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 being served Pan-Seared Polenta for the first time two weeks ago at Le Select Bistro, I was really interested in making some of my own. Polenta is made with cornmeal and mixed with water, a little butter and some salt. When it is freshly made, it is basically a mush of cornmeal, but once it sets it becomes a solid form that you can cut and cook in many other ways.

I used this basic recipe to get the proportions correct, and added a little tumeric for more flavour. Apparently if you replace some of the water with milk, it makes the polenta fluffier and lighter too (I wanted to do that but didn’t have any milk left).

I seared the polenta and placed it ontop of some tomato paste (should be sauce, but was too lazy to make some) and then added some grilled portobello, fresh yellow tomatoes and some dill on top.

With the exception of the tomato paste, the rest of the meal tasted great, although I made a small portion, it was quite filling. The yellow tomatoes taste really good, they’re flavourful and much less acidic than regular tomatoes so it tastes much mush refreshing.