Christine’s Cafe

I was at Christine’s this morning for a sneaky pre-​work breakfast meeting.
I chose the Farmer’s Breakfast, which is eggs (scrambled/​fried/​poached) with your choice of bacon, ham or sausages, plus hash browns and toast. This option was $ 6.50 + HST. There was an option to add a coffee for $ 1.00. The breakfast tasted fine — like a rough breakfast you’d whip up at home. But nothing special to note.
After placing my order, there was a different girl at the counter. I asked if she could pass the message to have sausages added to my order. No problem, she said. But when the plate was delivered to my table, I had sausages, and NO bacon. Communication between the staff is clearly not very effective.
There was a selection of approximately four coffees — Colombian, Dark Roast, Amazon Fair Trade and Hazelnut Vanilla. The coffee was fine.
I had to ask for salt and pepper, which was stored on a shelf away from where one would intuitively look. Also, there was no offer of ketchup, and none on my table. I did find a squeezey bottle on one table, but none on the others. It shouldn’t be a hassle to locate basic condiments and seasonings.
I also want to mention that I found it a little quirky (but not in a good way) that almost all the titles on the breakfast menu were preceded with the word «Farmer’s», yet there didn’t appear to be any correlation. No reference to organic and no farmer themed café… weird? It’d make more sense to just call it «Christine’s Big Breakfast» or «Christine’s Breakfast Bagel» or something.
Overall, if I was desperate for food and every other establishment in the area was closed, I’d consider going again.

I am actually typing while I eat my lunch from Christine’s because its just that unsatisfactory.
Located in my office building, likely hits the busy workers who have no time to go elsewhere.
I was going to have the sandwich special– tuna melt– but once I saw the tuna that looked like it was sitting there awhile I changed my mind. The other special, Chicken teriyaki stirfry w/​noodles: $ 10 after tax
I asked if it was made fresh, and she said it was, I did see some stir-​frying action, but I think everything was pre-​cooked.
What a rip-​off. Very few veggies 15%, a moderate amount of chicken 15% and a healthy serving of noodles 70%. But they are spaghetti noodles! ugh.
It doesn’t taste bad with all the bottled sauce on it, but its such a cheap and lazy offering for the price I paid. It would have taken very little to make it better.
I won’t be back.

OK for lunch, but not stellar
When I heard the special was a chicken pesto pasta dish, I should have thought through it more carefully. Mondays are not my finest hours, and I ordered something I should not have. I don’t particularly like pesto. Another diner seemed thrilled with their curry dish, so others enjoyed their meals immensely. Mine was good, large portion of pasta with plenty of chicken, hot and tasty, but as I said, I’m not a pesto guy. Not their fault, mine.
I wouldn’t hesitate to go back, the staff were friendly and helpful, and the food was hot and ample portions.

It has lots of windows, but feels dark because the building it’s in is much wider than the café itself. I decided to give it a try, anyway, but wasn’t impressed with the food, either.
I ordered a Tuna Melt Panini. Sure, it tasted fine, and was grilled Panini-​wise, but the bread was like a wider version of whole-​wheat sliced regular sandwich bread. To me, a Panini needs to have special bread, and be filled to the max with fillings. Their cheese, tuna, tomato, mayo could have been made easily at home. Call it a Grilled Tuna Melt Sandwich, and I would have known what to expect.
The Cream of Mushroom Soup was weird. I couldn’t figure out if it was just bland, or was thickened with powder that never actually melded into bechamel-​like creaminess. It felt OK at first, but as it cooled off, it got worse.
They do have WiFi.
Accepted Interac (didn’t try Credit).

I met a friend for lunch today, and she suggested this cute little café by her building. Hungry for something new and close to my workplace, I agreed. It was set up like a little cafeteria, where you place and pay for your order, and then they make it and bring it out to you.
I had the soup & sammich combo for $ 8.40, which included a veggie sammy on mulitgrain bread and a bowl of cream of tomato soup. The sammich was okay, it had avocado, tomato, lettuce and cukes in it, but the mayo that was on it, tasted like Miracle Shit. (Miracle Whip– say it like Stewie on Family Guy… Cool WHIP) and that is reeeeeeally not my favourite. It reminds me of highschool when my Mom used to make these nasty sammys on starchy white with processed meats, blech!
The soup was creamy, yes, but for some reason it totally tasted like clam chowder to me. It tasted so much like it, that I actually had to get up and ask if there was any meat or seafood in it cuz it was freaking me out. I was reassured there was no meat in it and it was made fresh. The chances of me trying round two at this place are slim, I would probably recommend something else if I was meeting this friend for lunch again, it just wasn’t my cup of tea.