#FoodPornFriday - Wizards of Walkerville Boardgame Bistro and Bar

The reason you didn't see a #FoodPornFriday post last weekend was the fact that it was the annual Extra Life weekend. This is a charity gaming event that I help run and organize every year as part of the Windsor Gaming Resource. It was a very successful weekend. The awesome gamers of Windsor Ontario raised $3390 U.S. for the Children's Miracle Network of Hospitals.

This week I feature one of the amazing local businesses that were part of our Extra Life event this year: The newly opened Wizards of Walkerville Boardgame Bistro and Bar. Over the course of the Extra Life weekend, my wife and I stopped in many times to see how things were going and ate there for both breakfast and lunch. 

Wizards of Walkerville (Wizards from now on) is located at the corner of Hall and Ottawa.  Currently, it's more of a restaurant/cafe that happens to have an amazing selection of board games to play. That will be changing when they get the basement gaming area open. As it stands it's still awesome mainly due to how damn good the food is. This is seriously good food. This includes the coffee which is some kind of special blend (sorry not a coffee snob, so I don't remember what's special about it, I just know it's good). The fact that they also have games to play is just a very cool added bonus.

As far as the games go they have a fantastic range of games. There's all of the classics: Clue, Monopoly, Connect Four etc. Along with those they have a really good selection of party and family games. For the hardcore gamers, you can even find amazing hobby strategy games like Scyth and Terraforming Mars. I challenge any tabletop gamer to go in there and not find something that fits their taste.

Back to the food. For breakfast Saturday morning I tried the Ol' Fashion French Toast. That's the main pic up there. This is pumpkin spice blend french toast, with toasty pecan coating. It came with a cardamon maple "Ol' Fashion inspired" maple syrup blend. It was some of the best French Toast I've had. There was the option to get bacon but I somehow missed that on the menu. 

The other item I tried, for lunch on Sunday, just before the Extra Life event ended at 3pm, was the Par-Cheesy with a side of Italian Wedding Soup. The Par-Cheesy is their grilled cheese. The thing with this is that the cheese blend changes each week. Mine was a mix of mozzarella, provolone, and asiago (If I remember correctly). This was really good, but not quite as good as that french toast. That's it over there on the left.

Overall I think Wizards is awesome. I'm looking forward to when the gaming area opens up and when the Bar part of their name becomes a reality. In addition to being a cool place to play and learn new games, they have really good food. I strongly suggest checking them out. 

#FoodPornFriday - sometimes there's nothing better than traditional bacon and eggs

I post a wide variety of #foodporn on here. Quite a bit of it people would consider fancy. It's not the stuff mom used to cook. I've noticed a big trend here in Windsor of more gourmet foods showing up everywhere. Words like Aoili, Bechamel, Carcuterie, and Quenelle show up on more menus every day. This isn't a bad thing, in no way. But sometimes you just want something "normal".

To me, there's nothing more simple and basic and normal, than Bacon and Eggs. This is comfort food at it's finest as long as it's cooked right. That's the kicker though. Pretty much any place that opens before 10am serves meat, eggs, and potato, but so few actually get it right.

For those few weeks, I was living back at my parent's place taking care of my dad we made a new daily habit. That was going to Pete's Place. Personally, I like my eggs "over medium" which to me means flipped over, yolks still liquid and all whites cooked through without being overcooked and having crispy bits. I like my bacon a bit under crisp, you can bend it but eventually, it will break. I like my potatoes with a bit a seasoning salt. Pete (yes the owner and cook of Pete's place is named Pete) nails this every time. 

As an added bonus, it's cheap. Really cheap if you get there before 11am. A plate of bacon and eggs before 11am is under $5. That's unheard of nowadays. I will fully admit it's not the fanciest place. It's pretty much the Wikipedia page image for a greasy spoon and they don't even take debit. It's exactly the kind of place you expect to find a great plate of eggs.

You can check out Pete's for yourself at 381 Wyandotte St. East. Right across from the big park in front of Water World near The Barn.