Posted by Paul Wernick in restaurant review, snack food on June 7, 2007 at 7:38 am
Cerealicious
BCE Place
161 Bay Street, Concourse Level
416-214-9991
Bowls of cereal for two, all taxes: $9
I decided I should open my own restaurant while lying in hospital recovering from a schnitzel biryani eaten at an Indo-Nazi fusion café. Now becoming a restaurateur isn’t something to be entered into lightly. I knew fully well that restaurants are like marriages: most of them fail after a lot of excruciating stress and ugly recriminations.
Some sort of extraordinary theme, I felt, would ensure my culinary success. "Hospitilization" seemed like a promising concept. Unfortunately, I learned that it was already being done.
My inspiration sprang from the book I was studying while recuperating – The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. I read that the aristocracy of Ancient Rome consumed such exotic delicacies as boiled flamingos and fried peacock brains during their banquets. And it was not uncommon for guests, when their stomachs were bursting, to vomit so they could resume gorging themselves.
Why not revive these decadent practices, I thought. Desirable fashion models, no strangers to binging and purging, would flock to my cutting edge, flamingo-boiling restaurant. Yes, all the beautiful people in the city would come. I would name it “Decline and Fall."
Well, things didn't work out that way. The flamingos and peacock brains proved impossible to procure. (I substituted Swanson’s Hungry Man Dinners.) No celebrities or super models ever appeared and I soon closed, crushed by a weight of litigation and debt that I am dealing with to this day.
I was brooding over this ignominious failure last Thursday as I wandered through BCE Place. I had just finished a tense meeting with my bank manager. I felt, as many people do when they are anxious, an overwhelming urge for a bowl of Count Chocula and a whiskey. To my astonishment, I stumbled upon Cerealicious, an establishment that stocks not only Count Chocula but over 35 other kinds of cereal.
A cereal bar - what a clever concept! Why didn’t I think of that? There’s big money in infantile regression, even for (especially for?) powerful Bay Street types. Cereal is a powerful comfort food. And the ones here return me to my childhood, to a time when our family sat at the breakfast table together, spooning sugar on our Alpha-Bits as we watched TV and smoked.
Cerealicious offers the cerealista the chance to mix-and-match. How about Special K, Bran Flakes, and Fruit Loops? There are also over thirty toppings available including nuts, dried and fresh fruit, chocolate chips and ju-jubes. Soy and regular milk are provided. The customer can go sugary or healthy: Cap'n Crunch or organic muesli. Those who feel conflicted can mix the two.
Besides the cold cereal, interesting variations on hot oatmeal are prepared. I try Chocolate Nut: hot oatmeal, Nutella, O-Henry bits, topped with whipped cream and hazelnuts($3.95). I’m always in favour of doing creative things with Nutella and I enjoy it in combination with oatmeal. The O-Henry bits give a childishly indulgent feel to stodgy old porridge.
For anyone who doesn't like cereal but feels nostalgic for their early years, Cerealicous has many different takes on peanut butter sandwiches. Bee’zzz to a Hive is peanut butter, honey and fresh strawberries($3.95). Peanut Colada is chunky peanut butter, pineapple slices and sliced bananas topped with coconut ($3.95). Eat them and go listen to Raffi! There are even PB wraps. As with the cereal, the option exists to create your own PB concoctions.
However, anyone without a Bay Street office nearby will have to eat that concoction in the BCE food court. And that isn’t exactly Paris in the Spring. It’s also unlicensed so they wouldn't serve me whiskey. Oh well, no sense being a baby about it. They do make an excellent bowl of Trix.
Hey, wait a minute! What about an adult baby food restaurant? Picture this: the staff dressed in diapers; the customers sucking pacifiers; a huge selection of Gerber and imported infant food. Call it "Big Baby." Any investors our there?
