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Public Kitchen and Bar is wasted on location; and though I’m abraded by its dining room’s pinache, reminiscent, to me, of the first apartment a freshly minted university girl graduate passionately decorates with retro and white, I can’t help but worry if its kind of cuisine is being overlooked as it situates itself in Kitchener’s more quiet neighborhoods. But seeming cosmopolitan and stranded may be the only thing that works against the poor little tapas bar. It’s certainly not the food. And though I can’t help but argue that people would prefer it in the deep down depths of the city, especially if they want to drink and eat and drink some more, the better part of me knows eaters will have no scruples about making the uncool trek to its little strip station.
Beggarhood makes me a scrupulous gourmand, but Public gave me no excuse for some of the tastiest food I’ve had in the city’s haute circles. Yes, tapas are usually a little pricey, but for a generous hour Thursday and Friday nights you can have some of the most aggrandized dishes for a ridiculously reasonable price, and maybe a little something extra to splurge on.
Splurge I certainly did. I got everything I could, a heaping bowl of mussels for two in a bright sweet Romesco sauce, a cassoulet of white beans and stewed pork, bruschetta, patatas bravas, all at 5 dollars apiece. It was almost cruel getting everything I did for so little. To absolve my guilt, I added rolled taquitos with an avocado mousse. It was a lounger’s dream.
The mussels were the favourite, brought out first and accompanied by thin crisp twice baked fennel speckled bread. Saffron made it glow, red peppers and tarragon (I like to imagine) made it sunny and citrus like; and a mysterious sweetness had me flabbergasted, challenged by its flavor and in love with elements that made it Asian in its phantasmagoria of taste. The cassoulet was nostalgic. Creamy stewed beans and tender pork hock infused the dish with a smoky savoury flavour my company and I were fighting over.
Next, our bruschetta, riddled with vegetable ratatouille and garnished with pecorino cheese, cubes of salami, and a pungent ramp pesto had me a little leery, if only because the pesto looked too fresh for something available only a month out of the year. Still, it was another incredible dish, with mellow tender vegetable compote cooked enough to maintain body and bite. I liked the chewy alien texture of the salami in the medley, the softer bread, but would have preferred something a little warmer in my mouth if only to prevent the cheese from becoming a little elastic. Still, it did nothing to ruin the thing.
The patatas bravas were certainly the heartiest. Crisp potatoes dusted with paprika were paired with a simple aioli sauce that left a distant brassy finish on the tongue; and though the dish had an otherwise bland pairing, nothing stopped us from dipping our potatoes in everything else. Unorthodox? Don’t ask me, I don’t know. But I liked doing it. And playing with food didn’t stop there.
Our taquitos, rolled and stuffed with chorizo and Oaxaca cheese, came with an assembly of avocado mousse and spicy oil painted on the plate. And taking the small but potent side salad of cilantro, lime, and peppery arugula, gave us eaters a fun food palate to paint, combine, and create with. It was something neither of us had any objections to enjoying. I’m almost conflicted with the ever changing menu; sad to see good things go, but excited to see what else the place can cook up. For the city’s only tapas focused bar, I don’t see the necessity to change, but I certainly see the passion. Regardless, I am privileged to have tasted the effort.
PUBLIC KITCHEN & BAR
295 b Lancaster Street West
Kitchener, Ontario N2H 4V4
(519) 954-8111
Thu – Sat: 5pm-1am
Sun: 5pm – 10 pm
ANY PAYMENT
Lately, life has furnished me with a rather abject existence. Without any culinary compatriot by my side, I’ve found myself free to chase whatever culinary novelty without the slightest inconvenience. And the city’s only policed food truck has occupied me with a fun game of cat and mouse that no doubt those with work will find very inconvenient, especially when the city dictates when and where a food truck will go. Certainly, these particular dynamics make the food truck a frivolous venture unless eaters are free and enthusiastic enough to chase them down, especially if trucks are prevented to really go where the mouths are. The Schmuck Truck seems to be the city’s harebrained pilot project, testing to see if food trucks can be a viable business in our mid-sized city. Good for us, I suppose; especially good for the Schmuck Truck, privileged to monopolize, for now, on what seems to be a cosmopolitan trend. But I’m not losing any truck with the city’s culinary social experiments, finding it preoccupied my time for at least a day. I hope customers don’t have to compromise their location for it, or any food trucks in the future; otherwise, they’ll all run out of gas. But that’s enough of my lazy vehicular puns. Yes, the Schmuck Truck is a novelty for everyone obsessed with purchasing experience and consuming it through travel; but it also offers us what it considers gourmet options worthwhile of the chase, introducing different specialties as much as it can, and wants. That said, its changing menu is small, so that already gets a gold star from me; and its effort at gourmandizing food in a truck is reason for interest. Whether it succeeds or not is the other issue.
There’s typical salt of the earth fare: French fries, hamburgers, pulled pork sandwiches, elevated with creative haute cuisine combinations. I appreciate it all. I wouldn’t expect any less from a food truck. And I wouldn’t expect not to pay a marginally similar price to fixed restaurants. We can dream about the food truck bringing us cheaper meals with all the same pizzazz, but even the streets are rented.
And, of course, as challenging as my taste buds are, I opted for the most lofty entrees. A shrimp remoulade rice bowl: a kind of cold rice noodle salad with a peppery, tomato mayonnaise sauce, shrimp, coriander, and a smattering of lazily chopped vegetables; and an artichoke and spinach grilled cheese sandwich, packed with chopped artichoke, cream cheese, asiago cheese and mozzarella.
All in all, burgers and fries may have been better. Gourmandizing, at least for the items I got, seemed too challenging given the space they were made in (I assume, anyway). The remoulade in my bowl was flat and sour, and there was no cilantro to be found. I would have liked the usual uplifting Asian flavours that the dish attempted to mimic; things like lime juice, lemon grass, and of course, cilantro. It was an unfortunate combination which’s simulacrum just didn’t work. The rice noodles, purposely served cold, were unfortunately subject to being droughty and hardened. Some call this al dente; a stranger called it undercooked. It may work for pasta, but years in a Thai kitchen taught me if rice noodles are cooked and refrigerated they need to be blanched and cooled again if eaten cold because they dry out. The shrimp however, was the savoury savior of the dish- tender and adding flavor to an otherwise bland and sour dish. Micro sprouts added a great fresh earthiness, but weren’t enough to really draw attention away from what was wrong.
Our grilled cheese, sandwiched with rye, had me looking at it leerily. A deep brown had me wondering if the bread was burnt; but the forgivingness of rye absolved any suspicion. My qualm, and the stranger’s I shared it with, was that everything was overpowered with nothing but cream cheese, which was a crying shame, because there were a lot of great ingredients to be showcased.
Luckily, the Schmuck Truck is a fluid thing, and an option can be here today and gone tomorrow, so too can defective meal options. So if you find yourself on the verge of an abject existence, even if for a day, for the sake of novelty why not try and track it down? You never know, our dear city may never see another food truck again.
CASH ONLY
FOR DIRECTIONS AND TIMES CHECK ITS TWITTER: @SchmuckTruck1
I'd post the review here, but it belongs to the Record. So click the link for the full review! Enjoy!
-w
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
When curiously asking about the quality of Indian pastry this city has to offer, the conversation with a coworker of mine didn't really take off in any strange direction. He said that he would, like alot of us I'm sure, love to open a patisserie in Kitchener-Waterloo and make really decadent pastries and breads etc. Because then he'd be the only one. The only one. The only one that didn't order from a huge manufacturer. Could the mid-size city of Waterloo really ever deliver? Well, if I was trendier than I am, I would have known and could have told my co-worker that such a place exists, and that yes: Waterloo does have one. Only one. A shame? Not for the person running it. Yes, for all of our mouths, especially since being a patissier warrants the creation of many different pastries, and competition to be the best in town. In theory, that is. In France, probably. But when it comes to the only legitimate place in Waterloo, where the owner - a pleasant young woman with a pleasant French accent (or so I was told, I couldn't hear it at all) - has actually been to France and trained as a Patissier (that's pastry chef for those of you who don't know), she can pretty much charge as much as she wants and expect you'll pay it, just so you can say: "oh, darling, I went to this quaint little patisserie," leaving out, "this quaint little patisserie that's been overshadowed by a 25 story apartment complex immediately beside it," and seem more cultured, and in the know, not taking into account the overworked woman who runs the joint, because you yourself worked hard to bag your rich husband too y'know. I feel for her, I really do. The rich woman, that is.
Sablétine: Fine Pastries is a quaint little patisserie located on the outskirts of Uptown Waterloo, and I'm positive I wouldn't have found out about it if my stay-at-home-mom-sister (no, my mom isn't my sister - my sister is a mom who stays at home) hadn't told me, regardless of the fact that it's located in the same plaza where my mother pays a hefty sum to get our small dog shaved (almost to death). But, I'm glad she did. Why? Psshh. You. . . always asking, why? You know I'll tell you. Because Sablétine is the real deal. So real that you'd literally have to come right when the doors open so you can get a good grab on whatever it is they're making that day. And, contrarily, so real that you'd have to make a pretty penny to afford it. Say "monopoly" with me. For now, anyway. But hey, that's what makes for an awesome culinary adventure. I was pumped knowing it was like a race. No one would get to those doors before me - except for the old people that were there and comfortably seated, at 9:30 a.m., on a Saturday. And it had only opened for an half-hour so far. During the weekdays it opens even earlier. I would have been earlier, but I couldn't find my camera. Sirrah. Just be glad I got no one in my shots, or next to no one, the place was about as cramped as a Tokyo subway; but no one was forcing me to stay there - though they do serve coffee. On that note, I'll talk about the atmosphere. Hey, why not? But, I bet you can guess it anyway. A window sill, light coming in and washing over an open concept kitchen, a big stove, a pile of bagets, a disaply case with expensive pastries - delicious, expensive pastries. And the ever present smell of puff pastry and butter. Like I said, it's quaint. It's quaint, it's decadent, it's full of old women knocking elbows with young 24 year old men trying to blog about food. But how many times can I say quaint and decadent in this post? Enough to get the point across. It's a pleasant, though crowded space. And besides, you can't talk French - Parisian French, not Francophone French - without using those words at least 157 times. I did the math. It's so quaint, it's so decadent that the fresh baguettes they sell aren't even bagged. Oh no! They're wrapped delicately in napkin, comme en France. Yes, I was reminded of the stories of my mother who, with my father would go to the bakers early in the morning while on stays in France and get their bread the same way, and how by 9 o'clock at night my father would be hungry and irritated by the fact that nothing in France is opened after 9. But that was a long time ago.
I won't complain about the prices. Because I, like a well developed Philip K. Dick character, can accept the indifferent nature of reality and the injustice one may think it causes. But as I've mentioned before, this is a legitimate establishment, with someone trained in the art of pastry making, and they can therefore legitimately charge what they like. So use discretion before going into a place like this. I can tell you this, I bought two dessert pastries, two croissants, a cinnamon bread stick, and some puff pastry (like a croissant) all near 20 dollars. Those fresh out of the oven pastry like fineries come to near 2 dollars each, and the only thing that really warrants buying them is the propoganda you may get for yourself after shopping at the place, because they taste more or less like other pastries you can buy immediately in the grocery store. But, after all, it's the experience isn't it? And how could you blame someone who religiously gets up at 3 am to bake in order to make a living? Hmmm? I didn't think so. So accept it and move on. The desert pastries are another story. Ranging from 1.75 to around 5.00 dollars a piece + tax. And believe me, some of them are tiny. But goodness are they a riot to look at. I still haven't eaten them all.
You can't feel bad about the price if the taste is there, just like you can't feel bad about the taste if the price is right (but I can). So then, let's approach this nice little hierarchy shall we? Starting with the everyday staples on the bottom.
Having dragged my mother along (my Italian one, not my Thai one), and being as good a son as I could be, I let her have her choice of whatever and report to me how it felt (in her mouth). She's fed me these past 24 years, I could at least do the same. We were both dazzled by the fact that the puff pastry had some kind of ganache filling in its centre. But that was about as dazzling as it got. For that anyway. My mom reported that the pastry itself was rather doughy, and that the ganache tasted like any other chocolate. I likened it to Nutella; that delicious hazelnut spread, absent from many of my young Italian childhood mornings. Alas, Sho ga nakatta. The croissants, like I said, didn't fall far from the puff pastry tree. But they didn't taste bad. They were good. But for two dollars a piece, they should have tasted better. What's more, a good observation on my mother's part, was that some of what came out of the oven looked a little too dark. We were lucky enough to have been given the golden ones in our paper bag. My mom made another good observation that could only be realized by someone who's lived and worked so long around food herself: that someone so young would be a little overwhelmed by the amount of business they do. So, some quality might be sacrificed. Especially in a city where a place like this hasn't existed before and everyone loves being - that's right, "decadent." I did like the cinnamon stick, sweet, flaky, yet held together by some immaculate, firm, moist, spongy dough. And as for the pastries I bought: one being near 3.00 dollars, the other near 5.00. Let me tell you. One was an eclair, like, a geniune, real french eclair; and I haven't had a good eclair in 5 solid years - actually, I haven't actually had a good eclair because I never tried one until now. This was no doughy, soft, chewy eclair; but, slender, glazed, with bite, and enough firm character to stand on its own. It was a sweet punch to my face. It made me want to shadow box. And what can I say about my near 5.00 coconut tart? Delicious. Not a tart at all, really. A delicate and mild custard enclosed by a strong crust that I can only liken to a shortbread, but with more body. I haven't eaten anything like it. And to top it off, a typical whipped cream, flavoured and topped with coconut. At least I know where the quality is going, which would make sense. Why any patissier would want to lose face is beyond me. I mean, croissants, puff pastries, baguettes: small potatoes, like a bowl of steamed rice, or decently cooked pasta. They're just everyday staples of culinary execution; the real test comes in the wok, the sauce, the dessert. Why else does ganache and panache sound so similar? Cyrano was French after all.
So, heed the warnings from this ghost of Valentine Present: sure, you COULD go to the grocery store and pay .25 cents per croissant, 1.25 per baguette, but where's the risk? Where's the excitement? Most of all, where's the adventure? What fun is food if you can't look, and work for it? So I say, bag a rich husband if you can, all for the sake of sweet Sablétine. Adieu, Adieu.
Sablétine Fine Pastries
203 King Street S.,
Waterloo, Ontario
519.568.7373
http://www.sabletine.com/
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