Don't Throw This Snowball!

 Are Snowballs (the cake) a winter treat?

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Bangkok Snacking

 We recently got back from a quick trip to Thailand, and boy are my arms tired. That's a really lame joke, and not very relatable to my trip. It would be more appropriate to say that our stomachs are totally stuffed instead of our arms being tired because we filled up on all kinds of great food. What you have to know about this trip before you continue reading is two things. First of all we have been to Bangkok many times, we've lived in South East Asia for several years in the past, and we're living there now. The second thing you should know is something I just said, we live in South East Asia right now. What that means is we're not really going crazy over the South East Asianess of this adventure. We can get street food, great hot pot and all kinds of rice and noodle dishes where we live. In some ways we go to a big city like Bangkok to get a little big city life as well as western food. So don't complain that we did South East Asia poorly on this adventure because we pretty much live it every single day.

As I said, this is a quick journal highlighting some of the things we ate on this adventure. I feel like this is an interesting representation of Thai eating from the perspective of people who lives in South East Asia, and haven't seen a McDonalds in months.

Needless to say, the first thing we ate when we got into the airport was McDonalds. It was nothing special, just a way to get that craving out of the way and eat something quickly before the long cab ride to our hotel. Those of you who have visited Bangkok before know that you need to be prepared for a long cab ride from the airport and fueling up (along with a bathroom break) is essential.

The next morning... McDonalds again (this will be a reoccurring theme). We had a busy day planned and we just wanted to get breakfast quick and we all know that McDonalds breakfast is a travelers dream. The cool thing about this particular breakfast at McDonalds is that I managed to sample one of the Thailand McDonalds exclusives the McPatongko. It's basically a crispy deep fried donut that comes with a condensed milk dipping sauce. Happy that I tried it, but didn't feel the need to get them again.

When we visit Thailand, there are certain places we always like to get food. We'll often go back again and again until we're kind of sick of it, or at the very least until we no longer feel like we'll regret not going one more time. Something you learn traveling in certain parts of the world is that some foods are more dangerous than others when it come to food born illness. Most seasoned travelers will tell you that meat it not the true danger, ice cubes and lettuce are the silent killers. Because we live in South East Asia, in a place that could be a danger for food born illness, we don't often get to enjoy a good salad. The great news is that we know a place in Thailand that not only offers a clean safe salad, but the salads they make are excellent. This place is known as Jones's Salad, and I feel like we ate there at least 3 times on this adventure, and we certain stopped there on our first day.

For those of you looking for something a little more South East Asian, this is your time to shine. Another one of my always first day must have foods is mango sticky rice, bought off of the street. I have two vendors that I always frequent, and they've never disappointed. Mango sticky rice will always be the first and last dessert I get on any trip to Bangkok. Sometimes I'll get one or two in between as well, I believe I've even had a trip where I got a serving of this amazing dessert each and every day of my stay. As a person who loves sweets, I can easily tell you that a well made mango sticky rice is the best dessert on offer in the entirety of Thailand, maybe even in all of South East Asia.

Our next stop in Bangkok makes the least sense of them all, Tim Horton's. Sure we lived in Canada just a few months ago, but for some reason I just can't stop in a city with a Tim Horton's without seeing what they have on offer. For those of you that don't know, Tim Horton's has had great success with locations all over Asia. I love the idea of seeing how these international locations differ and how they're the same as the classic Canadian shops. I'd like to tell you all about that right here, but you'll have to wait a little while as I'm currently writing a blog dedicated to my experience eating Timbits in Thailand.

For one of our lunches we decided to get some Japanese tonkatsu. It was a fine meal, however the interesting part of it was the decorations. The entire restaurant was filled with fun tonkatsu characters all dressed up for Christmas. I found the fact that little pigs were celebrating the holiday season right next to breaded pork cutlets to be a little weird, but that's mostly because I was raised to disassociate my food from the animal. In most Asian cities it's celebrated.

The one thing Allison can't resist when we go to Thailand is Sao Ping. Once again, all of you out there who think that we overdo western food in Thailand, you'll enjoy this. Sao Ping is a fried bean based cake that's a very common street food. They have various fillings and can even have differing ingredients in the cake, but they all have a similar texture and always taste great warm. I've seen them for sale in a few bakeries and grocery stores, but I always feel like the street version is the best. This is probably because of their very short shelf life. While they taste fine a little old, they're so much better fresh off of the heat.

One thing that seems to be constantly growing in all parts of Asia is ice tea. Milk tea, boba tea, and fruit teas run rampant at every corner. There are combinations of these teas, speciality version and over the top dessert ice teas available everywhere. I decided to jump into this trend head first and tried something called a Dirty Nutella Milk Tea. It consisted of a chocolate milk tea, chocolate sauce, many generous scoops of Nutella at the bottom, and oddly marshmallow used like boba balls. The marshmallows were the strangest part, but kind of fun to hunt down throughout the drink. Getting the occasional mouth full of Nutella was fun, but also pretty heavy. While I did enjoy this sweet treat, it left me more thirsty than when I started.

For our last meal we decided to sit down to some shabu shabu. The great thing about shabu shabu is it allows everyone to get a lot of whatever they want. We of coarse stuffed ourselves silly, but I didn't pass up the free scoop of ice cream for dessert.

Given the fact that I just stuffed my face with a great deal of meat a vegetables, I thought I'd give the charcoal ice cream a taste. It made sense since charcoal is known to help with an upset stomach, and it's ice cream, so it'll make it fun too. It actually tasted pretty good, but I can't say it did much to settle my stomach considering the amount we ate.

My final treat, you guessed it, McDonalds. This time I blame the fact that I had 45 minutes between the time we checked out of the hotel to the time we needed to get picked up for our cab ride back to the airport. I did however manage to get another Thailand signature dessert. It's the pineapple pie a la mode. There are so many great things about this dessert that make me wonder why all McDonalds can't have this. First of all the pie is deep fried, unless the filling of a McDonalds pie is ultra unique, I really only go for the deep fried pies. Secondly the pineapple is a fun filling, maybe not something I'd always order, but once in a while it's supper tasty. Finally, putting it in ice cream is a brilliant move. I'm sure if they don't actually offer this at your local McDonalds you could probably just get a sundae and put your pie in it, but I'm kind of lazy, so I've never done that before.

Seeing as we're back in Asia for a few years, I seriously doubt this will be my last stop in Bangkok. I might write another recap, but frankly most of my trips to Bangkok look a lot like this one. 

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This Video Will Make You Feel Regular... or plain... or original

 I've always wondered how candy companies define the words "regular, plain or original". I feel like every treat has its own idea of what this should mean. While I have a few ideas about how some snacks label their basic treat, there are always a few weird ones that don't fit into the mold.

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Indeed This Treats And Beasts Is Fun To Read

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I Don't Like Barbecue

I don't mind the real thing, pork and beef slow cooked over a barbecue pit, but I've never been able to really enjoy barbecue flavoured snacks. I think it has something to do with fake smoke flavouring. I don't mind if something has a real smoky flavour, but that liquid smoke (or any fake smoke) flavour just doesn't cut it for me. In my time as the Candy Critic I've attempt to train myself to appreciated certain flavours like licorice and marshmallows, but I feel like barbeque chips might be one that I just don't bother trying to appreciate. I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything just because I don't really dig fake smoke flavouring.

Check out the full review of these barbecue chips, and find out why they didn't do that badly.

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Santa Losing Weight

 I don't really understand the logic of this commercial. It appears that Santa just spent Christmas Eve delivering presents but also eating too much food. He complains about eating too much, but then goes on to eat a candy bar. He also seems a little foul mouthed, but maybe that's just a misinterpretation.

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A Long Time Cactus Coming

When I first tasted Cactus Candy more than 15 years ago, I never thought I'd get to taste it again. I'm glad I did, and I might even try and pick it up again some time in the future.

You can check out the full review here.

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Holy Cow This Treats and Beasts Is Great!

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Spice Might Kill You

I feel like the word "spice" is a difficult word to define. The word has always meant two things to me. Spice for me can either be defining something that has some heat, or it can also just mean something that has herbs and spices added to change the flavour of something. While the heat element could be seen as something that changes the flavour of something, it has something else about it too. More recently, spice in both senses of the word tend to mean an extreme flavour addition, be it spicy or not. It's as if some "spicing" of foods doesn't deserve to be called spice, only if the spice is more powerful than every other flavour in the food. This new review is a key example of "spice" in the extreme.

Check out this treat that does not go light on the spice.

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Christmas Traditions

There are certain traditions that I have, including watching this adorable M&M's commercial.

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The Advent of Calendars

Every year I go to the store and stare dumbfounded at the Christmas items. My first thought is often, September seems a little early to be selling Christmas items, but that’s followed by my indecision trying to pick out my advent calendar for the Christmas season. The advent calendar is probably the first Christmas treat I think about for the holidays. It seems like the only holiday treat you can buy well before Christmas, mostly because you actually start eating it on December 1st.

So there I am, staring at the vast selection of cardboard walls filled with 24 doors hiding surprises behind each. The question is, which one should I get? For the sake of argument, and to keep this blog on brand, let’s eliminate any non-candy themed advent calendar. I’m not saying that they’re inauthentic or better or worse than the candy themed advent calendars. I just feel like they’re in a category all their own. The question I want to focus on is which of the candy filled advent calendars should I get.

While the selection is huge, one thing I’ve noticed is that almost all of them seem to have a chocolate theme. It’s pretty rare (if not impossible) to find an advent calendar filled with hard candy or gum. There’s also three basic categories I find with advent calendars. There’s the inexpensive basic chocolate calendars, calendars filled with popular candy bars, and calendars filled with fine chocolates. The prices of these different categories also have a huge range. First let’s look at each category, then try and figure out what’s best.

To me, the most traditional form of advent calendars are the simple chocolate ones. At the very least, these are the kind that I used to get as a kid. I’m not sure if the candy bar calendars and fancy calendars came out later in my life, or if my parents kept them away from me so they wouldn’t have to spend that much money. In general the quality of the chocolate is not great. Sometimes it’s downright awful (as I’m experiencing right now). The kinds/sizes of the chocolate in these simple advent calendars tends to be pretty basic, on occasion they have a bigger chocolate for the last one. Shapes can also vary in variety, however I often find that these simpler calendars have some pretty festive shapes and designs. The biggest advantage of these advent calendars is the price. If you’re looking for the fun of opening a door every day, maybe to a fun little shape, but you don’t care about the chocolate, these are for you.

The next category is the candy bar calendars. These are advent calendars filled with a name brand candy like Kit Kat or Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. I feel like these have come about more recently as advent calendars have become more popular. The size of the treat in these can also vary, but most of the time you have snack or mini sized versions of the classic treat, with a full sized treat as your last. Theme wise it can sometimes be a little weak as the focus is on the candy being recognizable and not festive. Although this is changing a bit over the last few years with many candy brands releasing special holiday themed versions of their treats. The price of these is one of the differences between these and the simple advent calendars. You can find these candy bar calendars going for 10 times the price of the basic simple calendars. These will give you the treats you want/like, but you’re paying for it and you might be disappointed with the size of each treat.

The final category of advent calendar is filled with fine chocolates. The quality of these treats guarantees you’ll enjoy eating each and every chocolate. Theme wise they can really vary, in some cases they can be truly festive, sometimes they just hint at the holidays, while other times they’re more concerned with making pretty chocolates over the festive spirit. These treats will often make your mouth very excited about opening each door, but it’s at a cost as they’re never cheap. I’ve seen some of these calendars go for over 100 dollars.

Which calendar you buy really depends on what experience you want, and if you’re willing to pay for it. In general, I tend to go for the simple cheap chocolate calendars. I feel like part of it is out of nostalgia, but also what I’m looking for. There’s something fun about opening a little door each morning, seeing a little festive designed treat, and getting just a little sweet chocolate taste. If I want something fancy or name brand, I feel like I’d be better off just buying that treat separately. I will say that on occasion I’ve been very disappointed with the quality of the treats in these simple calendars, however I’ve also been surprised at how good some of them are too. 

I feel like the ceremony of the advent calendar is much more important than the treat itself. While it’s always nice to get something tasty, it’s not so important to me that it would ruin the yearly tradition of opening up little doors every day in December even if the chocolate isn’t that great.

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Good Golly, It's Treats and Beasts

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Drink Your Gum

I think there's a subtle art to the candy crossover. Not every company can pull it off. Those who do pull it off fall into one of two categories. Either you spend a lot of time crafting the perfect crossover, balancing the flavours and textures of the original in order to try cross them over with a different kind of treat. The other are those who have a treat that just naturally works with other treats. Kool-Aid has a lot of options when it comes crossing over since they have simple yet iconic flavours. I'm hoping this is only the first step towards more Kool-Aid themed treats in the future.

Check out the first of 3 Kool-Aid gum reviews that I'm posting this week.

If you want to check out the other Kool-Aid gum reviews that I'm posting later, make sure to check out Facbook, Instagram or Twitter.

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Ring My Bell

 Every year I watch this commercial and every year it makes me smile.

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Finally You Can Get A Copy Of Treats and Beasts

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A Simple Grocery Store Bulk Candy

I want to give a little bit of context to this candy. It's Ukrainian and was purchased (and consumed) before the events that happened there. More relevant to this story, it was purchased at an average grocery store in the bulk candy bins. The bulk candy bins are a place that most of us, myself included, often pass up unless we're looking to get a certain amount of a treat we love. However, when traveling it's rare that I stop at bulk bins in grocery stores, and I'm not really sure why. This amazing chocolate treat is a perfect example of why I should stop doing this, because this turned out to be one of the best chocolate's I've ever eaten in my life.

Read more about this amazing chocolate treat, found in a bulk bin.

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Blow You a Kiss

 With a name like Kiss, you'd think that the process of making them would be much more magical. Not enough pixy dust and magic wands in my opinion.

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Cereal Innovation or Waste of Packaging

 I recently came across a new cereal. It's likely not new to the world, but it's very new to me. It grabbed my attention because it offered some new fruity flavours that I'd never had in a cereal before, papaya and pineapple. The package implies that the fruit is also real, which makes sense given how common these fruits are where this cereal is made, which is Myanmar. The panda is also very cute, so  since I needed something for breakfast, this seemed like the perfect fit.

Upon opening the box I was even more confused/surprised by what was inside. It's not often that the format of how cereal is delivered is surprising to me. Rather than give you one giant bag of cereal, they've portioned the cereal into 5 separate bags. Better still they've separated the fruit and portioned that into another 5 separate bags. I wasn't sure if this was a brilliant idea at first, or an extreme waste of packaging. My first guess was that they split the cereal into separate packages to help it stay fresh and keep bugs out. South East Asia (where this cereal sells) is known for being very humid and also having a lot of bugs. Both of these are due to the constant warm weather in the area, so it makes sense as a way to keep your cereal fresh.

I took my single portion of cereal and I was truly excited by the cute little packages.

The writing on the bags of cereal was a little weird.

The cereal portion was a little strange. I was expecting something like corn flakes, but instead got what looking like tiny little squashed circles. They also had some kind of sweet coating on the outside. Frankly I would have been satisfied with just these, but there was more.

I opened up my little bag of dried pineapple and papaya and they were nicely chopped into tiny little cubes. I definitely felt like the ratio of cereal to fruit was pretty good. Too much of either would have ruined this cereal experience. Adding the milk however proved to me another reason why one might break this cereal into individual portions in particularly with the fruit.

The second I added my milk, all of the fruit sunk to the bottom. It made me think that the same would have happened in the box, had it not been portioned out in little separate bags. I had to dig down to the bottom of the bowl for each bite, however my bowl had a perfect proportion of cereal and fruit. I'll be honest, I wasn't totally blown away with the flavour of this cereal, it was fine. The little disks did stay very crunchy in the milk however, almost too crunchy as they didn't seem to let any of the milk penetrate at all. There are a few other cereals made by this company, and I think I'll probably attempt to try them all. 

At a certain age you don't really expect to be surprised at the way cereal is packaged, but as it turns out, you never know.

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A List of Things You Should Get

 In this special episode of Junk Fud on the Road, Chris asks Allison about all of her must have treats, snacks and meals in all of the countries they've visited before.

Check out what Chris and Allison are up to right now on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

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Everything You Need To Know About Treats and Beasts

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Kit Kats Till Thursday

I recently got my hands on 4 new flavours of Kit Kat bars from Japan, and I've decided that I'd review them all this week. The plan is to eat one every day till Thursday. I'm always amazed at all the variety of Kit Kat flavours out of Japan, and even more surprised when I discover a "new" flavour that seems like it should have already been a flavour. This first variety is the perfect example. It seems like cheesecake and Kit Kat bars would make for an obvious team up. So obvious that I'm surprised that we haven't even seen cheesecake Kit Kat bars in North America already, after all, there are plenty of Kit Kat flavoured cheesecakes out there already.

Check out my full Kit Kat cheesecake review right now.

Make sure to follow me on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to keep up with this week's Kit Kat bar candy review-a-thon.

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Ice Cream Makes Everyone Happy

 This is pretty close to how I react when I hear the music from an ice cream truck. Too bad they make me pay for mine.

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Don't Miss Out On Treats and Beasts

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Custom Kit Kat Bars

 Check out this new episode of 10 Second Kitchen where you get to watch them make custom Kit Kat bars.

Check out all of the 10 Second Kitchens on my candy map.

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Almost The Original, But Not Exactly

 

This candy made me think once again about the power of authenticity. I always find that authenticity in food, particular candy, is a strange battle. Just because a company did not invent a particular candy, doesn't mean that their version is less superior... right? The problem with this argument is that the original companies often do make the more superior version of most treats. I've had hundreds of variations of classic treats, but most of the time the original seems to be the better one. My only guess is that the original company has a reputation to uphold. The copycat companies can always move onto the next popular snack and make a copy of it instead, while the original company needs that treat to be the best it can be.

Check out my latest review where I taste a generic copy of a classic candy.

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The Origin of Your Twinkie

I was always under the impression that Twinkies were just born.

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Eating Everything I Can When Traveling

 So I recently went on a pretty big flight. I traveled from Canada to South East Asia, with many stopovers along the way. As a side note you'll probably notice a few more Asian treats appears on this blog as well as on my social media and reviews. As an experiment I decided to document every thing I ate along the way for this trip that took almost two days. I also accepted almost every single thing given to me, even if it meant eating dinner at 3 in the morning.

I started at the Ottawa airport with a bag of potato chips, Miss Vickie's to be exact. I got these in the lounge while waiting many hours for my first flight to the other side of Canada (British Columbia). This is not going to be the last bag of Miss Vickie's I'll be eating on this trip as I believe Air Canada has some kind of deal with them.

My first full meal was a dinner I believe. I picked the cheese tortellini. Most notable about this meal is the fact that the cheese cake was super dry and on the menu the salad was said to have "a Brussel sprout" and it did. It has one single Brussel sprout sliced thinly.

This photo does not tell the truth. While pictured above is one bag of almonds, I think I had at least 3 of them over the course of this flight (about 6 hours). While I miss peanuts on airplanes, almonds aren't that bad a replacement. I much prefer them over weird snacking crackers that are also common on some flights (see below).

My second bag of Miss Vickie's potato chips came before leaving the first of 3 flights. I was only offered either a bag of chips or a chocolate bar, but I asked if I could have both and the wonderfully patient flight attendant agreed that I would need it for the rest of my long journey.  As an FYI, I saved the Kit Kat bar for later and it melted in my bag. I'm sure I'll post about it on my social media real soon.

We landed in the airport in British Columbia and headed straight for the lounge again. We had a very long (6 or 8 hour) wait ahead of us for our next flight. The lounge had a nice range of food including a constant supply of spring rolls and samosas. I came back to this several times, and it was a good warm up as the place we were going also has a lot of these available.

I couldn't leave Canada without one more bag of Miss Vickie's chips. This time I went for the salt and vinegar, probably my favourite flavour of chips in the world (you can read my full review of these right now if you like). I also had several cups of tea while waiting for this next flight, there were a few flavours to choose from with varying levels of caffeine.

There was also a large jar of cookies available throughout our wait in British Columbia. I did indulge a few times, but I ate far fewer cookies than you would expect from a guy who writes about candy for a living. I was probably just really tired and out of my mind.

Finally we boarded our next flight that would take us across the Pacific Ocean. This was a weird flight for us as we'd already eaten dinner, but because of the time changes we were offered dinner again. Allison decided to sleep, but I decided to go with dinner and I was not disappointed. This flight had a very different method of serving dinner, and it involved table clothes and multiple courses. Dinner started with a small ball of cheese with green and red stuff stuck to it (likely spinach and sundried tomato) as well as a small tart filled with some kind of fish salad.

The next course involved a potato covered in cheese and a steak. I'll be honest I'm not really a big fan of steak, but the alternative was fish and I'm even less plussed about that. I'm sure if meat and potatoes are your thing you would have been totally impressed with this, but I kept thinking about the tortellini I ate on the other flight, and the fact that I should probably be sleeping instead of eating.

For dessert, we had some kind of chocolate hazelnut pie. I'll be honest, it kind of sucked. The best part of the pie was the hazelnuts, and the best part of dessert was the grapes.

After a few hours of restless sleep we were rewarded with breakfast. There are two things worth noting about this breakfast. First of all they offered us a plate of sliced fruit, next to a fruit salad that contained exactly the same kind of fruit. So in some ways we received fruit two ways. The other thing worth mentioning is that bowl of creamy stuff on the top of the tray. I'm not sure what it was, but it was fantastic. I would describe it as some kind of pudding/yogurt with some very tasty granola mixed in.

This odd pile is the second course of the breakfast I got (they kept up the whole fanciness even for breakfast). It's supposed to be an orange and chocolate hazelnut, cream filled crepe. It tasted better than it looked, except for the fact that there was way too much orange zest on it.

We landed in Asia, and made our way quickly to our next flight. It was a tight connection and we had no time for any snacks along the way. Frankly I was so tired and messed up at that point I don't know how interested I would have been in eating at that point. We boarded our third and final flight and the first thing we received was a bag of random salty snacks. It was more in line with the cracker based snacks that I'm not too keen on, but I was happy that the peas were not too spicy with wasabi.

On this flight we received our final meal of this journey. I couldn't tell you if it was supposed to be lunch or dinner as I was pretty tired and totally messed up from the jetlag. It was a very typically Asian airline meal with some random meat served with rice and some bok choy. We also got some more fruit, but this time it included dragon fruit, a favourite of mine. I'm pretty sure I didn't manage to eat everything on my plate at this point, but it was nice to pick through it at least.

Dessert for this meal did not disappoint though. Even better was the fact that Allison was not interested in her ice cream, so I got two. While I had a hard time eating everything on this last meal, I found space for the two servings of ice cream.

We arrived at our destination just as I finished my cup of tea. The menu for this flight offered many different varieties of tea, however the flight attendant's English was not great, and when I asked about the teas she just assumed I wanted the traditional Chinese tea. It wasn't what I was thinking about, but it did hit the spot.

Make sure to check out my social media (Facebook, Instagram and Twitter) as I'll be posting a lot of fun discoveries on this new epic journey that I'm on right now.

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Time To Melt My Mouth With Hot Tamales

I'm not sure where my mind was when I made this video. What possessed me to just eat a whole bunch of Hot Tamales at once because 2 of them didn't seem to burn fast enough is a mystery to me.

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Can You Imagine How Fun It Will Be To Read Treats and Beasts?

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Spicy Candy Changes, Or I Do

I'm having a bit of a mental dilemma lately when it comes to reviewing spicy treats. My problem is that I've grown somewhat since I started this site, and I believe I have a higher tolerance to spicy food than when I started candycritic.org. My problem stems from the fact that I have older reviews on this site from back when I not only couldn't tolerate spicy food, I actually had something against it. I used to believe that it was silly to eat any food that caused your mouth pain, even though for some reason I accepted sour as being okay. So when I look back at my old reviews I see a person that just couldn't accept spicy food as an option, and maybe didn't even give it a chance. I'm glad I've grown, but I'm not sure what to do about my past.

Check out my latest spicy review where I didn't actually mind it at all.

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Fancy a Sip of Coke?

 If you love the idea of a 14 minute art film about various ways to open a bottle of coke, have I got a treat for you.

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What's Ottawa Food?

I've lived in Ottawa on and off for about 8 years all together. For those that aren't in the know, Ottawa is the capital of Canada. Canada has always had issues when it comes to identifying a national dish. This problem comes from the fact that Canada is a large country filled with people from all over the world. The most prevalent dish in one city will vary greatly from a prevalent dish in another city. Some dishes become popular outside of Canada, like poutine, but often these dishes are very regional inside Canada, and often they have their roots in the immigrant population found in that area. The food you find in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver is all very different, and reflects the people and personality of the region.

This is one of the things that makes Ottawa, the capital of Canada even more complex. Ottawa has a local population, but a majority of the people are from other parts of Canada, most working for the federal government. While places like Toronto and Montreal seem to thrive on collections of outsiders coming into the city, Ottawa seems to suffer. It's not to say that Ottawa doesn't have good food, in fact there are some amazing foods available, I've just always felt like Ottawa doesn't have a personality when it comes to the food. That was until a few days ago.

A few days ago Allison and I where downtown and we decided to hit one of our favourite places to grab lunch in the city, the Elgin Street Diner. This diner has been around for as long as I've been visiting Ottawa, before I moved to Ottawa. It has some great food and a great atmosphere. After enjoying some amazing diner food I ordered the dessert I always get at the Elgin Street Diner, their rice pudding. Every time I go I get the same dessert, and I'm never disappointed.

On our way out the door we talked to the daughter of the owner and she asked if we enjoyed the rice pudding. I told here a meal here wouldn't be the same without it, and as always it hit the spot. She then went on to explain that the rice pudding was her grandmother's recipe and they've been selling it at the diner forever. At that moment I was hit with inspiration.

If I was to define Ottawa food, it would be the consistent diner. Ottawa has a good collection of diners, some more popular than others, but almost all of them are fantastic. One of the key features of these diners is the fact that they don't change. I can go into the Elgin Street Diner and get the same rice pudding every single time. The décor of the diner has not changed at all. The family that runs it has not changed. In many other cities around the world, when a diner becomes the popular hot spot, things start to change. Sometimes these diners turn into fine dining diners. They up the quality, make the atmosphere fancy, and the place just gets classier. Sometimes diners spread themselves too thin and expand to more locations.

I feel like this doesn't happen in Ottawa. Sure new diners open and some close, but so often they don't really change. Some might call this lazy or boring, but I find it comforting. I think that's a good way to describe Ottawa diners, comfortable. Each one of these places is just like the rice pudding at the Elgin Street Diner, I know that if I walk into that place I'll get a dessert that I love. It will be the same recipe that the girls grandmother made a long time ago.

CC