Luda's Deli

It's ok to instagram if blogging too right?

I was craving a Reuben sandwich like no tomorrow. As I considered the greasy spoons and burger joints that surround my workplace none were making me salivate. So I did what anyone would do, I googled "Winnipeg Reuben sandwich".

Top amongst the suggested sites was reviews for Luda's Deli here in the North End (at the corner of Aberdeen and Salter). Of course! I literally drive by Luda's every day; funny how we forget about what is right under our noses.

For anyone feeling nostalgic and mourning the loss of Kelekis (which interestingly was just two blocks up, also bordering on Aberdeen Ave) Luda's might help fill that void. While it has not been around as long as Kelekis, although their 25 years is nothing to sneeze at, is sure does have an equally loyal clientele. And Luda's has fantastically pleasant staff (unlike Kelekis where only regulars were treated to a pleasant attitude).

I've been to Luda's before, in my pre-blogging days, so this is my first chance to put pen to paper to really tell people about it. The decor isn't quite as snazzy as some other Winnipeg places but it has a certain homey feeling; it's a little bit like if word got out about your country aunt's cooking and she turned her dining room into a restaurant without ever changing the pine paneling and ivy wallpaper.

As many of the other Urban Spoon reviewers and bloggers have pointed out, it's the type of place where they really seem to get to know you; heck, even name menu items after you - whoever Wally is he must eat a TON of fries - I only had a half order for $1.75 so I don't dare think of what $4.95 would get! This is also a chance for a North End twofer - Luda's gets their bread from Gunn's Bakery, another North End institution.

Coffee and water are self-serve, which, as someone who has served for years I happen to think it is a huge blessing! Coffee drinkers in particular are a strange breed and trying to figure out when someone might be ready for a refill is akin to predicting winning lottery numbers some days. Two important things to note are that Luda's is cash only and extremely important, they use peanut oil for deep frying. Best not to kill our friends with nut allergies, mental note, not a place to take my friend Joel, or at least make sure he skips the fries...

If you try to come in the morning be prepared to sit with what seems like most of the City of Winnipeg roadworks/maintenance type staff - the logo'd trucks line Salter after 9am. This is a breakfast/early lunch (closed at 1:30pm) sort of place and closed on Sunday. If you come for lunch and they're full (and they might be - I came at 1:00 on a Monday and snagged the last only-just-vacated table) maybe pop down a few blocks south to Salter and Manitoba and head to another North End favourite of mine, White Top.


Oh, and the Reuben? Freaking fantastic. Don't tell my diet about this.

Where to lay your head?

With the closure of the largest (and best located) hostel in Winnipeg last year, I’m left wondering where budget travellers are going to stay this summer.  The loss of the 120 bed facility is nothing to be taken lightly. We are constantly being told how things like the Canadian Museum for Human Rights are going to draw people to our city, but what good is it if we can’t offer them a place to stay? Not everyone can afford to (or wants to) stay in a hotel. Hostels are especially perfect for solo travellers, and I personally have stayed in them all over the world. They offer socializing opportunities not found in most hotels, the chance to pay for a bed instead of a whole room and usually have kitchen facilities where you can make a meal or two, saving yourself even a few more dollars.

Right now Winnipeg has only one other "real" hostel, Guest House International, on Maryland St. The Hostelling International (HI) was also located on Maryland before it moved to its now defunct digs downtown. Part of the reason for the move to the larger location is that for years prior to the move both hostels found themselves needing to turn business away in the summer due to lack of space. Now, while it is true that you can generally make reservations for a hostel, what happens for those folks who are on less of a strict itinerary? 

It appears that there is another place that is billing itself as a hostel, the UWinnipeg Downtown Hostel however it has limited availability during the winter months. Now, to be fair, the demand for dorm bed space in Winnipeg is mostly limited to our summer, which is why I think the HI hostel had trouble making ends meet - 120 beds would have been jammed in July and desolate in December. The problem with this UWinnipeg hostel is that the prices for anything less than a month are quite high - $58/night, $37/night if you book for a week and then a very reasonable $20 or so a night if you book for the month.

I'm not quite comparing apples to apples as the UWinnipeg facility offers private rooms but I think the average young (or young-at-heart) traveller is going to much prefer the $29/night dorm bed at Guest House International.

So what are the other options?

Well, potential visitors to Winnipeg could try Couchsurfing (www.couchsurfing.org) there are currently 819 Winnipeggers on that site who might be willing to let one or more folks stay with them. If you're unfamiliar with Couchsurfing, it's this in a nutshell: People create a profile telling the world a little about who they are, where they live, what languages they speak and if they have a spare "couch" for a visitor. This couch could be an actual couch, an air mattress on the floor, a tent in the backyard or even a spare bedroom with ensuite! Users set the levels of who/when they might be willing to entertain visitors, for example a female could specify that she's only willing to have female guests, or a person could say they could only host one guest at a time. Users can also set their status to things like "yes, have couch available" or "travelling" and even "not right now (but can hang out)". 

This is my bed. This post was an excellent excuse to show it off

I've not personally used Couchsurfing when visiting somewhere yet, but I have had people come an stay in my spare bedroom. It's a really interesting way to meet new people. Generally, with Couchsurfing the idea is that it's free, although you may want to buy your host a coffee or dinner as the situation warrants.

Another option is AirBnB, which currently has 32 listings available in Winnipeg. AirBnB is a little like turning your spare bedroom into a hotel room. Or even renting out your entire house or apartment. It also might just be an airmattress in the living room. Again, users set the parameters and even their rates. Currently in Winnipeg rates range from $35 to $150 a night. I checked out a few of the cheaper options and it seemed common that the $35 was for one person with an additional $10 charge for extra people (depending on how many sleeping spaces were available).

AirBnB really intrigues me as a concept, and they even offer up to $1,000,000 insurance policy for theft/damage done to the home. My biggest concern when considering to be a host is how it might impact my current homeowner policy? I just haven't found the time to look into it properly yet as a homeowner - but as a potential guest it seems like a great idea!

Both the Couchsurfing and AirBnB have a review system so you can really get a sense before you book for what sort of experience you might be in for. They also offer something a hostel generally doesn't - a chance to interact with a local on a one on one basis.

All I know is Winnipeg is likely to be extremely short on budget accommodation this summer and in a city that is desperate to attract visitors we can't afford to turn people away.

It's not my fault

Since I know the readership of my blog although it goes far and wide (Qatar, haven't seen you lately, where you at?) it doesn't have a massive readership so I doubt it was me that ruined it...

Last May I blogged about the Aeroplan Star Challenge and volunteered to take a flight on Virgin's Upper Class. No one has offered me that ticket yet (hint, hint). I did however complete the challenge and received my 16,500 Aeroplan points.

Aeroplan has rolled out the Star Challenge again this year, although they've tweaked it quite a lot in their favour. I spent some time reading their terms and conditions and like much of the Aeroplan reward program it leans towards helping the rich stay rich (the people who benefit the most from Aeroplan perks probably don't even pay for their own tickets yet they, not the person who pays for them, get all the freebies).

Chuck the Channel Cat in Selkirk (thanks Wikipedia)

So this time you can earn up to 25,000 Aeroplan points which is pretty impressive. To put that in perspective that means a ticket to anywhere in continental Canada or the US. However, they wised up a little bit this time and now have a minimum spend required in order to accumulate the stars in the promotion. Last time it was theoretically possible to get a free flight from one province to the next (the value of the points available) for about $40. This time the average person is looking at a minimum spend of about $470.

Broken down to the simplest form the program goes like this: Collect 100 stars to receive your 25,000 points. Chances are if you are an avid Aeroplan collector you have some sort of affiliated Visa card, so that gets you 5 stars right of the bat. You also get 1 star for registering. Great, only 94 to go. You receive 2 stars for every eligible purchase at an online retailer through their eStore, however this time it excludes eBay which was a source of many of my stars last time. You also get two stars for an in-person shop at a storefront retailer. Ones that the average Winnipegger is likely to shop at? Esso, Rexall, Sobeys and Home Hardware (when visiting rural relatives or Chuck the Channel Cat).

There are a bunch of other basically fake opportunities to earn stars with flights and car rentals but they almost all require that you both purchase and complete those during the contest period (March 11 - April 10). No one can afford to fly Air Canada without strategic planning months in advance grabbing sale prices, who are they kidding. Ditto goes for earning points with hotel stays with Aeroplan partners - no booking on a cheaper site (not eligible for Aeroplan normally) nope, you need to book directly with the hotel which almost always costs more. Do you know who might benefit from that? Business travellers who already earn hundreds of thousands of Aeroplan miles a year.

There is one slightly attainable way to earn extra stars, by using your CIBC card at special Aeroplan Bonus restaurants. You will earn one extra star as well as double the Aeroplan points on your transaction. Of course this means you will also spend way more than $470 to collect the 25,000 points. In Winnipeg restaurants include Hermano's, Chamberlyn's, Hu's, Wasabi, Deadfish, Star Grill, Carbone Pizza and Olympia Diner. If you live outside Winnipeg use this website to find restaurants in your area. Maximum of 5 stars through this method.

So since I can't imagine when I might have more money then time, so I expect to put $10 worth of gas into my car every day at Esso starting Monday (hopefully this can cover about 20 of my transactions, although I don't usually go through $200 of gas in a month, maybe I'll have to roadtrip somewhere...). I will also become a regular at Sobey's.

It's basically a promotion that is designed to have people fail which is great for Aeroplan, not great at all for consumers. If they run this promotion again and if it's tweaked to their advantage any further I won't be able to participate so I might as well go for it one last time.

Dear Staff Writer

I get it, your job kind of sucks, what with constant budget cuts and more and more work being heaped on you by the day; but could we come to some sort of agreement about furthering the negative stereotype that surrounds the North End?

In the rush to be perceived as top media dog in this city I do understand the race to post a headline before anyone else, and good for you - yours was the first story on this stabbing to come up in my newsfeed. However, was it really necessary in your 41 word, 3 sentence "article" (this includes the word count from the headline), to scream North End in both the headline and the body of the "story"? I agree, the stabbing did technically happen in the North End, that's true, but while we waited for more details did you have to further perpetuate the myth that the North End is a scary place?

Those of us that live in the North End, when we hear of a story like that make the almost always logical conclusion that the victim and attacker probably knew each other, some sort of argument gone wrong. However, when someone from outside the neighbourhood hears that there was a stabbing here, it's a case of "remember to lock the doors when we drive down Main St."

Now, the Winnipeg Sun (Staff Writer, please note that the Sun, which usually gets labeled as a tabloid, did a better job on this one) seemingly had about the same amount of information when they wrote their article, yet this is what it looked like:

A man is recovering in hospital after being stabbed early Saturday.
He has been upgraded to stable but critical condition, police spokesperson Const. Jason Michalyshen said.
Police were called to the house, in the 300-block of Alfred Avenue, at 5:50 a.m.
Michalyshen said the investigation is in its early stages.
"I'm not aware of the circumstances or the motivation," Michalyshen said.
No suspects have been identified.
It's not clear whether the victim lived in the home.
Michalyshen said the man's condition is improving.

Notice that they managed to avoid saying "North End" anywhere in their story.

Did you notice how many comments your original story got? 54 - more than one comment for every word that you wrote. Although, I suppose 14 of those comments did have to deleted because of the classy commenters that flock to a negative story like this to spew their racism and incorrect views of the neighbourhood as a whole, especially when they are left to their own imaginations to fill in the details that are missing. When a story is incomplete like this, there should be no comments allowed until there is actually something to comment on. Or better yet, no comments at all - after all, eventually the people involved will be "in a case before the courts" - if the comments will be closed during stories about the trial, why allow them right after it happens?

Now, dear Staff Writer, I noticed you wrote a follow up article and managed to leave "North End" out of the headline, however, you just couldn't resist sneaking it in a little later, but fine, it did happen in the North End and you're finally giving a few more details, so it's a start. However, you did manage to leave out one little nugget that the Sun seemed to have time to add in, that the victim and suspect knew each other. I would argue that that is one of the most important details when reporting any crime: context.

Do Winnipeggers need to worry about being stabbed in the North End if they don't know people who are likely to stab them? Probably not. Do people need to worry about being murdered and stuffed in the trunk of a car when they visit St. Vital? No, of course not. Given a little bit of context and information we can make informed choices about things.

Although, I will happily wait for the headline of "100% of murders in Winnipeg in 2013 have been committed in Ft. Rouge/St. Vital" - imagine if that ran? While technically it is currently a true statement, it certainly doesn't speak to the values of the rest of the neighbourhood; neither does crime in the North End. So please dear Staff Writer, please think before you use your brush to paint a picture of everyone in my community, individuals create crime, not entire neighbourhoods.

Sincerely,
Winnipeg Girl

Holding a grudge

Someone I follow on twitter commented today that a neighbour who wouldn't help with a boost the other day found themselves needing one today and that it was karma. Stories of neighbours who are un-neighbourly always remind me of my days growing up in the burbs. In particular they remind me of Jeff Stoughton.

See, way back when, when babysitters didn't demand to be paid the same as other minimum wage jobs I, in addition to being the papergirl for my block, would also occasionally babysit. One of the parents I babysat for was Jeff Stoughton. He had the biggest TV I had ever seen.

Now, I only babysat for them a few times, but imagine my surprise when one cold winter day - when I managed to get my car started and backed out of the driveway (avoiding falling in a notorious Charleswood ditch) and onto the snowy street only to have it promptly die - that Mr. Stoughton refused to give me a boost because he "didn't want to ruin his battery". WTF? Is that even a thing? And who would leave a 16/17ish year old girl to fend for herself in the middle of the road (he had to ease around me to NOT help)? I acutely remember being confused and hurt that he valued a battery over me as a person.

I have secretly decided that although he has had many successes as a curler over the years, that the reason that an Olympic medal still escapes him is because of the resulting bad karma from this incident.

On a very random note, I either owe Jeff Stoughton an apology after this blog post because although I have been 100% sure of this story for many years, when wanting to confirm his lack of Olympic wins I went to Wikipedia to research. According to Wikipedia, he only has one daughter, born in 2004 - but that is, oh, about a decade past my babysitting days. So, if somehow I actually babysat for someone else, who also happened to be a curler and wouldn't help me boost my car, I'm really really sorry for always cheering for the other guys whenever Jeff Stoughton's team is playing.

Of course, I'm pretty sure it was him, so someone needs to get on updating that Wikipedia article. And maybe, just maybe, if he gives someone a boost this winter his luck will turn around and he will eventually get to the Olympics.

Ditto

I'm so good at coming up with amazing blog post names that I almost used one of my awesome ones from last year again. Yes, that is how I am framing my brain's lack of creativity, sue me, it's Monday.

Just a really quick time sensitive post:

My Sister's Closet is an event  with a donation drive ending Friday (the picture at right says until Tuesday January 18th so I called to confirm and they said Friday the 18th) that could use your help (sorry for the short notice!) They are looking for clothing and accessories for women of all shapes and sizes who are about to transition from a school setting to the workplace. I'm not sure exactly the gender make-up of my readership, but guys, let me tell ya, wearing clothing that you feel good in makes a huge difference to a woman. Not to say that it doesn't to a man, since I'm not man I don't know your take on it as such, but you don't have to be a genius to know that the social pressures for women to look a certain way are pretty overwhelming. So for all my local readers, tell a woman you know about this event - this is the time of year when everyone starts off fresh anyway, the perfect time to evaluate the closet.

Drop at 455 McDermot Ave. If you won't be able to make it down there during office hours but are able to gather some things send me an email or a DM on twitter and maybe I can pick it up from you and drop it off on your behalf.

That's it. Just about the shortest post ever - who knew I could do it?!

Here is a link to the poster for last year, I couldn't seem to find it on their website this year and I have no idea how to turn a pdf into a picture format so apologies that the picture in this post is kind of hard to read. Same general info on last year's poster, but again, note that this year they need the donations by this Friday, January 18th, 2013.

Cats! Cats! Cats!

CJOB seems to have broken a story this morning about a proposed Responsible Pet Ownership By-law that among other things, will require cat owners to license their cats, at a cost of $15/cat. This proposed by-law would also only allow pet stores to sell cats and dogs that have come from a shelter rather than breeders (or worse, places like puppy mills).

Emma

 Of course, the new "tax" (not a tax, but that's what the crazy people started calling it) on cats got all sorts of people calling in and complaining. Are you kidding me? Heck, it could almost be considered unfair that currently dog owners are forced to pay $64 for an unfixed dog and $29 for a pooch that has gone under the knife. A responsible pet owner should be happy to pay the fee, and yes, it should be higher for pets that aren't fixed (the proposed fee for cats that aren't fixed is $50). I find it interesting that they are going to want to charge a fee of $300 for people to be allowed to sell animals, that seems like it will be a little difficult to regulate. I foresee a lot of people who are trying to get rid of their one pet (vs. obvious breeders) selling cat supplies that come with a free cat on kijiji.


I think some important questions to be asked are how exactly this $15/cat is going to be spent; currently they are saying it will go towards subsidizing spay and neuter programs, however there should be clarification as to how much, if any will be going towards programs that trap and spay/neuter feral cats and then release them. The sound bites I heard this morning seemed to imply that simply forcing people to license their cats was going to get rid of the feral cat population, which is currently estimated at 80,000-150,000!! Clearly, that is not remotely realistic.

Having a pet is not a right, but a luxury. As pet owners we always need to be aware that a hefty medical bill can pop up, if people claim that they can't afford the $15 (I presume per year) for cat ownership then what does that say about their ability to care for their pet if it becomes sick? Now, I'm a mere mortal, I of course don't have some sort of secret stockpile of funds to pay vet bills but in the back of my mind I know that I might have to. The beautiful Emma pictured above decided to test her will to live to the tune of $600 in 2011 (I am very thankful she only felt the need to spend that much before she got the spring back in her step!)

That said, I am a believer that pets are an important part of a persons overall mental well-being and I don't begrudge lower-income people or even transient people for wanting to be pet owners, so long as they are responsible pet owners as well. Even if people just want to think of the $15 as added insurance that their pet will be returned to them if it goes missing it's well worth it.

If you're on facebook, a couple of groups well worth liking are the Winnipeg Lost Cat Alert and the Winnipeg Lost Dog Alert. Currently the dogs have 6,149 likes and the cats only have 1,582 - lets boost those cat numbers! For all the crap you have filling up your facebook feed wouldn't it be great if along with all the funny/fake-motivational/spiritual/borderline-porn pictures you could help reunite a pet with its owner?

And lastly, I know I've posted it before, but it's such a good one: