Lotus Tea House

Lotus Tea House (79 Regina Street North, Waterloo)

519-880-1638

Tues, Wed, and Thurs: 11 a.m. - 8 p.m.

Fri and Sat: 11 a.m. - 9 p.m.

Lotus Tea House is a vegetarian Chinese restaurant.

Bring your student card to get a $1 discount off the combo entrées.

Himalaya Triangles with Curry Sauce ($4.29):
They are basically deep-fried mashed potatoes in spring roll skin. The curry sauce isn't really spicy at all. The triangles aren't bad, and we tend to order them every time we're at this restaurant.

House Specialty Noodle in Soup ($6.79):
I was pretty impressed with the soy pork. It had a smoky flavour and tasted like real meat! Everything else was passable.

Breakfast in Waterloo

Vegetable Soup by Casey

I like how it's not heavy, and it feels healthy drinking it.

Cantaloupe
Melon courtesy of Jess. It was something to snack on while we made food.

Norwegian Pancakes

Jess and I had a hankering for some pancakes and Aunt Jemima wasn't around, so we found a recipe online and decided to try it out.

Blender action!

The first few looked a bit different. That's probably because they soaked up most of the butter.

With smoked salmon? With banana mush?

How about with just a bit of sugar?
Yes, that seems better.

The pancakes taste like chubby crepes. They were really easy to make, and I think they would have gone well with some maple syrup. In the comments on the recipe's webpage, "cardamom" is mentioned several times. I guess I'll have to find out what that is and where I can get it for next time.

Casey's Banana Bread

Mmm... eggs, sugar, and oil:

The bananas were super ripe. The mashed mush kind of looks like macaroni and cheese.

The batter is extremely difficult to mix before the mashed bananas are added.

Pre-oven:

   

Post-oven:

  

The banana bread tasted fluffier than usual. It might've been because the flour was actually sifted, the baking soda was fresh, or because Casey makes it so often that each subsequent attempt is closer to perfection. 

End pieces are the best! Crispy outside with a soft, warm inside is what I look for in baked goods.

Wine and Dine in Waterloo

Pre-Cooking Snack

We were too hungry to cook before we ate.

Smoked salmon:
I've never had bad smoked salmon before. It's all good.

And slices from the Sobey's baguette:

Drinks

The first bottle of wine was a Jackson-Triggs Merlot.
Casey was unimpressed with the taste, so we decided to make wine coolers with it. We used some random online recipe that included minimal ingredients.
It was a novelty drink, but I liked it better than the wine by itself.

The second bottle of wine came from California. I can't quite describe the Mirassou Riesling anymore, but I remember that I liked it.

Bread
Of course, if we're eating bread with Casey, it has to be garlic bread.

Left: roasted garlic. Right: butter!

Pre-oven:
Post-oven:
Casey's garlic bread is always so tasty. The butter soaks right into it and makes it so moist.

Meat
The whole chunk just fit the cutting board.


This is how we do it: stab and shove garlic.

Finally, some oven-roasted meat!

We lost track of time as we were watching online videos while making this and left the roast in the oven for a bit too long. The vegetables were a bit burnt, and the meat was on the dry side.

The beef still had pretty good flavour.


Dessert

Yet another chocolate mousse attempt. Again, we used PC dark chocolate.

It either has too much chocolate in it, or it's the chocolate itself that's making it into mousse with weirdo density.

I think my favourites of the day were the garlic bread, the smoked salmon, and the Californian wine.

I am getting super hungry just going through all these pictures.