Kenora Cuisine

The annual Manitoba Travel travel assignment was a great opportunity to get some good stories, photos and of course content for this fantastic blog. I travelled to Kenora for the first time ever with two lovely ladies, Jacky and Lindsay.

We arrived Monday night, starving, around 7:30ish. We drove around to find somewhere interesting and local to eat, but we ended up at Casey's which is a chain restaurant. Our eyes were definitely bigger than our mouths that night as we ordered wings to start before each of our different kind of stir frys arrived. We had peri peri and apple BBQ wings. I'm usually not a wing eater because it's just way to much effort but they were pretty good. I loved the apple BBQ, but the peri peri was way to spicy for my wimpish self. It also had a hint lemon which I was not a fan of.

I ordered cashew chicken stir fry, which was amazing. Some of the veggies should have been cut up smaller to eat it better, and I had to search for the chicken, but the proportions were just divine. The sauce and spice were just perfect, and we ended getting two meals out of each of our stir frys as there was just so much.

The best part about Casey's was the boozy drinks. We all had X-rated lemonade, followed by a white grape punch. The lemonade one was to dye for! (note: exclamation point, I mean it.) It had real, and very fresh, strawberries and you couldn't even taste the vodka. We all sipped it so slowly it was so good. We ordered the second drink mostly because it came in a fish bowl like glass.

Casey's filled us up until bedtime, but when morning came we thought we should try to eat at one of the local treasures. After visiting city hall to find out what we could about Kenora, we headed to the suggested Greek restaurant called Plaza. It turns out we all had the Greek salad pita with chicken (Jacky was the only one who had it with olives). It was so delicious. The proportions were really good, and the chicken had so much flavour. It was probably marinated. I am really glad though that I didn't ask for the soup the other girls had as an appetizer. It was a lemon soup, which I knew I wouldn't like, but I had a little taste of it anyway. It tasted like a chicken soup with lots of lemon and some cream. I was not a fan but the other girls said they liked it and would have it again, even though they said it was quite strong.

I think we had more treats than we had actual food. Before saying goodbye to Kenora we stopped at the Nibbler's Nook and stocked up on some really unique treats. We each got a half pound of fudge and few other interesting finds including Lindsay's Kaluha coffee.

Kenora definitely has some food highlights that I would love to go back and investigate.   

Directions Conference

breakfast remains

Eating in social situations always poses issues for me. It can be so so awkward, whether it's at someone's house or at an event like yesterday. The Directions Business Conferences was yesterday and a few crecommers, including me, won a draw for a few tickets. So a handful of us Cre Comms mixed in with about 500 business students, had a day of interesting info sessions. There was even a session for Moksha Yoga CEO's, which I found particularly neato. But as for lunch, it was all one meal, unless I lied and say I was a vegetarian or celiac. Man, a buffet would have been awesome.

So  breakfast when I got to Canad Inns was baskets of muffins, croissants, and plates of fruit. This day was starting off excellent. I had a blueberry muffin (that I actually thought was chocolate) some pineapple, cantaloupe, watermelon, apple juice and my first coffee of three.



bad pic, but i was being inconspicuous



Lunch rolled around and I found my seat, and I thought it was weird that the dessert was already on the table placed around the center piece. Omg what a horrible centerpiece. Ridiculously fake plant things in a in a square glass container with dark blue glass pebble things. If they took out all those fake plants, filled it with water and a few floating tea lights, oh dayum it would look good.

So my plate was placed in front of me and I was really not excited. It was lasagna, and I despise lasagna. But I was a starvin' Marvin so I was planning on eating everything. I was really disappointed though how it was all placed. As I've been getting older I don't mind when certain foods touch, but like the lasagna was all up on the salad. So, I had leave a strip of salad that was infected. Then they had a delicious bread stick placed on top, but of course it got all soggy from the lasagna. I was just not impressed. But overall the food



cheese cake

was pretty good. I think I liked it so much because it was Canad Inns food, so it wasn't too fancy, just plain. Not too much tomato sauce, or spice. And I also had my third cup of coffee, which was probably not a good idea for my belly.

Well as I already said I had a good look at the dessert and it was my least favourite: cheesecake. I've tried cheese cake many many times, and it always looks so yummy and I really want to like it but I just don't. I've tried it at weddings, at my grad, store bought and even my grandma's homemade. But I gotta say I really liked this cheese cake. My fellow cre commers said it wasn't the best, but I think it was the best cheese cake I've had but probably because it didn't really taste like regular cheese cake. More cake-ish and sweet like whipped cream or something.

Overall, it was an alright meal, not my first choice but managed without starving. I'd give it ***