Michi Waffle & Expresso Bar
1319 Robson Street
Vancouver, BC

To quote Sherman, “you got lots of good eats here!”. Now, he wasn’t referring to Surrey or Delta; he was referring to the West End, where Mijune, Sherman and I was after the event in Prestons, which we left early. Normally, after such event, it would have been everybody going home or some other activity. But, in this case, it wasn’t that hard to “convince” them to try a semi-new waffle/coffee bar in Robson Street, near Hon’s. Hey, we are all for some good time and, well, food! (Not to mention, we had the subject-matter expert in hand for this!). That place was Michi Waffles & Expresso Bar.

The setup of Michi is more similar to that of a lounge and, since it was empty when we arrived, we snatched the couch (and the small coffee table). OK, it was supposed to be shared by all customers; however, considering that we were sharing the food (not to mention some goodies Sherman graciously brought from OUTSIDE this shop) plus three drinks, we pretty much grabbed all the space available. Yeah, we can be such space hoarders at times!

Given that the place’s name includes waffles that automatically meant we were going to order waffles. Now, none of us are coffee drinkers so we left that part of the equation out. One thing I am not sure if I should be disappointed or should be OK with it was the fact all the waffles were sitting in a cool display. Won’t that affect the texture of the waffles? Shouldn’t it be on display outside? Shouldn’t it be made to order? I guess each business has there own way to prepare food and, rather than arguing on those aspects, we rather make a judgement based on what is on the table, starting with the drinks.

Matcha red bean smoothie

Ice Wild Berry

Tea, Earl Grey, Hot!

I didn’t try either Mijune’s (matcha red bean smoothie) or Sherman’s (ice wild berry) drinks so I can’t say for certain how good/bad they were. Instead, I will suggest you check their posts, here and here… As for me, yeah, tea (Earl Grey, by now you can pretty much guess it!). I know I ordered something “bland” but, hey, at least, it is something that allows you to determine how good the company is about the supplier of things like this. I mean, if they don’t pay particular attention! As for the tea, I will have to say it was quite good. It had a dry taste which matched quite well that hint of Bergamot orange taste. And, now, the reason why we came here…

Originally served with only two waffles, we ended up adding a third waffle to share. One each, you know! The three waffles are the original, matcha and chocolate. It was served with a sliced banana drizzled with chocolate, a scoop of vanilla ice cream and a compote – in our case, blueberry. The banana and chocolate was OK; it is a good combination but it is one of those borderline basic tried and true ones so I won’t go into deeper details. The ice cream was actually quite decent. Not necessarily the best in the world but I won’t complain about it. But, the compote was really good. While it wasn’t that sweet, had it been sweeter, it would have turned into a blueberry like sauce, something I might have not enjoyed it that much. As it is, it was a winner. And, now, the waffles, themselves…

Now, I am not that much of a waffle fan in the straight sense of the word. I would eat it but not necessarily in a hurry to go and get one. For the most part, I would rather go for a crepe but that’s a different story. In the case of the waffles here, starting with the original, I thought there was some level of chewiness which I found OK, though at the same time I wish there was some more crispiness on the exterior. Since used that as a baseline, when moving to the matcha, I found… Emptiness? I don’t know about you but, to me, the current use of green tea in products is darn overrated/exaggerated. In this case, I didn’t taste that much of matcha (which is already subtle to begin with). In fact, had it been a blind taste, I would have easily confused it with the original version. And, finally, the chocolate… The one word that can describe the chocolate version would be “cake”. Given its texture, it tasted more like a cake than a waffle so you can draw your own conclusions. It wasn’t bad but, given I prefer eating dark chocolate, there is a limit on how much I can tolerate. But, if I had to choose, I would easily go for the chocolate version among the three.

One thing I will have to admit was that service here was top notch. As mentioned above, Sherman brought some other goodies which required some re-heating. Mijune had the guts to ask them if it could be nuked in their microwave and they were fine with it (the assumption was that we would eat it there). Not only they re-heated it in the microwave, they plated them before bringing it out! Furthermore, everything that required attention from them was done without any fuzz and almost discretely.

But, as for the shop in general, well, I am not a fan of sweets and all that. While I had a really good time with Mijune and Sherman, it didn’t change my mind about waffles and certainly not about sweets. However, it is a good place to hang and might be better than Starbucks a couple of doors away but, as for food, well, I am not convinced. Probably somebody else will like it better than me…

Tim Horton’s
Hundreds of locations in Canada
Several locations in the US
761 7th Avenue (Location visited)
New York, NY

No, no kidding! When I was in New York City, as per today’s earlier post, I noticed certain familiar coffee shop, hehehehe. I know, everybody has his/her opinion of Tim Horton’s but this post is not about that. After all, I was not following the Where Should I Eat? Fast Food Flowchart! Instead, this post is about how does their offerings compare to the ones found here.

Now, this wasn’t the only location I ran into during this trip. In fact, there were two Timmy’s in NY Penn Station. Some of them were stand alone; others, part of a food court. And, then there was this one which shared some space with a Pizza Hut and KFC. Well, considering the cost of rent in this area (which is really close to Time Square), I shouldn’t be surprised… Anyway, you can’t yourself wonder, how similar/different does it look compare to the ones here?

While certain details like seating can’t be helped, at least, the store front is pretty much the same compared to the stores found here (here as in Vancouver). Then again, we don’t eat the store front but the baked goodies, like these:

Yup, the same goodies we find here, can also be found there as well. The only difference is that the nutritional information is displayed. I am not sure if I want to find that out when having a donut, hehehehe. Anyway, as for ordering something, they had a $2 for coffee and donut so…

A blueberry fritter and a coffee. Now, here is a small litmus test: How do people order their coffee in a Tim Horton’s? Yup, when I was asked how I wanted my coffee, I said “double double”. And guess what? No even the slightest hint of hesitation as to what I said! Now, I can’t do a taste comparison, I don’t usually order coffee in Timmy’s but that was hilarious regardless.

As for the fritter, almost exactly as the ones you can find here in Canada. No, I can’t describe this to those who haven’t been to Timmy’s; this is a case of you will have to find it yourself…

I did not eat the whole donut or drank the whole cup but, to Canadians visiting Manhattan, I guess they can get their Tim Horton’s fix there as well. On that note, when I was snapping some of the pictures, the cashier couldn’t help to ask “Are you Canadian?”. I just smiled.

To all my Canadian readers (or anybody who has spent considerable time in Canada), there is nothing for you today – sorry about that, see you tomorrow…. ^_^;;; (Of course, you could still read it, just caveat emptor!). As for the rest of the world, my apologies. In the past, I have made references to Tim Hortons, but I did not elaborate. That’s because I made the (wrong) assumption everybody ought to know what Timmy is about. I guess I should have known… So, for today, an overview of this Canadian icon.

First, Timmy’s started as a Canadian coffee shop that also serves goodies, namely, donuts. It is named Tim Hortons (originally Tim Horton’s) because one of the original partners was hockey player Tim Horton. (The other partner is called Ron Joyce, funny enough, is/was a cop. Donuts? Cops? …) Of course, its menu has expanded to include lunch items and so. For example:

Chicken noodle soup with a chicken salad sandwich – it also comes with a drink.

Chili, with a country bun, a honey cruller donut and a cup of stepped tea. Yes, depending on the time of the day and location, you might be served in china rather than disposable containers!

And, then, there are breakfast items like:

Breakfast sandwich with sausage, hash brown and a cup of steeped tea.

As for its “original”, basic items:

Whole wheat bagel with strawberry cream cheese.

A dozen of donuts.

Now, while I drink coffee, I do not consider myself a coffee drinker so I will apologize for not snapping a picture of those. Now, I know it would be silly as you would only see the cup. However, there are two points I would like to make: (1) it is Timmy’s “core” business and (2) Timmy’s contribution to the English language. What? Yup, so, next time you hear the expression “double-double”, which means a coffee with two cream and two sugar, it originated from Timmy’s!

As for the food itself, well, comments go from bad, acceptable, good and so on, which is expected from almost any large chain. As for myself, again, I don’t drink much coffee, but, everytime I bring some goodies from Timmy’s to my colleagues, everybody seems to be happy about it.

So, this is my overview of Tim Hortons. Hopefully, now my non-Canadian readers will now also know what it is about. And, yes, if you find one, give it a try! (No, I am not being paid to say this!).