Mini-Donuts from Route 42 for #FoodPornFriday

We were supposed to be heading out of town to Toronto this morning but things didn't work out. On the way out of town I wanted to stop in at Route 42 Diner & Dairy Bar for some breakfast. After breakfast I was going to pick up some fresh made mini-donuts for the drive up.

This week's #FoodPornFriday features those Mini-Donuts. Sadly not picked up this morning. I've been addicted to this kind of donuts since I was a kid and my parents used to take me to the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto. The last thing we would do before hopping on the Go Train back to my Uncle's house was buy two dozen hot fresh mini donuts.

Do you have a drool worth food pic to share? Link up with us! You can use the #FoodPornFriday tag or #FoodPicFriday if your readers don't like that P word ;)

This #FoodPornFriday we look at the drool worthy Autostrada from Motorburger

This week's #FoodPornFriday features one of my favourite local burger joints: Motorburger. This place is amazing and you can check out my full review, originally posted back in January.

What you see here is my favourite burger from MotorbugerL The Autostrada. Chipotle rubbed northern italian sausage, gorgonzola cheese, sliced apple slaw for $7.50 or $11.50 for a double patty (something even this big dude does not need).

Have a great food picture you want to share? Join in the #FoodPornFriday fun and link up below. If you are one of those bashful types you can use #FoodPicFriday. Feel free to save some twitter characters by using #FPF as well.

It's been a while since I mentioned beer

It's been a long time since I've shared some of my recent beer tastings. This is something I intended to do more often when I launched the blog. That's something I hope to get back to starting today.

Here's some of the most recent new beers I've tried. Note these are new to me, not necessarily new beers. One of these is an Ontario Craft Beer. Windsor Essex is turning into a hotbed of craft beer activity. WindsorEats recently posted an article where they note that as many as 7 new breweries may be opening in the area.

The reviews:

For this post I'm going to feature some great draft beers that you can get locally. I'm one of those people that would much rather be drinking freshly poured draft beer over anything out of a bottle.

Note all of these are written live as I'm drinking the beers. Usually on my iPod. So grammar spelling and autocorrect sometimes get in the way, as does previously reviewed beers that night ;)

Sam Adams Cold Snap - They currently have this on draft at Rock Bottom Bar & Grill. If you haven't been there and you enjoy a good beer now and then I seriously suggest you check the place out. They have the most beers on draft in the city and a huge amount of awesome Ontario Craft Beers (Though note that this isn't actually an Ontario beer). They always use appropriate glassware which is something I appreciate.  

Very hazy orange pour in an awesome glass. Check out that glass.

Weak scent overpowered by the scent of chicken wings. What an odd beer. Very not beer like. Lots of odd spices. Reminds me of a hard cider. Or maybe a mulled wine. Very unique. Very drinkable. Love the aftertaste.

Wasn't expecting much but really like this.

Big Rock Saaz Republic Pilz - You can get this one out in Kingsville at Jack's Gastropub. Another great place for good beer. They have an Ontario Craft Beer menu that is dropped off on the table for every set of guests.

Brownish red pour. A bit rusty. Clingy thick tan head. Weak scent, hoppy a bit grassy. Mouth is not nearly so subdued. Sweet start. Like a sweet European Pilsner but better. A touch of hops in the finish. Not too bitter. Easy to drink.

Unibroue Noire De Chambly - This is my last beer for today.

I'm a big fan of Blanche De Chambly from the same brewer and had no idea that they did a Noire until we saw the draft menu at Jack's last weekend. Yep this one is also available on draft out in Kingsville.

My wife was the one that ordered this while I got the Saaz mentioned above. Thus the picture of a partially finished beer. They didn't serve it
like that.

Very dark black pour as expected. Pretty much no head. Distinct smell I cannot place. Thick, with low carbonation. Very thick. Stout like. Nutty and fruity. Raisins, plumbs and more. Lots of different fruits.

Its okay. Not great, but in no way bad.


If you want to see more of these beer reviews from me, I post all of my reviews on my +Big Dude Likes Food Google Plus account. You should circle me over there, then you won't miss any of this beer snobbery.

#FoodPornFriday Pork Squared from Jack's Gastropub #FPF

Well the weather is finally starting to be a little nicer out there. It's still way too damn cold out, but the roads are all finally clear. This means that the drive to Kingsville is now a much safer prospect. You remember what's in Kingsville right? Actually lots of great places, but my personal favourite is Jack's Gastropub. We finally got back out there last weekend and man, it was as good as ever.

What you see here is the Pork Squared: Prosciutto wrapped pork tenderloin served abed a wild rice blend, finished with a brandied cherry and baked apple relish and accompanied by evening vegetable. The veg that night came in an awesome little hot pot and was a mix of carrots and parsnips with a few other bits in there (I think there may have been onion) with some Parmesan cheese on top.

Have any awesome drool worthy pictures you want to share? Join in the #FoodPornFriday fun. Link up:

Mrs. Jones Cafe & Cheesecake Co. it's not just their egg salad that's the best in the city

Photo from windsorite.ca (forgot to take one of my own)

A couple weeks back as part of a #FoodPornFriday post I featured the amazing lunch I had at Mrs. Jones Cafe & Cheescake Co. 

At the time, I noted that Mrs. Jones (no, I'm not typing up the full name every time, I'm sure you know where I'm writing about) really deserved a full blog post. Well here you have that blog post.

Mrs. Jones is a rather small cafe located at 5880 Wyandotte Street East, in the heart of the Olde Riverside neighborhood here in Windsor. By rather small I mean tiny. The entire place only has 7 tables and 2 of those only seat 2 people. While this can be a problem actually getting a seat, it does lend itself to a very private, personal and comfortable atmosphere. 

The front 3/4 of the cafe is where all the seating is with the back 1/4 being the display area for all the tasty treats and the actual kitchen. The kitchen is right out in the open and you can tell Mrs. Jones has nothing to hide. Actually if you need to use the facilities you have to basically walk through the kitchen. This adds to the comfortable homey feeling that surrounds the place. It feels like you are just visiting the Jones house for a meal.

The menu (which doesn't seem to be hosted online anywhere) contains a bunch of comfort food. There's a focus on breakfast and lunch items but they do have a few dinner items as well. Though, if you want to go there for dinner, you will have to eat early as the latest they are open is 4pm. Along with the usual menu items there is always a quiche of the day, a phyllo wrap of the day and at least one soup of the day.

For breakfast I usually do a "make your own" omelet. I don't know what they do at Mrs. Jones that is different from other places but man do they make a good omelet. My personal favourite is mozzarella and crisp bacon.

Lunch is what I really love from Mrs. Jones. They have two special deals: the Mrs. Jones and the Mr. Jones. Both of these are flat priced combos. The Mrs. Jones lets you pick any sandwich, phyllo or quiche and pair it with soup or salad finished off with a fresh baked cookie. For a bit extra you can upgrade that cookie to a piece of cheesecake. The Mr. Jones is similar and I think it includes a pot pie in the combo or maybe a burger. I'm sorry but I don't actually remember and I always personally order a Mrs. Jones. Did I mention I can't find a menu online?

The reason I always order a Mrs. Jones special is because this place has the best egg salad I've ever had. Seriously, this stuff is amazing. It's a lemon dill egg salad which you can get on your choice of bread, toasted or not, with or without lettuce and tomato. I can't get enough of this sandwich. Actually if Mrs. Jones wasn't currently closed I think I know what I would be doing in about an hour from now.

My wife is a huge fan of the phyllo wraps and I can't remember the last time she ordered anything else. Though she does tend to mix up the sides. I've been very tempted to try the pot pies. Every time I see someone else order one they always look so good. But ordering that would mean I miss out on my egg salad.

Okay so all this talk of sandwiches, soups and salads skips over the whole second half of Mrs. Jones Cafe, the Cheesecake Co. part. We've been going to Mrs. Jones for about five years now and you know what? In all that time we never actually tried a piece of cheesecake. Every time we went in and got our Mrs. Jones special we always got a cookie at the end. They were damn good cookies. Sometimes we would save them for the kids but most of the time they got eaten right there. This changed a couple weeks back. The waitress pointed out the ability to upgrade the combo to include a piece of cheesecake. My wife and I debated it for maybe half a second and agreed. I ordered Pumpkin Spice cheesecake and my wife got Teramisu cheesecake.

OMG. Why did we wait five years to try this cheesecake? It was amazing. Really amazing. I never thought anything would top the cheesecake from Ye Olde Steak House but Mrs. Jones did, by far.

Mrs. Jones sells over 100 different kinds of cheesecake. Most of these are made to order but they also have a display set up with a wide variety of styles and types you can order right then and there. In addition to cheesecake they also do a bunch of other confectioneries: cookies, cake pops, muffins etc. Seriously though, skip all that and just get some cheesecake. Don't make the mistake we did and settle for cookies for far too long.

The one thing I haven't mentioned yet is price. This is mainly due to my bad memory and failure to find a menu online. The one thing I know for a fact though is that Mrs. Jones is extremely reasonable. Especially for the quality of food you get. I think the Mrs. Jones special is just under $8 (before cheesecake upgrade) and I think our bill last time we were there was about $28 for the wife and I (and we both did the upgrade). I apologize for not having better numbers on me. I'll try to come back and update this post when we go back there next time.

So overall this little place in Olde Riverside shouldn't be overlooked. It's a fantastic cafe with amazing comfort food and even better cheesecake. The only complaint I have is that it's so small it's sometimes hard to actually get a table.

#FoodPornFriday - Pork Schnitzel from The Twisted Apron #FpF

What you see here is the amazing Pork Schnitzel from The Twisted Apron. For $17 you get fried Ontario free range breaded pork tenderloin, smoked cheddar mashed potatoes & apple chutney accented with the featured veg.

The Twisted Apron is one of my favourite places to eat in the entire city. I first wrote about them back in April of last year (click here to read that review). Until a couple weekends ago we had only been there for breakfast or lunch. This was our first trip for dinner and by the gawds we will be back. It was fantastic. Add this amazing Schnitzel to some French Onion Soup and toss in some Ontario Craft beers and I'm in heaven.

Do you do the #FoodPornFriday thing? You should all link up with me. Okay you people who insist on #FoodPicFriday, you too. We've been getting more and more people every week. I would love this to become 'a thing.'

#FoodPornFriday - Lunch at Mrs. Jones - #FPF

Mrs. Jones Cafe & Cheesecake Co. really deserves a full blog post (EDIT: that full blog post is live). It's somewhere I plan to write up about when I've got more time. This great little Cafe is right in the heart of Riverside and provides some of the best home made comfort food in the city. Added to that they make the most amazing cheesecake and other deserts.

What you see here is what I think is The Best egg salad sandwich in the city. It's a lemon dill egg salad that I've been trying to re-create at home with no luck (though I do say adding a bit of dill to any egg salad makes it better, I just haven't found the right mix).

Did you get any amazing food pictures this week? Care to join in the #FoodPornFriday fun? Then link up!