Timmy's: Canada's Boring Sweetheart

I cringe when I think about all the times some Canadian patriot has played host to American acquaintances, and has said, "Well, geez buddy. You're in Canada, so we just gotta go to Timmy's and get a coffee. It's our national specialty, eh?" *shudder*

With Tim Hortons being the symbol of Canadian culture that it supposedly is, it's no wonder that Canada is seen as the vanilla sponge-cake of the world. Contrary to world belief (i.e. American belief), Canada is not bland or tasteless. It's people are not just satisfactory, yet ultimately unmemorable. Tim Hortons coffee, on the other hand, is all of these things.

The three friends who came to the party at 6 when it started
at 8. They each had a Mike's hard lemonade,
and left at 9 because they all had curfew.

I had a pretty good discussion with a buddy of mine the other day about the taste of Tim Hortons "coffee". While you (M.L.L.) are cringing at my misuse of quotation marks, let me explain. Tim Hortons has no right to call their "coffee" coffee. While it is hot, and liquid, that's where the similarities stop. Tim Hortons' hot breakfast beverage doesn't smell or taste like coffee, so why is everyone calling it coffee?

From now on, Tim Hortons "coffee" will be called "hot morning beverage" or "hot breakfast beverage". The debate is ongoing.

Unlike McDonalds' coffee, which is rich, bold, and generally resembles coffee, Tim's has somehow become Canada's darling coffee franchise all while pumping out a pretty inferior product. I guess that's how marketing works though: show kids playing hockey, show hockey mom in the stands cheering the Cornwall Whatever's, and then show the whole family going to Tim's afterwards for celebration hot-morning-beverages. That's all it takes in this country. *sigh... Oh, Canada.

Tim Hortons' food, while not as horribly overhyped as their coffee, is equally as boring. Their "Sausage Breakfast Sandwich on an English Muffin" (pfff, nice name), is about as interesting as Ben Stein voicing the Twilight audiobook. Also, they should really put a disclaimer on these sandwiches that say, "Assembly Required".  The egg is on the left, the unmelted slice of cheese is on the right, and the sausage could be anywhere.

This picture was taken after I reassembled it. The cheese is finally
melting, but that's just because I stored it in my pants until I ate it.

Unlike McDonalds' breakfast sandwich, which slaps you in the face with greasy, fatty flavour, Tim's is about half as greasy and about a quarter as tasty. I'd rather take the extra grams of fat in exchange for something that makes me go, "Oh God, I should get another one".

The hashbrown patty I ate today is the second version of the Tim Hortons hashbrowns. The original Timmy's hash was replaced a few months, maybe a year ago, because it sucked. Originally, Tim's tried to move in a different direction than McDonalds by offering a "homestyle, good ol' fashioned, just like your Canadian granny used to make 'em" hashbrown. Too bad that Granny sucks and so do her hashbrowns. A few months ago Tim's caved, and are now offering hashbrowns that are a DIRECT RIPOFF of the McDonalds' hash. They might even get them from the same company for all I know, and Tim's still manages to make them inferior to McDonalds'.

Overall, the breakfast sucked, but not as much as waiting 25 minutes in line, like you have to do every time you go to any Tim's, anywhere. I'm getting really tired of Tim's being the reigning champion in the Canadian made breakfast industry. I'm sick of their pathetic tear-jerker or downright unfunny commercials, but most of all, I'm sick of the equation that people make between being Canadian and loving Tim Hortons.

Robin's Donuts is just as Canadian as Tim's ever has or ever will be. I didn't grow up on TimBits, I grew up on Robin's eggs. Sure, Robin's coffee tastes like it's been brewed with burning paper, but it still TASTES LIKE SOMETHING, dammit! I'm really hoping for the industry to even itself out, and I'm looking forward to Robin's Donuts getting back in the game.

For now though, if I'm gonna go evil, I'm going for the evil I know. I'll stick with McDonalds until this country gets over it's infatuation, bordering on obsession, with Tim Horton's, and we realize that it's not a Canadian landmark, or a symbol of who we are as a nation.

We'll see it for what it is: a coffee place with crappy coffee.

Do you have milk on your person?

Got milk?

Yes, yes I do.

Due to delays in the Manitoba Student Aid payment system, I was unable to get my usual "doctor's nightmare" breakfast earlier in the week. Then, thanks to a faulty debit card, I was unable to spend the student aid that finally made it. It's been a hard week.

Front row: 2% white; Back row: Chocolate, and wet air.

But for a combined cost of only 3 dollars and change at the local RRC Mercantile, I bought three different types of milk, and now, I'm ready to complete my master experiment... comparing different milks.

Milk is a healthy part of any nutritional bowl of Chocolate Lucky Charms. I feel like a lot of people take milk for granted, and every time I try to convince people to enjoy Earth's white nectar of the gods (milk), they always start filling their diapers with the same old and tired complaints.

Wahhh, it's high in fat! 
Of course it is. That's why it's so delicious.


Wahhh, the cows they get it from are pumped full of steroids!
Well, just think of how strong your bones will be.

Wahhh, I'm lactose intolerant, and throwing up all over my new area rug!
Get a new area rug, it's worth it. I mean come on, it's 2014. Aren't we past intolerance of any kind?

Don't get me wrong, some milk is terrible. I bought one skim milk, one chocolate milk, and one 2% white milk, to see if I could find out which one would be worse than the others. I wanted to drink the crappiest milk first, so then afterwards, I could use the better milks to wash the taste of crappy milk out of my mouth.

Skim: It even sounds gross.

I went with my gut, and picked the skim milk first.

Whereas 1% milk is the Diet 7up of milks, skim milk is the decaffeinated, piss-warm, Diet Spritz Up of milks. Milk's unique taste only relies on one thing to be fantastic - texture. Milk is defined by its texture. 2% has a heavenly creamy texture that makes you want to swish the liquid cloud in your mouth like Listerine. Skim milk feels like someone took an old glass that had a little bit of old milk sitting on the bottom, and filled it with ice cold Brita-filtered water. Skim milk is what I'd imagine cotton balls tasting like. It was like kissing someone you don't like right after that person had a glass of 1% milk. 0% fat! Why? Maybe, if you're so desperate to watch your weight, stick to pouring water or Pepsi Max over your frosted flakes.

Right after taking a sip, I immediately spit it out all over the compusadrt I aws orwekin on. Ocne I nmaaged to clean that up, I reached for the chocolate milk as quick as possible. Chocolate milk should be drank with a straw. Even the dumbest milk novice knows this. Chocolate milk touches that thick texture I was talking about earlier, but then kicks it up a whole notch. In fact, I don't think it should even be called chocolate milk. They really need to invent a beverage that has the consistency of something between milk and milkshake, because this chocolate milk was so thick, it would be a stretch to classify this substance as a liquid.

Chocolate milk is great for
washing skim milk out.

Of course, the taste was spot on. Sweet, thicker-than-milky, and wholly refreshing. But for some reason, as good as it was, it still isn't on the top of the milky food chain.

The truth is, 2% white milk will always be king. The milky-white colour, the milky aftertaste, it's milky texture... it's all just so, milky. Milk. Milk. Milk. 2% milk. I think I'm having a milky breakdown. When you realize what milk has done for you in your life, you'll breakdown too.

Where you be without a trusted, delicious milk, huh? I'll tell you where: dead in a gutter, choking to death on a lump of hot brownie, unable to scream because of all the peanut butter in your mouth, and dying from internal bleeding because all those jagged shards of rock-hard, chocolate chip cookie just sliced a hole in your stomach lining. Thank milk you're not there, yet.

The holy grail of milks. Often overlooked, it
still causes moments of sheer ecstasy, which
can result in hideous facial paralysis (above).

Without milk, millions of our beloved senior citizens would be playing cribbage until all hours of the night until their withered old fingers broke off and rolled underneath their rocking chairs. But no, milk made their bones strong, it made their cribbage game better, and it warmed itself up to tuck Grandma and Grandpa into a beautiful, drooly, lactose-induced slumber. 

This is not some sort of advertorial. That is to say, I have not yet received funds for my efforts in directing the public to the greatness of milk. Please though, just to prove that I'm not some nutjob that is obsessed with milk, do me a favour: buy ingredients to make fresh, warm, ultra-rich, ultra-chocolatey double fudge brownies. After you've made them, baked them, and pulled them from the oven, let them cool just enough so that they won't burn you. Spread enough chocolate frosting on the brownies so that the frosting melts just a little bit, then sprinkle crushed walnuts. Then, put the brownie up to your mouth, and take a bite. A big bite. Let the chocolate swirl into every crevice of your mouth, and let the batter gather up inside your gums. Then, when you've finished the brownie, out of a nice tall glass, take a big sip of ice-cold, wonderfully refreshing... water.

See what I mean? Don't take milk for granted.

Mickey D's Artery-Clogging Classic

I've been a long-time McDonald's fan/fiend/addict. I remember living in the country as a boy, and weekly trips to the Superstore were always capped off with some Big Macs. Being an old country boy, the heavily coveted McDonald's breakfast only happened maybe 5 or 20 times in my childhood, which is why I told myself that when I became an adult living in the city, I was going end the fast food breakfast famine, and make sure that I had my fill.

Food on the go! And you'll have to go, if you eat
breakfast at McDonald's. You've been warned.

And here I am today: a heavy-set, heavy-breathing, heavy-consumer of McDonald's products and services, catching a bus to go twenty feet down the road to my local McDicks. I wouldn't change a thing... well, I might change the sporadic chest pains and constant nausea, but other than that, I wouldn't change a thing. Some things should never change.

That's why I was happy this morning to find out that McDonald's has done nothing to change anything about the Sausage n' Egg McMuffin. McGriddles and Breakfast Bagels are all well and good, but when it comes to the Sausage n' Egg McMuffin, McDonald's played it smart and left well-enough alone. A lot of people, myself included, don't want to get fat trying new stuff. We want to get fat on the classics.

McDonald's breakfast combo setup is as classic as it gets: McMuffin. Hashbrowns. Beverage.

Now THAT'S a breakfast, people: nary a veggie in sight, grease pooling at the bottom of wrappers and spilling onto shirts, and a rapidly increasing rapid heartbeat... O beautiful, for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain.

Anticipation is the best part.

Let's get down to business. McDonald's didn't become the unholy dark lord of the "good food, prepared quickly" industry because their food sucks. If you don't care about the insane calorie count or whether or not you're eating real food, the bottom line stands -- it tastes good. Yes, it does. If you disagree with me, fine. I reserve the right to respectfully think you're in denial. It tastes delicious.

I want to get serious here for a moment. The rest of this blogpost has been kind of facetious, but I'm dead serious when I say that McDonald's coffee is wonderful. There's a lot of fish in the breakfast/coffee industry barrel (weak metaphor, whatevs), but McDonald's has some of the best coffee out there. Unlike Starbucks' melted tire roast, or Tim Horton's burnt hair roast, or Burger King's... water, McDonald's actually has a rich, flavourful, full-body roast that is too good to not be at the expense of some exploited African nation. Then again, it's McDonald's. You should know what you're getting. I recommend it.

Chewing is for amateurs.

The hashbrowns are delicious as well. I was a little concerned when I didn't see the hashbrown patty glistening with grease, but then I flipped it over and saw that all the grease had sunk to the bottom... haha, phew! It was as mouth-wateringly fattening as it always is, and we all know the golden food rule: FAT = DELICIOUS. Burger King offers the breakfast potatoes (puh-lease), and Tim Horton's has a bastardized version of the McDonald's hashbrown, but nothing comes close. This menu item is a staple in the breakfast branch of the fast food industry, which is ironic too, because shortly after eating the hashbrowns, it felt as if I had swallowed some staples.

Pain is the dessert for every
McDonald's meal.

The Sausage n' Egg McMuffin is the real draw here. Perfectly toasted English muffin, melted cheese, what appears to be an egg, and that glorious solidified grease called a sausage patty. It truly is delicious, and for only 440 calories, it's a dieter's dream! A Sausage n' Egg McMuffin has 26g of fat, which is 40% of the recommended daily value! So by eating it, you're actually eating the equivalent of two meals, saving you valuable eating time! This breakfast is so handy!

The only drawback to this delicious meal was the crippling lethargy that sank in shortly after eating it. The day-long headache was also a minor con, but still not enough to keep me from going back again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again.

Elements, Schmelements

Hello again, and welcome to a new year that's sure to be packed full of breakfast-based debauchery. Most of my breakfasts over the Christmas holidays consisted of half-eaten Lindor Chocolates and boxed wine, but that's all going to change in 2014. It has to. My doctor says so.

We'll start off the year with a breakfast I had last year at Elements Restaurant on Portage Avenue.

Elements was referred to me by a friend. His exact words were: "Go to Elements. They have all-day breakfast."

"Is it good?" I asked.

"They have all-day breakfast," he replied.

This conversation both intrigued and worried me, and was enough to get my ass off the couch and into the restaurant.

Looks nice, right? The walk to the bathroom is a lot
more scenic then a lot of restaurants, true, but the fun
stops there. 

Elements looks great. It's a nice little place that's attached to some building that has something to do with the University of Winnipeg. The atmosphere was nice and inviting, and it was a welcome change from the hole-in-the-wall dives where I usually eat my breakfast.

The meal started off with coffees and waters. We got the coffees. It took several more requests and a lot of patience to get the waters. This really set the tone for the whole meal.

I ordered the eggs over-easy, but received the most over-medium eggs I've ever had. The yolk was about as solid as Osmium and had the flavour and texture of Rhodium. The eggs looked nice enough on arrival, but by the time I received them, they were lukewarm, bordering on lukecool.

The bacon itself glistened with grease and fat and looked to be fresh off the grill. Looked to be. As it turns out, they were fresh off the heating lamp, where they had rested comfortably for what I can only assume was the better part of 2013. Since we're talking elements n' shit, let me drop a little science on all y'all: bacon curls. This is natural. I don't trust a slice of bacon that sits rigid, flat as a plywood sheet. If your bacon doesn't curl, it's either because the bacon isn't real bacon, or you've got a new type of bacon that transcends all physical law. Either way, I didn't feel easy eating it. Of course, it did taste like bacon, so I guess I'd have to give it a passing grade. Still, it was dried out, boring, and eating it did cause some chipping of the teeth and lacerations to the larynx and colon.

Pictured: purple potato, well-poised bacon, and burnt toast. I thought I was
having brain surgery until I realized the toast really was that burnt.

The highlight of this meal, by far, was the refried beans. I'm not a big fan of the musical fruit, but these were done right. They were a little sweet, the texture was great, and I found myself curious about becoming a full-time bean... guy.

The "breakfast potatoes" were just baby potatoes. I was ready to complain to the manager about receiving a disgusting rotten tomato, until a friend pointed out that it was actually just a purple potato. I'm not sure what kind of hippie invented the purple potato, but I wasn't buying this "far-out" version of my favourite vegetable. I like my crew cuts sharp, my guns loud, and my potatoes potato-y coloured.

The toast was rye and burnt. Fail. Even the bathtub of imperial margarine that they soaked it in couldn't save it.

The service at Elements was also suspect. I got vibes from the staff that I was the asshole of the day for ordering breakfast at 4pm on a Friday. Coffee refills were way too few and far between, and while the the server always smiled at us while we ordered, time and time again I would catch a glimpse of her desires to charge through the plate glass windows and make a break for freedom. I sympathize with her, I do, but it did put a damper on the meal.

I wouldn't recommend going here unless you want to try something new. If you haven't been here before, sure, go ahead and try it. If you have, well, chances are you won't go here again. I know I won't. At least, not for breakfast.