoteca, it manifests itself as a veranda where diners can look out onto the city. Beyond that, before its bar, exists those reminiscent place settings of thin framed chairs, multi-layered tablecloths that echo some transferred Mediterranean place settings, all before it phlebotomizes into a warmer, more well lit stucco dining area where booths with protruding wooden columns have orbs of light resting on each one of them. After that, it becomes Appadurai’s ‘bazaar of thingness,’ full of obsolescent items used to decorate the space, proliferating in excess with photos of piers, books on shelves: space fillers. My dining companion likened it to Narnia meeting Dawson’s Creek. It was poignant. For a humble El Salvadorian restaurant starting out, it was on the mark. If its walls could talk, they wouldn’t ask for admiration, only mouths to come in try some good, honest food. 

Not too renowned in this city, El Salvadorian cuisine rests in some quiet corners and begs for dabbling mouths. Simple tapas make each restaurant more than any meals that could be served, and what makes a place like Guanaquita Restaurant so enjoyable is the fun you can have with food. If it’s your first time, and it’s not breakfast, give traditional dishes like pupusas, tamals, enchiladas, and pastelitos your tongues. It’s these dishes that make El Salvadorian cuisine such a treat. But if it is breakfast, definitely have it at a place like Guanaquita. In all my experiences, El Salvidorian breakfasts have been some with the most finesse. Inexpensive and hardy, they include not only typical choices, but odds and ends pertinent to the cuisine, like fried plantains or beans, without, believe it or not, all of the oily residuals greasy spoons leave with us.

More than affordable, Guanaquita’s menu comes with many options, appetizers, entrees, and desserts. But I say forgo all that in favour of every single tapas on the menu, offered by way of the restaurant’s own Guanaquita Platter: a visually sparse looking plate of pupusas, tamales, enchiladas, and pastelitos, but a powerfully filling thing paired with tomato sauce and my absolutely loved Salvadorian relish: a simple coleslaw; its mild, tart flavor is accented by the oregano used to give it a cool, earthy quality I can never get enough of. The pupusa was, and always is, however, my favourite. A thick, pancake like tortilla stuffed with pork, cheese, and green peppers, its playful texture and charred aroma make it, in my mind, a holy trinity of El Salvidore’s cuisine.
 
The tamal was another first for me. A corn dough mixed with chickpea, pickled jalepeno, potato, and olives made for a thing of complex flavor, busy flavours, complicated even more by the leaf it’s steamed in. Texturally reminiscent of polenta, the vegetative flavor from the leaf added a whole other, brave, element of flavor.

And if you want the play of culinary tourism to hit home, treat yourself to a thrifty glass of Horchata: a percolated glass of rice milk flavoured with cinnamon and sugar that tickles the back of your throat with its smooth, yet chalky peculiarity. And if its sweetness still isn’t enough, go for any and all desserts. Everything’s so well priced you can eat a lot for under twenty dollars and still have your fill, like the plantain patties: deep fried fist sized dumplings stuffed with plantain and custard that oozes out as you shatter a caramelized exterior, dusted with sugar and harmonized by the meaty fruit’s tartness and the custard’s creaminess. Did I mention how inexpensive everything was?


Guanaquita Restaurant
273 King St. West UPPER
Kitchener, Ontario n2g 1b1
 

Tue - Fri:  10:00 am- 9:00 pm
Sat:          9:00 am- 10:00 pm
Sun:        10:00 am- 8:00 pm

ANY PAYMENT

Tweet

Damn Good Sandwich

Café 22 is the last bastion of culinary contentment my mouth hasn’t had the pleasure of terrorizing. Granted, it’s no restaurant, but it idles as the last obstacle in way of my own gastronomic mastery of all eateries the culinary landscape Uptown Waterloo has to offer. That’s right, by way of Café 22 I will have reduced Waterloo’s proud culinary core to nothing more than mere triviality. It won’t get any more of my money, at least until something else closes or something new decides to open up. Fingers crossed. You may pass the arcade by, unawares its upper level has turned into yet another parasitic delineation of rococo design pasted up into the contemporary spreads we find in so many clinical home décor magazines. But that’s as much as I’ll talk about the way the place looks. I won’t bring it up anymore. I won’t. Why bring this phenomenon of the third place’s aesthetic up again? It’s already been concluded. 

I have to admit though, its space, elevated on an upper level and exposed to the uptown through huge arched windows is very charming, and I felt very peaceful sitting during the dead hours of the afternoon waiting for my order. 

A catalogue of the European delicatessen, Café 22 offers a terra forma selection. You can have lasagna or quiche, soup or salad, panini or sandwiche, as well as every other kind of patisserie for a price that isn’t anywhere near competitive with confectionaries up the block. But to each their own wallet, especially with selections that offer you the chance to have as many fixings as you want in a sandwich or wrap. I strayed away this time from such a privilege, making the tough choice between a Panini or slice of quiche, deciding on the pressed sandwich of my choice: the Toscano. A pressed focaccia sandwiched over translucent slices of salty prosciutto, grilled and marinated eggplant, a fig spread, and slices of brie were paired with a side of obligatory mixed greens drizzled with a smattering of olive oil and herbs making not really a side, but existing as maybe something enough to beat some culinary bylaw of supplying a side in every overpriced dish. 

Normally, I’d rail against a sandwich costing 7.80. But not this time. The smell of grilled eggplant wafting in the air triggered my past romanticisms with food in my own grandmother’s kitchen. To the point, my sandwich was perfect. An easy yes to the best sandwich I’ve had in a long long a while. The focaccia’s herb’s earthiness only lifted the savouriness of the meat, the brie balanced the saltiness of the prosciutto which was both quenched and livened by the incredible plumy sweetness of the fig spread, a first for myself. The bread was crisp, had great hold, was light as air, and crisped consummately by the olive oil it was soused in to bake it, just like my grandmother’s. If anything broke my heart, it was that the fig spread was spread thin, I found myself biting carefully to preserve as much of it as I could throughout the meal. I loved it. I didn’t care who made the thing, where it came from, if it was ‘artisanal’, what factory turned it out- the bricolage that was this sandwich was fantastic, and whoever thought it up had remarkable taste. I’d get it again. I couldn’t care about anything else but this sandwich. Any drawback’s of Café 22 were forgiven in lieu of such a good. I forgot the pretense of space, the overly moist character of my macaroon, nothing mattered. No, no, I’m not saying the place is great, but I am saying the place has one great sandwich, and that’s reason enough for me. 

CAFE 22 
22 King Street South, 
Waterloo, ON 
519.603.5005 

Monday - Saturday, 9:00 am - 8:00 pm 

ANY PAYMENT

Tweet

More Cupcakes

It’s a far stretch to say that Honey Bake Shop monopolizes itself in a space that offers so many shops with baked goods, but I’ll still make the claim, even with another patisserie mere blocks away. Because despite all that, it composes itself well as another ballad of the cupcake shop, and the closer to all of our mouths, the better. 

It’s nothing particularly special, nor knew. But its familiarity may make it resonate with the customers it keeps. It’s a lofty, familiar space: woodsy, amalgamated with rococo Alice-in-Wonderland motifs, pastel colour schemes, and a contradicting pioneerism whispering the belly aches of Henry David Thoreau, who I’m sure would even himself be familiar with the operations of the current design standards of pastel, woods, and retro-whatevers. So much so in fact if he came to eat deliberately, or when he came to die, he would have most likely discovered that in the redundancy of these places he had not lived. But if I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, this isn’t a bad thing. If anything, it’s more convenient for our apathetic palates. 

Aside from an array of cupcakes at the typical cupcake price of 2.50, much like everywhere else, you can have your fill of other danties like shortbreads, croissants, loafs, cookies, brownies or squares, and of course sandwiches, apt to change weekly for the sake of novelty. There is handmade icecream too, which I didn’t privilege myself to try; that said, I’ll never really believe in its quality until I see it hand made in front of me.

Punchy with the amount of annuity I allow myself to spend on these sorts of things, I chose a sweet potato, avocado sandwich to start: a perfunctory sweet potato paddy topped with avocado slices that slipped around, cheese, and a chewy rye, sprinkled with a smattering of oats you’d never see unless you pulled the thing apart. Why the aesthetic exertion on a glorified grilled cheese sandwich? I’d half the mind to mind. The potato did deliver a sweet quality I enjoyed though; the sauce of choice however- a coriander jalepeno- did very little, the rye too, which was much chewier and staunch than it should have been, especially around its edges.

But let’s not dwell on the negative too long. I tried the cupcakes, red velvet was my favourite choice. Although my tongue was thwarted by a tense frosting I expected to be light and fluffy, I can’t say I was too disappointed, especially since its demeanor blended rather well with the butteriness of the cupcake itself, even if a textural mismatch. It had a spicy note I couldn’t put my finger on, but enjoyed anyway. 

The cheesecake brownie was the next on my crusade. Lost in the burnish browned chocolate of its luscious saccharine, the cheesecake topping, light and airy couldn’t handle the heavy body of the baked good. Any flavor had was only discovered by picking it apart on my own. Too bad. The pumpkin loaf, however, was the saving grace. Light, and chewy, I could sense the aromatics condense around the air on my tongue before diving in. Laden with all the perfect pumpkin spices you’d expect, it had the perfect amount of bite, pull being the best feature for any baked loaf in my opinion. All in all, Honey Bake Shop looks good, and dare I say, tastes even better. Jaded as I am with these sort of schemes, I’d be more worn wondering why people aren’t eating there. 

Honey Bake Shop 
100 King Street South, 
Waterloo, ON 
(519) 954-0972 

Tue:Wed:9:00 am-7:00 pm 
Thu:Sat:9:00 am -8:00 pm 
Sun:10:00 am-4:00 pm 

ANY PAYMENT

Tweet

The Other Korean Place

This city needs more Korean restaurants, I’ve always said so. So when I was told by Daryl that Shinla Garden was knocked together in what was once the Lovenest (that favored of Ethiopan food spots) I was a little heartbroken, but consoled by its category of cuisine. Before Shinla Garden, there were only two or three places I could go to offering the kind of fare that wasn’t mixed together with another national cuisine. But now that Shinla’s here, I say the more novelty the merrier. And though Shinla may not be the best Korean canteen on the block, it’s been a long while since I’ve had a hearty bowl of black bean noodles remind me of why I was so glad to be part of a movement in the first place.

No need to be harried, dear eaters, because there is something for everyone at Shinla Garden. The most expensive thing on the menu is a combination plate of 23 dollars, but that’s dinner for two. If you’re eating alone, you’re apt to spend less than 10 and be more than satisfied with a slew of side dishes, a Korean courtesy at any restaurant and always a treat for the novel eater. It’s been so long for myself that I forgot they came with any order, and by the time I was finished deciding on an ambitious bowl of Korean Style Handmade Noodles with Black Bean Sauce and Pork Bone Soup (both 8 dollars), there they were, set in front of me, reminiscent of all the times I’ve had them before, but unique to every place that served them.

So, while I took in the blushing décor of the place- flushed purple walls, a naked tiled floor robed by a single pastel rococo rug and a plasma television showing nothing more than a zoetrope of China’s landscape- I delighted in some new and novel side dishes.

Remiss in one small bowl were four green slices of what I was told was a Korean pancake. Gooey with a flavor of durum reminiscent of the fresh pasta I’m used to eating, it was a rare treat. Its cool temperature made it a chewy delight, keeping it in my mouth as long as I could in order to savor taste and texture. The pickled radish was another treat. Familiar, but with its own unique sweet and sour quality, it was a side I couldn’t get enough of. Sadly, my side of kimchi was all the same, similar to every other place, which made me wonder if everyone else was really making their own.

My noodle entrée came first. Bedded in the bottom of my bowl were what the menu called handmade Korean noodles, though I’ve still half a mind to call shenanigans of something so similar to the noodles I can buy in the store. Layered atop all that was that affable smokey, salty black bean sauce I have come to know and love. Riddled with nutty beans, ground meat, squash, and sweet onions it was a gummy mix with malty undertones that clung to every noodle and left glutinous globules of flavor behind on the bottom of my bowl, and all over my napkin. 

My pork bone soup came still boiling in its bowl, its bright spicy citrus odours percolating up to my nostrils whenever any bubble popped. A savoury broth combined with spring onions, fleshy greens, crisp sprouts, and pork that tenderly pulled from each rib make it a light dish, but heavy if its eater is brazen enough to dump in a bowl of rice. Regardless, its portioning, like its entrée before it, was perfect, and though I definitely ordered more than I could finish, I’ve no regrets about trying as much as I could.

There’s nothing particularly au courant about Shinla Garden, but there’s something certainly familiar, and since its prices are enough to spoil customers, why spend more than you have to anywhere else? 
 
Shinla Garden
183 king street east
Kitchener, on, n2g 2k8

Mon-sat 11am-10pm
Sun 12pm-9pm

Any payment

Tweet