Food Review: Casa Burrito

Casa Burrito

520 Portage Ave

UPDATED: OCTOBER 2014

At Casa Burrito you are among friends. Indeed, one would have trouble finding a friendlier owner anywhere. Vinay is always happy to talk to customers about anything from downtown events to the challenges of owning a restaurant that is so influenced by the U of W student’s seasonal comings and goings. Sometimes you’ll find him in a van at the folk fest or at the fringe and those events are all the better for it.

I have gone there a few times. One of the advantages of the place is that you can order a beer alongside your food, which is uncommon for a "fast food" restaurant. They have a respectable selection of local beer and a few Mexican imports. The restaurant itself is in a clean but fairly unexceptional place with a counter and a few chairs. They are always playing an eclectic mix of music and the posters of Mexico round out the décor. If it’s empty, you get to chat. If it’s not, you can pick up a copy of The Uniter and read the U of W’s paper.

The place is set up to give you a few choices: taco/burrito/quesadilla? Large or small? and your choice of salsa. They also have sour cream an occasionally sour cream with mango bits in it, which is great.

           
I have ordered:

• The Cocoa Yam (discontinued)
• The Bean & Cheese
• The Curried Lentil

I prefer the quesadillas because there seems to be more cheese and less filling. None of the salsa's are very hot, but the salsa verde will certainly warm your mouth. The mango salsa is a good choice for a sweeter burrito. I tend to order the bean and cheese, because I like lots of beans, sour cream. The curried lentil is also a good choice if you are feeling like a mexican-indian fusion.

This is a good place to grab dinner in a hurry. It is perfect if you are going to a show, a play, a hockey game, maybe even a club, but it doesn’t really feel like a social destination. 

Until next time,

Food Review: Elements

Elements

599 Portage Ave
UPDATED: March 2nd 2014

 

              

Elements is located right by the front entrance in Richardson College for the Environment at the University of Winnipeg. It occupies a smallish but airy feeling corner of the building with windows facing Portage and Langside. Due to its location, many of the seats offer a good vantage to people watch as students bustle in and out of the building between classes. However, it also means that they do a bit of watching you too as they walk by. The clientele appear to be mostly the corporate lunch crowd, professors, the well-to-do, and the semi-retired. I have been here several times and I have never seen more than a few students, usually during 4:00 happy hour (when the beer is probably the cheapest you can find on campus). The staff are reliable and more often than not friendly. You also might get a chance to rate them, because they sometimes give you a “how was your experience” sheet.  Elements sources their ingredients locally wherever they can, serve sustainable seafood, and even feature a few of their suppliers on the back of the menu.

Its great that there is an extensive list of vegetarian options. Most of the other food is tasty, good to eat, enjoyable even, but not any more so than other places of a similar price. I guess I would call it safe food, and that goes a long way to explain the clientele.       

My wife and I ordered:
Mushroom Almond Burger (With a fried egg)
Quinoa Salad
Beer and Cheese Soup (soup of the day)
Ginger Sodas with shots of Gin.

We both agreed that the veggie burger has been better in the past. This might be because some ingredient or other is out of season and so the flavor is not as flavorful as it has been at other times of the year. They might have changed their recipe. What stood out was the quinoa salad, which is fantastic. The beer and cheese soup was also very good.

In the past I have also ordered:
Grilled Bread with Baba Ganoush

Sharable Size Nachos

Warm Goat Cheese Dip with corn chips - tasty

House Made Ginger Ale

St. James Pale Ale

Blueberry Cheese Cake

Tea
Banana bread toasted with butter - wonderful
Chai Latte

Baked Mac and Cheese (hold the bacon) - exactly how you would imagine this to be (hot and cheesy)

Mushroom Almond Burger - the better of the two veggie patties

2014 Burger week burger (veggie patty local greens, slow roasted tomato relish, housemade feta)

Pad Peanut

Veggie Sandwich

The Pad Peanut is probably a 3/5 on the Pad Thai scale. What is really worth ordering is the Mushroom Almond Burger, which might be in the running for top 5 veggie burgers in Winnipeg. The House Made Ginger Ale is also fabulous, especially with a shot of gin. Why not round off a solid meal by ordering the blueberry cheesecake?

If I could suggest the ultimate time to go, I would recommend 4:30 on a muggy 25-30 degree summer afternoon. They have a very nice patio and you are well taken care of there. Order a veggie burger, a beer, and a piece of cheese cake. Sit for a while and watch the warm world pass you by. Stay about an hour so you can watch traffic swell and begin to calm. Order a ginger ale and drink it while the day is still hot, maybe bring a book or the newspaper. You won’t regret it. UPDATE: this suggestion would be even better if elements didn't close for the summer. Alas. 

Until next time,  

Food Review: Cafe 22

Café 22

823 Corydon Ave 

      
Update (August 2012): Cafe 22 has changed its menu sometime this spring. They decreased the size of the pizzas (to 10 inch), increased price, and didn't change the pizza quality. At this point I don't really think the price is worth what you get. You'd be better off ordering the pizza as delivery. There are some intriguing new dishes: the fig, caramelized onion and Gorgonzola was especially tasty sounding, but it isn't the same home-town pizza cafe it once was. 

     I have gone to Café 22 more times than I can remember in the last five years. That’s not to say I am a regular, but if I do not want to spend a lot of money and I want a quieter place to eat, this is my number one choice.  The reason for this is threefold: 1) they do not charge you extra money for toppings on custom pizzas, 2) there is a patio which is wonderful for people watching 3) the pizza is reliable.

                The atmosphere is wonderful. Two large artificial trees reach the roof and spread their branches around the middle of the room which effectively muffles the sound. The lights are dim. The music is never too loud. The only thing that retracts from the mood of the place are the paintings in the booths, which look at you with very vibrant eyes. I find them unnerving.

                The servers might be a mixed bag, but when I go there I am not expecting someone professionally paring tastes, or catering to my whim. I am there for pizza that is cheesy, and satisfying. Having ordered out pizza hotline’s garden veggie, I can tell you that it is pretty much the Greek pizza with pineapple. It is an honest attempt to be better than most pizza place’s veggie pizza, only, it doesn’t really succeed. The Greek is tasty, but you can make one that is better using your own pizza making genius in the comfort of their restaurant.

                Here are some favourite custom pizzas:

-          Flat crust with jalapenos, roasted red pepper, green pepper, garlic, and mozzarella cheese.

-          Simple Mediterranean: Regular crust with sundried tomatoes, spinach, garlic (never forget the garlic), and roasted eggplant

-          Mushrooms, eggplant and basil.
-     Mushrooms, eggplant, garlic, feta, mozzarella

-          Feta cheese, black olives and artichoke hearts          

And so many more!

I have also tried the calzones and they are fine. The pasta is also not too bad. The tomato salad is unexpectedly spicy. The Greek and Caesar salad is pretty much what you would expect from a pizza place, reliable but nothing special.

The truth is I come to pizza hotline because it is the best middle-of-the-road pizza in the city (based on a limited sample). The crust is nice too! If you need a place to go with friends for pizza that doesn’t cost tonnes, this would probably be a place I would suggest. There is also a fairly good drink menu and a reasonable selection of beer.  I like it.

Until next time! 

Food Review: The Grove

The Grove
164 Stafford St.

UPDATED: October 2014

Situated at the corner of Stafford and Lilac, The grove is almost everything I dreamed of in a pub. I have been trying to get there for a few months, but whenever I go there is a long wait time and I am starving. This time I was able to handle 45 minutes sitting in their somewhat narrow entrance and I don’t regret a minute of that time.

We ordered:

• Veggie Burger
• Danielle Pizza
• fries
• Sticky Toffee Pudding
• Pimms

During other visits I have ordered:

• Pequillo pepper croquettes
• Blue cheese pear salad
• the Scarlette pizza

Unlike everywhere else I've gone in the last few months, the cocktails are 7$ not 10$; that in and of itself is worth noting. Domestics are 4.25, which is a decent price. They also do a sampler for 7.00 and imports for 6.50. They have a good range of beers and cocktails, including the Stafford Street Lager, which I stupidly didn't order. On my second visit I did try it. It is a very light lager which was crisp and gentle on flavor without having an unpleasant aftertaste that some of the less expensive lagers have. Another highlight of their drink menu is that on certain fridays (I don't know which ones) half pints make a special rendition of their classic beers. I have had a double hopped lil' scrapper, a strawberry st.james, and st.james made with cascade hops added. All of them were incredible.

Their veggie burger might be the best in the city! It is extremely tasty, slightly crisp and the bun is everything I hope for in a bun: tasty and capable of holding everything inside it. It blew my mind. UPDATE: The second time I had the veggie burger it was not as good. It is still a pretty good burger, but it has dropped a few points on my citywide ranking.

The Danielle pizza was really good. It is the perfect point between a fancy pizza and a takeaway greasy pizza. It has some of the fat but also the really good ingredients and lower salt of the more expensive pizzas. The crust was good, the toppings were perfect, and despite having a fair amount of oil it didn't taste greasy. The Scarlette is a tasty cheese pizza.

In my opinion the best thing on the menu is the pequillo pepper croquettes. Man oh man are they good! In fact I could live off of them for a week and still not be tired of them (But I would be 100lbs heavier).

The sticky toffee pudding was good, it is sort of like a hot bran muffin. My bother has an unbeatable recipe, which meant that it isn't my favorite pudding. The fries were nothing special, but still tasty.

Pretty much everyone I know loves this place and I see why. If it was just a little bit cheaper, or just a little bit less crowded, I would never go anywhere else to eat, drink, and be merry. I look forward to eating at the cornerstone bar & restaurant sometime soon to see if it holds up.

Until next time,

Food Review: AALTOS Garden Café

AALTOS Garden Café

1405 St Matthews Ave

 

            Food tradition runs strong in my family and sometimes that tradition is motivated by the contemporary world as much as anything else. Having a breakfast at a buffet sometime between Christmas and Easter is just one of these: a tradition. My guess is that it stemmed from about when I was about 9-14 years old, which was the point in my life when I was growing like a weed. That made special dinners out quite expensive. From that day forth, we have always gone to buffets when we eat out with them.

            My family has been going to AALTOS in this context for about fifteen years and I have to admit my perspective of the place has changed somewhat over that time. In the earlier years I loved it because “food is food” and lots of food is better. This opinion changed when I stopped eating as much and started looking for higher food quality. It also meant I became more willing to pay a higher prices for what I eat. This journey continues.

 I can also say in earnest that any hungry teen I know would love to eat here. After all, there’s and ice cream bar! AALTOS is perfect if you are hungry and you need to eat a lot of food. It is tolerable if you are selective about what you choose to eat, but if you try everything you’ll probably end up feeling like it was not worth the money you paid. This is because the dishes are very much a hit and miss. Some are good, such as Hash browns (which are totally NOT homemade, but that is nice sometimes). Others are standard, like the coleslaw, and some are terrible such as the mostly raw quiches.

            During my most recent trip there I ate:

-          Salad from the salad bar

-          Borscht *Definitely not vegetarian broth

-          Hash Browns

-          Scrambled Eggs

-          French Toast

-          Quiche

-          Bean Salad

-          Coleslaw

-          Apple Cakes

-          Hot Cross Buns

-          Ice cream sundae (why not right?)

-          Fruit

-          Apple Crisp

In other words I ate a lot.

By far the most impressive was the salad bar. I could have only eaten salad. If I had, I would have been totally happy with the money I theoretically paid for this meal (I didn’t foot the bill – thank you grandma and grandpa). There were water chestnuts, beets, green peppers, tomatoes, eggs, and many other things that made for a considerable array of salad options. Iceberg lettuce salad mix and kraft dressings were everything I expected and more. All in all, it was much better than many salads that I have been given at restaurants and they were much more expensive. This also means it is very vegetarian and vegan friendly, provided they can tolerate the salad only fate. I have also talked about the quality of the hash browns. The fresh pineapple was also very good.  

The French toast was reasonably good, more exciting than the pancakes. The pieces I ate were warm and toasty, made with egg from a carton, but that didn’t surprise me very much. The coleslaw was also pretty standard, which is great, because nothing makes me happy like standard-fare coleslaw. I love the tanginess of the dressing and the cabbage and how it is usually just a little bit cold. It didn’t change the world, but it was comforting. Additionally I can’t really say no to a soft ice cream Sundae, or to apple crisp made with apple pie filling.

Everything else was varying degrees of mediocrity, except for the quiche and the bean salad. The bean salad would have been good except that the beans were undercooked. The quiche was horrible because the pastry was still pretty much dough.

            So, what’s my feeling about the whole experience? I left feeling extremely full. That is pretty much the sole purpose of a buffet.  Indeed, I was not hungry until lunch the next day, which is great if you are on a tight budget. The service was a little bit better than most buffets. Most of the food wasn’t very good, but you get what you paid for. Except for the salad bar; that was excellent. Overall, I think Winnipeg needs places like this. A lot of senior citizens eat here, which is proves there is a niche that this place fills. It is also nice to have something better than muffins and a waffle iron when you are staying in a hotel. On the other hand, I don’t feel the need to eat there, and I certainly would not go there with friends.

Until Next time,

Food Review: Diana's Gourmet Pizzaria

Diana’s Gourmet Pizzeria

Units Q&R – 730 St Anne’s Road

 

Everyone knows that when pizza calls and I am ready to answer. Diana of Diana’s pizza is the winner of Canada’s Best Pizza of 2005-2009, and has been judging the competition since. In many ways that is setting someone up for disappointment: if you imagine your idea of the best pizza in Canada, you probably imagine something pretty dang good. Now, I will confess that I did not try a prize winning pizza because they all had meat on them. So my judgement is based solely on the one that we ordered. This is probably a critical point, because the vegetarian pizza is consistently the most boring choice on the menu.

With those things in mind, here is what we ordered:

1 Ginormous Gourmet Vegetarian Pizza – medium crust (made with beer in the dough)

The crust was wonderful, it was soft, pliable and held the toppings well, despite the fact that the each slice was massive. I probably would have cut the pizza into squares because managing the size of the wedges was a challenge. The pizza sauce was very sweet and the cheese was hiding underneath the toppings. It is in the running for the best vegetarian pizza I have tasted in Winnipeg. But is it the best Canada? That is a hard thing to say. Regardless, I was happy with the pizza. I was also happy that I didn't have to pay (thanks to the in-laws) because it is not cheap. As far as cost versus quality goes it probably comes out ahead, but just barely.

So, the final vote: is it worth bringing someone to eat there? Should friends flock to Diana’s? a hesitant maybe. I likely wouldn't go often because it is way too far from where I live. Since there is no obvious winner in the price versus taste continuum you’ll have to decide for yourself if the price is worth it. It’s good, don’t get me wrong, but is it the best?

Until next time.

Food Review: Deer + Almond

Deer + Almond

85 Princess St

         

Updated October  2014

There has been a lot of talk about Deer + Almond: The Hipster-Chic décor, the creative combination of flavours, the smaller tapas-style dishes, the flavoured popcorn that comes with every order, have all been reviewed in detail. This sort of publicity is great for a restaurant, especially one that deserves it. However, that means that there isn't much left to be said. Therefore, I will do the best I can to focus on what other people haven’t, and I will start with describing the wine rack.

The wine rack at the Deer + Almond was different than any other wine rack I have seen. It was a series of boards with holes drilled into it and mounted on the wall. If you can imagine mounting a small well –varnished picnic table top on a wall, drilling holes in it, and putting wine bottles in it, you will know exactly what it is like. If you cannot image it, I don’t really blame you.  Why describe the wine rack? It was a busy night and we did not make a reservation. There was only room at the bar (which is filled on a first-come-first serve). Therefore this piece of décor was immediately opposite us, and we spent a lot of time considering it. During one of the four times I have returned to this restaurant there was an art opening happening around the bar, which was fun and gave us something other than the wine rack to look at, but made it very difficult for the servers to get to people seated at the bar.

                
We ordered from the bartender, who was someone I knew I recognized but could not figure out how. Welcome to Winnipeg; this happens to me all the time. Anyway, he was very friendly and patient when we could not decide what to drink. In the end we shared a G + Tea, which was a great modification of a Gin and Tonic. It included an earl grey flavour shot. We would have had more, but more than one $10 cocktail was not in the budget for the evening. On our second visit we ordered a few more cocktails including the mind-blowing Planter's Punch and the Basil Smash, which was a great palette cleanser. They make a good bramble (lemon, mint, creme de cassis, and reposada tequila),  They also have a "mystery beer" which seemed to be a selection of light European beers during one visit, Belgian beers during another, and heavily hopped IPAs on a third occasion. 

While we waited for the food, and mused over the wine rack we also debated whether the fig tree in the centre of the room was real or fake (we never decided), stared at the many antlered art pieces, and observed that it was one of the few restaurants where grey painted walls look good. In general the decor is very well curated.

we ordered:

• Kale and Quinoa (a friend recommended it)
• Soba Noodles

on our second visit we ordered:

• Kale and Kelp Beignets
• Soba Noodles (again)
• Kale Caesar
• Eggplant

on our third visit we ordered:

• watermelon beet & greek
• vodka tempura crudites
• grilled kale caesar
• ricotta malfatti
• manitoba honey ice cream

on our fourth visit we ordered:

• mandel salad!
• stinging nettle linguini
• dons spiced vegetable fritters
• creme caramel

The food came, and the fun began. If you are an adventurous eater the deer + almond is the place for you! The Soba Noodles were something like Pad Thai, only the craziest (and possibly one of the best) Pad Thai inspired things ever! Every layer of the dish seemed to be flavoured completely differently. It was a pleasure to eat. It also reminds me of something that a lot of people have told me, but I have so often ignored: when cooking, food is more interesting if you prepare it is separate parts and combine them at the end. This means the flavours don’t mix, so you get exciting variation during the meal. I don’t do this, because the apartment I live in doesn't have a dishwasher. 

Visit two was equally impressive. The kale and kelp beignets tasted like shrimp puffs (I was assured they didn't) except so much better! The Soba noodles were up to par. The kale caesar was extraordinary. The balance of the dressing and the apples were masterful and the dish was mind-blowing. The eggplant was our least favourite dish, but not because it was poorly prepared. In fact, it was made to mimic the texture of steak. Although I don't know how easy it was to do, from my perspective it was a piece of food mastery. There is nothing worse than undercooked eggplant, but this was not "green" tasting like one would expect. It was just flavourful.

Visit three was up to par and the highlights were the mManitobahoney ice cream, the watermelon beet & greek, and the crudites, but everything was wonderful.

Visit four was also wonderful. The mandel salad is well done and every bight is different from the previous one. The stinging nettle linguine was a bright green and the tomatoes served with it were masterful. The chili oil brought it to the perfect level of spicy.

How does it rank? If you are a picky eater, I would probably rank it very poorly. I think the food is very good, but also complicated. It is the antithesis of the old-time diner, where food is generic. Since we ate here last time we have continued to talk about how good the food was. I would take anyone who doesn't mind googling ingredients (or asking their server what something is). 

Until next time,