Thursday, May 31, 2007

Boston Pizza

Tonight after softball we went for a "patio party" at BP's. Was a pretty good deal. For 5 of us, we got a free platter with french fry thingys, cheese bread, wings and dry ribs with two dips! For free!!!

None of the stuff was all that great, but the price was certainly right.

Peruvian Showdown

This past weekend (well if you include Thursday as the start of the weekend) we hit up the Peruvian restaurants at St Claire and Bathurst.

In the blue corner, El Plebeyo an unknown in the contest challenging for dominance of the Peruvian scen from the St. Claire and Bathurst area. And in the red corner, El Fogon, the defending champion.

El Plebeyo started off strong - it was open, while El Fogon was on vacation. But after that opening salvo things went downhill quickly. They had a massive menu and things were expensive. Lomo Saltado was 16 bucks! Janice had the slightly cheaper Tacu Tacu We got over the price and ordered but things continued to get worse. It took a while and it wasn't all that great. Bottom line, not a strong showing.

El Fogon on the other hand fought viciously for the title. Their lomo saltado was 12 and it was tasty and served quickly. At least the time sure passed quickly thanks to the tasty Papas a la Huancaina I had as an appetizer.

Bottom line, El Fogon is still the champ so it keeps the title of best Peruvian restaurant in the TO.

Monday, May 28, 2007

Rivoli

Tonight I went with Ian and Ian's Mom (Mary) to the Rivoli. We were initially thinking the Queen Mother Cafe, but Ian noticed that they were the recent recipient of some health violations.

I had the halibut special with squash polenta and mixed veggie. Was pretty tasty all around. Ian had the pork and shrimp thai stir-fry. I thought it was pretty good (from the cauliflower that I ate), but probably too peanut-y for Ian. Mary had a chicken roti with some salad. A rather gigantic item and well flavored - I tasted a hint of cardomon in there.

Two thumbs up in the taste department, and unlike last time, the stella pint glasses were not chipped!

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Peanut Butter and Syrup

For those people out there, namely in Sarnia, who are against the PB+Syrup idea on waffles and pancakes, please refer to this link. Here, you will see a recipe that specifically combines them into a tasty concoction.

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

The worst deal ever


I generally do most of the grocery shopping, menu planning and cooking around the house with Ian taking care of dishes and periodic scrubbing of the oven. I felt that I was kinda getting scammed in the chore department, so I made Ian switch with me. Now that I am stuck with horrendous amounts of dishes, I am regretting the whole thing and will have to devise a scheme to get Ian to trade with me.

Ian actually seems to know what he is doing and cooked some pretty tasty home-made pad thai for dinner tonight. It was all pretty impressive.

Monday, May 21, 2007

Ottawa River Road Trip

Sorry, but this post has nothing to do with waffles.

This weekend, I went to the Ottawa River for some kayaking action. At 4.5 hours, it is certainly not the closest destination, but with extreme low water in Ontario, there's nowhere else to go :(

Usually we make food on these kayaking/camping trips, but for a few reasons we decided to make it an eating out adventure.

-We only got organized on Saturday afternoon for a trip leaving 5 am Sunday morning

-Three of us, three boats, three sets of kayak gear, 2 tents and numerous sleeping bags etc meant that we had very little food/stove room in Milton's civic

-What I like to call the "L" factor - for those that don't know, this stands for laziness

Anywho, we went to the "Schnitzel Haus" in Enganville on Sunday night. I was expecting the worst, but it was reasonably classy, tasty and surprisingly packed. I had some tasty fish and chip - came with potato, coleslaw and veggie instead of chip by special request. $12 all together including a gigantic glass of german beer. Others said the schnitzel was super tasty and very hearty for about $12 per main course (including potato and veggie).

Then it was off to the local eatery for breakfast this morning (sorta near Cobden - just down from River Run). I had the breakfast special (3 eggs, 3 slices bacon, 2 slices toast and home-fries) all for $4.00!!! How can you go wrong with that??? There was a rather crusty local dude that we started to chat with and then he professed a real hate for Westerners, in particular Albertans. He didn't seem to have much back-up upon further questioning, so I said that I knew quite a few rude Ontarians...

Waffle #2 by Popular Request


So the second waffle wasn't "perfect" but it was definitely still terrific. No chocolate chips on this one. Instead it's PB + Syrup. Gross I know but to each his/her own.






Some people are claiming pancakes can be as tasty as waffles. Those people are mistaken.

Sunday, May 20, 2007

Waffle Update

Some people seem to doubt my waffle abilities and require further explanations.

The "objects in the waffle" are PC Decadent Chocolate Chips of course. Waffles like any breakfast food (pita, oatmeal, muffin) require chocolate chips to complete the meal. Placing them on the waffle immediately after the waffle is removed from the waffle iron is key to ensuring they melt.

Not shown in the picture is the final step in waffle preparation which is the pouring of syrup on top of the waffle + chocolate chip item. Only maple syrup will do.

A Post for Jackie - Boston Pizza, Dundas Valley, Waffles

Jackie likes posts that have a story. This post doesn't.

Boston Pizza. I signed up for the mailing list to get a coupon for a free starter. We went last weekend. Janice had potato skins and I had ribs and spaghetti.

Waffles. I rose to the waffle challenge and made two terrific waffles.










It looks like this concludes the waffle war.


The Dundas Valley trail centre sells some random food. I had an ice cream sandwich. Janice stepped up the spending a notch and had a drumstick. Both were tasty. I wouldn't recommend getting much else there because the "warm" food looked a little sketchy. I haven't had any street meat hotdogs since 2002 but I will definitely eat one of those dogs before I hit the DVTC for a hot dog.

Bonus - Oatmeal Chocolate Chip cookies - look for news about these once I eat one today.

St Andrew's Club

Thursday I hit up an almuni event at the St Andrew's club. Having to dress up is a little annoying but free food makes it worth it for me. The food was pretty good. There were two stations: an italian and an asian. For the dinner part, the Italian station was the weaker one - a pork thing, some gnocci and some random meat. The asian one was terrific - sushi nigri and maki, pad thai (chicken or shrimp) in the fun little boxes that these fancy places seem to like to use, salad rolls, spring rolls and a few other things I don't recall. It was great particularly the sushi. It would have nice to see the sushi chef there instead of a pad thai attendant but that's me just being picky. For the dessert portion, the stations reverse. The asian consisted of chocolate dipped fortune cookies (I'm supposed to stick with my passion according to the cookie). To make up for this weakness, I had some more maki. Tasty as well. The Italian station had little cake like squares. They were fairly tasty although they seemed a little oily (of course that didn't stop me from having quite a few).

In terms of entertainment, there was the formal program which is interesting. But the humour portion came from some of the alumni who inhabit a different non-engineering or science plane of existence. This one person was excited to talk to engineers as she felt she had this brilliant idea that instead of emergency vehicles using sirens they should vibrate the seat in your car.
Maybe I'll be proven wrong but I don't think that idea will be taking off anytime soon.

Saturday, May 19, 2007

Misc. Pictures



Ian cooks some risotto











Me on the mission to figure out where the deer ran off to at Dundas Valley Conservation Area








At the apple ochard in Dundas Valley









Ian's PC bento box










Ian cooking risotto












Ian and the hideous x-box hat during the hike.

Friday, May 18, 2007

Earls

Last night I thought that I would venture out for a tasty meal and decided on Earl's on Robson. It was certainly a "cooler" place than the Park Earl's that I remember. They were pretty much packed on a Thursday night and it seemed that for about 10 minutes, they were too cool to actually come over and ask if I wanted to purchase any food or drink. Finally, a waitress comes over and I manage to order the special - grilled salmon with mashed potato, asparagus and red thai curry sauce. Was pretty tasty, but certainly not great value at $23 I think.

The grilled salmon, coconut curry sauce is a combo that I may try at home sometime.

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Tropika Twilight Zone

Last night I spotted "Tropika" Malaysian and Thai cuisine on Robson St in Vancouver so I thought I would check it out.

It seemed very similar to the Edmonton one - similar menu, pricing, even the veggie combo meal had the exact same dishes with it. I asked if they were affiliated and the guy said no...odd...I think that someone is copying someone.

Final verdict is the vancouver one was pretty good value ($13 for my veggie comb0) and reasonably tasty. The E-town one is probably higher quality food, but Ian noticed some questionable health practices when he looked on the web.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Ian's Waffle Offense

Point 1 - I only cleaned the waffle maker at Janice's behest. Prior to that we were making spectacular waffles thanks to the President (well truthfully they're not spectacular but they're good and convenient)

Point 2 - I've cleaned it before without incident thanks to my reliable re-seasoning methodology

Point 3 - I agree with Janice - I do make good waffles

Janice's Waffle Defence

Point 1 - Ian is a better waffle maker than me, but I'm not that bad

Point 2 - while I was out kayaking the week before my first waffle incident, Ian stuck one on there pretty good. Convenient that there were no pics of that one.

Point 3 - the waffle maker non-stick thingy does seem kinda done.

Point 4 - the trouble started when Ian decided to wash the waffle maker because it was smelling kinda sketchy.

Vancouver Part 1

I touched down in vancouver sunday afternoon and right away walked over to robson/granville area for some cheap sushi action. Had yam maki + avocado roll for the cheap cheap price of about $5. I can't lie to the blog readers out there - I may have had a scoop of cookie dough vanilla from Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory - comes standard with a waffle cone for about $3. Perhaps a return tonight for a b-day cone for me??

Then had some not great cheap middle eastern hummus plate for lunch the next day. Let's just say it's no Gourmet Med that I am addicted to in Montreal.

Some tasty salmon for dinner at Agua Riva (I think?). The course I'm on arranged a set meal for $51 for a salad, choice of main and apple/rhubard crisp. The salmon came with risotta/veggies/buttery sauce and some crab/avocado salsa thingy. Tasty factor was pretty high and actually not bad value considering that 51 included taxes and tip and stuff.

For lunch, I had a quick hit of more cheap sushi - 18 veggie type pieces for a mere $7.00. How can you go wrong with that? Got kinda queasy at the end and packed it in after about piece 14.

So in summary, VCR seems to destroy TO in the cheap sushi genre. Like they have a new-gen basically on every block.

Maybe some Earl's or Red Robin Western Canada action for me tonight?? Mmmmm.....

Monday, May 14, 2007

Free Pizza

Free pizza always gets a few thumbs up from me even if it is from pizza pizza. Today thanks to the Blue Jays 7+ strikeouts on Friday, I scored two slices of pepperoni pizza at Pizza Pizza

The positive points
- it's free
- the first slice was ready right away

The negative points
- the second slice took quite a while (since they had to make a new pizza)
- the delay meant I had to walk home in the rain

I guess the rain isn't completely Pizza Pizza's fault though. While I was there some people brought their tickets in and then paid extra to get pizzas that are better than pepperoni. In the past they've been dead set against such practices so it's good to see this new found flexibility. Of course I couldn't upgrade to the much loved meat lovers because of my well known cheapness issues

Sunday, May 13, 2007

Waffles

I've been making the waffles lately but the last two weekends Janice took over the reins. She was a little out of practice










This was the result last weekend. Now this weekend the situation was similar if not slightly worse - you be the judge










It's starting to look like maybe this isn't Janice's fault and the waffle maker might be letting the team down. Look forward to a fun update next weekend

This promises to be a blog filled week.
Monday - Free Pizza
Thursday - Fancy Reception
Randday - Loblaw's rant and the summer Insider Report!

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Indianapolis

Conference was alright, the town was much nicer than expected. Very classy looking downtown area and a nice canal, river, state park and a university campus off to one side.

Food was pretty tasty - probably 100 restaurants within a 10 block radius of my conference. First lunch we tried to go to a rib joint but it was closed down. Ended up going to the Old Spaghetti across the street. Pretty much what you would expect in Canada.

Then off for some fast food burrito a Qdobo that night. Had the veggie which came with beans, cilantro/lime rice, cheese and salsa. The menu said guacamole too, but they didn't really seem to have available. In Ian's books, this would be an unforgivable sin and immediately relegate Qdobo to the wall of shame. Me, on the other hand, am slightly more forgiving. Tasty factor was high and price was right at about $4.95. Also had diet lemonade on tap so they scored a few more points.

Then it was off to the "Palimino" Italian type place. I went with the pasta/sandwich lunch special for $11.95. Pasta was angle-hair-ish with some tomato/veggie/Romano cheese sauce. Pretty tasty all around. Sandwich was tomato, lettuce, fresh mozzarella and some basil mayo. Was supposed to be on "panini" bread, but ended up being "wonder bread style" that was toasted. Maybe I'm a fine dining connoisseur, but since when does "wonder bread" qualify as suitable sandwich bread at a semi-classy restaurant. Bread's not that expensive, why cheap out????

For dinner it was off to Harry and Izzy's. I attempted to order pork ribs, but clearly I need to brush up on my meat lingo. I ended up getting a big round ball of meat on a single bone. Seemed to be beef. I think it was called spare rib/short rib/side rib or something along those lines. Was alright - it was supposed to come with a rub and then be smoked. It really needed some bbq sauce or something like that to spice it up a little. The meat was pretty good - falling off the bone and all that good stuff. Had some green beans and tasty potato pancakes to go along with it. Certainly not cheap at $33.

Then we hit up the Steak and Shake for lunch the final day. Others had the hamburger/shake combo, ate too much and were quite queasy. I took it easy with a fish sandwich - and still felt a little queasy. I am officially off the grease!

Friday, May 04, 2007

Loblaw's

As an after dinner adventure, we decided to venture out to Loblaw's the old fashioned way - on foot. The plan was to go to DQ on the way back but instead at Loblaw's we spied a monster rum ball for 1.52. We couldn't resist - well we could but we elected not to. We've never really eaten in the Loblaw's food "court" so it was interesting to try. In keeping with disappointing Loblaw's experience it was tough to initially find a rum ball holder that was clean but we resolved that problems. Getting over that we purchased the rum ball and devoured it. Pretty tasty is the final verdict.

Continuing with my rant about Loblaw's problems, I was mildly disappointed with the news from shareholder's meeting. Sure they're still going to focus on low costs despite suggestions that they shouldn't be. The bad part is this talk of returning to "their food roots". Does that mean they're admitting that they can't handle food and merchandise stores? Sure maybe it's moderately harder than chewing gum and walking but it sure doesn't seem like the story of a champion. Maybe they need a round of monster size rumballs to reinvigorate the troops?

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Good softball news (and BP's)

Good stuff point #1:

So last year, like an idiot, I left my ball glove at the diamond at the end of the last game. I went back for it the next morning and nothing. I had pretty much given up hope. I sent emails to the team to see if anyone picked it up and no one claimed to. For this year, Ian hooked me up with a loaner (undisclosed source). But then I get to the game tonight and see my old glove sitting on the bench!!! Yeah!!!!

Good stuff point #2:

The only teams my team could beat last year were the other two teams from my company. So first game out this season, we play the league champs. I was expecting the worst, but we actually beat them pretty badly!!!

Good stuff point #3:

The dude controlling the team budget said that he would buy us beer every time we beat a team not from our company.

Good stuff point #4

To cash in on point #3, we went to BP's and had a team pitcher. They seem to have improved upon the team pitcher from my days in university - now it has a frozen ice center thing to keep the beer cool! Since there were 7 of us, we had to compromise on Rickard's light - not my favorite, but since it's free (to me) it was alright.

Also had a few southwestern potato skins. Came with chipotle chicken, bacon, cheese and drizzled with ranch dressing. Pretty tasty, but not all that much food for $8.49.