Touch the Lion

I’d be remiss if during my days of culinary ethnography I didn’t at least once wax nostalgic about a place so dear to me if only because it was dear, at one point in time, to my dear Old Master. Yes, its eaters made it famous; there was a time when even Bolo Yeung himself would occupy its dining room with none-other than the Iron Fist. And there are still times when my dear brother and I visit, romancing the newspaper clippings proudly mounted on its lobby’s walls, honouring our Old Master, connecting us with him if only in the span of a lunch hour, and lamenting the fact that though we once did thousands of kicks under the moonlight as children, we don’t anymore. Life, huh? But no matter what it’s like, at least there’s food. 

Lai Lai Chinese Restaurant’s reputation obviously precedes it. And beyond its retrofitted, home exterior, beyond the stone lions guarding its doors, there’s good reason. To me, it lives as an extensive historical bricolage of the Chinese food offered in Kitchener-Waterloo for so long. Absorbed in a space of fish tanks, pastel pink walls, hanging dragons, a Buddhist library, and the passionate colours of Red China, there’s a dining room abuzz with familiar customers, some never tiring of typical Chinese Canadian fare, others always happy to have the most estranged eats. 

Lai Lai certainly has one of the most extensive menus I’ve seen too, and though I’m often jawing about how these dynamics can work against a place, Lai Lai’s has refused to pay it any mind for a long, long time. There are lunch specials, dinner menus, options that can take, so I’ve been told, up to half a day to prepare for the customer who so desires. Intense stuff.

To this day, we’re not yet that adventurous, but nothing stops us from a good communal ordering of the most sentimental food. Me, hoarding the most inexpensive bowl of braised beef noodle soup all to myself, and my company waiting on dumplings, fried eggplant in special sauce, and curried beef, ready, despite my own self-indulgence, to share every bit with me.

My soup was a joyful return to the warm spicey aromas I had spent years trying to cook all by my lonesome. Anise suffused in a sweet and savoury broth drowned soft noodles that entangled chewy cubes of stewed beef and crisp bok choy. Our fried eggplant carried the sweet and savoury motif with a little saltiness. Caramelized eggplant gave way in our mouths, crispiness juxtaposing the smooth pulp of the eggplant’s soft flesh. Our curried beef was a simple, familiar flavour of sambar powder stir-fried alongside crisp green bell peppers and onions. Lastly, our boiled dumplings were a chewy treat of roped wonton’s stewed in a savoury broth, exploding with pork and ginger, and accompanied by a vinegared dipping sauce of sesame oil and chili peppers.
But what we were and always are most excited about is Lai Lai’s special gelatin desserts; complimentary thimbles of gelatin flavoured with whatever the house could come up with: coconut, taro, red bean, the list goes on. They were as good as we remembered them, and Lai Lai’s still the paradise it always was in our minds.

Lai Lai's Chinese Restaurant
175 West Avenue
Kitchener, ON
Canada N2G 1R9
Tel:  (519) 579-3031


Monday & Sunday   11:30 am -  9:00 pm
Tuesday -Saturday  11:30 am - 10:00 pm
Holiday                   4:00 pm -  9:00 pm

Any payment

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Purity and Danger

*Enjoy this old, old post- that for some reason wasn't online. It is now. And check out Thrive. Menu changes all the time! My allusions to Academia... not so much.

To be honest, I wasn’t sure if it'd be worth setting foot in Thrive Juice Bar. My own eating prejudices did a good job of reminding me that a trendy and upscale place may not necessarily equate memorable, worthwhile food. More often than not, the food could be redundant and echo the meal options of so many of its counterparts today. It took a lot of guts to enter. If it wasn't the look of the space or the clientele within that made me feel undeserving, it certainly may have been the feeling that I wouldn't be satisfied with what was offered, and I don't like to offend. But hey, that's what menus are for, and since last week's good, almost serendipitous, food venture I figured I just may be able to make it a twofer. Or if anything, feel a little cleaner.

Thrive Juice Bar sets itself in the nitty-gritty of the Bauer lofts. And yes, I'm being ironic and misleading, though I can't see why not, especially in an area that was planned as an 'indoor market place' with a 'vibrant lifestyle of dynamic community.' But my job isn't to debate the semantics of cultural space, only the food that tries to match it and construct a fantasy lifestyle. Otherwise, Thrive Juice Bar is the perfect thing to deconstruct.


Beyond its exterior's glass walls not only do we view a fantasy screen of what our dining experience could be, but how we have access to a kind of social elevation by merely buying clean, healthy shakes and the brand products that are placed on the place's shelves (in case you need a healthy colon) and flat screen television over the bar. Its straight lines, mute grays, sleek blacks and shiny trimmings do good to express its clinical influences, and from there communicate to customers just how sophisticated Thrive is, mimicking the restaurants I know exist in the world but can't afford. This is merely just one symptom of today's trendy food scene. Empowering that dynamic is the space's placement of green. The sign with a leaf dotting the 'i' of the place's name, the bamboo plants growing out of glass centre pieces- all come together to signify that if you come in, you can very well come out feeling clean. It's those kind of things that make a devout eater a little wary.

I sat myself down at the bar making note of the intrusively loud music that echoed throughout the lofty space and asked the 'cook' behind the glass separating us if they offered food, not just drinks. Luckily, they did. It was food for clean living, and though I may already be exhausting the idea in this review, it's not without due cause. With expensive blended drinks full of energy boosts and proteins I know nothing about, as well as wheat grass shots with orange chasers, you better believe there's going to be an array of vegetarian and vegan meal options for a particular charmed circle of eaters. No meat though. I can respect that. Meat’s dirty. I sensed that the notion of liking to eat any animal compromised a little self purity and came with a little danger. I myself was grabbing my collar when one of the servers asked me after my meal if I was a vegetarian or vegan.

Thrive's no place for the faint of wallet either, the reason probably being the ‘clean,’ ‘healthy’ food you're paying for. Either that or the clientele they expect to attract is in an area built for bigger wallets. I've said before that palettes influence the food we eat; well, the same goes for social class.

When it came to 'eating' at Thrive, my conjecture was that what you were seen eating was more important than what you were actually eating. Don't get me wrong, the food has merit, but I couldn't help but wonder if it suffered from the residue of Nouvelle Cuisine. Regardless, it's a smorgous board for the health conscious eater. Vegan soups, vegan hamburgers, big green smoothies (8.99), melon salads, Japanese beans, vegan pad thai. Any association with green and clean, they have it. Although, they do have something called a dirty rice bowl. A good attempt at badassery; however, in the end, clean and good for you.
Mine would be a small meal, I knew right away. But maybe it could be salvaged by the healthy ingredients that were loaded with supplement powders. I started off with a kale Mojito. A Hemingwayian paradox in a place that, I'm sure, favours peace, good food and clean living; not fighting, fishing and- well, you know . . . What would Papa think' if he came here and asked for a Mojito made with kale? Either way, stuffed with fresh kale, lime juice and zest, as well as fresh mint and organic cane sugar and coconut water I was still interested in seeing if it had any life to it. I'd like to say it did. And even though it didn't have any unappealing kale flavour, I was kind of disappointed that it didn't taste a little original. I could taste the citrus, the mild mint, and a general sweetness expectedly given off by the sugar cane. No coconut though. In terms of having those general Mojito flavours, it hit the nail on the head. But again, I was expecting more. Setting my drink down and watching its ingredients separate into two homogenous parts I waited after I ordered an 8" oblong spelt pizza. I'll save you the suspense of its shape because I think the menu may have been referring to the size of the plate. Topped with sun dried tomatoes, artichokes, basil, arugula pesto and a mozzarella I've no urge to remember, the dish was a whopping 9.50. The spelt crust may have been a bad choice on my part. Resembling the dry, hollowed caverns of an unevenly baked flat bread it lacked that firm bitey that comes with the ideal pizza crust. And the attempt to drizzle olive oil over it did nothing to alleviate this flaw. Since there was no bread between the crust to absorb the oil and soften it, it just made the thing feel slippery and wet. Still, if there's anything to mention about the crust it's that it didn't lose its crisp constitution. The pesto was surprisingly bright, and the bitterness that is usually a big part of arugula absent, negated no doubt by the lemon in the sauce. This also worked against the pesto however, because in an attempt to hide any bitterness, the nuttiness that usually comes with arugula’s pungent bite was gone, and so was any nuttiness that came from the almonds used to make the sauce. To top it off, there was also an odd burnt underpinning to the pizza’s flavour, though I couldn't see any markings on the bottom of the crust. Maybe I was missing something. Ingredients were notorious for getting away from me, the cheese doing little to hold anything together. And though I can appreciate a little cheese on pizza- too much being a bad thing- too little can be just as bad, drying out and having a gluey texture doing nothing to lock any moisture in or keep ingredients on. I would have liked more cheese, and less oil if anything.


Near 20 dollars later I was still hungry. I had a desire for the desserts the television offered me, but thought I better cut my losses. Thrive's heart is in the right place, its drinks offer a lot of options, and its menu a pu-pu platter for healthy eaters, there being a little bit of something for everyone- from Korean BBQ tofu to, Ruben sandwiches. So, don't let me deter you; if anything, let your wallet.

Thrive Juicebar 
(519) 208-8808105-191 King St S
Waterloo, ON 
N2J 1R1 

Mon-Fri 9-6; Thurs-Fri 9-7; Sat 10-5

Any Payment

*Original publication 03/2011

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University Pub Showdown

*Posted at the request of one habitué to read whenever they so desire, and the same goes for all of you too. Enjoy. Or don't.*

I love you, dear readers. Believe me, I do. So much so, that I had every intention of fervidly spoiling our feuding University’s doppelganger food-hole cleverly named Wilf’s Restaurant & Bar.

You didn’t think anyone had the guts to do it, did you? You all thought about it. Well now we’re all assembled around our own dictatorships of thought. Everyone else knows that everyone else knows we all want the answer to which place is better: Wilf’s or the Bomb Shelter? Well, you can thank me, because now we all have a mutual knowledge. Consider me the boy that said the emperor has no clothes. More specifically, Wilf’s is bad, or The Bomber sucks eggs.

So, with The Imprint’s resident photographer, Bobby D- devote Bomber habitué- by my side, we were ready and willing to skull some culinary scores.
Wilf’s venue is sexy. I admit it. Thanks to dumb luck- or malaqueous domus - Wilf’s was shut down because of a flood, rebuilding, and becoming more beautiful. So, when you’re leery about your food’s quality and its prices, you now know why. You are, as is the cosmopolitan convention, paying for the atmosphere. That’s where I like to think all my money went. Deep browns, sleek woods, high tables, comfortably sized booths, hundreds of fancy new flat screen televisions (unlike the Bomber’s four), flood lights, rococo ceiling trims all compose the space, as does very friendly service. Should we extend this imagery further? I don’t see the need. Everyone who’s anyone has been to the Bomber. We know what it looks like. It certainly isn’t bar chic (it does have a patio, though). It is, pardon my analogy, the country mouse to Wilf’s city mouse. Yes, it was looking pretty good. Bobby was conflicted. He didn’t want to like it. Point for you, Wilf’s, point for you.

But how was the menu? More focused, Bobby said. I took his word for it. It was a good charted bill of fare with drinks listed first. Unorthodox, yes; but when done, seemingly more logical. And if you’re still unimpressed, how about a gluten free menu in the menu? Damn. Bomber don’t have that. Wilf’s was coming up strong. But the food could be the game changer. We were ready to play. Bobby got his Shirley Temple. I got ready to order.

We started with appetizers: bruschetta on an herbed spiced flatbread, and deep fried pickles (the place must have finally got my letters).
When they did finally come, a good while after we ordered during an underwhelming lunch rush, we were aesthetically pleased. Flavourfully, we were both disenthralled. The bread did everything to flavor the bruschetta, other than that, it was a dull mix of cute little tomato cubes left to stew in their own disappointing premade juices, flavourless basil, and plastic parmesan cheese.

My deep fried pickles? Saltier than I would have expected, with a great crunchy exterior thanks to the batter, but not the pickles themselves, which were listless, flat, and lost without that pleasing lip puckering pickle taste I expect when eating them. They were dead, and the accompanying sauce like the paramedic that’s obligated by law to resuscitate even though he knows the subject’s dead.

All was not lost, however. Bobby had his chicken wings coming, and me my Hawker: a grilled chicken sandwich on a ciabatta bun, topped with bacon, tomatoes, lettuce, barbecue and chipotle sauce.
All that and a side of poutine.

Bobby’s wings came with crudite. He seemed to like it. The Bomber never did that for him. When it came time for the wings though, he was hesitant about diving in. The wings were drowning in a generous amount of barbecue sauce, and Bobby knew it was only a matter of time before he got dirty. His long, luxurious hair too. That was the only flaw. Other than that, he was satisfied.
And there I was, just me and my sandwich. Sure, sometimes the bacon was lost in the flavour of a moist chicken breast, calming tomato slice, and generous lettuce, but I couldn’t argue with its heartiness. My only qualm was its unevenly sliced bread. With a roof 3 times as thick as its base, it was only a matter of time before its bottom was an annoying wet mess. Oh, and the poutine? A family of feeble fries, drenched in a scarlet gravy, no doubt premade. What’s worse, is that it didn’t even cover all the curds lobbed all over my plate. The clumps just wouldn’t melt. It reminded me of the stuff from my highschool’s cafeteria, which Laurier practically is. Am I right?
C’mon. You all laughed.

Low blows aside, the poutine is right up there with the Bomber’s; side by side, you can’t tell any salty singularity. So which’s the better house? If both bars’ foods are equally humdrum, check out Wilf’s. The venue and menu make it seem like it’s at least trying. Still not convinced? Of course not. You’re all too patriotic. That’s why I’ve broken it down for you all with a fun little list. Like it, love it, hate it, whatever. Just enjoy it. I heard two girls say that in beautiful vocal fry. Anyway.

WILF’S
The Hawker

•    A chicken sandwich served on a ciabatta bun with shredded iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, onions, bacon, mayonnaise and a barbecue sauce.
•    A moist chicken breast flavoured with a barbecue marinade.
•    Bacon was sometimes lost to the overpowering sauce combination.
•    Ciabatta bun unevenly cut, which made the bottom soggy halfway through.
•    Comes with any side

Poutine

•    Super salty with a deep scarlet gravy more or less constituted from powder.
•    Dry curds that couldn’t melt and fries that bore little spirit.

Wings

•    Tasty chicken wings
•    served in an intimidating amount of sauce that made the pound look more like a stew. 


THE BOMBER 
The Warrior

•    A chicken sandwich served on a ciabatta bun with leaf lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and mayonnaise.
•    Blander than its challenger, but the Cajun version can be purchased.
•    Chicken breast was rather dry, and the lettuce flaccid.
•    Mild on the palette.
•    Its saving grace was an evenly sliced ciabatta bun with just enough bread on either side, unlike its contender.
•    Comes with any side.

Poutine
•    Overpoweringly salty, with fries that need to be eaten fast, or else.
•    Even though the gravy was salty, it had a better viscosity than its competition.

Wings
•    Alright. Just enough sauce, but not nearly as flavourfull as Wilf’s

*originally published in The IMPRINT Mar 30, 2012*

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