Restaurant #42 Mexicali Rosa's - May 4th 2012

Mexican/Californian food done wrong...

Pierre, Darren, Stephan, Stephane and I went to Mexi's. I don't particularly like it. I've been there a handful of times, and the last time I was there, I finally discovered that the nacho's were good. So when we went this week, I knew that the nachos were a safe bet (the other things I tried or sampled from other people before didn't taste too good). Turns out that I didn't order the same nachos as the time I enjoyed them, and these weren't too good. Everyone ordered something Mexican except Stephan, and turns out that he seemed to be the one that enjoyed his meal the most.. live and learn, and thankfully this restaurant is done off the list so I won't have to go back for at least a year or so (those seem to be the intervals that I've been there). There was one time (quite a few years ago), that I went with friends for boiled ice cream.. that was actually good.

 

Restaurant #41 Jean's - April 20th 2012

So, I haven't kept the blog up to date lately, and honestly, I had been getting a bit sick and tired of hearing the discussions of where to eat over the last few weeks because we did all the "good" restaurants (in my opinion at least) and now we're left with the shitty ones, so we're not very motivated on choosing restaurants or there's always someone that has a negative comment about most of the restaurants left so I was getting fed up, and the thought of updating this thing with pictures and comments was making my toes curl. Needless to say, I'm feeling better about going to the crappy restaurants and I'll try to update this thing (and adding some pictures), so if the comments/reviews are short and to the point, that would be why.


Stephane, Stephan, Darren and I went to Jean's (the original, on St. George), and it was a typical diner-style restaurant. It was my first time there. I found it ok overall, but in order of preferences of diner's, mine are Hynes then Jean's.. I do like the center island part and how they have a counter all around. Also, Darren had the fried chicken and said that it was very good, so that's nice.

 

 

 

Restaurant # 40 - Mike's -April 13th 2012

We went to Mikes. I got a table d'hote, with a bbq chicken pizza that was good, except that I found there was a bit too much sauce on it, but besides that it was quite tasty. Also, Darren's birthday was the day after, so later on in the evening, we had cake (but it was from Superstore, not Mike's).

 

 

Restaurant # 39 - The Sports Rock - April 6th 2012

The guys went to sports rock. I was told that it was good, normal-style pub food. There was Darren, Stephane, Stephan and Pierre. There was a picture of them outside the restaurant, but due to technological+human errors, that picture no longer exists.

 

Restaurant # 38 - Cafe Maelstrom - March 30th 2012

Bye Bye Maelstrom!

This restaurant is now closed, the night we went was their last night. I always liked this place (others will disagree). I find that it has tasty sandwiches, soups, desserts and good pasta for supper. I think everyone enjoyed their food and the place was quite busy as usual, and there was a steady stream of people waiting to be seated. All in all, a good place by my standards and I'm sad to see it go.

 

 

 

 

Restaurant # 37 - Vito's - march 23rd 2012

We went to eat at Vito's. Most people got pizza, I got gnocchi. The sauce was good and not so good at the same time. It was nice and spicy, but there were no spices besides some hot sauce, no oregano, basil anything that reminds me of Italian pasta sauce, so I was disappointed with that, but my meal wasn't bad though.

 

 

Restaurant #36 - Golden Thaï and Sushi - March 16th 2012

We went to the Golden Thaï and sushi/all you can eat that just opened up in the old Morton pub. There was Stephan, Stephane, Darren, me, Erick and Mireille. This is a new restaurant that just had their grand opening the weekend before. It's a bit of a funny place for a thaï/sushi, but that might just be because I am used to it being the Morton pub, and possibly because even if they changed some of the decorations, there was still a commemorative plaque for a football team hanging on the wall. The concept is fun though, it reminded me of sushi168 in the Ottawa region (http://168sushibuffet.com/ottawa/main2.asp). They have a normal menu, or you can choose the all-you-can-eat option. If you go the latter route, the people that chose this option get an order sheet and a menu, and you place one order for the whole table using the order sheet to decide on the number of each items you want. You can send in as many order sheets as you want, they just have to be one at a time, and one for the whole table (or the people doing the all you can eat).

We were a bit confused by this at first, not knowing how we'd recognize our food and such, so we all wrote it down on our placemats (they were paper), and Erick and Mireille ended up moving to a new table so they wouldn't have to share a sheet with us. We finally managed to hand in our first sheet, then the fun began.

When they bring your food, it's not always the same waiter, and they don't always say what the food they're bringing is, unless you manage to ask them quickly before they leave. Because we had everything written down, we knew what we ordered, so when we started getting food, we noticed right away that they had brought a few things that we didn't order, and we didn't get everything that we ordered... For the stuff that we were still looking to try, we just ordered it on a second sheet. Also, on our second sheet, we pretty much embraced the idea of sharing all the dishes, so we weren't as worried as to who ordered what.

As for the food, Stephan said that it was the best batter on the chicken that he's tasted. I also found that it was tasty, but with our chicken balls, it was more of a batter ball with a tiny atom of chicken hidden inside. Overall, I found the food ok. I enjoyed the concept of all you can eat sushi/thaï and of just ordering a bunch of things and just sharing them all together. Just don't expect them to get all your food order right, but if you're going there to try a bunch of new things, who really cares right? If you didn't get the specific item you wanted to try the first time around, order it again, or as a last resort tell the waiter/waitress what you specifically wanted (which we did, and we got it in the end).