Sunday, October 29, 2006

The Death of my Childhood


When I was a child, my family and I would often go to St-Hubert for some excellent chicken. It still remains one of my favourite restaurants and one of my favourite childhood places to eat.

Over the last few years, St-Hubert encountered some trouble competing in the Toronto area with Swiss Chalet and about 6 months ago they pulled all of their restaurants out of the GTA. I was quite sad when I discovered this, however I found out one restaurant remained open, renaming itself The Q.

The food was generally the same and pretty much the only difference was the name, and I was content.

Recently, however, even the food has changed. I used to always love their chicken tenders, however they've changed the batter the chicken is wrapped in and it tastes just awful! I was quite distressed over this as they're the best chicken strips I've ever had. This past week I decided to give The Q another try but with a different main course. I got the hot chicken sandwich (bits of chicken on two slices of white bread covered with gravy and topped with peas) and while it wasn't awful, it wasn't anything to write home about. In fact, the server didn't know exactly what beers they had on hand because she said it was constantly changing.

In a nut shell, there isn't any reason for me to travel across the city to hit The Q anymore; it's just another chicken restaurant. And so, another part of my childhood is now dead and gone; nothing more than memory.

The closest St-Hubert is all the way out in Cornwall, and while the Staff and I do a yearly drive there to get some amazing chicken, it just isn't the same.

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