On March 22, 2019, Spoon Laurier hosted its second Food Crawl! Despite the wind and cold temperatures, many dedicated foodies from Laurier came out to sample tasty dishes and to hang out with their friends. The Spoon Laurier Food Crawl began at 2 pm, its first order of business being a raffle gift card to Waterloo's local eatery – Just Love Pie! Once everyone was checked in, we quickly began our journey of eating our way through Uptown Waterloo!
Stop #1
Our first stop was The Bauer Kitchen. This is a beautiful restaurant with a very sophisticated and classy atmosphere. The Bauer Kitchen offers a great setting to take your significant other out for dinner, to celebrate a birthday or any other special occasion you may have coming up!
Once we had arrived, we were introduced to the Assistant General Manager Christine and The Bauer Kitchen's Chef de Cuisine, Graham. While at The Bauer Kitchen we had the chance to sample one of their most popular appetizers, confit duck wings. Before digging into the mouthwatering meal, Graham began by explaining to the group what confit meant, as this was a new way of cooking for many of us. Graham explained that the duck had been cooked in its own fat for approximately three hours at 300 degrees which made the duck extra tender. This style of cooking is centuries old but delicious enough to stick around till today!
The duck wings were covered in a chili hoisin glaze which had many of us wanting more! It was also a lot of our attendees first time ever trying duck, and they ended up liking it a lot!
It was easy to see why this is one of The Bauer Kitchen's most popular appetizer dishes and we were all very grateful to try them as the first meal of our food crawl!
Stop #2
Our second stop on the Spoon Laurier Food Crawl was Copper Branch. This is a vegan/plant-based/vegetarian-friendly restaurant located just minutes away from campus! While here, we were introduced to the owner, Shawn. This was another restaurant that was featured in last year's food crawl, and Spoon is very grateful that we could visit them again!
Here we had the opportunity to sample their Unity Falafel Wrap. This wrap was full of good-for-you things such as carrots, tomatoes and alfalfa sprouts
To accompany our wrap, we also had samples of their Einstein Smoothie which is packed full of superfoods such as raspberries, blueberries and spinach! If you are looking for some healthy fuel to start your day, the Unity Falafel Wrap and the Einstein Smoothie is a perfect pairing.
Stop #3
From Copper Branch it was only a short walk towards our next stop, Taco Farm! When we arrived we were greeted by Sydney, who is the Taco Farm Head Chef and Vanessa who is the Front of House Supervisor.
This restaurant instantly came off as being the dream for any university student who is on a budget, but is also on the hunt for some awesome food with plenty of flavour!
One of this restaurant's special features is that they offer $20 all you can eat tacos on Wednesdays as well as various speciality brunch features on Saturdays.
At this restaurant we were able to sample their gringo tostadas! We also learned they offer these tostadas for just $1, every Tuesday!
The tostadas were topped with refried beans, beef, tomato salsa and their famous farm sauce. The tostadas were accompanied by their gluten-free tortilla chips which everyone on the crawl was intrigued to learn were made in house and were available for purchase in store!
#Spoontip: Everything at Taco Farm is gluten-free except for their churros, so this is great news for anyone with a gluten intolerance or sensitivity.
Stop #4
Our final stop of the Spoon Laurier Food Crawl was Harmony Lunch!
One of the many great things about this restaurant is that it is open until 2 am on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays! So, if all that late night studying is making you hungry, I would suggest giving this place a try!
While at our last stop, we got the chance to sample the classic Harmony Burger. This was a 100% pork burger which is locally sourced from Sebringville, Ontario. The burgers came fully loaded with cheese, mustard, relish, tomato, and fried onions
The atmosphere of this restaurant reminds those who step in of a retro style diner but with a modern twist.
One delicious thing that many of the attendees said they would be coming back for is Harmony Lunch's mac and cheese special on Tuesdays!
Even if the weather was a little bit chilly, we appreciate everyone that came out to support Spoon Laurier's Second Food Crawl! We hope all attendees had fun exploring a small section of the great culinary gems Uptown Waterloo has to offer.
We also want to take this opportunity to say a big thank you to all of the fabulous restaurants who were featured in this year's food crawl, and for all the delicious food we got to sample!