This is a long overdue post from back in May…

Yukiko's Cafe Bistro

Yukiko’s was one of the restaurants that I had wanted to visit since second year in university, when I first heard about the place. Located at 30 William Street West in Waterloo, ON, it was just a little beyond the typical travel distance from my university residence. And there weren’t any updates or reviews about the restaurant online for the past 2 years. On the very last day that I was in Waterloo, I took a walk and decided to head over there and see if they were open.

Wine Menu

The menu is cafe European type food and was extremely vegetarian friendly, which was perfect for me. They had small sample sizes of their soups, so I tried their soup of the day: a potato tomato bean soup.

Potato Tomato Bean Soup

For my entree, I ordered the polenta vegetable lasagna, which was lasagna but polenta instead of pasta. The food was delicious, hearty and seemed fairly healthy as well.

Polenta Vegetable Lasagna

While there I had a conversation with a nice couple there that told me that the restaurant had been closed for a while and had just recently reopened about a month ago, which explains why there’s no recent reviews around.

Counter with Raspberry Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp

For dessert, they had a delicious looking raspberry strawberry rhubarb crisp, but I was too full so I didn’t get to try it :(. The service was excellent, waitress was super friendly and polite. I would definitely return here if I’m ever back in Waterloo.

After the disappointing bowl of Creamy Tomato soup from Panera, I was in the mood for a real cream soup and decided to make some of my own mushroom soup. Since I still had some white asparagus to finish off, I decided to make a cream of white asparagus and mushroom soup. I used a recipe for asparagus cream soup and mushroom soup, combined and modified them by not blending and adding portobello and brown mushrooms and omitting some of the herbs. The soup turned out ok, a little too fatty tasting for me, which tends to be a problem with all the cream soups I make, I’ll need to find some foolproof recipes for cream soup.

Cream of Asparagus and Mushroom Soup

After dinner, it’s not dessert but instead I usually have some fruits. Today, my dad and I had made some almond tofu. Almond tofu, is ground up almond powder that is then mixed with some other ingredients and water which solidifies and creates an almond flavoured jelly. The way we serve almond tofu at home is that the tofu is sliced into large cubes and mixed with a can of mixed fruits. Usually, I add some of my own fruits to top it off or add juice to add more flair to the dessert. My favourite is adding champagne or Sprite which gives the dessert a nice bubbly effect as well.

Almond Tofu

Creamy Tomato soup and Mediterranean Veggie sandwich

Panera Bread is an American bakery/cafe that opened up a location next to Square One. Wanting a quick dinner, I dropped by and ordered the Creamy Tomato soup and half a Mediterranean Veggie sandwich.

The supposedly creamy soup was watery and not very flavourful in any way. The sandwich was decent and full of flavour including peppers, feta cheese, hummus and tomatoes, although the bread used in the sandwich did not feel fresh, as it was cold and slightly dry.

One interesting thing about the place was that after order your meal, they give you a pager which starts vibrating when your order is ready, similar to the reservation buzzers that have started showing up at some places. Personally, I think that this is overkill for a cafe, especially since it makes quite a bit of noise in a place that’s supposed to be calm and quiet. I think Williams does it best, with the little signs that correlate to your order that you place at your table and when your order is ready, the servers bring your order to your table.

In preparation for my cupcakes later tonight, I had a cup of beer left over and decided to make some beer soup. Equipped with a cup of Waterloo Dark, I used this recipe and it turned out great, I just love beer soup.

A while back, one of my classmates made Car Bomb Cupcakes, and when I saw the recipe, I just knew that I had to make it. The cupcakes are made with 3 different types of alcohol: stout for the base, Irish whiskey for the ganache filling and Baileys for the icing. The recipe suggested Guinness, but I used Waterloo Dark instead since it’s one of my favourite beers and since Guinness is not vegetarian. This was my first time baking, so I tried to stick to the recipe as close as possible, only adding food colouring to the icing in an attempt to make it orange for Halloween. It took me about 3.5 hours to make and left me with a huge pile of dishes to clean up and loaded my brain with the smell of sugar and butter (this actually stopped me from eating one immediately after seeing how much butter and sugar I had to put into them). It was completely rewarding though as everyone who tried them ABSOLUTELY loved them.