This was tasty!!
Really, it actually was. Lunch today was an entrée salad that had chicken breast, goat cheese, beets, and candied nuts on greens, with a raspberry vinaigrette.
It was very good. The goat cheese was yummy, the beets were tasty, the chicken was not overcooked, and was juicy while still tasting of the grill, the candied nuts gave good texture, and the 2 pieces of garlic bread were appealing. The only downside to the food was that the greens for the salad included way too much useless iceberg lettuce. But some of the greens were even pretty peppery.
This was a great salad. It's the best one I've ever had in the plaza.
Ironically, since the meal was tasty, I don't even have that much to say. D. had mac and cheese (and said it was very good and tasted of real cheese), alongside a side-sized version of the same salad as mine (which differed in having no iceberg lettuce, and no chicken).
Even the coffee was good.
A downside to Williams is that it's too loud (tin ceiling) and is pretty crowded at lunch. But otherwise, it was very tasty, and I will return.
I had: Entrée salad with beets, goat cheese and grilled chicken breast, and a medium coffee.
I paid: $14.32 with tax.
Verdict:
Speed: Okay. They have a bunch of newspapers, so I spent a while reading about Rob Ford's woes in the Toronto Star while D. read the comics. The line was a little slow to get through, but we did get there right at noon.
Quality: Very good. This was a great salad. Coffee was good. I wish there had been no iceberg lettuce.
Value: Well, not brilliant; I suppose you get what you pay for. Still, this meal was around the same price as the East Side Mario's meal I had at the beginning of this whole tour, and way, way better.
Would go back: Yes, and I'm a little surprised. In the dozen years I've been here, I've only ever had a very small number of meals at Williams, and the last one was much less good. (Then again, it was also the meal I ate in the middle of an 8-hour meeting on a Friday afternoon. Yeah.)
Friday 30 November 2012
Thursday 29 November 2012
Burger King
So, I don't go to "fast food restaurants".
Of course, that's clearly an elitist conceit: there's a funny sensibility that places like Subway, and Starbucks (where the food is premade!), and even Tim Horton's, fall into a category of "acceptability" where, say, Burger King does not fall.
So, perhaps, I should say: I don't go to fast food hamburger places. Well, except I do go to The Grill Burger Kitchen a few times a year, and my sandwich there would have been faster than today's lunch.
And tastier.
And essentially the same price: that lunch was $9.20, and this one was $8.35.
I do realize that going to Burger King as a guy who doesn't eat beef is possibly silly, but again: my favourite new restaurant near campus in the last couple of years is Fratburger, and they make me quite happy with veggie burgers and turkey burgers. So this shouldn't be a total failure.
Unfortunately, it was. The wait in line and then for my food was long, partly because of bad workflow and partly because (I expect) I hadn't ordered a Whopper, and hence my sandwich had to be made specifically.
The fries were meh. Not really potato-y, with boring ketchup, and not salty enough.
The "tendergrill" sandwich was dry, not tender, and largely flavourless. There was a Mark Bittman article back in March where he talked about how for a lot of sandwiches, decent fake meat would be indistinguishable from boring chicken breasts. This sandwich was a good example of a sandwich that would have been just fine with fake meat.
The toppings were boring too: salty mayo, iceberg lettuce, and flavourless tomatoes. That's it.
Really, the best part of the meal was the "medium" (actually, I think, quite big!) Barq's Root Beer. Barq's got bite.
Yeah.
I had: Combo #7: Tendergrill chicken sandwich, medium fries, medium Barq's
I paid: $8.35
Verdict:
Speed: Not good. I honestly am surprised by how much time this took; I partly went to Burger King because I wanted a quick lunch. I think it was a good 8 or 10 minutes for my sandwich to happen.
Quality: Not good. Really, I just wanted something to be interesting about this meal, and nothing at all was. I can't imagine there's a single person out there who is excited about his or her next Tendergrill sandwich. If there is, I'd like it if we could meet. Actually, I take that back: I expect I'd find such a person disturbing.
Value: Not good. A lot of the Chinese places in the plaza have much cheaper, and larger, lunch specials. If I were trying to just fill up for cheap, this isn't the way to do it. Then again, I think there were other people getting a daily special that might have been much cheaper than what I paid.
Would go back: No, once in 20 years is enough.
Of course, that's clearly an elitist conceit: there's a funny sensibility that places like Subway, and Starbucks (where the food is premade!), and even Tim Horton's, fall into a category of "acceptability" where, say, Burger King does not fall.
So, perhaps, I should say: I don't go to fast food hamburger places. Well, except I do go to The Grill Burger Kitchen a few times a year, and my sandwich there would have been faster than today's lunch.
And tastier.
And essentially the same price: that lunch was $9.20, and this one was $8.35.
I do realize that going to Burger King as a guy who doesn't eat beef is possibly silly, but again: my favourite new restaurant near campus in the last couple of years is Fratburger, and they make me quite happy with veggie burgers and turkey burgers. So this shouldn't be a total failure.
Unfortunately, it was. The wait in line and then for my food was long, partly because of bad workflow and partly because (I expect) I hadn't ordered a Whopper, and hence my sandwich had to be made specifically.
The fries were meh. Not really potato-y, with boring ketchup, and not salty enough.
The "tendergrill" sandwich was dry, not tender, and largely flavourless. There was a Mark Bittman article back in March where he talked about how for a lot of sandwiches, decent fake meat would be indistinguishable from boring chicken breasts. This sandwich was a good example of a sandwich that would have been just fine with fake meat.
The toppings were boring too: salty mayo, iceberg lettuce, and flavourless tomatoes. That's it.
Really, the best part of the meal was the "medium" (actually, I think, quite big!) Barq's Root Beer. Barq's got bite.
Yeah.
I had: Combo #7: Tendergrill chicken sandwich, medium fries, medium Barq's
I paid: $8.35
Verdict:
Speed: Not good. I honestly am surprised by how much time this took; I partly went to Burger King because I wanted a quick lunch. I think it was a good 8 or 10 minutes for my sandwich to happen.
Quality: Not good. Really, I just wanted something to be interesting about this meal, and nothing at all was. I can't imagine there's a single person out there who is excited about his or her next Tendergrill sandwich. If there is, I'd like it if we could meet. Actually, I take that back: I expect I'd find such a person disturbing.
Value: Not good. A lot of the Chinese places in the plaza have much cheaper, and larger, lunch specials. If I were trying to just fill up for cheap, this isn't the way to do it. Then again, I think there were other people getting a daily special that might have been much cheaper than what I paid.
Would go back: No, once in 20 years is enough.
Tuesday 20 November 2012
China Legend
As is probably clear by now, I'm not Chinese. But I do eat, just fine, with chopsticks. I learned almost 30 years ago, when I was at Edinboro Summer Academy (which seems in the intervening, um, long time to have changed into a program in science and math for young women).
So it's somewhat inconvenient that my dun dun mein comes with a plastic fork, not a pair of chopsticks.
And the food itself is a little weird: it's wheat noodles with a black-bean/garlic/Sichuan peppercorn sauce, some onion and green pepper, a few pieces of broccoli, and some pak choi. I'm used to the stuff from Mary Chung's, near MIT, which just had more depth of flavour.
This is fine, but ultimately too much boring food, rather than a smaller amount of better food.
I had: dun dun mein, which came with a little cup of hot-and-sour soup
I paid: $7.90 with tax.
Verdict:
Speed: pretty good. I wrote a Tripadvisor review (of someplace different) in the time it took me to wait for my food.
Quality: fine, but not great. I'm ultimately only eating half of it, because really, a big styrofoam container full of boring noodles just isn't cutting it.
Value: Actually not that amazing, given how cheap the ingredients were.
Would go back: No, I don't think so.
So it's somewhat inconvenient that my dun dun mein comes with a plastic fork, not a pair of chopsticks.
And the food itself is a little weird: it's wheat noodles with a black-bean/garlic/Sichuan peppercorn sauce, some onion and green pepper, a few pieces of broccoli, and some pak choi. I'm used to the stuff from Mary Chung's, near MIT, which just had more depth of flavour.
This is fine, but ultimately too much boring food, rather than a smaller amount of better food.
I had: dun dun mein, which came with a little cup of hot-and-sour soup
I paid: $7.90 with tax.
Verdict:
Speed: pretty good. I wrote a Tripadvisor review (of someplace different) in the time it took me to wait for my food.
Quality: fine, but not great. I'm ultimately only eating half of it, because really, a big styrofoam container full of boring noodles just isn't cutting it.
Value: Actually not that amazing, given how cheap the ingredients were.
Would go back: No, I don't think so.
Wednesday 14 November 2012
Sunshine Express
I actually ate there last week, but I didn't bother reviewing that one, so I went back.
I ordered S19: Chinese Kung Pao Chicken. There was also "Chicken in Kung Pao Sauce", which I didn't get; when I was asked if I realized I was getting "Chinese" food, I said I was sick of white people food. I guess "Chicken in Kung Pao Sauce" is more admittedly white people food.
I actually have no idea how far along on the authenticity meter this is (though this post does show something similar to what I got. The biggest difference between what I ordered and what I'd normally get with this name is that it had a lot of cucumber in it. Basically, it's chicken cubes, cucumber cubes, a lot of hot pepper bits, peanuts, and a salty/garlicky brown sauce on rice.
It's tasty. A little one-note, but tasty. The cucumber adds a good crunch to it. The recipe I linked to includes Sichuan peppercorns, which I think would help a lot (and, I expect, would make it closer to authentic, too.) The sauce is a little too cornstarchy, and the chicken is fine, but not brilliant.
Yeah, we're back to our old friend, meh.
[Oh, but do check out Pete Wells's choice takedown of a lousy looking restaurant in NYC. Yeah, I'm just a piker here.]
I had: Chinese Kung Pao Chicken
I paid: $8.25 including tax
Verdict:
Speed: Pretty good. I didn't finish the NYT article I was reading.
Quality: Okay. Too salty, and generically too much, "gloppy brown sauce on stuff" feel.
Value: Fine. I didn't finish it. Most of the crowd was students who were probably needing bigger lunches than I do.
Would go back: No, probably not.
I ordered S19: Chinese Kung Pao Chicken. There was also "Chicken in Kung Pao Sauce", which I didn't get; when I was asked if I realized I was getting "Chinese" food, I said I was sick of white people food. I guess "Chicken in Kung Pao Sauce" is more admittedly white people food.
I actually have no idea how far along on the authenticity meter this is (though this post does show something similar to what I got. The biggest difference between what I ordered and what I'd normally get with this name is that it had a lot of cucumber in it. Basically, it's chicken cubes, cucumber cubes, a lot of hot pepper bits, peanuts, and a salty/garlicky brown sauce on rice.
It's tasty. A little one-note, but tasty. The cucumber adds a good crunch to it. The recipe I linked to includes Sichuan peppercorns, which I think would help a lot (and, I expect, would make it closer to authentic, too.) The sauce is a little too cornstarchy, and the chicken is fine, but not brilliant.
Yeah, we're back to our old friend, meh.
[Oh, but do check out Pete Wells's choice takedown of a lousy looking restaurant in NYC. Yeah, I'm just a piker here.]
I had: Chinese Kung Pao Chicken
I paid: $8.25 including tax
Verdict:
Speed: Pretty good. I didn't finish the NYT article I was reading.
Quality: Okay. Too salty, and generically too much, "gloppy brown sauce on stuff" feel.
Value: Fine. I didn't finish it. Most of the crowd was students who were probably needing bigger lunches than I do.
Would go back: No, probably not.
Tuesday 13 November 2012
Kabob Hut
This was tasty!
It's a Persian place in the near plaza, which has been a bunch of different things over the years, but seems pretty stable in this incarnation.
I ordered the special for the day, which was tahchine (vaguely pronounced like tagine), advertised as rice with chicken, eggs and safron. It took a while to arrive, and I do wonder, since it includes the crusty rice on the edge of the pot that is an Iranian delicacy, if it would've been tastier if I'd not gotten it to go, since then it would have been crunchier.
But it was tasty, with very good saffron flavour, a decent amount of chicken breast pieces, and an eggy crust on the rice. I enjoyed the meal. I might even make it myself, soon.
I got: today's special, tahchine
I paid: $9.99 + tax = $11.29
Verdict:
Speed: Not so great. There were a bunch of people all waiting for their food for takeout, and the tables were pretty full, and it all-told wasn't ideal.
Quality: It was good! There was apparently the possibility of having it be half salad, which I didn't take, and I don't know why (well, I think then I would've found it overpriced). As a dish, it's a little too one-note: this isn't even biryani, with a greater diversity of spices and flavours. But all that said, it was tasty.
Value: OK. I'm actually glad they didn't skimp on the saffron, so I guess I'm happy to have paid for that. And it was white meat, not dark. In many ways, though, this lunch reminded me of Aunty's, except that one was a bigger lunch and would've been better still if I'd been smart and gotten salad.
Would go back: Yeah, I think so. I was a little lost with the menu (they even have pictures, but I don't know what I'm getting even with them!). But it was good, and different.
It's a Persian place in the near plaza, which has been a bunch of different things over the years, but seems pretty stable in this incarnation.
I ordered the special for the day, which was tahchine (vaguely pronounced like tagine), advertised as rice with chicken, eggs and safron. It took a while to arrive, and I do wonder, since it includes the crusty rice on the edge of the pot that is an Iranian delicacy, if it would've been tastier if I'd not gotten it to go, since then it would have been crunchier.
But it was tasty, with very good saffron flavour, a decent amount of chicken breast pieces, and an eggy crust on the rice. I enjoyed the meal. I might even make it myself, soon.
I got: today's special, tahchine
I paid: $9.99 + tax = $11.29
Verdict:
Speed: Not so great. There were a bunch of people all waiting for their food for takeout, and the tables were pretty full, and it all-told wasn't ideal.
Quality: It was good! There was apparently the possibility of having it be half salad, which I didn't take, and I don't know why (well, I think then I would've found it overpriced). As a dish, it's a little too one-note: this isn't even biryani, with a greater diversity of spices and flavours. But all that said, it was tasty.
Value: OK. I'm actually glad they didn't skimp on the saffron, so I guess I'm happy to have paid for that. And it was white meat, not dark. In many ways, though, this lunch reminded me of Aunty's, except that one was a bigger lunch and would've been better still if I'd been smart and gotten salad.
Would go back: Yeah, I think so. I was a little lost with the menu (they even have pictures, but I don't know what I'm getting even with them!). But it was good, and different.
Friday 9 November 2012
TCBY
WHY?!?!
I mean, seriously, what is this?
So, it's not cheap. A "small" is $3.65 with tax, and is pretty big, but then again, you can pay just $1.75 more (okay, that is 45% more...) and get a small from Marble Slab, and be much, much happier.
Anyhow, it's not cheap.
It doesn't taste like anything. The cup we shared just now (D. was going to get his own cup, but I convinced him to share mine) is "blueberry cheesecake" flavour. It's an unappetizing purple-grey colour, and tastes like fake vanilla, with a funny set of other weird fruity flavours. The TCBY ingredient page doesn't include that flavour, but does include other ones that are "fruit"-flavoured with no fruit in them.
The texture is terrible. There's this chalkiness and also graininess (basically, this is the consequence of their not being enough fat in it, and the "guar gum, carrageenan, locust bean gum, xanthan gum" that are in the ingredients not being enough to make up for it.
[Oh, today's random aside: did you know that guar gum has gotten much more expensive because of hydraulic fracking? Yeah. Mostly, its price has become much more volatile, but is also much higher than just a couple years ago.]
Really, I shouldn't be thinking of hydraulic fracking while I'm eating "fro-yo". But I guess that's better than thinking about how I used to go to fro-yo places in the '80s when I was in high school. Yeah.
I had: a "small" blueberry cheesecake cup.
I paid: $3.65 including tax
Verdict:
Speed: Well, it was in my hands mere seconds after I ordered it, thanks to the soft-serv machine.
Quality: If this is the best fake ice cream that chemistry can produce, real ice cream has nothing to worry about.
Value: Terrible. There are two different places within 400' of this store that sell real ice cream for not too much different price, and their ingredient prices are going to be much higher since they use things like butterfat in their mix. And they're actually tasty, unlike this junk.
Would go back: Oh, definitely. I think I need to get a frequent buyer card. Um, no.
I mean, seriously, what is this?
So, it's not cheap. A "small" is $3.65 with tax, and is pretty big, but then again, you can pay just $1.75 more (okay, that is 45% more...) and get a small from Marble Slab, and be much, much happier.
Anyhow, it's not cheap.
It doesn't taste like anything. The cup we shared just now (D. was going to get his own cup, but I convinced him to share mine) is "blueberry cheesecake" flavour. It's an unappetizing purple-grey colour, and tastes like fake vanilla, with a funny set of other weird fruity flavours. The TCBY ingredient page doesn't include that flavour, but does include other ones that are "fruit"-flavoured with no fruit in them.
The texture is terrible. There's this chalkiness and also graininess (basically, this is the consequence of their not being enough fat in it, and the "guar gum, carrageenan, locust bean gum, xanthan gum" that are in the ingredients not being enough to make up for it.
[Oh, today's random aside: did you know that guar gum has gotten much more expensive because of hydraulic fracking? Yeah. Mostly, its price has become much more volatile, but is also much higher than just a couple years ago.]
Really, I shouldn't be thinking of hydraulic fracking while I'm eating "fro-yo". But I guess that's better than thinking about how I used to go to fro-yo places in the '80s when I was in high school. Yeah.
I had: a "small" blueberry cheesecake cup.
I paid: $3.65 including tax
Verdict:
Speed: Well, it was in my hands mere seconds after I ordered it, thanks to the soft-serv machine.
Quality: If this is the best fake ice cream that chemistry can produce, real ice cream has nothing to worry about.
Value: Terrible. There are two different places within 400' of this store that sell real ice cream for not too much different price, and their ingredient prices are going to be much higher since they use things like butterfat in their mix. And they're actually tasty, unlike this junk.
Would go back: Oh, definitely. I think I need to get a frequent buyer card. Um, no.
Seoul Soul
This is a Korean place close by the campus. It's been there forever, but I guess it changed hands a couple years ago and completely remodeled and re-menued. Among other things, they removed the sushi from the menu; this seems to be a common trend among Korean places here, as they cede the Japanese food domain to Chinese-run restaurants.
I'd long since removed it from my lunch rotation, and I hadn't been back since, so I guess it was high time.
I had stir-fried squid with vegetables, which came with a side of rice. The squid was good (although, huh: I think it was octopus, now that I think), and of course being Korean, the sauce was spicy. (When I was in Korea in 2005, the universal comment from Koreans to westerners about their food was, "it's so spicy!" It is, but it's much more than that.) There were a lot of onions and a few other veggies in the mix. It was a little oily, and honestly a bit one-note. Then again, it was tasty. The banchan were warm deep-fried potatoes, kimchi, and sesame-seasoned beansprouts. Yum.
I had: Lunch special #3: stirfried squid with vegetables and rice
I paid: We paid $25 for the two of us for lunch, including tax and tip.
Verdict:
Speed: Okay, but not brilliant. I guess I was mostly noticing the delay because we were parked right by the door, and it's drafty. They have an airlock-style door, but that doesn't work when you always keep the front door of the airlock open.
Quality: Good. I really would have enjoyed the meal more if the stirfry had tasted more complex. I kind of got bored.
Value: Was this really worth $12.50? I guess I don't think so, but I'm starting to wonder if I just have weird calibration. See, my brain still always thinks, "you know, if you were home, you could go to City Café, and spend $6.75 on a great lunch. I guess rents in the Plaza are too high to make that possible there.
Would go back: Yeah, I expect so.
I'd long since removed it from my lunch rotation, and I hadn't been back since, so I guess it was high time.
I had stir-fried squid with vegetables, which came with a side of rice. The squid was good (although, huh: I think it was octopus, now that I think), and of course being Korean, the sauce was spicy. (When I was in Korea in 2005, the universal comment from Koreans to westerners about their food was, "it's so spicy!" It is, but it's much more than that.) There were a lot of onions and a few other veggies in the mix. It was a little oily, and honestly a bit one-note. Then again, it was tasty. The banchan were warm deep-fried potatoes, kimchi, and sesame-seasoned beansprouts. Yum.
I had: Lunch special #3: stirfried squid with vegetables and rice
I paid: We paid $25 for the two of us for lunch, including tax and tip.
Verdict:
Speed: Okay, but not brilliant. I guess I was mostly noticing the delay because we were parked right by the door, and it's drafty. They have an airlock-style door, but that doesn't work when you always keep the front door of the airlock open.
Quality: Good. I really would have enjoyed the meal more if the stirfry had tasted more complex. I kind of got bored.
Value: Was this really worth $12.50? I guess I don't think so, but I'm starting to wonder if I just have weird calibration. See, my brain still always thinks, "you know, if you were home, you could go to City Café, and spend $6.75 on a great lunch. I guess rents in the Plaza are too high to make that possible there.
Would go back: Yeah, I expect so.
Tuesday 6 November 2012
Meet Point
This is a place in the far plaza (the same one as Just N Pita), which has a really large menu focused on Mediterranean foods. I had a pide, with chicken and cheese. Basically it was a calzone/pizza/... hybrid, made with hot, tasty flatbread, accompanied by a pretty generic salad (lettuce, tomato, cucumber, yogurt dressing).
The food was actually tasty (!), but felt way too slow. I kind of had to rush, because the person I was eating with had a 1:00, and we were a few minutes late.
And honestly, this didn't feel like it deserved to cost $11 for what was basically pizza and salad.
I had: A chicken/cheese pide with a side salad
I paid: $8.48 + tax + tip = $11
Verdict:
Speed: This was a problem: slow to get us menus, slow to get our orders, slow to make the food. I kind of think that's the idea ("come, sit, eat, relax!"), but, well, I have a job.
Quality: It was good. The chicken was tasty. But it was also kind of no different than any other pizza; if you put chicken, cheese, tomatoes, garlic and spices together, it's almost definitely going to be tasty.
Value: I think it was okay, but not stellar. I've had better value on this tour, I think.
Would go back: Maybe if I were less time pressured? Yeah, probably.
The food was actually tasty (!), but felt way too slow. I kind of had to rush, because the person I was eating with had a 1:00, and we were a few minutes late.
And honestly, this didn't feel like it deserved to cost $11 for what was basically pizza and salad.
I had: A chicken/cheese pide with a side salad
I paid: $8.48 + tax + tip = $11
Verdict:
Speed: This was a problem: slow to get us menus, slow to get our orders, slow to make the food. I kind of think that's the idea ("come, sit, eat, relax!"), but, well, I have a job.
Quality: It was good. The chicken was tasty. But it was also kind of no different than any other pizza; if you put chicken, cheese, tomatoes, garlic and spices together, it's almost definitely going to be tasty.
Value: I think it was okay, but not stellar. I've had better value on this tour, I think.
Would go back: Maybe if I were less time pressured? Yeah, probably.
Friday 2 November 2012
Da Won
Today I went with two colleagues, who had found the blog and commented on earlier entries.
We went to Da Won, which is the Korean place next to TCBY and Subway. (I still dread the fact that I have to go to TCBY on this tour. The '80s are over, and I no longer have to go to bad fro-yo places just to have a date away from the prying eyes of my parents. Anyhow.)
J. was very happy about getting pork bone soup, while O. and I both got hwaedupbap, which is basically little bits of raw fish over salad, with a spicy sauce.
I like this dish very much, and often get it at Tomu Sushi, at Erb and Amos, off campus. There, it's usually three or four different kinds of fish, plus a big bowl of salad with cucumber spears and red pepper and carrot, and a separate bowl of rice, plus miso. And a ketchup bottle full of hot sauce.
At Da Won, it had only one kind: salmon, and the salad was just lettuce with pickled carrot. And the rice was under the salad.
This was less exciting somehow. It was fun to have people to eat with (and they're both relatively recent hires in the School and it was good to spend time with them both), but the food didn't make me squeal with delight. That said, J. seemed very happy with his pork bone soup.
I had: hwaedupbap and barley tea
I paid: $13 including tax and tip
Verdict:
Speed: You know, with people I was talking with, the wait seemed less long. (No, this blog is not a blog about loneliness, I promise. I enjoy eating alone at lunch, too, and as my job is fairly talky, it's sometimes a great way of putting a pause in the middle of my day.) But I think it was fast.
Quality: I've had better, but it was fine. The banchan were in small portions considering that there were three of us. But I love kimchi, and my partner won't let me ferment it in our condo, so I only get it when I eat out.
Value: This wasn't super, either. I think if the salad had had more ingredients, or there were more and more different fish, I'd have been happy.
Would go back: Maybe? They had things on the menu that I also like, and I really love Korean food. Typically I go to Mirage, but it has a pretty small menu.
We went to Da Won, which is the Korean place next to TCBY and Subway. (I still dread the fact that I have to go to TCBY on this tour. The '80s are over, and I no longer have to go to bad fro-yo places just to have a date away from the prying eyes of my parents. Anyhow.)
J. was very happy about getting pork bone soup, while O. and I both got hwaedupbap, which is basically little bits of raw fish over salad, with a spicy sauce.
I like this dish very much, and often get it at Tomu Sushi, at Erb and Amos, off campus. There, it's usually three or four different kinds of fish, plus a big bowl of salad with cucumber spears and red pepper and carrot, and a separate bowl of rice, plus miso. And a ketchup bottle full of hot sauce.
At Da Won, it had only one kind: salmon, and the salad was just lettuce with pickled carrot. And the rice was under the salad.
This was less exciting somehow. It was fun to have people to eat with (and they're both relatively recent hires in the School and it was good to spend time with them both), but the food didn't make me squeal with delight. That said, J. seemed very happy with his pork bone soup.
I had: hwaedupbap and barley tea
I paid: $13 including tax and tip
Verdict:
Speed: You know, with people I was talking with, the wait seemed less long. (No, this blog is not a blog about loneliness, I promise. I enjoy eating alone at lunch, too, and as my job is fairly talky, it's sometimes a great way of putting a pause in the middle of my day.) But I think it was fast.
Quality: I've had better, but it was fine. The banchan were in small portions considering that there were three of us. But I love kimchi, and my partner won't let me ferment it in our condo, so I only get it when I eat out.
Value: This wasn't super, either. I think if the salad had had more ingredients, or there were more and more different fish, I'd have been happy.
Would go back: Maybe? They had things on the menu that I also like, and I really love Korean food. Typically I go to Mirage, but it has a pretty small menu.
Just N Pita
This is the quick service place at Al Madina.
Every time I go, I'm amazed at just how bad their workflow is.
Seriously.
Like, there's constantly people banging into each other, or weaving through each other, or accidentally cutting in line around each other.
It's exhausting for me, and I just eat there.
That said, my chicken shawarma was tasty. They have nine zillion possible toppings, but I just put tzatziki, garlic sauce (I think that's garlic mayo), tomatoes, onions, and a couple other things on it, plus hot sauce.
It was tasty. Maybe not as much tastier than Grab-A-Greek to justify the chaos, but it was tasty.
They have combos with fries and drinks, and they also have "chicken shawarma poutine", which is basically a works platter on fries with chicken on top, and they also have the same plate with salad instead of the fries. I've gotten the salad one, and it's roughly 2 meals' worth of food. Or one meal's, if you're a starving student, I suppose.
I had: a chicken shawarma
I paid: $6.99 plus tax
Verdict:
Speed: Dear me. Between waiting several minutes to pay, and then someone (entirely not his fault) cutting in line in front of me, and a bunch of people wanting "sandwiches" that were full of 25 different fillings (yay, undergrads), this took quite a while.
Quality: It was pretty good. I like their tzatziki.
Value: You know, I probably should've gotten one of the giant meals, but then last night, I made Mark Bittman's yummy wings with rice, and that was a meal I was glad to have room in my stomach for.
Would go back: Yeah, probably. This was actually a more forgettable meal than many of theirs are.
Every time I go, I'm amazed at just how bad their workflow is.
Seriously.
Like, there's constantly people banging into each other, or weaving through each other, or accidentally cutting in line around each other.
It's exhausting for me, and I just eat there.
That said, my chicken shawarma was tasty. They have nine zillion possible toppings, but I just put tzatziki, garlic sauce (I think that's garlic mayo), tomatoes, onions, and a couple other things on it, plus hot sauce.
It was tasty. Maybe not as much tastier than Grab-A-Greek to justify the chaos, but it was tasty.
They have combos with fries and drinks, and they also have "chicken shawarma poutine", which is basically a works platter on fries with chicken on top, and they also have the same plate with salad instead of the fries. I've gotten the salad one, and it's roughly 2 meals' worth of food. Or one meal's, if you're a starving student, I suppose.
I had: a chicken shawarma
I paid: $6.99 plus tax
Verdict:
Speed: Dear me. Between waiting several minutes to pay, and then someone (entirely not his fault) cutting in line in front of me, and a bunch of people wanting "sandwiches" that were full of 25 different fillings (yay, undergrads), this took quite a while.
Quality: It was pretty good. I like their tzatziki.
Value: You know, I probably should've gotten one of the giant meals, but then last night, I made Mark Bittman's yummy wings with rice, and that was a meal I was glad to have room in my stomach for.
Would go back: Yeah, probably. This was actually a more forgettable meal than many of theirs are.
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