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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
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
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
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