God bless our sister site LAist for discovering The Canadian Cafe (no, there's no acute accent), a small restaurant 4,000 kilometres away, in Montrovia, L.A., where (their website claims beside a clip art picture of a moose dressed as a mountie) "You'll Find Family Dining With A Taste Of The North."
What, exactly, is Canadian cuisine, beyond poutine and Canadian bacon? Well, they have a "selection of Maple Syrup products" (!!!!), a "British Columbia Burger" ("2 beef patties, 2 slices American cheese, chopped onions and lots of secret sauce"), and a "Canadian Sub" (which features American and Swiss cheese). The whole place is run by Ron W. Babcock, a "Canadian American" who prints the Lord's Prayer on the back of his business card (just like we do back home!!!).
LAist's take on the ambiance is brilliant:
The walls are covered in pictorial tributes to the Great White North (travel posters for beautiful Saskatoon and enticing Yellowknife, etc.) and the sound system plays real Canadian music (kd lang, a kids' chorus spelling out C-A-N-A-D-A, the national anthem, and—my favorite—Bryan Adams). The colo[u]r scheme is a flag-raising duo of red and white. I was hoping my server would be dressed like a mountie or a moose or beaver, but, alas, she was just a regular gal.Well (as pictured), they do throw together a moose outfit for people's birthdays, at the least.
Check out their website for an hour or so of good times, or read LAist's review to see if the Chalet sauce equaled that of Swiss Chalet's, as promised (it didn't).
Quick, can someone buy us a plane ticket to L.A.?
Photo of "Birthday Girl Deanne" from Canadian Cafe's website.
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I would've had a better, more-related-to-the-title first paragraph, but I couldn't think of a word that rhymes with "Montrovia."
I find Americans' takes on Canada so hilarious. I worked in Minnesota in 2002, and I was told by Americans who'd never been to Canada -- with AUTHORITY, no less -- that it is a FACT that it gets ten degrees colder when you cross the border (never mind that the place I was working at was actually north of Toronto). I was asked if we had air conditioners or computers up here. Seriously.
The soundtrack doesn't surprise me, it sounds like a typical "Canadian" soundtrack for those of a certain generation (I have a 45 of the C-A-N-A-D-A song that was my mom's when she was a kid, and I'm guessing she's probably around the same age as the restaurant owner).
I NEED to eat at this place!
AND they take Canadian dollars at par!