The Ghost Ship

A wacky Black Friday weekend had Joey re-entering the Great White North with a consolidating cold, and I had just the cure for what ailed him. Him and my own trembling heart. Food I had come to know and love quite well, striking the wok for two good years of my life. So it was no wonder when, just a week earlier, we passed what I had reviewed last February as the Sushi Boat, sunk, and salvaged now by the Red Ginger Modern Thai Viet Cuisine restaurant. Yes, another place built on what seems to be one of the city’s many cursed locales. Will it last? Time, obviously, will tell.

At the risk of sounding redundant, I was nagged by the strange feeling that I had been there before. I was jaded, yet again. Black and red walls, dim lighting, inappropriate, but clearly unintentional ornaments. Those fish stenciled on the walls were still there, as if ghostly pulses still stirring from the dreaded place it once was, and, strangely, still was. It was Joey and I, and no one else gazing at a long, somewhat familiar menu. Long, familiar, and more expensive than I would have liked, which may be one of few thrilling setbacks to Red Ginger restaurant. Yes comrades, I’ve had my fill of 3 dollar Vietnamese coffees and can’t help but feel a little cheated when similar restaurants scatter the city’s landscape with much cheaper cheques. So before you enter, be marginally prepared.

Before we were well on our way to ordering, Joey strained with the waiter for soup, soon calmed by my suggestion that he get a small bowl of pho, lest he want something he couldn’t finish. But admittedly, I was wrong. Finish he did, in no time, and while I waited for my papaya salad, sticky rice, and tamarind sauté, the smells were breaking my heart, reminiscing with my past self about the cold days I spent in Mummy’s kitchen- my old Thai employer- warmed by chili peppers, wok hei, and insurmountable amounts of coffee mixed with coconut milk and honey. But pleasant remembrances were few and far between, my glazed gaze broken by the chintzy soup Joey was slurping. Barely any onions, greens, and no coriander to be seen. I told him he’d be better off eating it at my house. But again, eat it he did. 


And it seemed a good eternity before my papaya salad was brought to me, especially since we, like the fish on the wall, were the only other specters occupying the restaurant that night. 

I was visually apprehensive about the look of the thing, piled atop a julienne of crunchy pale green papaya, were dull whole peanuts, squeezed together with immature tomatoes, garlic, more fish sauce than I would have liked, sugar, and the squashed rinds of lime. How those, along with the knarly end piece of garlic wound up in the dish wasn’t beyond me, but it certainly did a good job of adding to my frustration with the pricey appetizer. I hoped my rice would get me back on track to a pleasant meal, but I was served with another fickle purchase. A knobby square of sticky rice, steamed to dryness in some corners lay in wait, and all I could think about were the mounds Mummy and I would pile into a wicker basket and give to customers. Still, I did what I could to enjoy it, rolling it and dipping it in the sweet salty dressing.

There's that rind again . . .

The tamarind sauté was a fabulous change, and not something I catch in many other places. Slices of beef battered and deep fried were stir fried along with red peppers and deep fried onions in a sweet tamarind sauce. Charred by the wok, and nuanced by ginger, each airy protuberant piece delivered that bright sugary flavor I wanted with anything tamarind, and any chewiness helped it all linger. It was a fabulous choice, and everything I expected. Two could have easily shared it, but it was for my stomach only. The Red Ginger on the other hand, isn’t wholly for my heart.

Red Ginger Modern Thai Viet Cuisine
465 Highland Rd W,
Kitchener, ON
N2M 3C6

519-954-8088


SUN-THU: 11:00 am- 9:30pm
FRI & SAT: 11:00 am- 10:00pm

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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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Dollars to Donuts

Muscled onto the 401 by three Mack trucks mere car lengths before our exit, your enraged narrator and his despot compatriot, Joey, found themselves driving, driving, driving yet again- without any cellphone service, without any direction, without any canteens (that I haven’t already been to), lost first on the bucolic roadways of Ayr, then Cambridge, and then, hours later- cars later- in the downtown of our boondock sibling city, Elmira, which by the way, I didn’t even know had a downtown. A downtown that’s only a few block long mind you; but, a downtown nonetheless. And as a quick aside, if you’re from Elmira, and find yourself angered by my own ignorance, don’t be, I’m already angry at myself for not knowing its dives, its expensive dollar stores, and its damn friendly locals, who seem to have had a radar for two guys who don’t live in the town and came off as the kind of folk who drive Mack trucks and muscle people onto the highway. Seriously though, the amount of hellos, ‘can I help you’s, parables, and blushing school girls were uncanny. I can’t for the life of me remember so much charm, especially when I spent a good deal of my own youth terrorizing so many parties in its neighbourhoods as a teenager.

That said, today was no different, because it wasn’t long before Joey and I were polling residents, comin’ off as big city folk, askin’ for the three best places to eat, laughing because there were only three places to eat, having strangers interrupt strangers, making jeunesse teenage girls feel embarrassed by the sojourning temperament of their town, wishing they could, like Joey and I, come from the big city where we sauna, drive recklessly, and drink all of our parents' vermouth. 

But eventually, we settled for the most amusing novelty suggested, a Mennonite diner called Donuts & Deli, chaperoned to the spot by one of the locals, this time an old lady on her way to the hardware store. Are your hearts gushing yet? They should be, it happened. 

And so there it was, unconceited, nowhere near overblown, filled with storeys, filled, no doubt, with stories, painted plain with walls the shade of emerald somewhere and lime somewhere else, old oak wood, eggwashed ceilings, Kulture, gold ambience, quilts, bread, it was like being baked into your grandmother’s meringue and left out for days. We loved it. Its cheap banana splits, its donuts, its baked goods, its bizarre house specials. Its life lessons. Joey’s being, that for a diner you should expect the food it gives you. So, if a plate says taco salad, don’t expect fixings in a tortilla bowl, expect nacho chips crumbled over salad with cheese. 

I want to write about Donuts & Deli, dear readers, but I don’t want to be honest. Not at all. The governing gourmand in me says, ‘No,’, but the novel seeking adventurer says, ‘Yes’, all the way with Donuts & Deli. It was a confusing escape. I ordered the day’s special, chucked ham and cheese on a Kaiser, broiled, mashed, tough around the edges, a salty, buttery mess that set my stomach on fire, that destroyed me cognitively, releasing dopamine from eating something that was so bad it was good. Combine that with a ridiculously inexpensive price and no one could resist even the most ill-suited thing on the menu of a diner run by Mennonites. Again, I’m talking about the taco salad. It’s so far removed from restaurants, it can’t be judged. 

The locals loved the food they were eating, they asked if we got what they got. They loved their egg salad sandwiches, Joey his turkey sandwich, his potato sausage soup. The stuff was dull as dishwater, but we knew we’d be coming back- for breakfast, for donuts, for girls in bonnets, for the baked goods we love because they’re simply nostalgic. How could we not. Like the blue hair leaving the place told us, ‘better soup with a friend, than steak with the Enemy.’ Damn right, darlin’, damn right.

Elmira Donut & Deli
22 Church St W,
Elmira, ON
N3B 1M3
519-669-5353

PAYMENT: CASH DEBIT

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