Mainstream grocery stores

• Zehr's. This is the Mennonite name for a big national chain, Loblaw's.

  Good: local produce August-October (our summer is short). They have decent in-store baked bread from Toronto now, but it's quite expensive.

  Bad parts: A lot of their stores have been re-badged as "Great Canadian SuperStores" so as to compete with Wal-Mart. So now they're huge, sell tons of lawn furniture and crap, and take five zillion years to shop in. The nearest Zehr's to our house had this happen, so I never go there anymore; now I'm stuck with the second-nearest.

  They're also full of convenience foods from their "President's Choice" brand, of no value to us.

• Sobeys. The other big national chain with stores here.

  Good parts: surprisingly good winter produce, particularly citrus.

  Bad parts: They seem not to have gotten the memo that we don't just have Germans here. I think Sobey's thinks an exotic dinner at home is taco night. (Just go to Ethel's, on King St., in Uptown Waterloo.) Bread is awful, bakery in general is awful. Deli is bad. The store brand, "Our Compliments," is pretty wretched; the "NoName" and "President's Choice" brands at Zehr's are much better. Cheese is bad. Selection for Asian food is awful; no fish sauce?! Terrible tortillas.

  Other bad part: I hate the way they market themselves. I don't need the freezer case to have text telling me how amazing frozen food is. Leave me alone.

• Central Fresh Market. This store is halfway between downtown Kitchener and "uptown" Waterloo, on King St. Long-time residents of this area call it Central Meat Market, because that was its name when dinosaurs walked the earth. It's a medium-sized grocery store, maybe 4 times smaller than a big Zehr's. We often do routine shopping there.

  Good parts: scale. We can get in and out in 30 minutes. I don't need 450 types of potato chips, and I buy medicine at drugstores and trash cans at hardware stores, thank you. Local produce: apples, berries, peaches, and the like. Good ethnic breads. Cheap canned goods. They always have salt cod.

  Bad parts: selection. Maybe I don't need the choice from 450 types of potato chips, but 2 choices of tortilla chips might be nice. Few kinds of cooking greens. Specialty produce is rare.

• Food Basics. It targets the lower-income bracket (which really isn't us), but brings in a lot of herbs and what White People call "specialty produce" and immigrants call "fruits and vegetables". Nothing is local. For some things, it can be helpful, but for me, that list has shrunk over the years. Still, smart people can save a lot of dough shopping here.

For produce, mostly

Restaurants

There are places in town where I would celebrate anniversaries or the like, and that's what I will list here. (Prices are in 2008 Canadian dollars, and include tax and tip. It's not unusual for me to just have one drink, or maybe a cocktail and a glass of wine.)

Pricey-ish restaurants to actually go to in K/W, in order of where I'd go if there were no budget limitations

• Langdon Hall. It's a country inn in Blair, which is part of Cambridge, just south of Kitchener. It's very luxurious, with quite innovative French-style food. The pastries are awesome, and the wine list is one of those novels that I get worried about. The bread, oh the bread. And the butter (which they churn) is wonderful. Dinner is $125 a person, and we drank affordable wine (though my kir royale was $23...)

  The best way, incidentally, to enjoy Langdon Hall is to have breakfast there, after staying at the inn. I really wonder if I have ever eaten breakfast pastries that good in all my life, and the berries, oh, the berries.

  Um, brunch is good, too. Just in case, you know, it's my birthday. Or you just, you know, want to remind me how much you like me.

• Bhima's Warung. Probably the most interesting food in K/W. The atmosphere is completely casual. The food is Asian fusion, with an Indonesian flair. It's slow, tasty, and often playful, though it often isn't really as good as it sounds like it's going to be. The chef in particular likes to play around with putting sweet ingredients into main courses, and with putting savory things (like Thai basil) into desserts. (Not that you'll ever know--it's rare that we actually finish our main courses, let alone get dessert.) The drinks are also very good; I highly recommend the white sangria, in particular. You can't eat here cheap, and it'll be a 2.5-hour meal, probably. But it's fun. Dinner with drinks is often around $90/person. King near University.

• Verses. I've eaten here a few times. It's the most expensive meal in Kitchener or Waterloo, and as such, it can be somewhat uncreative: some people spending $100 want a hunk o' meat or their seafood risotto, and who am I to say no? Once, I had a much more interesting meal, with an excellent piece of barramundi. They get their fish from T+J's, mentioned above. They like playing around with funny combinations; lamb 3 ways, or 3 kinds of shellfish, and can be fun. They have a good cheese selection. And hey, why not have the foie gras, if someone else is paying? Dinner is often around $90/person. Victoria between Weber and Margaret.

• Bauer Kitchen. It's not The Best Ever. It's a corporate-owned restaurant that is designed to be where you go after you've been being an investment banker all day. I don't fit in at such places. But the food's not bad, and I can walk there from my house, which I very much appreciate. I've started to take job candidates from UW there, too. How much you spend can range; you can eat there for $45 a person, or $70, depending on if you eat pizza or more traditional main courses, say. The drinks aren't bad. King and Allen.

• Tomu Sushi. I feel terribly guilty about not going to Taka anymore, but it's 15 minutes from here, way down in south Kitchener. Tomu is at Erb and Amos, in Waterloo, and they're smile-y and the food is good.
• Yummyaki. We have a pile of all-you-can-eat sushi places that have arrived in the past five years; Ye's, for example, is just a Chinese buffet making sushi to order instead of egg rolls. Yummyaki is all-you-can-eat, but the food is pretty good. There's a depressing feel of "how many more ways can I produce a roll by taking a subset of salmon, avocado, cucumber, fish eggs, fake crab, and tempura shrimp", but it's less like a game of "no, I won't fill up on rice", which is my experience at Ye's. Yummyaki is at Northfield and Davenport, in north Waterloo.
• Pho Da Bou. Downtown Kitchener. Not the greatest, but the pho is good and cheap.
• Burrito Boys. A Toronto chain. Why they don't at least offer chips and salsa, I'll never know. Very busy on Friday at lunch. Have your burrito on Monday, and it's pretty much empty. On King by University.
• Cameron. Very good dimsum, though the line is often enormous when I decide it's time for Sunday lunch. Charles at Cameron, downtown Kitchener.
• Spring Rolls. I'm embarrassed about this; it's as corporate as you get, and it's all style over substance. But there's a salad with field greens, red peppers, mango, grilled lemongrass chicken, and red onions and cilantro that's, well, tasty. I am a sellout. Conestoga Mall. Oy.
• Atmostphere. In Guelph. Simple, but tasty. Good pizza, great salads. It's not as striking as it was when it arrived a bunch of years ago, but they still do source really good greens, even in winter. There are definitely times that a good salad is restorative.
• Raintree. Tasty and good-for-you. I always get the same thing (Greek salad and Venus dip, which is an artichoke dip). But it's actually a pretty broad, and tasty menu. Prices a little random: the pasta special is always too much, for example. Regina near University.
• Arabesque. I think the owners are Syrian, maybe? Great pita, yummy falafel, good hummous, tasty juices, terrific lentil soup. Why don't I go there more often? Victoria near River.