our town sucks, but I’m 20 minutes from the university of Waterloo with 50000 students about half of whom are international. there are probably 100 restaurants within a few blocks of the school targeting students…..except with the international makeup of the students, there is about every kind of very authentic national dishes you can think of. all of them dirt cheap. like every type of Asian, multiple Arabic, Turkish, Indian, hand spun noodles places where you have to ask for an English menu, and so on. so I don’t just get Indian, I can get hyderbad or Bangladesh food, that level of distinction.
now I think about it, I’m not sure there are any Italian restaurants in that area lol.
anyway, the level of variety we have in a few blocks rivals Toronto. it’s under appreciated locally, for sure.
Hip_tiger_Wife and I dined at Olive Garden on Friday. I teased the server about the cheese grating. The server confirmed that she has used up a whole block of cheese on one customer who didn’t say “Stop!” .
I just sold an office chair to a Turkish guy who’s a barber. I offered to swap a haircut for the chair. but my hair is buzzed almost down to the wood, so I said, you know if it’s even worth it. he looks at me and says ‘do you have anyone in your life?’. Dude, lol, seriously gonna do me like that?
Anyway I have an appt in a couple weeks for a cut and beard trim with a Turkish barber. I’m looking forward to it.
My city posted today regarding 2026 construction projects. They are officially starting the road diet on my street this spring, so happy. People drive way too fast and I hope this calms that way down. Plus bike lane!
Our town recently re-paved most of the streets in our neighborhood. They included new striping with well-defined Street parking, and big green paint indicating that bikes can share the lane on each side. So much nicer for my kid riding his bike to school.
There is one tiny section that they didn’t re-pave. It’s the part with the worst potholes. Apparently it’s the responsibility of the county instead of the city, so who knows if it will ever get fixed.
When I stay at the Ontario farmhouse I grew up in, I like to bicycle to the small village about 12 kms away. The county road I cycle on is recently paved with a paved shoulder for bicycles the whole way. However I know when I hit the town limits as the road appears to have been shelled by bombs!
Burger King has done it again with a new knockoff. They’ve now got something close to the old McD apple pie - not the lame ones they currently serve, but the deep fried, far-too-hot-so-you’ll-get-burned old version that McD got rid of decades ago, presumably after too many burn lawsuits. BK’s is smaller, of course, and a little more cinnamon-y, but a pretty good knockoff.
I don’t get how they can continue to offer their Jack In The Box knockoff tacos. They don’t appear on the menu and I wonder how they can sell enough of an item not on the menu to make it worthwhile.
I found out that a sushi restaurant chain in Seattle and Portland that’s primarily gluten-free (so much so that only the items not GF are marked) will soon be opening a location in my town, just a few miles from my house.
We went out to dinner this afternoon. A little kid, whose family was also eating there, was walking from table to table, dropping off Valentine’s cards. How sweet. Ours was a scratch-off Star Wars card that said “I’m the droid you’re looking for”.
