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Wayfaring for food with Joey has once again taken me to the farthest reaches of the region’s culinary landscape. But dread not fellow eaters, because I still managed to keep my iron stomach in town, though this particular place may be a ways in our culinary pond. Still, if you are like me, the chancing culinary type, you would risk wandering somewhere far for something potentially good, as Joey and I do, and always seem to be doing lately, our meandering mouths aptly choosing a place that suits the wilds its situated in. I’m talking about the Rabbid Fox. Not particularly wild, but in the wilds of Kitchener, as wild and suburban as things can admittedly get. And as wild as the place allows its actual essence to be, its selling point being that, as rabid as the fox is, it has a ‘twist.’
The flushed aroma of beer hit us hard, and the patrons at the bar would have otherwise intimidated us if we hadn’t been, by some act of Providence, dressed for the occasion. Yes, Joey and I fit in well, what with his handle bar mustache and my thermal undershirt button-front combo. But that’s enough small talk.
There’s nothing particularly rabid about the Rabbid Fox, unless you consider its attempt at pretension, because behind its manifesto one will discover, as I did immediately walking through its proletariat sports bar decorated with lethargic, unwincing browns, hockey jerseys, and flat screens commingling with a dining section that can only remind a person of those large mysterious mansions we see while driving in the countryside, no doubt belonging to misanthropic surgeons, that the Fox is just a gastro pub. Certainly, the butcher paper tablecloths and silverware combination cements the conception.
And, like all gastro-pubs, the Fox does everything it can to coalesce the best of the two rivaling sibling worlds that have existed ever since the birth of the Market. So much so, that the special of the day was escargot; combine that with poutine and you might have some sort of sibylline utopia. I’ll never know.
Nevertheless, you can have a hardy, but well thought out meal for just under 20 dollars. I can’t deny my interest in all of the things I wanted to combine on the menu, offering trivialities and house specials which did catch Joey and my fancies.
We started with the saganaki appetizer, a Greek cheese flambéed in an anise flavoured liquor, contrasting salty and sweet powerfully by way of melted, curdled cheese mellowing in a wonderfully reduced syrup of liquor. If we were patient, we would have taken our time to dip our flat breads in the stuff, but we were having too much fun piling cheese on bread and chewing away. I had to settle for dipping my knife in the stuff when all was good and done, it was that fantastic.
Next, I was misdirected by the waitress into trying the bar’s special Po’Boy sandwich, stacked with sliced beef, cheese, caramelized onions, deep fried pickles (the coup de grace), and a creole sauce. I had high expectations that fell too short for it, and all Po’Boy sandwiches in this town, because I’ve never really had one I’ve enjoyed, simply because they’ve never been done well. My bun was soft and warm, my beef, boiled, fatty and bland, which did no good to balance the textural quality of the bread. The caramelized onions too were weak and squeaky, with no real flavour. Half way through I found myself pulling out my deep fried pickles before they lost any composure, but I’m always a sucker for the things. I thought maybe the dipping sauce it came with was reason for its dull composure, but it just made it a salty mess, visually reminiscent of some oil spill somewhere. Too bad.
Now, the Fox’s locale may make eating there forgivable, but I can only hope my bad sandwich was the only bad undomesticated thing on the menu.
THE RABBID FOX
123 Pioneer drive,
Kitchener, ON(519) 748-2404
Mon - Tue: 11:00 am - 11:00 pm
Wed - Sat: 11:00 am - 1:00 am
Sun: 11:00 am - 10:00 pm
PAYMENT: VISA MASTERCARD DEBIT CASH
A Table for Maple is the epiphanic name of a 'local foodie's' blog which, to the trained, critical, culinary eye, appears as nothing more than a blog rhetorically pandering with a bombardment of instagram photographs nostalgically turning the author into some individual of some charmed, experienced circle. Obviously, this is a dangerous thing, because Maple, whoever she is, is just that. A foodie. Not a journalist. Not a food writer. And it's this irresponsibility that makes food writing a laughable thing, and a destructive thing to the poor restaurants who do their best to serve, but have individuals eat, without perspective, or proper knowledge, and post their thoughts about the place on their blogs. But I won't go into that. There is no need. Not in Maple's case. Her short sentences, her pandering photos- all obvious contemporary requisites appealing to the market. Again, flashy rhetoric. But the red flag for me, was Maple's 'To Be Reviewed' page. A page of restaurants the foodie wishes to review in the future, if not already, which explicitly states at the top
'*Not interested in chain restaurants.'
Yet, poor Maple does just that. She lists chains and has visited chains, and makes no apology for doing so, even when I requested she change her interests (feel free to check our twitter conversations). Obviously, a dangerous thing. Because clearly, Maple doesn't do her research, and assumes she knows what's what. That something's originally placed, when in fact it isn't. Not only is Maple a bad food blogger, she's a bad journalist, and has little integrity, because she'd rather post a reply of 'Nah' so as to not bruise her own ego, or justify her actions by meaning 'non-local corporate chains', whatever that means. But if being really picky, there are still some on her list. I can think of two. And I will name them if you ask me. That's the biggest red flag of them all. She doesn't care about being honest, or restaurants, as far as I'm concerned. She only cares about herself.
So what do we do? Well, I can't do much more than what I've done, which is bring attention to it. It's up to you dear readers, to suggest Maple have some integrity and reassess what she aims to speak about, without elevating herself to a more worthy authority by 'being local', and caring about 'local' business, because she's not. She's lost in a Bourdieuian mess of cultural capital. Trying to join the ranks of people hypnotized by ecologism, which is today's worst kind of consumerism.
I implore you all, please help before it's too late.
Love,
Weezee.
Joey’s stomach knows no bounds. And when it receives the call for a particular cuisine, not even a sushi spot where the host calls him handsome could make him choose otherwise. Not even a 2 hour’s drive could make him change his mind. No, it would only make him want it more. Even if it meant driving out of town; even if it meant driving to Cambridge. That’s right, my dreaded culinary wasteland. What keeps bringing me back to this place? A jaded palate in Kitchener-Waterloo, a big wide culinary world, and a little bit of serendipity, I suppose. But all that aside, I was humbled by Joey’s tenacity because it brought us to what I consider the only true Mexican restaurant between the two cities: El Rinconcito Mexicano. Forget the stalls, forget the tienda-esque Mexican places in Waterloo, they can’t compare. Its own name is even too humble for the sturdy meals that bolster it to local culinary admiration.
If you’re in the mood for Mexican, you’d be foolish not to make the journey to a fantastic, and already well received place like El Rinconcito. And if you already live in Cambridge: congratulations. You have somewhere worth eating.
El Rinconcito’s great kitchen is pulled together by its culturally themed dining room, well thought out with Mexico's colours, as well as edifice that you’d like to expect in any South American restaurant, but done well, even with whatever items of kitsch strewn along the walls, which surprisingly don’t unravel the illusion, but make it more inviting.
The menu is nothing short of manageable; reading it, you may think the prices daunting, but when you receive your meals, you’re most likely to change your mind, thinking you ordered too much, as Joey and I both did asking for sides of poloze soup, a phenomenal Mexican stew rooted in culinary ritual and complex flavor. Garnished with crisp diced lettuce and radishes, the maize based stew was reminiscent of nothing else but Creation. An earthy flavor bound up in its savoury tomato tart broth, and accented further by oregano and juicy pulled pork, the 5.99 dish came as a side, but could have easily been a meal all alone, especially with the deep fried, puffed up tortilla shells that accompanied it.
 |
| Pozole and laughter. |
We took our time extolling the dish, adding copious amounts of lime, dipping in constant shells, deciding that if anything came close to a garden, the pozole was it.
My entrée, another meal in itself, was a delightful, generous combination of gorditas, rice, and refried beans.
I can’t begin to describe how my sandwiches lifted my spirits. Stacked between two of the most texturally satisfying corn cakes was more pulled pork (my choice), creamy goat cheese, and a pungent, but reviving medley of bright coriander, onions and lettuce, which, it seemed in all of El Rinconcito’s dishes, do an excellent job of lifting up the heaviest of savory, otherwise over-satiating flavours. My chewy, but exteriorly crunchy gordita shells had a unique smoked corn quality that contributed to the pork’s meaty and reminiscent barbeque quality, even though stewed. And, contrary to what you may think, the goat cheese, though mild, took nothing away from the flavor.
My only qualm with the dish was the rice and bean sides. Though the beans tasted canny, and the rice, riddled with diced vegetables, and too familiar to the stuff we boil from boxes, I was imparted with some advice by another party joining Joey and I on our meal: we didn’t come for the rice and beans. I was apt to agree, even though it was my first time. I’d be apt not to, however, if everything wasn’t as delicious as it was. That said, it was delicious. It was food I could eat every day. I thank you El Rinconcito; eating is exciting again.
EL RINCONCITO MEXICANO
49 main street
Cambridge, Ontario
N1R 1V6
(519) 623-4100
CASH AND DEBIT
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