Day 79 July 24, 2011 Day Off Sault St Marie

I woke up at 8:40am, which may not seem like much of a sleep in but seeing as I’m usually waking up at 4am these days it was pretty sweet. The best part was that I didn’t actually get out of bed until 11am. Instead I lay in bed playing on my phone and reading my Jack Reacher book. So relaxing!

Brunch at the Delta was gigantic. I started with a ham, cheese, onion and tomato omelet for my first course. For my second I had shrimp, smoked salmon, pasta salad, some sort of cold rice dish, breakfast ham, sausages, a croissant, and perogies. For my third course I had a waffle, scallop pasta, more perogies, blue jello, and cranberry juice. Best brunch ever!

The rest of the afternoon wasn’t that exciting. We had to take our laundry to the local Laundromat, always a fun way to pass the time. We did managed to get some stylish new bathing suits and haircuts while our laundry was being done.

Mike is insisting (as I write this) that I describe our dinner in detail. I was going to sum it up as horrible but I will expand. It started with us walking around the Soo looking for a place to eat. We had enjoyed Docks last night but wanted to go somewhere different so we walked up two blocks to Queen St looking for restaurants. What we found was…nothing. Not only was nothing open, but also no one was around; like literally no one. We walked around taking pictures of the empty streets. It was bizarre. It looked like we were on one of the main streets; it was Sunday night and beautiful out, yet no one was around. We started walking east and ran into a couple pushing their daughter in a stroller. Mike asked if there was anywhere good to eat and the guy didn’t hesitate. He turned back east, pointed and said, “yes, go to the end of the street and Muio’s is on your right.” The way he said it suggested it was a great place to eat.

So we went down to Muio’s and our adventure began. It was packed, with a single empty table that we took. The waitress came over and gave us our menus, and we opened them. After a cursory glance there were a number of confusing things. First, a lot of things were broasted. I still don’t know what that means. There were no appetizers. The pasta came with “pasta sauce”. The pizzas were priced by number of toppings. They were all make your own pizzas and none of the toppings were listed. The waitress came back over and took Mike’s order. He tried to ask her for recommendations and she said it depended on what he liked and that everything was so good she couldn’t recommend anything. So he got pasta with chicken. When it was my turn I asked what kind of sauce came with the pasta. She said “pasta sauce”. I asked what that meant and she said, “Oh, it’s homemade pasta sauce”. I asked if it was tomato, or creamy, had meat…etc. She said it was tomato. I then asked what kind of toppings the pizzas had and was told “whichever toppings you’d like”. I gave up on that. There was only one pizza that had listed ingredients called Rocco’s pizza. It listed parsley, basil, and tomatoes as the ingredients. I asked if it was good and she said, “Yes, especially if you like spicy pizza”. I said, “Why is it spicy?” She looked at me like I should know and said, “Because there are hot peppers in it”. I looked back at the menu; hot peppers were not listed. That could have been a surprise if I didn’t like hot peppers. I ordered the pizza.

She left before we could ask for drinks. When our food arrived she put the pizza down in front of me and I just stared at it silently. In the center of the pizza was a huge puddle of oil/grease. When I say huge, I mean I could have floated a toy boat in it. She saw me staring at it and said “Is there something wrong with it?” I felt like I had given her a hard time about the menu so instead of saying “Can I have a strainer”, I said, “No I’m just really hungry so I’m waiting for it to cool down”. I don’t think she bought it. Oh and there were green peppers in the pizza. Another phantom ingredient I guess I was supposed to know about.

Mike’s pasta sauce was also really watery and his noodles were floating in it. When we finished there was a lot of pizza and pasta left. She asked Mike if he wanted to take the rest home and he said, “No that’s okay”. To which she responded “did you not like it?” Mike responded “no it was goo…I mean it was fi… uh I’m just full”. I took my pizza to go to avoid the conversation but tossed it in the trash at the first opportunity. Too bad I couldn’t have brunch again for dinner!

Tomorrow I head North along the great lakes!