We Eat Ottawa - Horn of Africa

I have a new favorite restaurant, too bad it's in Ottawa and I live in Toronto!!!!

Last night for dinner, we had the veggie combo x 2 and meat combo x 1 with 0.5 L of house red and tea for $40 (including tax and tip). Wow!!! The food was great - the veggie combo came with lots of injera, good salad (lettuce/tomato), curried cabbage and three or four kinds of curry lentils.

The meat eater got a hard boiled egg, a chicken drumstick, maybe some beef plus most of the veggie dishes.

We all left food behind.

Here's the link to the website.

We Eat Ottawa - Pita Pit

I have fond memories of the Edmonton Pita Pit from university days, but not that I've revisted in later years, the place is not that great.


I think it was a lack of pita & burrito joints in E-town at the time that made the Pit so yummy.


Last night while in Ottawa, I swung by for a quick dinner of falafel with baba ganoush and a whole bunch of veggies on whole wheat. It was decent, but realistically doesn't compare to the saucy goodness of almost any falafel hut in Toronto (or Pita & Grill in Mississauga).


You probably can't beat the healthiness though with a ton of fresh veggies and whole wheat pita.

Pita and Grill

Once again, the Pita and Grill in Mississauga was consistently packed at lunchtime with large crowds picking up shawarma sandwiches. My falafel for about $5 was delightful, saucy and humongous. We'll be back!!!

Fat Bastard's Burrito

I'd love to love this joint in Etobicoke since it's close to us and we are burrito obsessed. Alas, it's rather inconsistent with the latest folly being burnt burrito shells. It appears they had their grill cranked up a little too hot. It should have been pretty obvious to the burrito assembler that every one was coming off blackened, so I have no idea why they didn't correct for it. Obviously quality is not a high priority for these people.

The veggies, mainly lettuce, was also watery creating patches of icky-ness.

All that being said, the pulled pork is delightful and guacamole is free!!! So there are some positives here.

Here's the website.

Suko Thai

This has made it into the regular Friday lunch rotation (even back to back weeks) due to excessive yummy-ness and cheapness.

We go to the Mississauga location on Winston Churchill.

For $7.95, I like to order red curry veggie tofu with a spring roll and little salad. All in with tt&tw (tax, tip and tap water) you can spend about $12.

My coworkers have ordered cashew chicken, mango chicken, pad thai etc and left happy.

My only extremely minor beef with the place is rather small portions, but for the price and quality, I suppose that something has to give. For big eaters, order an extra appetizer or soup and you should be ok.

Here's the lunch special menu.

The Lazy (Wo)Man's Sushi (Salad)

For the cheap and/or lazy, this is pretty easy to make at home to satisfy some maki cravings. Assemble in a salad the following:

• Short grain Japanese sushi rice - white or brown.
  
• Splash on some rice wine vinegar with sugar and salt premixed. Let cool slightly.
  
• Cook some fish (salmon, or really any fish will do so long as it's not battered or fish sticks etc)
  
• Chop up red peppers, cucumbers, carrots
• Tear up some nori, toss on at the end
• Cubed avocado
• Optional - roast some butternut squash or make into veggie tempura
  

California Sandwiches

A couple weeks ago I went to the Dundas and Winston Churchill location in Mississauga with co-workers and I was pretty impressed. For about $8, I got a fresh bun loaded up with yummy eggplant and an extra $1 worth of mushrooms. Coworkers were happy with their veal and steak etc.

For the low staffing of 3 people, this place pumped out a rather amazing quantity of food in short order!

As a side note, for the single ladies out there, I would suggest you start frequenting this joint. The clientele was about 90% men!!!

Here's the web link.

Chorizo (Mississauga)

This burrito joint is ridiculously busy with the local engineering company employees happily picking up and munching on delicious cal-mex food.

With a ridiculous number of extremely efficient employees, the line keeps moving allowing the next wave of happy customers to get their burrito in a timely fashion!

My only beef about this place is their ridiculous use of Spanglish - like "Salsa Verde" is actually red etc etc. Either get it right, or stay away from the Mexican terms for things.

Spoon & Fork (Etobicoke)

For a Sunday night, this place was shockingly busy and reservations are definitely required!!! This place is one of the nicer looking joints in Etobicoke.

The format was all you can eat Japanese, including sushi, and thai.

Some stuff the table got:

• Coconut shrimp was awesome (and I'm not even a shrimp fan)
• Beef & chicken skewers - good
  
• Veggie tempura was decent
• Gyoza - so so no major complaints
• Mango salad had a weird flavor
• Edamame was meh
• My avocado-cucumber roll was meh too
  

The highlight of the night for me was a veggie/tofu golden curry and pineapple fried rice. The sauce was awesome with a great assortment of veggies. The fried rice had lots of good mystery items in there - shrimp, chicken, currents (I think).

At about $30 a person for the dinner buffet, the best plan is to come hungry!!

Heritage Days (We Eat Edmonton)

Once again, E-town proves itself to be the king of the festivals with approximately a hundred food and culture tents scattered around the rather large Hawrelak Park.

For $20, we got lots of tasty stuff including Peruvian donuts, some sort of middle eastern chickpea/potato salad, Afghani potato/green onion fried cake, Filipino meat on stick with rice and pickled veg, pina colada and a couple other dishes I'm probably forgetting about.

Toronto's cultural/food festival situation is pretty weak by comparison!!!

Heritage days link here...

Bad Ass Jacks (We Eat Edmonton)

I had fond memories of this joint from my Edmonton days, but it turned out to be not so good last week when I convinced Ian to go for lunch. We went to the U of A location and at noon on a Friday, the chicken wasn't ready and they were out of rice?? Huh??

For $7 (with our 2:1 coupon), we had 2 falafels with noodles, veg and thai sauce. It wasn't terrible, but the Toronto burrito selections really do have the Bad Ass beat in the wrap department.

Here's the link.

Chorizo Fresh Mex

The main thing this place has going for it is "close to the office" and free guacamole. Aside from that, decent beans and rice, pork is alright although a bit boring and salsa is good - choice of salsa fresca, pineapple, corn or one other one. Add in some cheese and sour cream too.

I know grilling the final product is against the "authentic" Cal-mex burrito style, but it really would result in a product that holds together a bit better. It's pretty much impossible to eat the Chorizo burrito without making a gigantic mess and dropping chunks onto your nice work pants...oy!

Here's the link....

Alice Fazooli's

For those office worker types in Mississauga, the Alice Fazooli's has a fantastic deal for lunch (not appearing on website menu). For $10.45, you get a half salad, half pizza of your choice. Considering that the full size salads and pizzas go for about $15, this is a steal!

The portions are good too - in fact, the first time I ordered this, I questioned the waitress because I thought they had messed up and brought me full portions!

Sandwich Box

With everyone talking about the Sandwich Box at Bay and Bloor I figured I should give it a try. The place makes grilled to order sandwiches with a bunch of different toppings. I was overwhelmed by the bread selections so I made a rushed decision for some type of whole wheat bread. Then came another big decision on what type of spread. I was getting comfortable with having lots of choices so I went with a basil pesto. I would have liked a guacamole spread but it came with chipotle's in tow so I had to pass. Instead, I used one of the 3 toppings for avocado. The signage says you're allowed three toppings but when I tried to get chicken and roast beef for my remaining two I was told they added to three by themselves. My cheapness meant that I had to go with boccocini cheese then instead of the beef. With all the options set they put my sandwich on the press.

The whole thing looked small so when I saw there was a tomato lemon grass soup I took the plunge and got that as well.

My whole meal rang in at just over 12 bucks so this definitely wasn't a cheap eat. However, once I got back to the office and begun eating I was fairly impressed. The Ian-sandwich was delicious and the soup was pretty good. The salad though that comes with the sandwich unfortunately was not great. For a place with some many choices, I would have expected more customization of the side but instead I had this green salad that was soaked in some sort of dressing. If I go again, I'd definitely ask for less dressing or maybe try to trade my salad for another topping. Overall, the place is alright for a light (as in not super filling) splurge (both on the wallet and in healthiness with the dress fiasco) and I'd recommend an Ian-sandwich which consists of unknown tasty bread type that I'll recognize if I saw again, basil pesto, grilled chicken breast, avocado and some boccocini.

New Generation

Now that we've moved to the burbs, we don't frequent New Gen quite as much as we used to. In April of 2009, I proclaimed New Gen to have the world's best veggie sushi.

I am officially rescinding that title. My "G Yam Maki Set" was an incredible value at $6 for a set of cucumber rolls + yam/avocado rolls. Also came with soup and salad. I'm not quite sure what went wrong, but the rice just didn't have the usual "je ne sais quoi" that it used to.

Hot Oven (Kingsway)

Seriously - go there asap and pick up some bread, cupcakes, cookies or squares..mmm...or strudel or quiche...or orange chiffon cake...

Mitzi's Sister

A group of us went to Mitzi's sister, one of three locations of the Toronto Mitzi's mini chain.

On the brunch menu was all sorts of good stuff, but most settled on the rancheros - either tofu or heuvos. I opted for the heuvos variety - lots of eggs, good soft warm tortilla and plentiful guac and black beans. Came with some bbq sauce flavor roast potatoes and a bit of fruit. Add in a fresh squeezed orange juice and I came away with a $19 bill including tax and tip.

We sat inside, but it seemed as though most customers were headed for the patio out back.

Service was rather slow, kinda rude and I was perpetually thirsty with one meagre glass of water.

All in all a decent outing!

Burlington Ribfest

Billed as the largest Ribfest in Canada, the Burlington Ribfest seemed worth checking out. We headed out early to avoid the awful traffic on the 403/QEW overlap and we indeed managed to avoid the worst of it.

As we drove down towards the lake in Burlington, I was somewhat surprised that it actually seemed nice. Janice, who frequents the industrial wasteland portion of Burlington/Hamilton, agreed that it was nice although it wasn't a surprise for her as she ribfested here last year.

Now, in terms of the ribs, there were a lot of ribbers. An overwhelming number in fact. We recognized some from earlier ribbings but we wanted to try something different. We spied Bibb's which Janice recognized from chowhound discussions. Their claim to fame here is that they have the only baby back ribs in the park. As a result they charge $1 more. Janice and I may like ribs but we're certainly not rib experts. Despite the dollar we figured we'd try out these "baby back" ribs. After getting over the initial disappointment that you seem to get fewer ribs in a baby back rib rack, we found that the ribs were very meaty. There was possibly a little too much fat for our liking but overall the sauce was good, the ribs tasty and we enjoyed the rack. The sides (beans and 'slaw) were also good and the slaw was fridge-cold which is always nice from a food poisoning-prevention perspective.

Anyway, this is probably the last ribfest for us this year. Will we back to Burlington ribfest next year? Maybe, the ribs were decent and given the selection, it seems like there are other up and coming ribbers that we need to check out.

Taste of the Kingsway

Lots of good treats here!

Green mango - $6 for pad thai (kinda boring) + green mango curry chicken (very good & lots of chicken) + 1 spring roll (large and sufficiently crispy).

Kingsway Fish & Chip - $6 for two mini pieces of battered fried fish + a hearty serving of chips & tartar sauce. This place is always good, although not exactly good for the arteries!

Chutneys Indian - $5 for a rather small portion of butter chicken and plain rice. Definitely not worth the money and probably the worst butter chicken I have ever eaten. The chicken was pretty tomato-y and lacked flavor. Where's the creamy goodness??? Ian and I both felt happy that we haven't wasted our money and eaten at this restaurant. The head booth lady was also rather mean and rude to her assistant. Kinda awkward all around.

Cafe Demetre - $3.50 for a decent sized waffle cone with lots of premium ice cream choices. Cookeo for me and Tira Misu for Ian.

Tandoori Flame

After an hour or two bemoaning the lack of Indian buffet in our neighborhood, we hopped in the car and ventured out to Brampton to Tandoori Flame.

The lunch buffet was about $17 each and included just about any Indian dish you could ever want. Lots of rice, veggie & meat curries, three kinds of tandoori chicken, grilled veggies, salads, appetizers etc etc. I don't think Ian or I had a complaint about anything and usually we are rather picky. There was so much selection here, one had to be strategic to avoid filling up the tummy before sampling everything.

Desserts were also good - rice pudding, gulab jaman, bright orange stuff, squares, cake & ice cream bar. I was especially impressed with the ice cream - it looks like they actually replace the tubs pretty frequently. Most of these self serve buffet ice cream buckets appear to linger for months with just a little bit left on the bottom than people are too scared to eat.

As a side note check out the website for a laugh. It is quite slick and NOTHING like the restaurant!!!