At 1100 Waverley St., Chrystal Bay Chinese Restaurant is right smack in the middle of a bustling business/industrial zone. There are very few options in this particular area of Waverley and McGillivray. With winter driving conditions upon us, it is handy to know where you can purchase an affordable lunch without having to traverse too far.

Once dubbed the Crystal Bay Steakhouse, I understand that they served half steakhouse fare and half Chinese cuisine. As their Chinese menu became increasingly popular they did away with the steakhouse options.

On the day that we visited for lunch, the place was full of hungry lunchers with some solo guests sitting all at one long communal table. Whenever a restaurant is offering the choice to order off of the menu or a buffet, it is a good idea to look around and check out what other diners are doing. In this case, everyone was going up to the buffet so we followed suit.

The busier a buffet restaurant is, the better, as it means that food has to be continuously prepared and put into the holding table, ensuring the freshness of the product. An unusual feature of this buffet is that you could choose to have it “to go”, with a proviso that you limited the inclusion of their tasty chicken wings to 10, which is very generous because the entire buffet only costs $8.95.

Also included at the buffet table was a law horn vegetarian dish, Cantonese lo mein, dry fried mushrooms, black pepper with pork, salt and pepper pork chop, dry breaded veal, fried rice, stir fried broccoli, spring rolls AND a choice of soup.

No wonder everyone goes for the buffet! I personally favour a greater variety of stir-fried items than deep-fried ones, but the tables sitting around us had their plates heaped with the sizzled items. I stuck to the tasty law horn vegetables and the Cantonese lo mein and certainly got my monies’ worth.

Kath’s quote: “To the ruler, the people are heaven; to the people, food is heaven.”-(ancient Chinese proverb)

Love-that is all.

In spite of the fact that I have been to Brisas Grill many, many times over the years and absolutely love the food, I can never get its corrrect name into my head. Case in point: we were assembling there for sunset and a fresh seafood feed before friends returned to Canada the next morning. Brother #3 and my sis-in-law hailed a cab and headed to what once was Brisas Caribe in Colonias because of my confusion. It makes sense to me that since “Brisas” is right in the sand at the water’s edge, it would make reference to the Caribean Sea. In addition to the fact that I have never seen a “grill” at the restaurant. But I was just plain old wrong and had to apologize profusely to my sibling for my error.

Unfortunately they missed the beautiful sunset because of me. I had hoped that their dinner would make up for it.

And it did-commencing with Brisas’ lovely grilled flat bread, a basket of which is delivered to every dining table.

Brother #3 ordered the shrimp pasta

and my sis-in-law fettucine carbonara. Both were well pleased.

Don chose the fresh grouper

and Victoria something that I cannot recall the name of. They too were very happy with their selections.

D and I have tasted frutti di mare pizza and linquine on a couple of sojourns to Italy and we often declare that Brisas Grill’s version is up there with the best of them. When we order the frutti di mare linquine, we choose their white version which is concocted of white wine, butter and a white stock. Often the stock is chicken and sometimes it is too salty but this is a comment catagorized as a wee complaint. We often order both the pizza and linquine and split them between us and as is often the case, we have plenty to take home for a left over lunch the next day.

Kath’s quote: “I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food.” – W.C. Fields

Live simly, laugh often, love deeply.