Kitchener-Waterloo restaurants and stores

[Jessie B]

We will be spending three weeks in the Kitchener-Waterloo area. Do you have any suggestions about where to eat and where to shop? We like all kinds of cuisines and are not concerned about the price. Are there any new interesting places that have opened in the last year?

[mjohnston]

Wow, 3 weeks. That's a fair bit :) I live there but don't tend to eat out a whole lot, unfortunately.

Let me recommend:
- Early in the morning, City Cafe for great hot-out-of-wood-oven sesame bagels; totally crusted in toasted sesame seeds, it's almost like peanut butter
- I've liked Nick and Nat's Uptown 21; they have a fixed price menu as well as normal. Basic menu is online
- Vincenzo's is an Italian deli/grocery with a fair bit of cheese selection
- There's the "Charcoal Group" of restaurants, which are all fairly good but sort of corporate/Keg inspired. Good for business functions.
- Ben Thanh is a chain of Viet/Thai restaurants that are cheap and good for lunch
- Kickoff bar is a small bar by the university that has a reasonable tap selection (for KW - pretty crap compared to any good bar in the USA or Toronto, etc)
- The Metro and Two Goblets for Austrian/German/euro food
- Sole is a reasonably good Italian inspired/bistro kind of restaurant; a bit expensive
- Used to goto Bhima's Warung for Indonesian fusion sort of food that was good but it was a bit hit/miss at times. Their chai was really good - lots of coarse spices at the bottom of the pot
- The Boathouse is a small live-music club with some good bar food; gets very packed for some bands. Has live music almost every night. See http://www.boathousevictoriapark.com/

I would really say the bagels are the best thing that Kitchener/Waterloo has to offer, if you can get them hot out of the oven.

Other places like Stratford, Guelph and Cambridge are also fairly near by (20 to 40 minutes away) and may have some additional options. Downtown Toronto is about an hour and 20 minutes drive in good traffic (although could be more if you're far from the highway in KW).

-----
Two Goblets
85 Weber St W, Kitchener, ON N2H, CA

Bhima's Warung
262 King St N, Waterloo, ON N2J2Y9, CA

Vincenzo
2406 Danforth Ave, Toronto, ON M4C, CA

[kwfoodiewannabe]

Agree re: City Cafe, but more for their PIZZA... best bagels in KW (IMHO) are from Rise N' Shine Bagel bakery (in a small industrial space on Bridgeport Ave.) This is as close as KW gets to the traditional NY (Toronto) jewish bakery bagel. BUT only available on Friday and Saturday mornings, Brian usually has 3-4 varieties (poppy, sesame, onion, etc.) and anytime before 10 am, theres a good chance they will be warm...

Vincenzo's is always reliable for most specialty groceries, hot table is good, not much else in terms of specialty grocery stores (David's gourmet? just ok)

Agree completely re: Charcoal Group and Sole.

For Schnitzel, etc, Two Goblets is great - prefer over Metro (still good!)

Chinese/Dim Sum at the Cameron Seafood Restaurant on Charles. (Best in KW!)

Very casual, but Taste of Philly Cheesesteak (King st, downtown) has a great Philly Cheesesteak (better than anything I have tasted in T.O) Highly recommended!

Finally, my latest KW chowfind is PO' BOY sandwiches at HOG TAILS BBQ in Waterloo. A bit of a trek, but always worthwhile for their Brisket and pulled pork, now I find these Roast Beef "Debris" and Fried Shrimp Po' boys and they are OUTSTANDING. The Debris is amazing. Definetly worth checking out.