Carl's Jr. - Bienvenue au Canada - Part 2: Did someone say Crisscut?

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In case you missed it I went to Carl's Jr. on a Tuesday once. It was pretty great.

I went back on the Friday.

Where do I start?

First of all the city is poppin. The city has been poppin.

Pan Am has some negatives but the positives completely outweigh them. I've never seen the city this lively before and it's welcomed. Sucks it's all ending soon but it was a fantastic experience to walk around and see so many people at places like Nathan Phillips and the entertainment zone at Queensquay. Didn't get a chance to check out some games but that's alright!

Who know who's probably proud to be in Toronto?

Carl's Jr.

First a $2 milkshake

Now an entrée.

The Main Menu screens (the middle two) focus on the burgers. To the right of that is the Chicken + Fish menu and to the right of that is the desserts + sides menu. Then off to the side to which I think they didn't care if anyone sees it or not was a small fridge and a sticker that said, "Try our salads!" You'll probably miss it if you go into Carls and that's okay. Their 1/2 and 1/3 burger options won't even make you think of ordering a salad. A more comprehensive dessert menu is at the Milkshake bar. I was SERIOUSLY going into Carl's Jr. thinking burger. burger. char-grilled beef patty. burger. then I saw the Bacon Swiss Crispy Hand Breaded Chicken Tender Sandwich. Yes that's the full name. I go up to the cashier and I look at the menu one more time and I could swear that I changed my order midsentence to the Bacon Swiss.

"Hey, can i get the Sup....Bacon Swiss?"
"So Bacon Swiss?"
*Sigh* "Yes..Bacon Swiss"

I pay for my order and she hands me my cup and this.

My eyes must of been too focused on the menu to realize this when I was lining up but they give out numbers with your order. So if you're either doing take-out or dining in they'll call your number and/or come find you. So you could order your food sit wherever and wait comfortably.


The one thing that really makes me happy is this.

Canada Dry Ginger Ale on tap. Damn. You don't see that often. I don't drink as much pop as I used to anymore but Ginger Ale is still one of my favourites so I doubt I'd give it up. Kudos Carl! The only way you could really top this is if you get a Coke freestyle machine.

After grabbing my Ginger ale and sitting down I look around and take in the setting. People for take-out are standing around on their phones or talking to others while waiting. The people who dined in dug in like they never seen food before. I never saw one disappointed face, good sign that the food isn't bad. Another thing you'll notice are the servers walking around aimlessly with either a bag or tray with food trying to match food to owner. I kind of felt bad for them because they had to hunt down the owner. The awesome thing about it was customers were actually helping the servers match the number with the food. I watched CP24 for a couple of minutes before I heard a woman say,

"19? Over there!"

The server brings my food and here it is after a customer points me out.

The burger was way smaller than I expected it to be. I think the McChicken might be a bit larger but Carl's chicken is thicker and more crispy. I know you see those fries ;) we'll get to those later.

The Bacon Swiss Crispy contains:

• Two Freshly-Prepared Hand-Breaded Chicken Tenders
• Two Bacon Strips
• Swiss Cheese
• Tomato
• Lettuce 
• Ranch Dressing

Sounds like a salad in burger form. Tasted like one too. The sandwich itself is messy. They overload the ranch dressing and it really has a strong presence within the sandwich. Another surprise to me is that the lettuce and tomato were tasty, crunchy( the lettuce) and moist - fresh veggies on a burger. In fact I don't ever think going in to eat a burger/chicken burger I think, "I hope the veggies are fresh" but at Carl's they are and refreshing to see shout out to the lettuce not being shredded! I hate that stringy BS. The chicken itself is crispy however near the end the ranch soaks through and makes it softer, the bun gets a little moist as well. Again it's still a great sandwich. The worst part, in my opinion, is the swiss cheese. I wish it was melted over the chicken or the bun. Overtime it doesn't really melt over which is odd because swiss usually melts relatively easy,

Now lets talk about the fries. Crisscut fries.

The picture doesn't do it justice. I'll just cut to the chase. The next time I go to Carl's Jr. I'm getting a poutine with crisscut fries replacing the regular ones. The crispiness combined with the fact that they were piping hot (temperature wise, not spicy) made it  just absolutely delicious. One of my favourite fries I've ever had from a fast food establishment.

Price wise

"It's gonna get messy."

Oh. I should of read the receipt before I ate. It all makes sense now. 

The price is alright. Nothing too extravagant. This is a place you may get excited to get coupons from.  Next time I go if I don't get the poutine for some reason, I'll probably get one of the burgers and maybe the price tag would make a bit more sense.

Overall

I think you should go try Carl's Jr. at least try it once.

Whether it be the burgers, chicken, fish or desserts they know damn well how to make em and make em well.

The service is excellent btw. Great job Queen West!

I look forward to going back sometime.

8.5/10

Carl's Jr.: Bienvenue au Canada - Toonie Tuesday - Shake, shake, shake Pt.1

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All of the posts are now on going to be on WORDPRESS! This blog will be deleted in a couple of weeks be sure to follow the new Broke and Picky! - brokeandpicky.wordpress.com

The United States of America is an incredibly special place when it comes to food.

Fast food in particular.

I'm not even talking about the fast food restaurants that's already present in Canada like the Wendy's, Burger Kings and McDonalds.

I'm talking about the ones you can only see through commericals. My personal favourite American restaurant legend is Checkers. Wow. I just Googled "Checkers" and the first thing that came up wasn't the game, it was the restaurant. God bless America people! Anyway Checkers has this one fish burger that has  double the flakey filet. Lord help me. I gotta hit up the states soon.

'Murican companies like to come over to Canada and see if Canadians can be  big shoppers like the Americans are. This can go over well with places like McDonalds, KFC and 1000s of others stores and restaurants OR they can go terribly wrong. Like Target or K-Mart (remember them?!).

To be fair I have no idea when Carl's Jr. even opened up in it's nice location on Queen West towards Spadina. It just happened to be there when I was walking around in the area couple weeks ago. 

I ended up going twice this week and I don't regret it at all.

The first time I walked inside I was pretty amazed. It has such a beautiful layout. Normally I find fast food places a drag to eat at , which i get, youre going for a fast meal not a fancy dinner. However Carl's Jr. looks like a place I could actually chill and eat my meal comfortably. Which is what I did on the 2nd time but more about that later.

Carl's Jr. has a pub feel to it. A pub with a bar filled with ice cream and milkshakes instead of alcohol. Totally acceptable substitute.

The first time I went was for their Toonie Tuesday Milkshake special. To my honest surprise it was actually $2.05 which is amazing. I haven't had a Real toonie Tuesday where I actually paid a toonie and change in a long time. So you go to the front cashier pay your $2.05 then head on over to the milkshake bar is actually proper. I enjoy that the desserts are sbarrate from the grease.

I ended up getting a Oreo Milkshake but other flavours that are apart of this deal are:

• Vanilla
• Chocolate
• Strawberry

Your typical classic Napoleon flavours but again for $2 I find it hard to complain about a lack of variety. 

The barista (for lack of a better milkshake maker term) scoops in a crap ton of Oreo into the cup with ice cream and milk. Blends it to perfection then tops it with whip cream.

This is what it looks like.

It was love at first sip. The broke ass in me was thrilled but as soon as that first sip hit my tongue. It was love. The thickness wasn't overly thick or it wasnt hard to drink. It flowed nice and slowly. Tasted like Oreo without the crumbs. To think of it they were still there however its not as evident as it is the Oreo Iced Cap. If I had to reduce it all to one word I'd say smooth. So smooth that you forget that there's whip cream until it hits your straw and you start tasting whip cream. The whipped cream even after sitting on top of the milkshake still reminded thick and easy to drink as well. But one can only take so much whipped cream, you know.

Overall

I was pretty impressed with the Carl Jr's milkshakes. Creamy, smooth and has the type of flavour that makes you savour every last drop of it.

My friend Amelia made up a good point though, "I don't know if I'd buy this at full price."

To be honest I don't know if I would either. Wait. How much was it full priced? Oh wow, I didn't even check. . I'll get back to you on that.

9/10 on a Tuesday. 8.5/10 other days.

.....

Can you tell that I pull these ratings out of my ass? No? Okay. Good.

Stay tuned for part 2 when I actually review an entrée item.

Ian

p.s. to the Google+ users - Thank you for +1-ing these blogs. I truly, truly appreciate it.

to everyone else - step your sharing game up.

Please and thank you.



Weston Rd Part 2: I May Have Cursed This Place / P&M Restaurant

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All of the posts are now on going to be on WORDPRESS! This blog will be deleted in a couple of weeks be sure to follow the new Broke and Picky! - brokeandpicky.wordpress.com


A couple weeks ago I wrote a special piece named "This Ain't a Hood - Weston Road Special" This was a defence piece about the street I live on named Weston Road defending it from spoiled ass people coming to my place and commenting on how "hood" Weston looked. Well it's been a couple weeks and there were about 3 stabbings on the very street.

One of them happened at this sketchy ass place which YOU SHOULD NEVER EVER WALK INTO. Maybe you hate your life then be my guest but still man.

"Oh Ian ! The sign says restaurant you going to do a review on that place where a guy got stabbed."

...

Nah it's cool. If the food was really good the stabber would be using the knife on the food instead of the person. Unless he's Hannibal or something like that then I really don't know what to say.

Another stabbing happened like way, way, way down the street (Weston is a pretty long street), near Eglinton, don't know all the details but hope the lad is alright.

THEN my dear friend Aaron sends me this while I'm at my internship.

Damn. Not at my building or anywhere close but still Weston. Sucks to see that.

Maybe I'm naïve person, maybe I'm just stupid enough to still believe in it. In which you ask... but why Ian? Why would you believe in that shithole Weston?

Because of this.

P&M RESTAURANT BABY!

I LOVE P&M. I don't give a crap if this review may sound bias but my God...

This place is one of those gems that just has everything going for it. I might not have been in Weston for very long but even I know this place is integral to Weston.

P&M is a Greek-Canadian restaurant that's been in Weston for over 40 f-n years. They used to be situated in this little space here. I wish I took a picture when they had all the signs on the windows thanking Weston for "40 Wonderful Years". I've been to P&M a combined 3-4 times between the old and new locations.

 The old location had the kitchen right smack dab in front of the door which was a bit crammed. The seating could fit probably only up to a max 30 people and that's really pushing it. What this meant was that the P&M was always busy particularly on weekends for breakfast when they served their Malt waffles. I've never had them (I had the regular bacon, eggs and toast last time I went for breakfast) From what I hear they were amazingly fluffy and delightful.

After years of waiting though P&M finally moved into a bigger location that just happened to be on the other side of the Asian supermarket on the same street. The small space that had a crammed kitchen and could only sit 30 people now has a state of the art kitchen and can sit a whopping 100+ people comfortably. It's amazing seeing a family restaurant progress like this and the owner family should be proud.

So after a long absence I felt for some random reason it was my duty to go back to P&M and do a review on them. Outside looked and felt like England, rainy and somewhat chilly but I braved walking 7 minutes to get to P&M and the bottom of my jeans got soaked but it's whatever.

As soon I get in the head waitress / head chef's wife greets me. She oddly remembers me even though I've only been there a handful of times. It's a nice gesture though and I place my umbrella to the side and the waiter (her son) takes me to my seat.

Nice view right? I always enjoyed seeing open kitchens like this one. There's a sort of genuine feeling to them. Funny enough one of the nicest times I've ever had with my brother is when we got baked and went to P&M for breakfast. He loves to cook so when he saw the open kitchen he was explaining a lot of things to me about how to cook and grill. It was very informative for a kid that I feel like strangling some days.

While the restaurant wasn't full, it felt pretty lively. A group on the other side of the barricade got the happy birthday song sang to them and the waitresses / waiters were all smiling after. It was odd not being at a restaurant where the workers didn't like working there. At P&M the workers for the most part seemed to be in a great mood.

A server comes by and I totally snap back into reality when I realize I haven't really been looking inside the menu. I tell her 2 more minutes and she smiles and walks away. First of all the menu is HUGE. I wish I took a picture of this long menu. It had pretty much everything . A fish menu, entrees, apps, burgers, steak, a whole Greek menu. You know those waste people who go to fancy restaurants and out of the whole complex menu they just order Chicken Fingers just to "be safe"...

Yeah I'm one of those people still. haha it's called broke and PICKY for a reason now. Come on.

Anyway I heard a bell ring and I look up at the open kitchen to see something stacked upon an assload of fries. The server quickly grabs it and places it in front of me.

4 BIG pieces of chicken that in no way should never been considered a "finger" rested upon a mountain of fresh cut fries with a nice helping of plum sauce.

Lets start with the fries. These things make other fries look tiny in comparison. They're not greasy whatsoever. They're not overly seasoned too, which isn't a bad thing. They have a straight up potato taste to them packed with flavour that wasn't over-salted or anything. They're fantastic.

The chicken man. Damn yo. The chicken is no joke. The audacity of the waitress to call these chicken fingers when really it looked like half the chicken cut up into the 4 huge slices of tenders served on top of fries usually there's space for them on the side.

Chicken's lightly breaded. It wasn't your typical crunchy chicken finger. It was seasoned particularly well. In fact you know how pretty much a lot of deep fried chicken items look like the chicken is in a shell. This wasn't the case. You could literally see each speck of seasoning on this chicken.

OH and it was WHITE MEAT. Even the way the chicken broke apart was beautiful to watch. Eating it savouring it with the tangy and not too sweet Plum sauce convinced me to never become a vegetarian. In the words of the great Ari Gold "I need real protein, you know from the flesh of slaughtered animals." (Sorry Amelia)

Honestly, P&M has decent pricing, it may not fit the true Broke and P1cky philosophy but working in what you get for the price. I personally think it's worth it.

I couldn't even finish it man. I boxed it up and now I'm sitting down with mad itis.

So how do I rate it?

Well I'm sure you know how I would rate this.

P&M is a true local gem. The fact that you can see the blood, sweat and tears that goes into a place like this even if you aren't from Weston is truly special. I love places like this. Seeing all the people leaving commenting on how well done the food is, especially with the mass menu that they have to keep up. It's crazy I wouldn't dare rate this anything lower than a 9.

9.5/10

P&M, please continue to be the light that Weston has, showing that this place is filled with loving people and not idiots that pull the type of shit I listed in the beginning of the review.




oh and peachy says hi.

Did you enjoy that?
Have any comments or ideas or you want to go to P&M one weekend?

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- Ian