Skatje discovers Canadian cuisine

Tim Hortons is amazing. Pretty much gets me through the day, and night.

As an "ex-pat" from the US moved to the Toronto area, I take great pride in having still avoided Tim Horton's coffee three years running....but they are everywhere.....everywhere....

What?!? No poutine?

Canadians rule!

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/the_prank_call_…

I'm jealous. I've always wanted to go to a Tim Horton's, but I haven't seen any in the Midwest where I live.

Tim Hortons and cuisine shouldn't be in the same sentence.

People here in Toronto are always confused when they find out my hometown in BC has no Tim Horton's... the ubiquity of them in Ontario is pretty amazing.

Anyway, you went to O'Grady's after? I wish I had known that last night! I could have shown up and given you a proper thank-you for your help with the CUPC... as it is, I guess I'll just have to send you a card. Sorry I missed you while you were here in Canada, but I hope you had a good trip.

Tim-bits baby!

If you want fine Canadian cuisine, come to Montreal and get a smoked meat sandwich from Schwartz's.

Ah, the epitomy of a nation's cuisine: a sandwich. Awwwww.

Canadian. Cuisine.

Two words uncomfortable with each other.

I have a Tim's travel mug, which I use rather frequently. Got it in Pawtucket, RI, though, not anywhere north of the border. I decided early on that when peak oil hits and the Canadians have more oil to go around than anyone else, I'd be prepared.

Antonio:

Just because Canadians don't wear their nationalism on their sleeves doesn't mean they are unable or unwilling to kick your ass. Or would you like to hear how I find the idea of continuing to use bacalhau to make fishcakes a little strange in light of the ready availability of fresh cod?

i have had the pleasure of stopping at tim horton's throughout the provinces of quebec and nova scotia.

i really wish they were in the US pacific northwest. more satisfying than the slim pickings at the local starbucks when you are both hungry and in need of a caffeine fix. they have locations in the midwest and new england.

People here in Toronto are always confused when they find out my hometown in BC has no Tim Horton's... the ubiquity of them in Ontario is pretty amazing.

What? I lived in the Lower Mainland for a year and a half, and I saw a Tim Horton's on every block! (I may be exaggerating a little.) Which part of BC are you from?

In any case, it's nice to be able to avoid the siren song of Starbucks once in a while. Every country I've visited in the world has them, and they're all exactly the same.

BrianX, hehe. Can't a guy crack a joke? I am Canadian as well, you know, so if anything my jibe was self deprecating.

Mas foda-se, prefiro o bacalhau salgado mil vezes, pá!

I hope she enjoyed it, I freaking love Tim Hortons!

I live in Trail BC and they put a Tims inhere a couple of years ago. What a waste of good mall space. Sorry they have crappy coffee, mediocre doughnuts (much worse since Wendy's burger chain bought them) (although their soups and sandwiches are not bad, not great ,just not bad). Not only is the coffee best described as piss water (stale grounds with too much water put through them) but they don't even let you add your own cream and sugar. Their fame is a result of their ubiquity and good marketing, not quality. The local RCMP detachment loves then though - always see their cars pulling in there :)

Mabus troll, of all the arbitrary posts to choose to spam, you pick one with no ideological content.

Even other trolls would be amused by such stupidity.

This poster at TPMCafé will probably need some voices of support: "Why eventually electing an atheist would be the best idea".

Tim Hortons' quality has declined massively in the past decade and a half. Basically, when they got rid of the in-store donut deep-fryers and decided to make the donuts at factories and ship them frozen (supposedly to stop complaints of varying sizes at different locations)... it all went downhill from there.

But they are certainly ubiquitous in this neck of the woods... 1 per 10,000 people.

Mabus troll, of all the arbitrary posts to choose to spam, you pick one with no ideological content.

They deserve worse than Tim Horton's coffee served black!

I really enjoyed having dinner with you PZ and my fellow atheists and your talk was amazing. The last two days have flown by and I made some new friends. I hope you both have a safe trip home tomorrow.

How did that insane fucktard escape from the dungeon?

When are you coming to Montreal? I couldn't justify coming to Toronto for one lecture.

As a friend of mine says, you know you're in Ontario when there is a Tim Horton's on every corner. Their doughnuts are pretty good, but the excresence they call a bagel is horrifying. For real bagels, you need to come to Montreal; St. Viateur or Fairmount bagels - to die for.

I was in Michigan in August and saw a Tim Horton's sign off I-94 near Flint. First one I ever saw in the U.S. I have a Tim Horton coffee maker - pour in the water and you have hot coffee in seconds. So cool. As I live near New Orleans, our coffee is better. Community Dark Roast in a Horton coffee maker - the best of north and south. Go RedWings, y'all.

Mims

MMMM Timbits. Oregon is, sometimes, too far from Canada. I hope you guys ate puteen while you were up there.

@30:

According to this website, Montreal wins. http://www.worldhum.com/weblog/item/montreal_vs_nyc_the_great_bagel_deb…

Even the New Yorker raves about them.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DEFD8123BF930A25756C0…

I've never had New York bagels myself, but I live a few minutes from Fairmount and St. Viateur bagels in Montreal, and it's pretty much heaven.

# 4 mmghosh
Perhaps Sarah thought Sarkozy called up out of the blue to discuss fruit fly research with her :O
Cringingly hilarious!

There are a good . . . seven Tim Hortons on my campus. They are vastly necessary to my existence.

Starbucks does in general have better coffee, but let's get serious - when you're sucking down like three coffees a day, do you really want to pay $4 for each one? Timmy's is economical.

I think Tim Horton's is vastly over-rated. Their coffee is so-so and their donuts always taste stale so when I want one I head to Robin's if I can (they have fewer outlets these days).

Regarding Canadian cuisine, I've just been to a pot-luck with fresh pickerel and moose stew - really good, but I avoided the bannock.

Tim Horton's is Canada's national shame.
The donuts are pre-fab, the coffee is the same blend that McDonalds uses only it is so jacked with sugar and fat that our numbed taste buds can't tell the difference.
If you truly want to get grossed out, go around back and dig out an empty box of donuts or egg patties from the dumpster and read the ingredients, most of the stuff in there is not recognizable to anyone without a degree in chemistry.
For every Tim's franchise that opens up there is at least one quaint, sincere mom-and-pop cafe down the street which had to shut down due to our collective desire to shun the good stuff and sit in our idling cars for twenty minutes in the drive thru waiting for the privilage of scarfing their artificial, over-sweetened SHIT.
And to top it off, their Canadiana heavy marketing is bogus given that they are owned by an American company.
Still, I hope Tim's is a raging success in the states, that would be fitting revenge for eight years of Bush.

My undergraduate anth club took us up to Canada once. I am forever convinced that the Canadians are geniuses based on their little stands that sell gravy on fries. Gravy should be sold on everything.

Tim Hortons IS amazing. But i've never actually been to one. However i think everyone should eat there as much as possible. It's definitely quality food. And i'm not saying this because i own stock in the company.

Who's that bimbo in the Russian hat? :p

Mabus troll, of all the arbitrary posts to choose to spam, you pick one with no ideological content.

Even other trolls would be amused by such stupidity.

How did that insane fucktard escape from the dungeon?

Are you referring to aurelius, who made comment #28? Yeah, that looks insane, but I've seen worse.

Ah, the epitomy of a nation's cuisine: a sandwich. Awwwww.

If it can't be put on bread, it's not worth eating!

I'll make an exception for soups, broths, and consommes. Wow, that's redundant. Gazpacho is best eaten frozen on a stick, with a goat's milk caramel (cajeta) popsicle to chase it down.

For real bagels, you need to come to Montreal; St. Viateur or Fairmount bagels - to die for.

Never had any of these, but the New York bagel is the epitome of the art form... crunchy on the outside, chewy inside. Ideally, you should be able to throw one of these through a plate-glass window.

Tim Horton's converted me to muffins. I hated muffins until I tried a Tim Horton's muffin; now I almost love them.

Mmm... I wish I could have one right now.

Actually, Wendy's sold off their interest in Tim's a couple of years ago. Since then, they have had an IPO on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

There are quite a few right across the border from me in SE MI; there are at least three in Port Huron and many more elsewhere. The first American Timmies I ever saw was in Saline, MI on my way to Brooklyn, MI for an Indy car race in 1998. After the horrendous traffic jams there and back, and after being spending the entire day immersed in Americana, stepping into that Timmies was a breath of home. This was before they had US-specific printed materials so even the comment cards had the reverse side en francais. I like the coffee, too.

Glad you had a good time in Tronna, PZ. Mayhaps when you are closer I will have to come out -- couldn't justify driving out there that night. Amything coming up at U of M or Wayne State?

@25

puteen? lol. It's actually 'poutine', yes, just like the russian guy. But for that I'd recommend heading over to La Banquise in Montréal... One of the best, at least 20 different types on the menu, opened 24/7. Perfect after a nigth of drinking!

But the most important question is, did she get to try a Beavertail? The little shacks on the frozen Rideau Canal in Ottawa are a great place to find them.

My brother went to Canada for high school basketball tournament. He went to Tim Horton's and to this day he will not SHUT UP ABOUT IT!

I know most people think of heaven as being "up" directionally, but the way people talk about Tim Horton's, it might just be "up" cardinally.

I hope you tried the honey dip Timbits, they're quite possibly the most amazing food known to mankind.

There are multiple Timmie's on my campus, in fact, one of our buildings has two directly across from each other on the same floor of the building. Insane.

Thanks for coming! For those of us unable to make it to things like TAM, it was a great treat!

http://somecanadianskeptic.blogspot.com/2008/11/i-can-haz-pz.html

"The tragedy of Canada is they could have had British culture, French cooking, and American technology, but instead they got American culture, British cooking, and French technology." -- Unknown

Awfy dark for breakfast. Breakfast before sparrow-fart is not the start of a good day.

I thought Canadian cuisine was just American cuisine with lots of maple syrup poured over it! Not that there's anything wrong with that!

(OK, OK, I didn't mean that last sentence.)

The tragedy of Canada is they could have had British culture,

Ahem.
What on earth do you mean by that?
Talk about oxymorons......

And since Im in a generous mood:

New Rules from Friday !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUfGYa-CxNg

Youre welcome.

I hope they had the decency to refer to you as P Zed Myers.

"Tim Horton's"? Never heard of it.

Tim Hortons? YES! I love their coffee and everything else!

Skatje should try poutine. It sounds disgusting, but it really isn't!

Watch it with the Timmy Ho's muffins, people. I gained about 20 pounds in my second year of university from eating a Tim Horton's chocolate chip muffin for breakfast every day. They are tasty, yes, but made of pure lard.

Sorry I missed the talk too. I was stuck on an island in the St. Lawrence. PZ, come back to Toronto soon!

For true authenticity, I hope it was a double double.

I didn't know she was a West Bromwich Albion fan?!

Oh, you said Tim Horton's, not The Hawthorns. Never mind .....

Ah, Timmies. Ever since I moved to Ottawa it's so much more of a chore for me to find one. Makes me sad. I come from Barrie and London, Ontario where there are 3 Timmies' on every street. Seriously. It's been a tough transition.

Does Tim Horton's really taste that good or is this just a reaction to being able to satisfy an addiction to caffeine with little effort? After all, one could make good coffee at home, couldn't they? A very common sight in Canada is a long lineup at the TH drive-thru where people sit in idling cars for 20 minutes then head off to work where they bitch about the high price of gasoline.

I feel like somebody needs to comment on behalf of non-coffee drinkers and wonder just what is wrong with all you people. You don't waste as much money as smokers, but even so... (Disclaimer: Tim Hortons may be cheaper than say, Starbucks, I dunno)

Tim Horton's: still no espresso after all these years.

Haven't been in one for dogs years, but I'm an elitist Montrealer so there's no surprise there.

Oh, man. I used to work at a Timmy Ho's and it was the worst experience of my life. People are mean when they haven't had their Tim's coffee fix. Seriously mean. And I already thought double doubles were disgusting but I was amazed at how many people order four and fours. Obesity in a cup I call it. Yuck!

Tim Horton's is awesome.

I was shocked--SHOCKED!--to learn that a place with no espresso machine had good coffee, whereafter Tim Horton's sustained me through an entire conference whose early session started at 8am. I bought the travel mug, and got my money's worth out of it in a week.

Only problem with them is that they don't know what a Danish is.

Ugh.... it's a shame that this company supposedly represents "Canadian Cuisine". shoshidge (Post #30) pretty much hit the nail on the head. 10 years ago they were still good, but now the company is essentially McDonalds, with muffins instead of burgers. I'll take any private coffee shop over Timmies anyday. And the one this video is of isn't even a real restauraunt, but just the university food court.....

What?!? No poutine?
Capital Dan | November 1, 2008 11:30 PM

The putain isn't enough for you?

Sorry. Sorry! I suck at puns. It's was the best I could do!

We have Tim Horton's all over Columbus, OH. Do not want.

Antonio:

I may not be quite the expert in Portuguese profanity that you are, mais en cul avec un chainsaw.

There's a Tim Hortons in Fairborn Ohio. I like their coffee better than Starbucks.

I'm a caffiene fiend ( thank you oceanography classes at 8 am!) but the prevalence of Tims on my campus still hasn't made me cave.

It's a line I won't cross. Tim's coffee is "coffee flavored beverine, with creamium!", as I've heard another smart wag put it.

Its like canadian universities were required by law to put in 8 tims on every campus or something.

Ahh, Timmy Ho's.

I live in Dublin, Ohio (yes, the "Home of Wendy's." Grrrr...) and yes, we have them everywhere in the Columbus area. I think there's even one at our zoo now.

We even still have a few "combo" Tim Horton's/Wendy's joints. It's nice every once in a while, but I agree that the quality has dipped in recent years.

A good poutine from Ashton, nothing can beat that! That's the best quebeckers can do.

Tim Hortons are found all over New England. There's one about a mile away from here.

The coffee is okay, the one doughnut I've ever had was stale, but the muffins are good. I'd rate TH as half a rank below Dunkin' Donuts and several ranks above Krispy Kreme (KK loses a rank for poor spelling).

I work at Tim Hortons, in the back as dishwasher and soupsperson/bagel maker. I have heard customers complain about waiting in line for too long.

I believe that we do sell too many things. We have just start selling real brewed iced tea and the company has been looking into more speciality coffee like Starbucks. I am not just sure if Tims will bring the roast beef sandwich.

Does Tim Horton's have those yummy Canadian maple syrup cream cookies?

Tim Hortons now makes all their donuts in a plant near Toronto, freezes them, and ships them to their stores where they are microwaved for the customers. This method is called by Tim Hortons (and I am not making this up) the "Always Fresh" system.

Robin's is far better if you want a decent donut, as is, for that matter, any random supermarket's bakery.

Tim's are everywhere on the east coast. Not great food and not great coffee...but damn addictive. Something to do with the culture of road hockey and going to a coffee shop on a Sunday afternoon. See Wayne's World.

And there's a Tim's in Dublin, Ireland. It sells the donuts, but not the coffee. The one I was in anyway. Bizarre.

They make a breakfast sandwich to die for - egg, sausage (or bacon, go for the sausage) and cheese on butter biscuit. I swear, it's probably the fattiest thing I've ever eaten (and I've eaten deep fried pork fat) but it's SOOO good. A couple of months ago I decided to limit myself to one a month, and now I find myself there on the first Saturday of the month like clock work.

That and a large double-double, and I'm a happy man. Oh, and PZ's talk was pretty cool, I dragged my gf and she liked it too.

At least 2 tim horton's in Port Huron, MI, one on Hall Rd (M59) in Chesterfield. I'm sure I've seen em in the Troy area as well. Been to them twice. They're okay.