Say Cheese

*Alas, CLOSED down.

Joey and I were despondent. Full of ennui. It was cool, muddy, clouds were rolling in, snuffing out the city with black. Hong Kong tea couldn’t even help us. We watched a couple sit alienated next to each other while we waited for our cups. It broke our hearts. We were lovelorn. What else could we do but ask complete strangers where to eat? We argued, we broke cardinal food writing rules. We went after places not even open a month. Went in, sat down, read menus, lamented, left. Defeated and driving in the dark.

It was near 9 o’clock before we saw Joe Fromaggio’s bright yellow lights calling us late into the night.

It was a nostalgic space for me; I recalled last summer on EI, pining for a waitress day after day, hunkering down with barflies, waiting for afterhours every single night. Its space still held onto some residuals of its old design: floodlights, polished tables, smooth wooden chairs. Only now, it was like the home of a newly minted urbanite trying to reconcile his own Thoreauvian guilt by adding rough wood paneling and forest greens, as well as kitsch that explicitly showed a bizarre obsession with cheese. Of course, this is Joe Fromaggio’s selling point. The name says it all. Sure, I thought it was something Italian, it’s everything cheese and novelty. Is there any other way to live? Not here. You can’t escape the stuff on the menu, but I’m not sure you’d want to. The combinations are a riot. Joey and I couldn’t stop laughing. Grilled cheese sandwiches, and even sushi, with macaroni; some with Sriracha, that popular pervasive internet hot sauce, a confusingly popular condiment for cooks everywhere; pastas, and sandwiches made with what the place wants you to believe are leftovers. If you’re in a good mood, you probably can’t wait to come back. I was already imagining what I’d get next time, before even ordering anything. We started by splitting an appetizer of sirloin spring rolls. Shanghai style wanton wrapped around burger beef, pickles, onions, and of course, cheese. It was a fantastic idea, and even more delicious. Savoury, rich and dripping with cheese, tongue tingling with pickles, so greasy it would put BP to shame. The worst culinary oil slick Joey and I ever came across. There was enough oil left over on our plates to fry whatever else we wanted. But damn was it fun and gluttonously satisfying. Next, Joey asked for deep fried risotto balls, fried darker than we would have visually preferred, but not enough to do any damage. We weren’t particularly impressed, however. Creamy innards sprinkled with bright green peas were bland and carried only with a stale pungency brought on by paprika. The dish was accompanied by a pasty marinara I thought raw and obligatorily peppered with spice.

My meal was one of many novel grilled cheese sandwiches on the menu. They called it the ‘Life Changer’: a peanut butter and aged cheddar sandwich sacked with bacon and sprinkled with, yes, Sriracha. I chose to accompany my entrée with a side of cheddar ale soup. Cheesier than I would have preferred too, it wasn’t reminiscent of a good chowder for me. A little too thick, a little too salty, and without any elements from the ale it was made with. It was a crying shame for a side.

My sandwich came to me on marbled rye, grilled golden without a hint of char anywhere on the bread. It worked well. Neither peanut butter nor cheese were stealing each other’s thunder. It was always a savoury bite of cheese, followed by a smoky bang of bacon, finished with peanut butter that lingered on the palate. And if you think I’m missing something, you’re right. The Sriracha, unfortunately, was barely there. It appeared once in a while, but usually when I peeled back a slice and scraped it off of wherever I could find it. A crying shame too, the sandwich really could have changed my life.

Joe Fromaggio

50 Westmount Road N,

Waterloo, Ontario

N2L 6N9

​

(519) 884-8558

Mon - Fri: 11:30 am - 12:00 am

Sat & Sun: 12:00 pm - 12:00 am

ANY PAYMENT

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Accusations as a Gastronomic Good-For-Nothing

It’s been a good year, I imagine, since Cheeses Murphy first read the review I wrote about them. I also imagine they’ve been stewing in my words ever since, angry at me for what I considered an honest review.

It’s been at least four months since some slandering words were thrown my way for that same review. But I reckon everyone’s had enough time to cool off. That said, I was never really angry in the first place. I couldn’t care less. Still, if my trivial career in food writing is on the line, even in the slightest, I reckon I should do the folks at the Princess a turn of service and give them a second once-over, with perspective, so we can all get away from the smoke and mirrors of branding, flashy rhetoric, cool trends, and Kelly Kapowski. So we can all focus on grilled cheese and all of its manifestations. So expect no flash from me. This is straight and to the point. And this time, to be sure I wasn’t acting from any position of bias, I brought two more mouths with me. My gastronomic bro: Joe, and a second accomplice, who is indifferent whether or not he remains nameless. But he did, after all, buy our sandwiches. Buddha knows Joey and I couldn’t have done it alone, so it only made sense to have a mole. So I’ll spare his handsome self and his handsome name.

I’d like to say much has changed. It’d do my heart good to tell the world Cheeses Murphy took my criticisms and elevated their grilled cheese even higher. Their angry lamentations to me implied that I was being unfair the first time; that, maybe, it was a bad night; that, maybe, I misread the situation. I had no qualms about hoping so. So when Joey and Nameless and I put all those grilled cheeses on the table we were ready to put my foot in my mouth. You could cut the suspense with a butter knife, or Joey’s anti-climactic words when we unwrapped that first sandwich. They were poignant, honest, full of truth, and that’s why I liked them. Because they didn’t have to come from my mouth. Joey’s surprise was an elegy to what I had said disapprovingly in the past, and this time for more or less every sandwich we ordered- which was every sandwich on the menu. Who would have thought four words of, ‘Fuck, man, that’s burnt’ would have described our grilled sandwiches’ bread so fully. And yet, there they sounded. Burnt, oversaturated with butter that slicked your fingers and gave an unwelcomed, greasy sheen to the tinfoil they were wrapped in. Chewy crust, bread that easily lost any kind of crunchy bite given to it on the grill because it was sodden and heavy with butter. We could feel our thighs getting larger. We were all in agreement; we would have liked a lot less butter. There’s something to be said when you can squeeze a sandwich’s bread and it oozes.

My second frustration came with uneven toppings, yet again. A year later. The only reason why any kind of accusation as a gastronomic good-for-nothing might have irked me. In retrospect, I should be relieved that I wasn’t delusional. Still, I can’t help but be a little dissatisfied; feeling that Cheeses Murphy’s poor quality control and my telling you about it will work against me.

 

Our Pizza Sammich, topped with mozzarella, pepperoni, sauce, and black olives was anything but. Not enough sauce to taste, only enough to colour the inside a faint orange, 3 halves of black, briny olives, and squeaky pepperoni that was cured, but not cooked as far as I was concerned. None of us liked it.

The Cheese and Chong, arranged with ground beef, cheddar cheese, fresh cilantro, and chipotle sour cream was the one we liked the most. But the one I would have liked more if the cilantro wasn’t all sprinkled to one side. Again, a whole year later. To add insult to injury, it did nothing to flavor the thing. It was lost. What good is fresh cilantro if you can’t taste it? If it does no good to cut through strong cheddar, and buttery bread? The chipotle sour cream did combat this overpowering saltiness with a little spice and balmy deluge, and that was something I could appreciate. Still, without cilantro, it felt too heavy, especially with all the butter.
 
The Sticky Frenchman could also learn a lesson about balance. Brie and caramelized apples seem simple enough, and yet, you could rub the things together and hear them squeal. The apples weren’t so much caramelized as they were glazed in a syrup. Still crisp, not soft. And normally, given the other textural dynamics of the thing, crunchy could do good against soft, but not here. Everything was too wet. Buttery collapsible bread, syrupy apples, so sweet they overpowered the brie, and salty everything else.

Then there was the Lumberjack. Thick cut, supposedly smoked, ham that had no smoky quality about it, gruyere cheese, and mustard. Surprisingly, I didn’t mind it too much. Sadly, the ham’s luke warm quality distracted any eating away from the other warm appendages. The pungent gruyere, the mild mustard, which was fun to taste in the undergrowth. I saw potential for something better, if only the ham’s spongy quality didn't make me cringe as I chewed it.

Everyone was on the level with the Cheeses Murphy bacon-jam and cheddar cheese sandwich. Super salty and sense numbing with bacon and strong cheddar; we were strangely satisfied. Or armed to the teeth with PBR. We couldn’t tell if we wanted it to be sweeter, or if it was supposed to be, for that matter; still, we accepted it, nonetheless. The overpowering saliferousness of cheese, butter, and bacon could make anyone comatose, and with chewy, saturated bread, it became a paradoxically comforting mess.

And there you have it. More perspective. Another review. All and all, for the Cheeses Murphy crew. It’s in the past. We can forgive ourselves. We can all move on and eat. My soul can finally rest. My voluptuous stirrings for Laura can still stir. Say hi to her for me, Cheeses Murphy. Tell her I still love her. Jackie, too. I’m happy she’s healthy. I’m happy we can all let this pass.

Cheeses Murphy
46 King St. N. Waterloo
FRI & SAT 12-330AM

CASH ONLY- tax included.

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The Infamous Gastronomer

In attempts to fulfill my misspent twenties and thereby cross off whatever section on my life's bucket list, at least until Ms. Wu beckons me back to the hills of Gukeng where I can continue working on the family's tea farm, I found myself applying for whatever job lay in wait in Waterloo's culinary landscape. You know? To pass the time.

Luckily, someone told me Princess Cafe was giving employment a go, and while I was leery of my ability to procure work with the place, I couldn't help but elbow myself into applying for whatever mediocre, underemployed position it offered, but just until I get the call for delivery driver at Boston Pizza. 

Looking more familiar than I probably should have, I said my hellos, handed in my extensive resume, and waited if there were any other questions. There was.

Its proprietor, sporting his everyday dracule haircut, and his habitual short sleeve plaid shirt combo, asked if I was the guy who wrote food reviews. Now, I WAS a guy who wrote food reviews, I don't know if I was THE guy, but that's a different beast altogether. Anyway, I complied, humoured him with a 'yes,' and then had his assurance that he would never hire me.

I asked why? He said because I wrote about Cheeses Murphy, and then reiterated, I'm sure in his mind with something a little wittier and gastronomer shaming, that he would never hire me.

I probed further. I asked what exactly he didn't like about my review, and he responded with a resounding, "It's cunty. It's just cunty. It's cunty." Over and over, and over again. As an aside, I hope he's a feminist trying to reclaim the word, otherwise, that's total slandering, innapropriate, and sexist language, and I hope every woman who goes there questions his use of the word.

What I would have preferred was an honest explanation of why my articulate, honest review, written almost a year ago, was so dissatisfying beyond ascribing it with such a hateful word.

I respected his opinion, even in lieu of his scenester, Ramones sweatshirt wearing employee cowering in the corner and snickering as if also trying to shame me like I'd just been served with the illest hook. But I felt I really didn't do anything wrong, besides give a good honest review, unless otherwise admitting not to. I humbly left, saving my smile for the exit, because when I did leave, I felt nothing but infamy. The people cared, maybe only when I disagreed with something they did, but they cared, and that made me feel pretty good about myself. 

But my own infamy aside, what would have actually shamed me and impressed me about Princess Cafe's owner would have been a genuine response as to why he felt my review wasn't an honest assessment. In an ideal world, attempting to hire me in hopes of changing my opinion about the food, or showing me how good the food really is would have really changed my world view. In a more civil world, after a solid year's time of holding a grudge and hoping for the day where the place gets to confront me, I would hope they would, after assessing my review, ask me instead to try their food yet again, because we really got off on the wrong foot and it's really improved. But if it's not their ego, it's mine. And it's a crying shame. My review was harsh, I admit, so harsh that there was rumour I had shut it down months after- and I didn't bother to ask them about the review I wrote about the actual cafe almost two years ago, which could be just as harsh, I don't know. Again, I think it's honest. And I'm sure as I left, he and his employee had a good hate fest, stewing in their juices about how I'm some sort of 'cunty' food writer who thinks he's all that. I'll accept that as a good possibility; but it's a small sacrifice if it means they did consider my critique and used it, even if not admittedly, to improve something as novel as a grilled cheese sandwich, which, again, should be phenomenal if you're going to sell it to inebriated undergrads at 3:00 am. Bridges . . . you never know where you're gonna burn 'em.

So, I guess this is goodbye, Princess Cafe. I can't particularly say I'll miss your acrid coffee, your flacid cappucinos, your platitudinous paninis. I will however miss the chance to be a part of your team if only to contribute to the improvement or passion that is desperately needed in your food, not just part of a cafe that depends on rhetoric, and Rotello decor. I'll especially miss Laura, the girl behind the counter who I'm pretty sure doesn't work there anymore. Yes, Laura; she was like a sexy cross between an un-crazy Miley Cyrus and even sexier Kat Dennings. Oh, the hours I spent in that place reading Japanese and pining away for any bit of conversation with her. So Laura, if you're reading this, get in touch, I'd like to take you out for dinner. Maybe for grilled cheese. Until then, I'll have to lament the fact that I'll have to get a grown up job with my two graduate degrees, diploma, and fluency in multiple languages. It's tough, but I'll get through it, thanks to the Princess Cafe's stern, woman shaming, proprietor. Again, I thank you, まだまだ強くなれる.


Love, 

The 'Infamous' Weezee

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