The Ballroom - Bowl, Bar Grill

Its been a while since we've posted something, and the reason being has been that both Johnny and I were on a pescatarian diet and were deprived of meat, which made blogging about meat painful and torturous. Now that we're back to our meat eating ways, we're free to express our love for meat again on this blog! Hurray!

We continue Johnny's Chinatown adventures in The Ballroom - Bowl, Bar Grill. Thankfully, the website has a different tag line: Sports & Bowl & Rock N' Roll, because Bowl, Bar Grill makes no sense to me. Is the bar grilling or are we talking about a physical bar on the grill? 

So The Ballroom is the only bowling alley in downtown Toronto, a fact that they've taken full advantage of and charges a ridiculous amount per lane ($17.50 per half hour!). On top of the bowling alley is a mini 'bar grill' my friends and I waited at since there was a 45 minute wait for our lane.

We came in the afternoon and this was their lunch menu. It's pretty small and they have standard bar type food. The prices are on the expensive side, considering the fact that the only thing that makes this place special is its location on top of a bowling alley. 

As we are all true Canadian's, we ordered two heart stopping, heart attack inducing, deep fried poutines.

First up, the Mushroom Poutine: with 'wild mushrooms' (looks pretty unwild to me) and a lot of cheddar curds. This poutine was alright, nothing to be wow-ed over by, but it was not disastrous either. 

Popcorn Chicken Poutine: deep fried chicken bits, cheddar curds, fries - all topped off with oozing gravy. What isn't heart clogging about this?

Johnny, the chicken connoisseur, said that it lacked a certain omph, that little spice to hit the home run.

Although we only sampled their poutine, I'm guessing this place is more for its atmosphere than their food.

The decor does set the mood for the need to bowl and break some pins so they'll have more broken pins to turn into chandeliers though.

As we were bowling, there were multiple glitches with our lane so they gave us at least 2 hours overtime. If anything, at least they were generous.

Costco Hot Dog

Not a restaurant, but I vowed to write about all things food when Johnny and I created this blog, and Costco definitely falls under that category.

Costco is just one of those magical warehouses that entices you to buy EVERYTHING since things in bulk just appeal to that little voice in our head that says, "More is better!" Too bad Costco doesn't allow photographs to be taken though, otherwise I would have gone camera crazy and taken pictures of all the happy things my greedy self wants (but not need). And the free samples they offer are enough to keep you full until your next meal.

One of the things I love about Costco is their cheap hot dogs. My friend whom I went to Costco with said, "It's funny that it's only when I'm in Costco that I ever think of buying a hot dog." This is probably because it's only 1.50 with a drink and free refills; rumor has it that the price hasn't changed since 1984. That's one hefty rumor to have to live by.

With a warm bun, a thick and juicy hotdog, bell peppers, mustard, relish - is there anything that isn't wrong with this hot dog?

My friend opted for the sausage option (same price) and haphazardly decorated his with ketchup, mustard, and onions.

We got a side of fries and gravy (about $2 something).

Costco will definitely always be my go to for a quick hot dog fix (that and the various hot dog stands on campus - more on this later!)