Christmas in Berlin

Kitchener's 12th Annual Christkindl Market
December 4-7 2008, Kitchener City Hall

With Kitchener's large German population, it seems like the ideal place to hold a traditional Christmas markets. These outdoor markets have taken place for years in front of churches in Germany.

The market consists of food vendors, entertainers and a live nativity scene in front of Kitchener city hall. Indoors is a myriad of vendors, community group booths, treats and of course wonderful Christmas decor. You can't walk five steps without hearing a couple chatter on in German about a potential purchase. In fact, walking five steps was a difficult endeavor at this extremely crowded event.


You'll find typically overpriced and outrageously kitschy items. And if you've got as much holiday spirit as I have, you'll probably enjoy browsing the wonderful items, which are far more unique than you'd find at your local mall. But the market is definitely geared towards an older crowd and due to the crowd, you'll have difficulty getting the attention of any vendors.


KW-Insider Points: 3/5

The Terrace Cafe: Good Brunch, Bad Coffee

The Terrace Cafe
1 King Street West, Kitchener
Monday to Friday, 7:30 am to 2:00 pm
Saturday and Sunday, 8:00 am to 2:00 pm

Despite its elegant decor and the rich history of the hotel it sits under, the Terrace Cafe has a modest menu with reasonable prices and servers who take a casual approach. My sidekick and I arrived to a mostly empty restaurant as we had just missed the big brunch crowd, but had to wait for the staff, who were nowhere to be seen when we entered, to clear off a table for us. While waiting for our table, I noticed the wonderfully detailed floors, one of the many indicators of how much care went into the restaurant.

Once seated, I opened my menu to find, a wide selection of breakfast options, but not so many that I felt lost or overwhelmed, complete with a history of the hotel on the back. We immediately ordered coffee, which came promptly but tasted pretty horrible. I pretty much left untouched.

I ordered The Walper Skillet($8.75). The food was as described, a warm, salty and oily skillet of mini red potatoes, sweet peppers, red onions, tex-mex cheese, sausage topped with two eggs and a side of toast. Although it was cooked well, the potatoes soft, the eggs as I had requested, and the veggies not overdone, the dish lacked flavour. But a nice helping of ketchup basically salvaged the dish, and although it really was nothing too exciting or creative (and not a dish I would have named after the hotel) I felt only mildly disappointed, but still happily full.

The Stuffed French Toast($7.50) was a completely different story. You honestly can't help but expect to be disappointed when a menu describes an item as "Perfection!" I simply hoped for something that would satisfy a sweet tooth. We thought our expectations of mediocrity were fulfilled, when the waitress brought out a dish with french toast filled with a creamy white filling, and a side of fruit and eggs. But the combination of the comforting french toast and the rich and fruity cream cheese and strawberry filling, was just about perfection! The fruit cup was not as fresh as one would hope, likely remnants of a batch made for the earlier brunch crowd, but it did give us the satisfying illusion that the order was in some small way healthy and not completely fatty, sugary indulgence.

I would say this establishment is worth a second visit. The menu items are iteresting enough that I am curious to try a few different things and based on our wonderful experience with the Stuffed French Toast, I would say that it's likely that other items could be a wonderful surprise. But if you are planning to venture to this little downtown establishment, bring a dinning buddy who will appriciate the decore and isn't too fussy and eater.

KW-Insider Points: 3.5/5

Kitchener: The Mundane City?

Many people live in an exciting city where everyday is an urban adventure, others reside in a lovely little hamlet, where everyone knows the local baker by name. A few people find themselves at home in an isolated farming community, surrounded by quiet solitude. Of course there are probably numerous places too exotic for my mind to imagine living, where people are living interesting lives, shared with fascinating people, in breathtaking settings.

I'm not one of these people.

And the place that I currently call home is Kitchener, Ontario.

Let's preface this all by an abbreviated version of my life's story. I grew up in Toronto, a city I loved for it's multiculturalism, food and the multitude of neighbourhoods, each with it's own personality. When my family moved to what many friends call "farm country" (among less polite names) I grew to enjoy the quietness of a home surrounded by natural beauty of Ontario's Oak Ridges Moraine.

I then decided to attend university in Waterloo, where I basically decided that Waterloo was a tolerable town, with a few redeeming qualities (such as Waterloo Park, a few cute shops and restaurants in Uptown Waterloo, its proximity to the St. Jacob's Market) but that Kitchener was a poverty stricken pit, surrounded on three sides by faceless suburbs, populated by fundamentalist Christians. Where and how these opinions were forms, it's hard to say, but my guess is that it's mostly related to my adventures on the GRT.

But I recently graduated from university, and set out into the working world. Even more recently, I landed a job in Kitchener. Which brings me to now. I'm 2X year's old, and living alone in Kitchener. An intolerable situation, if you were to ask most people my age, who grew up in big city.

But I'm an optimist. And this blog will outline some of the great things about this city. I'm determined to find good places to eat, fun places to hang out, and interesting things to do in Kitchener (and to a lesser extent Waterloo). Hopefully my previous notions of Kitchener will be completely wrong, or else, I'm screwed.