grindz

Did you ever wonder what they call extra thick waffles[1] in Brussels (of Brussel… ou Bruxelles… oder Brüssel), Jean-Claude?

http://www.grindzrestaurant.com/


Place: grindz 
Location: 832 Clement Street (between 9th and 10th Avenues)

Hours: open for "Brunch" Friday, Saturday, & Sunday at 9:00am

Meal: GRINDZ Waffle ~ buttermilk waffle, pina berry compote, quenelle whipped cream; a side of Plantation Potatoes[2] (because as a vegetarian I never get enough carbohydrates in my diet); and a cuppa (and 1-½ refillas) Bicycle Coffee[3] co (though I always forget to ask which particular roast/blend they offer)

http://www.bicyclecoffeeco.com/

(No trip to an Hawai'ian ~ a Hawai'ian? whatever ~ restaurant would be complete without a EweToobular juxtaselection of Bruddah Iz. 

The second video/song is just for anyone living in North Windsor, Ontario that wants to take a midnight train going nowhere in particular.)


The continuation of the pre-Spring Training workout of another one of my Breakfastary Rotation Starters brought me back to grindz (see last 'blog-entry from October 19th, 2014). 

There is really only a handful of items on their "Brunch" menu which I really can eat (and, by "handful", I mean exactly five items ~ which is a handful if you have an overly large hand, I suppose). As I have eaten there more than five times in the past, I have more than worked my way through what they have to offer to stupid vegetarians. My backups today were going to be either Kalua Benedict (toasted Hawai'ian bread, Kalua pig, taro leaves, 2 poached eggs, tarragon Hollandaise, plantation potatoes; just consider this an/a Hawai'ian version of Eggs Benedict, bra'; of course, I would have ordered this again without the dead, decaying Kalua piggy stuff) or Veggie Scramble (mushrooms, zucchini, spinach, plantation potatoes, chilli oil; "veggies" may vary).

This was really good. I don't normally order waffles (and I don't think that I had any the entire year of 2014), but I liked this dish. The "pino berry compote" was made with pineapples[4] and blueberries[5]; this was very good, too, but I wonder if blackberries or raspberries (yes, I am well aware that neither blackberries nor raspberries are technically botanical berries, but still) might have been a better combination with pineapple.

The Plantation Potatoes were very good as always, made with lots of chopped up celery[6], red bell peppers[7], and white onions[8].

For condimentary supplementation, grindz offers Tabasco® Brand Pepper Sauce (the standard red) and some kind of Sriracha sauce (I think I overheard someone asking for it); plus, they have on all the tables their own homemade chilli oil and Hawai'ian Spicy Ketchup. Normally, I would just have settled for using their Hawai'ian Spicy Ketchup ~ as it is very good ~ and not bothered bringing any of my own hot sauces with me; however, I just received a belated Christmas gift in the mail this week with four more bottles of new stuff to try (Thanks, Cindy & Greg!). All four bottles are from the same English company, The Wiltshire[9] Chilli Farm. 

http://www.justchillies.co.uk/

This morning I tried some smoked Chipotle chilli sauce on half of the potatoes and Hell Mouth on the other half. 

The smoked Chipotle chilli sauce was the less spicy of the two and I could go pretty heavily with it. 

Ingredients: tomatoes, onions, red wine vinegar, sugar, molasses, smoked garlic - 1%, smoked chilli - 1%, various spices.

Hell Mouth was a lot spicier, but not as crazy hot as some other hot sauces that I have.

Ingredients: orange pepper, sugar, cider vinegar, Habanero chilli, apple, mango, salt, ginger, Ghost Pepper…  

I will probably get around to testing out the other two bottles tomorrow with breakfast. This brings my collection total to twenty now; an entire shelf on my refrigerator door is dedicated to just these hot sauces. I really was not planning on getting any more hot sauces to add to my collection until after I had used up a few more bottles. (Last month I even bought three new bottles myself, which I probably should have waited on, too.)


Glen Bacon Scale Rating: GRINDZ Waffle ~ 6.6


1. Stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer(s) of the day, nummer een/numéro un/Nummer eins:

Everyone knows that there are three Official Languages in Belgium (unlike here in 'merica where there are just two ~ Spanish and Chinese): Dutch, French, and German. So, if anyone ever asks you "Do you speak Belgiumese?", you can answer: "Ja!", "Oui!", and "Ja!"

Here are the words for "Waffle" in all three:

Dutch ~ "wafel (singular)/wafels (plural)"
French ~ "gaufre (singular)/gaufres (plural)"
German ~ "Waffel (singular)/Waffeln (plural)"

I could go into a long etymological explanation of the word "waffle", but then why do we have WikipediA? Here is the link to more information by them:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffle#Etymology

2. I figured, what the heck (of hel… ou enfer… oder Hölle) while I was at it, I might as well also provide the stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer(s) for this word in Dutch, French, and German (for anyone keeping count here, that would be nummer twee/numéro deux/Nummer zwei):

Dutch ~ "aardappel (singular)/aardappelen (plural)"
French ~ "pomme de terre (singular)/pommes de terre (plural)"
German ~ "Kartoffel (singular)/Kartoffeln (plural)"

3. Stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer(s) of the day, nummer drie/numéro trois/Nummer drei:

Dutch ~ "Koffie"
French ~ "Café"
German ~ "Kaffee"

(See, sometimes these stupid, useless cunning linguist pointers aren't exactly Rocket Surgery.

I have even covered this word a few times before here. See specific 'blog-entry from February 26th, 2014.)

4. Stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer(s) of the day, nummer vier/numéro quatre/Nummer vier:

Dutch ~ "ananas (singular)/ananassen (plural)"
French ~ "ananas (singular)/(plural)"
German ~ "Ananas (singular)/(plural)"

5. Stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer(s) of the day, nummer vijf/numéro cinq/Nummer fünf:

Dutch ~ "bosbes (singular)/bosbessen (plural)"
French ~ "myrtille (singular)/myrtilles (plural)"
German ~ "Blaubeere or Heidelbeere (singular)/Blaubeeren or Heidelbeeren (plural)"

6. Stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer(s) of the day, nummer zes/numéro six/Nummer sechs:

Dutch ~ "selderij"
French ~ "céleri"
German ~ "Sellerie"

7. Stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer(s) of the day, nummer zeven/numéro sept/Nummer sieben:

Dutch ~ "rode paprika" (singular)/(plural)
French ~ "poivron rouge" (singular)/"poivrons rouges" (plural)
German ~ "rote Paprika" (singular)/(plural)

8. Stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer(s) of the day, nummer acht/numéro huit/Nummer acht:

Dutch ~ "witte ui (singular)/witte uien (plural)"
French ~ "oignon blanc (singular)/oignons blancs (plural)"
German ~ "weiße Zwiebel (singular)/weiße Zwiebeln (plural)"

9. Wiltshire is a County in Southwest England. It is best known as the county where the City of Salisbury (home to both Salisbury Cathedral, which houses one of the four surviving original copies of the Magna Carta, and to the eponymous steaks) and the Village of Avebury (home of the famous Neolithic henge monument). Wiltshire is also the county where there are the lesser known standing stones in some place called "Stonehenge".