Going to the local hardware store for lunch? Yes, please!

[Scrappy McSlap 6]

So it's kinda sorta spring up here in Canada... warm enough that the snow is melted and we can start to do some yard work, anyways. So we head down to the local Canadian Tire for some yard work supplies (your basic hardware store, for those that don't know). While we're there we decide to stop at the "Burger Shack" that's perpetually located in the parking lot. It's ran by this older local fellow who's well known for cooking and such.

 

Here's what the place looks like:

 

 

I decided to try the Greek Burger combo... never had it before, I like greek food... so why not?

 

Here's what I got:

 

 

 

This thing has local fresh Lamb patty, feta cheese, black olives, homemade relish, pickles, tomatoes, carmalized and fresh onions, and olive oil... and probably some other tasty stuff I'm forgetting.

 

Absolutely awesome! The smell.... ah! I could eat this stuff all day... soooo good!

 

Oh, and here's the poutine that my significant other grabbed:

 

http://darkmatters.org/forums/index.php?s=...t&p=6883401

 

All in all, an absolutely fantastic lunch. Gotta love Canadian food!

Edited April 5, 2010 by Scrappy McSlap

[gogoblender 3,078]

Mike, I love threads like these, I could read them all day. One of my secret obsessions lately has been the watching and re-watching of Top Chefs almost ad infinitum. I feel like when I turn it on I'm in a world of perfecty melted butter and ravioli.

 

You're lucky you have a place like that so close to you that redolent of the goodl ole soul/home cooking. We don't have much like that directly close to us, but a few places in central Montreal.

 

You've got me thinking to maybe visit one of the places and do a write up like you did with some pix.

 

Thanks for bringing us along on eaterie... that burger looks pretty awesome. I'm curious... do they offer to cook it anyway you want, or does it come always well done?

 

And good ole Canadian tire to boot. God bless 'em!

 

gogo

 

p.s. That shack is too cool...does he drive it around so that different parking lots get it on rotation?

[Silearth 6]

That does look good. And a nice change from the boring burgers around here.

[gogoblender 3,078]

Just received a snazzy cool l'il camera for my past Bday Scrappy... Today while putting together some goodies your writeup here on this topic came to mind. Just had to look at it again to see the pix you put up. Can hardly wait to post some of me own of my local eateries.

 

 

gogo

[dreeft 9]

Damn, that looks great.

 

The best we get at our local hardware store is a sausage on bread.

[Scrappy McSlap 6]

@gogo: This fellow is pretty amazing when it comes to service, so I'm almost positive he would be accommodating if I asked for the food to be cooked a specific way. As far as I know, he just uses the one spot for his shack... probably has something worked out with the local business owners or something. Good traffic for him though!

 

Congrats on the camera too! I really like taking pictures (I have literally hundreds of pictures of my baby girl!). I'm stoked to see what stuff you put up on here. I'm all about food as well. There are few things I enjoy more than a good meal, especially when somebody else is cooking it for me haha!

 

...and now I'm hungry again! Gotta eat something!

 

And happy Birthday again, gogo. I dropped you off some poutine in the other birthday thread... although it's probably cold by now hehe!

 

@dreeft: Sausage on bread can be good too. Sometimes the simple stuff is best!

 

I went back to the same place again last week, and ordered a regular cheeseburger with mushrooms and bacon... and it was at least 18 times better than the crap McDonald's tries to pass off as food... and it was under $9. Awesome stuff.

Edited April 19, 2010 by Scrappy McSlap

[chattius 2,539]

I work for a quite small company. Because we work with explosives we are not located near a village. Not big enough to have an own cafeteria we use to get some lunch from a farmer's wife who appears with an Unimog for 15 minutes to sell stuff and then travels to the next stop.

 

The best she is doing is Handkäse. The english wikipedia is a bit wrong. Because every one knows (everyone in my district) that the original Handkaese is made in our region and not around Frankfurt. We call the Frankfurt variant 'Mainzer Käse'.

In autumn she sells baked chestnuts, an eatable variant which grows a lot here. She serves the chestnuts with Federweißer. Federweisser is a sort of wine. The fermantation has just started when it is sold. Because at fermentation gas is build the bottles have to be sold open, only covered by something that avoids dirt but let the gas go out. I know several people who didn't know that and bought it and transported it with the bottle laying Because of the work with explosives our big boss allows only half a glass at lunch, even it is only 4% alcohol.

Because Federweisser is hard to transport, I do not know if it is sold at other places of the world, or even known.

 

Photos:

I fear I am a dinosaur, I still use the old cameras I got from my grandpa which are not digital but analog. Doing the black and white pictures on my own in the cellar of the barn. But I know no digital camera I can afford which is able to match my 1:0.95/50mm and 1:1.4/35mm optics with an Ilford Delta 3200. Able to do photo's in a dark room with just a person smoking a cigarette without using a flash, amazing. I think it will take several years for digital camera's to catch up with the old analog camera's if speaking about low light photos.

And doing portraits, the 0.95 allows to focus just on the silhuette of a face if you do a portrait from the side.

[Scrappy McSlap 6]

Yet another interesting post from you, chattius. I've been making a point of reading your posts lately as they're always informative.

 

It's always cool to read about food from other countries in the world... thanks for the clarification on the wikipedia article! I wouldn't have known any better. I like cheese... although I would imagine the cheese over there is much more unique than what's sold over here (seeming as most of ours is mass produced). I've never had baked chestnuts before... might be tasty.

 

About photos and cameras: So many people worry too much about how many megapixel a camera has, when color reproduction and shutter speed/quality is so much more important. Some people scoff at many new cameras if they're not at least 10 megapixel or higher, yet fail to realize that even a 2.0 megapixel camera can produce images that are equivalent to 1920 x 1080 resolution... point being, quality of craftsmanship is far more important than numbers. Case in point: look at the quality of the old 35 mm cameras... most of them are perfectly acceptable.

Edited April 28, 2010 by Scrappy McSlap

[chattius 2,539]

My birth town is Wetzlar (I use their coat of arms as avatar). Wetzlar is famous for its optical industry. So I grew up with 35mm and 7*11mm cameras all around me. Half of the family of my classmates were either working for Leica, Leitz, Minox, Hensoldt, Zeiss, Kaps, ... all building camera's, microscopes, telescops and other optics.

 

So if I visit relatives there all they talk about is new cameras. So it is quite the same as with cars. You can't drive to a company to do a deal with a Volkswagen Lupo or to the premiere at a theatre. But a 50 year old Volkswagen Beetle Cabrio is an oldtimer and acceptable.

 

So I use my oldtimer cameras. If I visit Wetzlar all the camera experts which I meet when doing photos recognize it as an oldtimer and are not doing any comments: they think I am an expert because I can handle such an old thing, so the think that I am probably a camera collector

 

But this is wrong, I have just 2 cameras and 4 fixed optics, that's all. Well add a slide projector and 2 enlargers. When my grandpa died I got his Minox B and his Leica M5. Even the Minox is called a spy camera because of its small size, the large M5 is the really spy camera: loudless and no need for a flash. I can do photo's without my kids noticing it, presetting shutter, opening and distance and then 'shoot out of the jacket'.

[chattius 2,539]

Autumn again, enjoyed Federweisser and Zwiebelkuchen again today at lunch at work. Tomorrow I will go for roasted chestnuts. I am no big fan of Treberwurst, while my oldest likes it alot.

 

Found an english language site which explains what I am speaking about with some recipes.

 

http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art46353.asp

[rnarchlord 0]

Well, I was born in Germany and lived there until I was 4 but I ate mostly Slavic food growing up. Did acquire a taste for the occasional bratwurst and other "wursts" as well as sourbraten but all these other food names are new to me. In TX BBQ, Mexican food and steak are the big food items but here in Austin we have a lot of different ethnic restaurants so it's fun to try foods from other cultures. We even have our own Oktober Fest in New Braunfels (originally a German settlement) down the road. Getting close to supper time and this is getting me hungry so bye for now.

[chattius 2,539]

Since my mother was born and grew up in Braunfels(Germany I always considered it funny comparing the sizes of Braunfels/Germany with its 5000 people and the way bigger New Braunfels/USA. Braunfels and its animal park and castle are often a target for our bicycle tours with the kids.

 

 

The long white house in front of the castle was a hospital at war times and my mom was born there.

[rnarchlord 0]

Besides the German food and the proximity to San Antonio the best attraction New Braunfels is noted for is the Schlitterbahn water park. No castles but a great way to cool off in the TX heat. The town is getting bigger every year due to being close to SA.

 

As for Canadian food, didn't have anything as good as the original post here when we played Kingston in college when I lived in NY. I vaguely remember having Americanized food at the local eatery.

Edited October 2, 2010 by rnarchlord