Posts Tagged ‘review’
7 items.
I’ve had the opportunity to go out for lunch with one of my imaginary friends, Mike several times over the past couple of years. Yesterday was just such an occasion and we went, once again, to Carlos’ Cantina on St. Paul Street in St. Catharines. We’ve been there thrice, now and Amy and I went there once together.
It is a typical-for-downtown-St.-Catharines-sized restaurant. There are perhaps 15 tables. Today was the first time I’d ever sat in the back area (there were five of us and things were busier than I’ve ever seen them). The place doesn’t look like much from the outside, being a fairly modest storefront with a really ugly but memorable sombrero on the sign out front. The kitchen takes up the entire right hand side of the front room and as far as I can tell, there are only two people who work there. Carlos is the chef and there is also a woman who waits tables and busses (she is perhaps his wife or girlfriend. Maybe business partner. I couldn’t say). The colour scheme is all reds, yellows and oranges and the chairs are serviceable, though I wouldn’t say comfortable.
The times I’ve been there, I have had the chicken chimichanga and the burrito and that’s about it. Each meal starts with house-made tortilla chips and three kinds of salsa. The one with the metal spoon in it is the hot one, so be aware. The chimichanga is a big fried package of shredded chicken in a tasty sauce along with a whole bunch of cheese. The burrito is basically the same thing but baked with cheese on top instead of being fried (note: a lot of Mexican food falls into the category of ‘meat and cheese wrapped in a tortilla and baked/fried with cheese’ so this is not a highly specific description of what I had). Each is served with a side of spicy rice, beans and salad. The portions are about right for a lunch. I would perhaps go here and then get dessert someplace if I were out for dinner. The prices are very competitive with other restaurants downtown. The chimichanga was about $12 and I think the burrito is comparable.
They don’t have any fountain beverages at all. Any pop or juice comes from a can or a bottle (they have the small, glass Coke bottles which may or may not be made with real sugar) and they have a pretty fair selection of beer, as far as I can tell. I usually get either a Coke or an iced tea (Coke in this case which is why I’m still up at 1:05, writing this post instead of sleeping. Caffeine is becoming a serious problem for me).
There was an upholstered office chair in area where we were sitting (which apparently used to have couches and a Nintendo but is now just tables) and a very small girl was pushing it around in circles while her mother and grandmother ate. She was very quiet about it, which I appreciated.
rests his head on a pillow made of concrete
2 Comments
Sick of being in the house, we decided to take a date night tonight. This is a fairly regular occurrence around these parts and being in the Niagara area, we usually try to find a non-chain restaurant to grace with our presence. Tonight we decided to try Café Amore on Martindale Road in St. Catharines.
It is kind of hard to find if one does not know where to look. The signage is fairly unassuming and it’s in the middle of a generic-looking strip mall. There was no wait at the door though most of the tables (including the one where we were seated) had Reserved signs on them. The decor is very tasteful (though not quite as quaint as at their other location on Lake Street where we’ve been in the past) and kind of homey on the side where we ate. Homey in the ‘stereotypically Italian living room’ sort of way. The other main section is decorated more in the style of an old-country street, or so I assume, having only ever been in the new country.
Our waitress, Pam, was very friendly and a little bit absent-minded. Amy asked her for a recommendation and this threw her off completely. All of the entrées come with salad and garlic bread and there are many options. I picked Chicken Genoese ($14) and Amy selected Garlic Shrimp Pasta ($14 as well, prices approximate). All the pasta dishes have the option of penne, linguine or whole wheat spaghetti pasta (she chose whole wheat and I went with linguine).
The salads and garlic bread arrived first. My garden salad was very good. The dressing put me in mind of a very finely diced bruschetta. Amy’s caesar had good dressing but the lettuce was wilty at best. We both really enjoyed the garlic bread though the presentation was a bit odd: It was served on a plastic cutting board that had pretty clearly been used (one hopes it was used for the cutting of the garlic bread but it is impossible to tell).
The pasta was pretty slow in arriving and when they did, Amy’s was penne. The waiter took it back and brought out one on whole wheat spaghetti pretty quickly. The shrimps were so big she had to cut them in half before eating them. The pesto cream sauce on mine was very good but I found the chicken very dry and not very flavourful. Pam did a pretty fair job of bringing us refills for our drinks but she was a little over-eager when it came to packing up my leftovers. Amy was still eating when my extra food was dumped into styrofoam right there at the table.
One of the things we would like to do at some point is stay at a restaurant for dessert. Café Amore is one of several restaurants in St. Catharines that have their desserts on display but we’ve never made it through a meal with enough space left over for that to even be an option. I enjoyed the restaurant tonight from a subjective perspective (atmosphere, friendly service, happy to be out of the house) but more objectively it wasn’t really that good (messed up order, entrée actually not that great). The Lake Street location has been closed for construction for a very long time and I think we might give it a try if/when it reopens.
everybody’s saying everything is alright
Additional Information (posted Aug 10, 2009): I drove past the Lake Street location today and my hopes were abruptly sent up and then crashed down. The under construction sign had been removed, as had the sign asking people to go to the Martindale Road restaurant (hooray! Re-opening!). Then I noticed the small, red ‘For Sale’ sign in the window. Crushing disappointment! Looks as though it’s Martindale or nothing and by nothing I mean one of the other excellent Italian restaurants in St. Catharines.
Today was our co-op student’s last day in the office but since he left at 11:30, my boss took him and the rest of us out for lunch yesterday. We went to Real Sushi (or Real Shusi, if you’d prefer the name on the back of the waitstaff’s t-shirts).
Amy and I have been going to Real Sushi about once every couple of months for a few years. We do long-weekend supervision of the dormitories at the school where she teaches and our program is made up of students from overseas who haven’t anywhere else to go during breaks. We have them over Canadian Thanksgiving, American Thanksgiving (a holdover holiday from the time when the school had a much higher US contingent than it has now), inter-semester break weekend, Family Day (mid-February), Easter and Victoria Day. We typically go out for dinner or lunch once per weekend and Real Sushi is our most commonly repeated restaurant.
It’s a fairly small place on Carlisle Street in St. Catharines. One of the entrances is off St. Paul Street and is via the lobby of the extremely sketchy Leonard Hotel (primarily low-income housing but it looks like a really seedy flop-house). There are perhaps 20 tables with seating for around 75 in what looks like it may once have been an Indian or Middle-Eastern restaurant. The decor is not very upscale (though they did replace the crushed velour upholstery on the bench seats at some point in the last year or so which was a very wise move). Currently lunch is $11.99 and dinner $14.99 for all-you-can-eat.
The menu is very varied (a phrase that looks much better than it sounds) and has much more than just raw fish. I was sceptical the first time we went as my prior experience with sushi was limited to a bit of salmon and some octopus in my grade five unit on Japan (a unit that included the creation of kimonos from surplus boot fabric in several surprising colours of green and orange). A couple of the students with us had eaten sushi many times before (apparently Japanese food is very popular in Korea) and so one of them ordered for the table and we were spared the awkwardness of 10 minutes of “so um… what is this, exactly?”
At Real Sushi the best idea is to order small amounts of food at regular intervals if you’ve got time for a couple hours of eating. The waitstaff are very friendly but are not particularly good at remembering orders though they be written down. As an example, about a minute after we sat down yesterday, somebody came and dropped off a plate of salmon rolls. Our drinks order had not yet been taken.
I recommend the General Tao Chicken, teriyaki chicken, chicken skewers and, if you can manage it, the plates of noodles, all from the “Kitchen” side of the menu. In all the times I’ve been there, I have been successful once in trying to order the plate of soba noodles. All of the noodle dishes are available as either a plate or soup and I keep getting soup despite asking for not-soup. I’m not entirely sure how to rectify this. The soup is good (though not as good as that at Noodle House) but it is not what I asked for. On the “Sushi” side of the menu, the salmon and red snapper nigiri (slices of raw fish on rice) are really tasty and the tuna nigiri is a good one to try if you’ve never had sushi before because it doesn’t taste at all fishy. They prepare the rice with some kind of vinegar, apparently. It is sticky and slightly sweet (I think there is also sugar in the preparation at some point). The sashimi (large lumps of raw fish) is good, too. It is only available on the supper menu. I am not a big fan of most rolls (seaweed is not really for me) but the Real Sushi rolls are really good. They are (going from memory here) salmon, mango, mayo (pretty sure on this and yes it does sound odd) and a couple other things rolled up and then deep-fried.
Yesterday one of my co-workers ordered deep-fried squid tentacles. I have tried calamari before and found it acceptable but it’s a bit like eating rubbery onion rings. These are very clearly tentacles that have been wrenched from a squid and thrown into boiling oil. The suckers are still quite clearly present. I was very hesitant to insert one of these into my mouth (because man do they ever look weird) but it turned out to be very tasty albeit very tricky to bite through. I think my chopstick technique is getting stronger every time I’m there.
This is another downtown St. Catharines find. Niagara has some of the best restaurants anywhere. Admittedly it’s no New York City but it’s also cheaper and 20 minutes’ drive instead of 8+ hours.
Whenever we talk about going to Noodle House (288 St. Paul Street, map is here) we say it like Dean Vernon in the Mars University episode of Futurama says Robot House.
noodle hooooooooooouse
I am a creature of habit when it comes to some restaurants. I find something that I really like and stick to it. Apparently, I fear change. I have exercised this at Noodle House almost without exception. I typically order the ‘choose your own’ noodle soup. It’s very similar to Vietnamese Pho, if you’ve had that, but there are more options. One can choose from several types of broth (chicken, vegetarian and hot and sour spring to mind), several types of noodles (udon are my personal favourite but they also do rice noodles, angel hair noodles and a couple others) and then toppings, for lack of a better term. They have options like shrimp balls, shredded chicken, dumplings, and the secret, hidden mixed vegetable option (it didn’t make the menu, was mentioned the first couple times I was there and now I just know to ask for it). The servings are generous (to say the least). The soup I get is $7.95 for a smallish mixing bowl. The menu suggest pairing this with fried dough ring things (I cannot recall their right name). I’d suggest skipping it as they are kind of flavourless even when dunked in the broth.
They also have a number of curries and rice dishes. My coworkers like the Masaman (spelling uncertain) curry which is a mild, red curry with chicken and a lump of rice. It’s $9-10 as are most of the main courses. Last time I was there (Friday), I ordered the Thai green curry with rice noodles and chicken (most of the dishes have options available). It was a gigantic bowl of curry soup. It was temperature hot (burnt my tongue and ate very, very slowly) and also super spicy. I couldn’t finish it all in one sitting so I had it packed up and ate the rest on Monday. I’m pretty sure it’s responsible for whatever is going wrong with my sinuses today. Powerful stuff to say the least.
Amy and I have gone there for supper a couple of times. They’ve started offering 15% off most evenings to try to drum up some business. I prefer their stuff (nasal cavity-assaulting curries aside) to Salah Thai which is right around the corner but for straight Thai food (ie. not soup), I prefer Spicy Thai on Church St.
Downtown St. Catharines (and Niagara in general) is home to a great many excellent independent restaurants. Pow Wow is one of the first that we tried during our year off of chain restaurants. PW is right across the street from my office.
According to their site, they’ve been in business for nearly 15 years. They also have a second restaurant/bar on James Street. It’s called the Office. We’ve been there as well but prefer Pow Wow, by and large.
The lunch menu is really where they shine. We typically go there in the early evening and if one asks nicely, one can order some things from the lunch menu during what is technically dinner time.
We’ve only tried one of the appetizers. Meze for Two is several small dips and breads. The portion size is such that we usually order an appetizer platter to split and then a main course to split. I say ‘platter’ but it is 3-4 plates full of food.
We’ve gone to PW with a group of friends and split several pizzas. They are approximately six-slice jobbies on what I believe to be hand made dough. The Chicken Club is fantastic but the others are worth trying as well. The only pasta I’ve had there is the Angry Chicken which was good but rather spicy.
My favourite thing to order at PW is a sandwich. They have combined meat with pears or apples for a really interesting flavour mix (one that we have stolen and used at home. Mmmmm grlled pears). Last time we were there, we split a Chicken Apple and a Turkey, Pear & Brie. They are served with a several-different-lettuces salad under a light vinaigrette (spelled that right on the first try!) and a sort of pastry shell thing that I’m not even sure what it is. It’s very light and crunchy but has sort of an odd flavour and consistency. Not bad just not for everybody.
As far as I can recall, we have yet to sample their dessert offerings as we are typically too full of whatever else to even think about it. Some day we plan to do a progressive dinner through downtown and I wouldn’t be opposed to ending up at Pow Wow come dessert time.
when i walked down to the beach
Today is the first of the lightning reviews. These are going to be quick reviews of five or so items, sometimes physical, sometimes a bit more ethereal. Today’s are fairly physical objects. I will do a quick review of the first five books I happen to grab out of my bookshelf.
Normally this is where the “Read More” link would go. I’m going to do away with that for the time being (unless people ask me to put it back) because it breaks up the flow of reading and nobody likes to click things they don’t have to.
#1: Picoverse by Robert A. Metzger
I bought this in New York when we went there for our anniversary a couple of years ago. It was in the bargain bin at Borders and with good reason. I haven’t read it in a couple of years but I recall it being rather disjointed and not extremely well written. I am normally a big fan of parallel universe hard sci-fi but I am a bigger fan of consistent writing and readability. I don’t really do a rating system but I don’t think I would recommend this one.
#2: Red Rabbit by Tom Clancy
This was an interesting read. It’s something of a backward step in the Jack Ryan ‘universe.’ Most of the books in that ficton were published in an order similar to the flow of the story (Without Remorse is a notable exception but, while set in the same ficton [which is a fantastic word for 'alternate fictional universe' and coined by Heinlein], it has Ryan as a very minor character) but this was written in 2002 and is set in the mid-80′s. It’s not as good as Sum of All Fears or the other earlier works but is substantially better than The Teeth of The Tiger which I hated from beginning to end. If you’ve read other Clancy works and not this one, I’d say give it a go but if you’re not familiar with the series, start at Hunt for Red October and go from there.
#3: The Spirit Book One by Darwyn Cooke, J. Bone and Dave Stewart
Jordyn from the Penny Arcade forums pointed me at The Spirit based on how much I liked V for Vendetta and Batman and a bunch of other graphic novels. The Spirit is your fairly typical masked crimefighter (not a super-hero, he has no powers). The art style in this is fantastic and it’s really, really well written. It puts me in mind very much of some of the much, much older Batman and Superman comics I’ve read but has people talking on cell phones and other modern technologies. I am actually probably going to re-read this and the second book tonight based on picking this up. I haven’t seen the movie based on this character but I have heard that it is garbage so I am unlikely to see it. The edition I have is hard cover and looks nothing like the Amazon link above.
#4: Company of Adventurers by Peter C. Newman
This is the first of three volumes of a history of the Hudson’s Bay Company (my copy lacks the haunting painting of Hank Hudson). I am not really sure where I picked this up at first but I had (and moved several times) a paperback copy of this book for years and years and never really looked at it. I think I may have grabbed it at a library sale at some point. It is an amazing history of Canada seen through the lens of one of it’s oldest institutions. A lot of the source material is journals of the fur traders and factors of the various posts and it paints a very colourful picture of the very earliest days of Canadian exploration and settlement. This is the book that got me started journalling. I liked this series so much I bought all three volumes in hard copy and then picked it up in paperback for a friend who was interested. You can probably find it at your local used book store (don’t bother buying it new. It’s good but not that good).
#5: The System of the World by Neal Stephenson
I got into this series via the bargain bin at the same NYC Borders that gave me Picoverse above. This one turned out much, much better. This book is the third volume of a series that is breathtakingly epic in scope. It covers about 50 years of the lives of a number of fictional characters in a very believable 17th/18th century Europe. It is one of my favourite series. I typically read through it about once a year (and it’s close to 3,000 pages all in). I managed to get all the volumes in hard back for about $25 total, including shipping. Stephenson’s stuff isn’t really everybody’s cup of tea (it is pretty tough going sometimes) but I would recommend this to people who have a long attention span and like epic and complex adventure stories.
the patience of a chopping block
I’ve had accounts in multiple different protocols for many years. My first was ICQ (long since forgotten the number, haven’t used it in ages) and then I moved into MSN along with most of the rest of the non-US world. I played around with IRC for a bit in college and then when I joined the Penny Arcade forums in 2004, I got an AIM account and shortly thereafter, Google Talk. I also stumbled into the world of multi-protocol messaging clients at about the same time. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…