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| Kathie and Sean |
This is it, it's the last day of summer holidays. This has been an amazing and fun packed summer, but all good things must come to an end. I don't feel like we wasted a minute of it. There was one thing however that we had to squeeze in before back to school time... a trip to Alderville to visit our favourite chip truck... Mankatos. Not a week-end went by that Christopher did not remind me that we had not yet made the pilgrimage to Mankatos.
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| Fully Loaded Fries! |
We drove a little over an hour to visit Mankatos. This may seem like insanity to drive this far, just to visit a "chip truck". To those who say that this kind of travel for chips is insane, has never visited Mankatos! The kids were so excited, the whole car ride they were all excitedly chatting about what they were going to order. You may remember around this time last year I blogged about Mankatos
I have a habit of building things up in my mind, and then being devastated when they don't live up to my expectations. Last year we accidently stumbled upon this amazing chip truck. We took the kids to ride the Roseneath Carousel (we stopped there again this visit). The weather was perfect, the kids LOVED the carousel. It was the perfect day. The kids began to complain that they were hungry after the carousel ride. We had been looking for a convenience store to buy a bag of chips (also known as shut up food). We just happened to see a chip truck. I don't like chip trucks because I always worry about hygiene at those places. The kids were making a lot of noise by this point, so I decided to take a peek. The ladies were spotless, everything was spotless. The prices were low, the quality was exceptionally high, the portions HUGE! We fell in love. As we traveled to Alderville I began to worry that maybe I had mistaken delicious for beautiful memory... it turns out that I didn't it was just as good if not better this time.
This visit to Mankatos we met Sean, the other half of Mankatos. He was so friendly. I was shocked at how little our bill came to. When I voiced this, Sean told us that was why they opened their stand. They were parents too, and wanted families to be able to afford to take the kids for a treat. Being a family of 6 it is usually an expensive proposition to take the kids out for a meal, well for anything for that matter. We were able to afford not only to feed them dinner, but also dessert.
The kids stood looking at the menu board, unsure what exactly to order. Riley and Rowan settled on fries and gravy. Gracie decided on chili cheese fries, she was not disappointed! Elly went with a hamburger that was nearly the size of her. There was a sign that said they were now serving "Philly Cheese Steaks". I was shocked when Christopher did not order it. Instead he went with "Fully Loaded Fries". I asked him why he opted for the fries instead of the cheese steak. His answer was typical Christopher, "Because I have been fantasizing about the fully loaded fries for a year!" Enough said. He was not disappointed. I ordered a huge hamburger and fries. Everything was so good, and huge. None of us had room to finish our meals, there was just too much food (like that's a bad thing.. not). Although we had no more room for our meal, there's always room for dessert!
We had planned to eat deep fried Mars bars for dessert, but they were out of them! I was then going to order a funnel cake. We were all going to have funnel cakes, that is until the kids saw the monster sized ice-cream cones that other people were ordering. Christopher and the kids all ordered ice-cream cones, but I was sticking to my guns, I was going to order a funnel cake. I knew that everyone would want to steal my funnel cake, but it was their loss because they had ordered ice-cream cones. My firm resolve melted away as I watched them enjoy their chocolate / vanilla twist cones, my favourite. In the end I changed my mind. I made a good choice. Honestly it is the best ice-cream that I have ever eaten!
Elly, being Elly had made up her mind that she was going to have cotton candy for dessert. Nothing could break her choice. Nothing that is until she saw how much the other kids and Christopher were enjoying their cones. Once again in typical Elly style, she just walked over and stole Christopher's cone.
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| You can always tell a good cone by the type of beard it produces! |
Once again we were amazed at the unbelievable quality, huge portions and fantastic customer service that Mankatos offered. Sean and Kathie are two of the nicest people. They really strive to offer amazing quality, but more than that, you feel like they really care, that is a rare thing in this day and age.
As we were about to leave, Kathie came over and told me that they were really excited because they were about to embark on an exciting new adventure. They had an opportunity that they just couldn't pass up. Normally they run their chip truck seasonally, which means that lovers of good food have to wait for the cold winter to pass before they can enjoy fair food. Beginning October 1 Kathie and Sean will be running a restaurant out of the Alderville Art Gallery. This means that now you can get their amazing fare, all year round!!!!! Not only can we look forward to the old favourites, but now because of the different venue, they will be able to expand their menu. I think that we are going to have to plan another trip to Alderville!
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