Jerusalem Restaurant

Yesterday, two of my friends and I had dinner at Jerusalem Restaurant on 4777 Leslie Street. Jerusalem Restaurant is an all you can eat Middle-Eastern buffet. It’s $25 (tax and tip included) on a weekday. On a weekday there’s a belly-dancing performance. The decor reminds me of the Mediterranean area. My friends and I had a booth table. Prior to going there, I read the reviews online and it was very mixed so I was slightly apprehensive.

For my first plate, I had calamari, mussel in tomato sauce, sea bass fillet,  imitation crab salad, saffron rice with meat, rice with chicken, BBQ zucchini and eggplant and half of a zucchini stuffed with meat and rice. I really liked the zucchini stuffed with meat and rice, it was quite delicious. The mussels, calamari and sea bass fillet were tasty and cooked perfectly. I didn’t like the imitation crab salad, it didn’t taste completely like imitation crab and it wasn’t well-made. The BBQ zucchini and eggplant just taste like BBQ vegetables while the saffron rice with meat and rice with chicken were ok.

For my second plate, I had baba ghanoush, hummus, labaneh, taheena, purple coleslaw, crispy shrimp, chickpeas with eggplant and chili, cous-cous and stuffed grape leaves with rice and herbs. Baba ghanoush is eggplant, taheena sauce, lemon, garlic and olive oil blended together. Hummus is chickpeas, garlic, lemon, taheena sauce and olive oil blended together. Labaneh is homemade strained yoghurt with olive oil. Taheena is sesame seed sauce mixed with lemon and garlic. The baba ghanoush, hummus and taheena were absolutely scrumptious. I’ve had better labaneh at Armenian Kitchen. The purple coleslaw, crispy shrimp and chickpeas with eggplant and chli were ok. The cous-cous and stuffed grape leaves with rice and herbs were delectable. The cous-cous was fluffy and light. I had stuffed grape leaves with rice and herbs at Rodeo Brazilian Steakhouse and it is just as delicious as the ones I had there.

For my third plate, I had lentil soup, chicken skewer, pieces of a lamb shank, kabab (kafta), hummus, babaghanoush and taheena. The lentil soup was tasty and enjoyable. I only had pieces of a lamb shank because one of my friends had an entire lamb shank for his second plate and he became very full from it. The portions of the lamb shank are very sizable and quite large. The lamb shank and kabab were tasty. I dipped it in hummus, babaghanoush and taheena which made it scrumptious. The chicken was ok but dipped in hummus, babaghanoush and taheena made it delicious. My other friend told me that anything with hummus and babaghanoush is absolutely delicious and she is correct.

My fourth plate was dessert and Jerusalem Restaurant has creme caramel/flan. It was absolutely delicious and mouthwatering. The last time I had creme caramel/flan, it was homemade by my high school friend a few years ago.

Overall, this restaurant is alright. It’s not as bad as I thought and it definitely has some delicious offerings. If you’re in the neighbourhood and want Middle Eastern cuisine rather than Asian cuisine, then I would recommend this place.

Summerlicious: Rodeo Brazilian Steakhouse

This year is my first time participating in Summerlicious/Winterlicious. My friend and I decided to go to Rodeo Brazilian Steakhouse because we never had Brazilian cuisine before and the buffet price for Summerlicious is $35 as opposed to the regular price of $40/50. We went last Wednesday night. The decor was ok, however the lighting was on the dim side with tea lights providing most of the light in the room so the room had a nice ambiance.

Appetizer Buffet

The meal consisted of appetizers and the main course. The appetizers were all at the square buffet tables. There was mango salad, guacamole, shrimp, brie cheese, goat cheese, deli meat, salad, among other things. I was going to get some brie cheese however I noticed alot of flies surrounding the brie cheese so I decided to give it a pass. On the whole, the appetizers were ok. The side dish to the appetizers was this small bread encasing cheese. I liked it however my friend wasn’t a fan of it since he’s not a huge fan of cheese. After we were done eating the appetizers, we told our waitress that we were ready for the main course and if we could have the green card. The green card lets the servers know that you are ready to eat the selection of meats and pineapple while on the flip side is the red card which lets the servers know that you are full and you no longer want to be served.

my plate of appetizers

 

bread encasing cheese

 

On the website, it says that there’s salmon, leg of lamb, beef rib, lamb chops, turkey breast with bacon, picanha steaks, chicken hearts, among other kinds of meat. The aforementioned meats weren’t served at all. Instead my friend and I had alcatra, picanha signature cut, ribs, porchetta, rodeo sausage, beef with garlic, rodeo steak, filet mignon with bacon, chicken legs, pork loin with parmesan cheese and roasted pineapple. I enjoyed the pork loin with parmesan cheese and the roasted pineapple. The others were ok. Most of the beef was tough, salty and flavourless. I added alot of relish-like condiment to the meat to make it flavourful. The side dishes to the main course included mushrooms, potatoes, fried plantains, beans with rice, a relish-like condiment and bbq sauce. I really enjoyed the fried plantains and the beans were rice were alright. My friend didn’t really like any of the side dishes. We both really enjoyed the roasted pineapple. If possible, get the pineapple with the skin. The skin is dusted with cinnamon so it gives it a nice little kick and the pineapple itself was very juicy. My friend and I had a few slices of the pineapple each.

chicken legs

on my plate: susage and fillet mignon with bacon
side dishes: mushrooms, potatoes, fried plantains, rice with beans
condiments: bbq sauce and relish-like condiment

sirloin

roasted pineapple!

The Summerlicious menu says that there is dessert which is cheese and fruit which could be find at the appetizer buffet table and it also mentioned Brazilian cake. When my friend and I asked our waitress about the Brazilian cake. She said that there was an extra charge for Brazilian cake. My friend and I decided to forgo it although I was looking forward to trying out the Brazilian cake.

Overall, our experience at Rodeo Brazilian Steakhouse was subpar. The waitress was nice however it took a long time for her to change my friend’s plate from an appetizer plate to a main course plate, give us our side dishes, give us the green/red card, change my plate, and get the bill. She would ignore us when we tried to get her attention. It took the people beside us nearly an hour to get their bill. Meanwhile the couple on the other side of us found raw meat and it took them a while to be able to flag down the waitress to tell her about it. I didn’t like the fact that the waitress automatically added a 17% tip to the bill. She said that the Summerlicious menu automatically means tip and tax are automatically added to the bill. When I said that the tip was more than 15%, she said that it was 15%. My friend told me to calculate tip with the tax added onto the $35 and it was 15%. To me, tax and tip are charged on the grand total of the food price not the total of food and tax. I also didn’t like that the tip was automatically added to the bill at such a steep percentage when I felt that the service I received doesn’t warrant a 17% tip. The grand total made it so that any discount you’d get from eating their Summerlicious menu was completely mitigated. There’s barely any difference eating their Summerlicious menu compared to their regular menu. The food, aside from the roasted pineapple, the pork with parmesan cheese and the fried plantains, wasn’t worth the price of $35. I wouldn’t recommend eating here unless you want to try Brazilian cuisine.

All You Can Eat and A La Carte Sushi in Kitchener/Waterloo

I’ve tried many All You Can Eat sushi restaurants in Waterloo and Kitchener between 2008-2013. The first all you can eat restaurant I went to was Ye’s Sushi. It’s like an initiation restaurant for university students. Anywhere you went in first year, the upper years and fellow students would say, you have to go to Ye’s; you have to go to Morty’s. The second all you can eat restaurant I went to was in Kitchener and it was called Sushi Star. My friend introduced it to the rest of my friends and I and we would always go there for lunch if we wanted to eat sushi lunch buffet since the quality was better than Ye’s. Then Spring Rolls started their all you can eat buffet and I couldn’t resist its premium menu even though it’s much pricier compared to the other AYCE restaurants. I loved their lobster avocado salad, Thai basil eggplant lemongrass dish, Boston lobster tempura roll, mango creme brulee, and their New York tempura cheesecake. Then Sushi 99 and O’Yummy’s came along and they were cheaper compared to Spring Rolls and closer compared to Sushi Star. I went to Nara Sushi last month and they have black sesame ice cream on their AYCE menu! Their Royal Nara roll is also very delicious. Instead of using rice and seaweed to roll it, they use pink radish. My friends and I tried AYCE Sushi Itamae on Friday night since we got their 50% off coupon in the mail. Their seaweed salad is delicious however their miso soup is ok. Their salmon and red tuna sashimi are ok. The banana mango roll is interesting. I liked the chicken skewer however my friend favoured the beef skewer. Their tofu tempura isn’t worth it, the tofu was course, not soft. Their eggplant terriyaki is abit salty but good. Their terriyaki salmon, tempura yam, tempura shrimp are delicious. The egg tart is soggy. My friends and I loved their cheese mussels. The mango and green tea ice cream are ok. Overall, it’s worth it with the 50% off coupon but at regular price, not so much.

Red Dragon Roll at Tomu Sushi

I went to Yummyaki in first and second year of university and it was a la carte back then. It was good quality and decently priced for a la carte. Last year, after a particularly grueling exam, my friends and I went to Watami. It’s quite pricey and it’s a la carte. I had the Ice and Fire Roll ($13.95). The Ice and Fire Roll consisted of baked red snapper on top of a shrimp tempura and crab roll. I also split the taro ice cream ($6.99) with 2 of my friends. Overall, Watami has good quality food but it’s quite pricey on a student budget. Recently I went to Tomu Sushi with another friend for dinner. She got the Red Dragon Roll ($12.95) while I got the salmon terriyaki sakura bento box ($15.95). Tomu sushi has 3 kinds of kimchi dishes. They are kimchi, beansprouts, and potatoes. We also got miso soup and salad. The Red Dragon Roll consists of shrimp tempura, avacado, tobiko, cucumbers and it’s topped with salmon. The salmon terriyaki sakura bento box includes 2 pieces of shrimp tempura, a selection of vegetable tempura including onion, broccoli, yam, sweet potato, zucchini, etc., japchae, 3 pieces of california sushi, salmon terriyaki, rice, salad and miso soup. It was delicious and extremely filling. There was alot more tempura than I expected. The salmon terriyaki was on a bed of beansprouts with terriyaki sauce drizzled around the side. Tomu Sushi is very generous with the wasabi. Overall, I was very satisfied with my dinner at Tomu Sushi and it’s cheaper than Watami.

Salmon Terriyaki Sakura Bento Box

My recommendation for all you can eat is Spring Rolls (dinner and premium menu), Sushi Star and Nara Sushi. If you want cheaper options in Waterloo then O’Yummy’s or Sushi 99. My recommendation for a la carte is Tomu Sushi.