#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. 

This #FoodPornFriday features Klueless Cupcakes

Last weekend my wife and I celebrated our anniversary with a staycation (I still hate that word). I took a couple days off work and we shipped the kids off to my mother-in-law's for the weekend. One of the days all we did was kind of meander around Windsor and check out cool looking places we had never been before. We took a drive down Erie Street, aka Via Italia and spent some time in Walkerville.

While in Walkerville we stopped in at a little bake shop called Klueless Cupcakes. I've driven by the place many times and I'm always tempted by the signs out front advertising a wide variety of great sounding treats. That day the sign said Cookies & Cream Cupcakes. I'm a sucker for Cookies & Cream. Ever since Baskin Robins introduced Oreo Cookies & Cream as a new flavour I've been hooked. I had to check this out.

Klueless Cupcakes is small, very small. Just a counter and three small tables (that were sadly full up when we were there). They mainly offer cupcakes. Which I guess makes sense. I was expecting a wider variety, though thinking about it I think it's cool that they are so specialized. The cupcakes were only $2 each and I ordered my Cookies & Cream Cupcake.

One thing I thought was rather neat was the single cupcake container this thing came in. Actually the picture I'm sharing for this weeks #FoodPornFriday was taken in the car as I just thought the container was too cool. Well that and the fact the cupcake looked so damn good.

Good it was. Actually it's probably the best cupcake I've had here in Windsor. It was so moist and so good. I suggest checking this place out when you have some time. Next time I'm in the area I'd like to stay and get a coffee, if they have room for us.


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After the Windsor Craft Beer Festival we hit up Vito's

Picture totally stolen off Vito's webpage as I didn't think to take a pic of the place that night.

One of the things I found odd at Windsor's first ever Craft Beer Festival that I wrote about last week was how early it ended. I dunno if it's just me, but I would expect a beer based event to go late into the night. This was not the case though, it ended at 10PM. So there we were in the middle of Olde Walkerville at 10PM with nothing to do and grumbling stomachs.

The official after party was being held at the new Willistead Restaurant. So we wandered down that way. The place was packed. More than packed actually. I guess that was to be expected. We wandered back East a bit and noticed that O'Magio's was also packed. Then my wife remembered Vito's.

More specifically she reminded me about Vito's Pizzeria, which was just down the road and across the street. Vito's used to be my favourite place to eat in town before we had the kids. Unfortunately it's not really a family kind of place. Sure they will serve kids but it's just not the right kind of place for it, both for your sake and the sake of the other guests. Well guess what? We didn't have the kids that night.

I'm always surprised by how small Vito's is. It's actually almost at the point of being cramped, but not quite. It's a beautiful looking place and it always smells fantastic. The wood oven they use for the pizza (and a bunch of other dishes) is right out there in the open and you can't avoid the amazing smells coming from it.

We were asked if we came from the Craft Beer Fest and after confirming we were warned that all they were making at this point at night was Pizza. That was fine with us. We got our seats and I ordered a beer (as that's obviously what I need after a beer fest) and my wife got a coffee. The menu still looked as appealing as ever. Lots of amazing high end Italian food and wood fired favorites. Most prices are in the $12-$18 range with some exceptions like Sword Fish at almost $30. We've been to Vito's many times and we've always felt we got what we paid for.

Personally I'm in love with having prosciutto on my Pizza. Vito's is the place where I first discovered this love and no where quite does it as well as here. Along with this gem I also got some pepperoni and Itallian sausage on my pie. My wife got some fish covered thing I would never touch but seems to make lots of people drool whenever she describes it.

The food was excellent. Just like I remembered. It's awesome to see that this place hasn't lost it's touch in the years since we've been there. The thought my wife and I both had when we were leaving is that we had to make sure we didn't take too long to make it back next time. 

A food filled vacation right here in Windsor

For about 10 years in a row we had a tradition of heading up to London Ontario for my Wife's birthday. It started with a random trip to the bus depot over breakfast that ended up with us having probably the best weekend we've ever had. Well this year we broke that tradition and had a vacation right here in Windsor.

One of the best parts about our kid free weekend was the food. We took the chance to hit a bunch of our local favorites as well as try a couple new places. So what we have here is a synopsis of some of the great food we had during our stay in Windsor vacation for my Wife's Birthday. Over the next week or so I hope to do a full review of each of these great places, well except for Jack's as I already did that one back in January. For now though I'll just leave you with these small bites.

Pulled Pork from The Twisted Apron

The Twisted Apron - this amazing place is somewhere we only discovered late last year but became an instant favorite. It's one of the best places in Windsor for breakfast. What we found out during the birthday weekend was that it's also amazing for lunch. Located in the heart of old Walkerville on Wyandotte it's also pretty close to home for us. Great food at great prices with focus on local produce and meats. Check out this Pulled Pork Sandwich  $10 for local pork, cheddar, crispy onion and coleslaw on a pretzel bun. Add some fresh made local tomato soup and I was very happy. 

Rosemary Lamb Meat Loaf from Jack's

Jack's Gastropub - when we first started talking about this stay in Windsor vacation one of the places we knew we had to try again was Jack's Gastropub. We first went there during Winter Bites and it was amazing. The return trip was just as good. I had the most fantastic meat loaf I've ever had. The Rosemary Lamb Meat Loaf was served with a Three Cheese Potato Strata and finished with Beef Gravy and Onion Tanglers. It runs $20 which may seem high but is worth it as soon as you try the first bite. I've been recommending it to pretty much everyone.

Pizza with Corn Beef Hash and
Eggs Benedict, hell yeah!

Casino Windsor Buffet - I've been hearing from friends and co-workers that I have to try the Casino breakfast buffet sometime. Well what better time than a weekend checking out local sites. What is more Touristy than the Casino. I was totally blown away by this buffet. I've never seen so much variety. It ranged from fresh made omelets to a Pizza bar. There was a chocolate fountain and a Mongolian grill. You could grab Chinese or make yourself tacos. There was fresh carved prime rib even at 10am. Okay it's not cheap but come on. Everything was fresh and hot and attended by a chef. Where else can you get this good a food in this amount of variety for $25 a head (cheaper if you have a Casino points card).

Three of the 5 rolls we ordered at
The Sushi California

The Sushi California - Okay we went downtown to hit a new favourite, Terra Cotta. Sadly they closed earlier than I expected for a Saturday night so we tried somewhere down the road and found some of the best Sushi we've had in the city. Awesome looking place that's Tardis like in it's size inside vs it's unassuming  front. Really great authentic Japanese feel with actual J-Pop playing. The biggest sushi rolls I've ever seen in my life. Not just width but 8-10 piece rolls. Just look at this plate! We ended up with literally twice as much food as my Wife and I could eat and ended up spending about $70, which is about the same price we would spend at our usual Sushi choices.

Corn Beef and Cheese Omelet from Paul's

Paul's Kitchen - this is another one of those hidden gems that is right up there for best breakfast in Windsor. This place is tiny and very popular which usually means it's hard to actually get in without a wait. So I'm not telling you where it is ;) Paul's is an old school home cooking breakfast diner. Amazingly good fast and cheap breakfast. My personal favorite is a Corn Beef and Cheese Omelet which comes with a horde of hashbrowns, toast and a slice of melon. I don't think I've ever completely cleared my plate.  My wife and I hit this place regularly, both with and without the kids.

Breakfast Poutine at The Twisted Apron

The Twisted Apron - didn't I already mention this place? Yep, but it's so good we went twice. This time around we went back so I could get one of the most amazing breakfast items I've ever eaten. That picture right there is the Breakfast Poutine. Hashbrowns, bacon, cheddar, chicken gravy, scrambled eggs and a side of toast. At only $10 this is the breakfast item I find I crave the most often. Seriously you owe it to yourself to try this sometime. Sure it looks odd and I know you are thinking: Chicken Gravy!?! Trust me here, I thought the same thing. It works and it works well.

So there you have a highlight of some of the amazing local food I got to enjoy during our stay in Windsor vacation. Check back here over the next few weeks as I find the time to do a full write up of each of these amazing restaurants. 

EDIT: check out my full post on The Twisted Apron and my first ever guest post over at Eyes on Windsor where I talk about The Sushi California