new restaurants

[Prabhakar Ragde]

I was driving on Columbia this weekend and noticed the "Chieng Mai
Thailand Restaurant and Coffee Shop" on the NW corner of Columbia and
King (NE if you're from Kitchener). Most dishes are $5 or $6. There's
a picture of the Thai King and Queen up, so they're either not
Vietnamese or they're very savvy. Anyone tried the place and can
comment?

On a related note, anyone tried the Blood of the Lamb Christian
Steakhouse in downtown Kitchener? It's not likely to be to my taste
(palate or creed) but I bet they've discovered a valuable niche. --PR
--
Prabhakar Ragde, Associate Professor plr...@plg.uwaterloo.ca
Department of Computer Science DC 2119, (519)888-4567,x4660
Faculty of Mathematics Waterloo, Ontario CANADA N2L 3G1
University of Waterloo http://plg.uwaterloo.ca/~plragde

[Matthew Hill]

In article <x6enbm1...@plg.uwaterloo.ca>,
Prabhakar Ragde <plr...@uwaterloo.ca> wrote:

deletions

>
>On a related note, anyone tried the Blood of the Lamb Christian
>Steakhouse in downtown Kitchener? It's not likely to be to my taste
>(palate or creed) but I bet they've discovered a valuable niche. --PR
>--

Lamb Steak? Surely it should be a chop house?

Matthew Hill (mhh...@watarts.uwaterloo.ca)

[Lara J. Wolfson]

I went there with some friends last week. The food was good, and
was much more "authentic Thai" than the Thai place run by the
Vietnamese people in Kitchener. The selection is a bit limited,
but the phad thai and the curry we tried were both good (and cheap).

The service was...interesting? Yes, that's a good word. For
starters, eating Thai cuisine in a donut shop feels weird. (They
have kind of taken a pass on decor, I guess). We also had to
negotiate to get plates and chopsticks (first none, then some, but not
enough, then too many, then they tried to take them all away....)

Summary: good food, but probably best done as takeout, unless you
really feel that need to be in a typical Ontario donut shop.

-- Lara

Prabhakar Ragde wrote:
>
> I was driving on Columbia this weekend and noticed the "Chieng Mai
> Thailand Restaurant and Coffee Shop" on the NW corner of Columbia and
> King (NE if you're from Kitchener). Most dishes are $5 or $6. There's
> a picture of the Thai King and Queen up, so they're either not
> Vietnamese or they're very savvy. Anyone tried the place and can
> comment?
>

> On a related note, anyone tried the Blood of the Lamb Christian
> Steakhouse in downtown Kitchener? It's not likely to be to my taste
> (palate or creed) but I bet they've discovered a valuable niche. --PR
> --

[Tom Haapanen]

"Lara J. Wolfson" <ljwo...@setosa.uwaterloo.ca> writes:
> I went there with some friends last week. The food was good, and
> was much more "authentic Thai" than the Thai place run by the
> Vietnamese people in Kitchener. The selection is a bit limited,
> but the phad thai and the curry we tried were both good (and cheap).
>
> The service was...interesting? Yes, that's a good word. For
> starters, eating Thai cuisine in a donut shop feels weird. (They
> have kind of taken a pass on decor, I guess). We also had to
> negotiate to get plates and chopsticks (first none, then some, but not
> enough, then too many, then they tried to take them all away....)
>
> Summary: good food, but probably best done as takeout, unless you
> really feel that need to be in a typical Ontario donut shop.

I thought it was quite incredible that they hadn't even taken away the
donut trays! It was as if they had just changed the sign outside and
started serving Thai food instead of donuts. Wow.

That said, I quite liked the food. I was a little disappointed not to
see satay on the menu (or am I mistaken and it's not an authentic Thai
dish after all?), but the curry with chicken and bamboo shoots was very
good, and the soup was nice and spicy -- and extremely plentiful!

Yes, we may well do takeout next time. :)

--
[ /tom haapanen -- to...@metrics.com -- software metrics inc -- waterloo, ont ]
[ "i don't even know what street canada is on" -- al capone ]

[Prabhakar Ragde]

[In reference to the Thai place at Columbia and King]

In article <EACon...@metrics.com> to...@metrics.com (Tom Haapanen) writes:

I thought it was quite incredible that they hadn't even taken away the
donut trays! It was as if they had just changed the sign outside and
started serving Thai food instead of donuts. Wow.

Well, you can't eat decor. And it is pretty close to generic "American
diner".

That said, I quite liked the food. I was a little disappointed not to
see satay on the menu (or am I mistaken and it's not an authentic Thai
dish after all?), but the curry with chicken and bamboo shoots was very
good, and the soup was nice and spicy -- and extremely plentiful!

To do satay properly requires a grill. The menu is very
top-of-the-stove.

I wish I could be as enthusiastic about the food. We ordered pad thai,
panang curry, and green curry. The pad thai lacked zip (lime did not
perk it up) and the noodles were stuck together in clumps. Panang is
supposed to be reddish and, well, green curry is obvious, but both of
these were pale beige and practically indistinguishable in taste. To
top it all off, the coconut milk base of both curries had curdled -- a
sign of either overboiling it or simmering it too long with the lid
closed. That is a really amateur mistake.

The prices are low, and the people seem nice, if somewhat clueless
about basic business practices. But I, or anyone who can heat to a
slow simmer, can make better Thai curries at home in ten minutes with
almost no effort other than opening cans, by using canned ingredients
available in downtown Kitchener. (I don't do it from cans, but I do
buy curry pastes in bags in Berkeley). Pad thai is harder -- you have
some chopping to do, and getting the spicing right and mixing it into
the noodles without turning them to mush isn't for the boil-and-serve
cook. If you use enough oil it is easier, but I try not to, and many
cooking at home would do the same. But better noodle dishes can be had
elsewhere in town.

I was hoping this place could be a "too tired to cook" fallback for
me, but I don't think I'll go back.

To counteract my relentless negativity in this group, perhaps I should
mention (at the risk of losing the ability to be able to walk in on
weekends and get a table without reserving) that the Cameron Seafood
Restaurant, right across from Cameron Heights Collegiate in Kitchener,
serves excellent dim sum daily. This place is better than the ones we
have tried in downtown Toronto over the past ten years. It is not as
good as Grand Yatt in Richmond Hill, but it is much closer and cheaper
to boot. That a place like this can open up in a desert like this is a
miracle. (As a contrast, I recently went to the best dim sum place in
Phoenix, an urban area of about 2 million people, and it was nowhere
near as good as CSR.) Dinner was not as satisfactory, and I am
reserving judgement on that, but at lunch CSR deserves your
patronage. Caveat: I didn't order steamed buns, pork shao mai, or any
rolled rice noodles, three of the more popular items. But everything I
did order was of high quality.