Cottage Bakery: Winnipeg (Pembina Hwy), July 14, 2019

Order: Pulled pork sandwich with sweet potato fries

Price: $11

Rating: 3/5

My apologies for being away, but I was on a diet to prevent myself from becoming a fat fuck from eating all this food.

Anyway, this was something a little different to try. I find that these independent places are either magnificent or mediocre. To survive the competition of McDonalds, you have to be good.

The decor was pleasant enough for a cafe/bakery that's been in existence since 1932. The place doesn't look war torn, so that's a good thing. I really hoped that I was going to "enjo" my food.

Hmmm... For eleven bucks, I was hoping for more than a fistful of fries. I figured these should be pretty damn amazing. The fries were mediocre. The dipping sauce tasted like cheap salad dressing from the dollar store. It was very vinegary.

The pulled pork sandwich was good. Not amazing, but good. Honestly, it's very difficult to write about mediocre food. I didn't hate any of this aside from the dipping sauce, but it wasn't memorable.

For the hell of it, I bought a chocolate croissant for $2.99. Again, we have the same mediocre stuff. If you asked me to tell the difference between this and one from Superstore, I couldn't do it. I'm pretty sure you get more of these from Superstore for $2.99.

Again, none of this was terrible, but you can get a better bang for your buck elsewhere. The meal itself would be perfectly adequate for $8. If you want a mind blowing experience at a cafe, try elsewhere like Folio.

MJ's Kafe: Steinbach, Feb 2, 2018

Order: Farmer Sausage Sandwich with Sweet Potato Fries
Price: $11.50
Rating: 5/5

After an exhausting trip to the thrift store to buy a 25 cent Suzi Quatro 8-track, it was time for lunch. We headed across the street to MJ's Kafe. Who knew that Michael Jackson specialized in Mennonite Cuisine? German food a-plenty!

When you enter the front of the restaurant, you are presented with an array of trinkets, yucky butter tarts that are undoubtedly loaded with shitty raisins, and T-shirts that say "Oh Ba Yo" on them.

Food arrived in about 5 minutes. The sandwich was magnificent! To be honest, the only farmer sausage I've eaten before this was that packaged bullshit you buy in the supermarket. The meat they shoved in here is tasty! I swear I heard a pig being slaughtered in the back with how fresh and un-processed this meat is. And they have New Bothwell cheese on it! I've never been to New Bothwell, but I'm guessing the entire terrain is made of cheese, just like the moon.

The sweet potato fries are the best I've ever eaten. They've been seasoned with something I can't identify. I can only boil the seasoning down to pure joy. They're mildly crisp on the outside, and can even bring joy to a sad child who lost their parents in a horrific car accident.

The dipping sauce is chipotle, I think. It's really good, and has just enough zing to leave only a slight hand print after it slaps you in the face.

Now for the other stuff on the plate that's solely there to add "color". I honestly don't care about color. It could look like a pile of puke, but if it tastes as good as the rest of this meal, then I'm happy. The carrot strips try to bury themselves among the fries so they can laugh at you when you take a bite out of one and realize it's just a shitty carrot. The flavor of the carrot can be remedied by dipping it in the chipotle sauce, which actually compliments it really well.

We also get a tin of coleslaw. I honestly don't care if it's created with home made cabbages and warm Christian love, coleslaw is still outdated bullshit that should be extinct. Yes, I tried a bit, and yes it's just as terrible as every other coleslaw out there.

You know what would be better than coleslaw? More of those pieces of carrot! At least you can improve the flavor with the chipotle sauce. Coleslaw already comes with a sauce made from the tears of dead puppies. Seriously, we need to boycott coleslaw. It's the nastiest food on the planet. I'd rather eat a sweaty foot than eat a tin of coleslaw.

But I'm not going to judge this meal on the extra crap that comes on it. I paid for a sandwich and fries, and they were both amazing. I mean, just look at how much meat is in this thing! It's bloody fantastic, and you should eat here!

H/O/N/B/A Sushi: Winnipeg (St. Boniface), Jan 23, 2019

Order: Happy Shrimp roll, Fish & Cream Cheese roll, Dynamite Roll
Price: $22.43
Rating: 5/5

It's fucking snowing out, so what better time than now for some sushi?

There's a billion sushi restaurants in Winnipeg, and I only go to this one because it's close to where I used to live. Luckily, it's not terrible.

Everything here is made fresh with exception of the canned drinks. I honestly wouldn't recommend the chicken though. I had it once and wasn't happy with it, but why the hell would you want chicken sushi anyway? It's all about the seafood!

Personally, I'm not much of a fan of salmon, so I generally stay away from it. As a result, my selection becomes limited, but this place has some good selections.

My food came quickly, and everything was excellent. It all came with disposable dinnerware, but who cares? I'm here for the food, not the plate it's sitting on.

Now, let me tell you about the fish and cream cheese roll. No other sushi places I've eaten at seem to have this. I cannot tell you how magnificent raw tuna and cream cheese go together. You need to come here just to eat this roll. If you don't, then you can live in your closed-up world with your yucky salmon-based sushi.

They were nice enough to bring me a free hot cup of urine to wash down my meal. I have no clue what this actually is, but it tastes like they boiled a Japanese tree. It was okay, but you really can't complain about free boiled-tree juice.

All in all, this place is worth trying if you like sushi. The prices are pretty typical, so you're not going here for a bargain. You're coming here for the cream cheese and tuna.

Folio Cafe: Winnipeg (Grant Ave), Jan 21, 2018

Order: Mushroom Melt, Apple Rhubarb muffin, Orange Pekoe Tea
Cost: $15.00
Rating: 5/5

So I figured I should rate my hangout for when I'm stuck working in the city. When I found myself needing a place to do my blogging, I searched for Cafes and this one popped up. Since then, I haven't looked for another place.

This place is attached to some Mennonite bible college, and its usually full of students. There are electrical outlets at most of the tables, so there are plenty of places to plug in my laptop and my 8-track player.

The food here mainly caters to a hipster type of crowd, so while I fit in with my 8-track player, I don't exactly fit in with my food tastes. They have all these weird teas, a "morning glory" muffin that's seemingly full of twigs and grass clippings, and cookies that have a bunch of things that don't really belong in a cookie. I'm sure all of this is healthy for me and rids my body of evil gremlins, but it's not exactly appealing to me.

However, the good news is there's things here that I do like. I really like the non-twig-filled muffins such as the fantastic apple rhubarb muffin. Their mushroom melt is fantastically filled with gooey cheese, and it's a complete pleasure to chew on. The only thing that could possibly make it better is adding some chunks of bacon, but hipsters probably don't eat pork. The orange pekoe tea is your typical which is fine. There really isn't a way to fuck that up. The prices here are good in comparison to other cafes.

So if you need a place to listen to 8-tracks and write that piece of shit novel you're never going to finish nor publish, I highly recommend this place.

DJ's Family Restaurant, Winkler, Jan 12, 2018

Meal: 2 Piece Chicken Dinner w/ Fries
Price: $9.50
Rating: 1.5/5

It's always Christmas at DJ's Family Restaurant! We were out searching for thrift store junk when hunger suddenly struck us and we nearly died. This place was right on the highway, so we decided to fill our stomachs with whatever this place had to offer. At least it looked presentable on the inside.

There is no table service, so if you were planning on having your ass catered to, then it's tough shit for you. You have to go up and demand your food like an unworthy peasant.

Our food was ready in about 15 minutes...

What the fuck??? That's chicken??? It looks like something you throw through your asshole neighbor's window. And coleslaw??? Why the hell do people still serve this shit with a meal? It's made from cabbage and unhappiness. It tastes like shredded dreams of a once hopeful Ukrainian dinner. Seriously, fuck coleslaw. Everyone needs to just throws this nasty shit away and replace it with a small salad. One third of your meal is wasted on this crap.

The inside of the chicken had the texture of a siphoning hose. The outside was like eating an overcooked piece of sandpaper. The menu is full of chicken, so I foolishly expected them to know how to cook it.

The bun was.... a bun. Some kind of store bought crap. I don't know what the purpose of the bun was. There's no gravy on my fries that I can use it with, and I'm not putting the fucking coleslaw on it. It's just a dry piece of bread filling a void.

The fries were the best part, and I probably have McCain to thank for that. There's no way they made these fresh.

I could have made a much nicer meal at home with the same stuff they used here. Even the chicken would be better. This wasn't worth my time nor money. McDonalds gives better quality food than this, and they will even bring your food to you! If you're going to be a "family restaurant", do yourself a favour and eat at McDonalds so you can see what your leading competition is already doing better than you.

I won't eat here again.

Smitty's, Winnipeg (St. James), Dec 27, 2018

Meal: Bacon Cheese Burger with Fries and Gravy
Price: $14.49
Rating: 3/5

I was craving a burger today. It had to be significant, so I wasn't going to eat any of that McDonalds stuff. I stopped at the nearest place that would have a significant burger, which happened to be Smitty's

Me and my girlfriend have lovingly nicknamed Smitty's as "Shitty's", even though we have never (as far as I remember) have had bad food here. Their wings are good, but I was too hungry to be nibbling on little pieces of chicken.

My food came in 5 minutes! Now, that can be a good or a bad thing. The fries appear to be of the frozen variety and look close to what McDonalds uses. It didn't look like there was any love put into them. The gravy was probably from a packet, but that doesn't bother me if it tastes okay, and this gravy was decent. It had enough (but not too much) salt content which worked well with the fries.

According to the menu, these are apparently "gourmet" burgers. Usually when I see the word "gourmet", it means "bland as fuck", and my assumption was correct. The burger came with no onions as I requested and the patty looked hand made, but there's nothing special here. The sauce was thousand island or some shit, and the patty was flavourless. It was edible, but boring. I could have had a big pile of McDoubles from McDonalds for $14.49, and those at least pack in some flavour.

My server wasnt giving two fucks today, and didn't check on me during my meal. I responded by reserving my tip for buying some more shitty albums from the thrift store. Sorry babe, I don't tip based on a nice butt and a phony smile. Thanks for the burger anyway.

Charlees Restaurant, Winnipeg (Elmwood), Dec 21, 2018

Meal: Sweet Chili Chicken Wrap with House Salad
Price: $11.29
Rating: 4/5

I've eaten here before and the food is usually good, so I figured I'd eat something I haven't tried yet. Well, I've eaten the salad before, so I'm only telling you a half truth.

This place used to be a filthy bar where I met my filthy ex-wife. It's nice that they slapped a fresh coat of paint on the place, but even a fresh coat of paint couldn't fix my ex-wife. Regardless, the place looks better than it did back then, and there aren't any sketchy-ass drunks hanging out there anymore.

My meal arrived after about 15 minutes. May I present the twin towers!

The cucumbers are the friends that nobody asked for, but they went down the same hole and will likely come out the same hole. The salad is full of craisins which is fine. The chewy and crunchy works here unlike raisin bran where the stupid flakes get soggy in the milk and it turns into a shitty, chewy mess. None of that here!

The wrap came with an unexpected ingredient... Raw onions. I fucking hate raw onions, and they weren't listed in the ingredients on the menu. They're splattered all over the top like shit speckles on a toilet seat.

On the plus side, I couldn't really taste them. The sign of a good chef is when they bury the pieces of shit you hate and can no longer taste them. I swear this never happens, and it's a first for me. Good job to the chef! I still think they should have been listed in the ingredients on the menu.

The chicken was very tasty, and because the wraps were standing up, I got a nice drink of chili sauce at the bottom. They should probably lay the twin towers down when they put them on the plate to avoid that.

Overall, it was pretty enjoyable. I got to sing some karaoke afterwards which is always a good time.