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General Food, Dining and Nightlife News
Has anyone heard any positive reviews or either Marbles or Sole in Uptown? I was looking at the Marbles menu online and didn't notice any wines, beer or spirits. Is this an alcohol free establishment?
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(02-27-2015, 10:33 AM)schooner77 Wrote: Has anyone heard any positive reviews or either Marbles or Sole in Uptown?  I was looking at the Marbles menu online and didn't notice any wines, beer or spirits.  Is this an alcohol free establishment?

Not at all. For beer, Marbles has a couple of taps (Mill St. last I looked) and a few bottles. They also have wine and other spirits, and sometimes have a sangria special which goes pretty well with their patio space, which is a nice little oasis once the greenery grows in during the summer.

Anyway, Marbles has some decent casual dining food. We rarely go there during the colder months, it's the patio that makes it worth it.

Sole is one of the few places nearby with Pilsner Urquell (yum) on tap, along with a couple other less common european beers. They're a more upscale place, and I've done lunch there a number of times but not really getting there much for dinner. Good food, but pricy. They also have a great little outdoor space, though it's a little marred by the sound of air conditioning units.
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I agree Marbles is s warm weather place. As for Sole, they make a great Martini.
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I've been to Sole once ages ago. It was good, but definitely a higher end establishment.
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Really favourable review of the food at the Bent Elbow in today's Record -- 3 forks (excellent).

http://www.therecord.com/whatson-story/5...surprises/
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(02-26-2015, 12:39 PM)Markster Wrote: Personally, I like Imbibe's beer enough to look past the service issues, though my wife is another matter.  They had a menu adjustment in the past few months that's made ordering dinner there less appealing.

As for TWH Social, it was certainly a well lit, trendy-feeling, higher-price-tag-than-Rum-Runner kind of place. Ultimately, both my dish and my wife's dish were overly salty, so I'm not feeling compelled to spend that much money on dinner there again.  My wife says it still seems like a reasonable place for drinks, if you want somewhere that has some interesting beer as well as a more complete bar.

Tried TWH Social last night and came away reasonably pleased.   The beer list is good - we both had Beau's but I forgot to check the prices (!).  The renovated space is a huge improvement and, as you say, fairly trendy.  The food fits in the "casual fine dining" category.  I would not hesitate to go back.  It's worth noting that they are open for lunch and dinner, seven days a week (good to have a Sunday option Downtown!).  I think you may be correct that the chef needs a lighter hand with the salt, but I'll want to eat there again before deciding - like many people nowadays, I use no added salt so that restaurant food can often strike me as salty.  My carbonara pasta was fine in that regard, but my companion's frites were oversalted, which was too bad as they were otherwise very good.

Quibbles
- the wine list is weak on Canadian wines
- the vegetarian choices are a bit more limited than I would have expected
- it was very busy on Friday night and with all the hard surfaces, the noise level was really excessive.  If that is not your thing, I would suggest avoiding Friday and Saturday nights.
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Yesterday at the Rangers game they had an ad for Fat Bastard Burrito on the side ribbon boards and one of the ads said that a Kitchener location was coming soon to 306 King St W.
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That must be the location that Combination Sports recently left - good to see an empty storefront filled so quickly.
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Perimeter Institute Bistro is public open, really? Never realized that, are they trying to be quiet about it? I've always felt like stares were telling me I was too close when walking on the creek side of PI.

White Rabbit looked busy on Saturday. Hope to hear from someone about the experience. Seems small to have much of a kitchen, but then again Imbibe fits that as well. Curious if they'll be a mixed drink focus.

Boathouse's beer selection, given it shares an owner with Imbibe, works to not step on each other's toes, or cannibalize the same business. While Imbibe has the more out there, random treats, Imbibe has a more consistent but good craft cast. Menus are also fairly independent (macaroni aside), though you can see the common kitchen prep; both a beef pastry at BoHo and a beef fajita-like dish at Imbibe use the same beef chunks, if prepped differently.
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(03-02-2015, 08:46 AM)Viewfromthe42 Wrote: Perimeter Institute Bistro is public open, really? 

As I said above, "They're open to the public in the evenings before public lectures and concerts." The barkeep, whose name I've forgotten, is quite knowledgeable about beer.

As it happens there's a concert tomorrow night and The Bistro has a special menu for the occasion (~$50/pp prix fixe plus drinks plus tax plus tip.) So it's not for po' folks looking for a beer or two.

Then on Wednesday night there's a public lecture. The Bistro has more reasonably priced food on those nights, about $10 to $15 for an entrée. Reservations are needed because space is limited (at The Bistro, at least Wink). Unfortunately both the lecture and seats at The Bistro are sold out. There's always next month.
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There is a new All you can eat buffet Restaurant (Chen`s Buffet?) opening in the old Rogers plus building at Bridgeport mall. Also the Subway there has a new pop machine called Pepsi spire (Pepsi's version of Coca-Cola freestyle)
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I used the McDonalds coke machine yesterday and the options are a bit overwhelming. There has to be something said for eliminating options in some cases though. Do we really need the option of drinking Coke Orange or Raspberry?
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(03-05-2015, 10:45 AM)jamincan Wrote: I used the McDonalds coke machine yesterday and the options are a bit overwhelming. There has to be something said for eliminating options in some cases though. Do we really need the option of drinking Coke Orange or Raspberry?

I would recommend the book Paradox of Choice. Very interesting read along the lines of your thoughts here.

http://encore.kpl.org/iii/encore_kpl/rec...&suite=kpl
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(03-05-2015, 10:45 AM)jamincan Wrote: I used the McDonalds coke machine yesterday and the options are a bit overwhelming. There has to be something said for eliminating options in some cases though. Do we really need the option of drinking Coke Orange or Raspberry?

I thought it was really cool to have Vanilla Coke again, I don't frequent McDonald's as much as I used to in my teen's, but its nice to have options?
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Awesome! What McDonald's location has the freestyle? IMO the main novelty of the freestyle machine is the huge amount of options.
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