Da Falls and DFAC

Crowds and one decent attraction.

Ya ever been to Niagara Falls? Not the economically depressed American side but the emotionally depressing Canadian side. Sure, it has the horseshoe falls as its one decent attraction but the place is otherwise just an over-priced tourist trap full of wax museums, crappy food, and overweight, stressed out tourists who all look like they’d rather be somewhere else.

We visited last summer as we passed through on our way to somewhere better. My wife had never been to the falls before so she was pretty keen about doing the Maid of the Mist boat tour. The line up was really long so I suggested we take the tour in the tunnels under the falls. We maneuvered our way through the scowling, jostling crowd but as we neared the ticket booth my wife said “Forget it. I don’t ever want to do anything that involves any of these people. Let’s go.”. It really was like being at Walmart on a really bad Saturday right before Christmas.

Well, we ate at the Niagara DFAC a few nights ago. It was similar to its namesake it two regards: it was damn crowded (and almost always is) and has one great attraction, the hamburger line complete with grilled onions and bacon. Thankfully, there isn’t a wax museum or sweaty tourist within a thousand miles. The lure of bacon was even strong enough to cause D to forgo his usual dinner of an apple and cigarettes, and join us.

The line up at the main course steam lines were so long that no one in our group of 5 opted for what they had to offer. D and I went to the usually reliable hamburger bar although its line was only marginally shorter. T gave up completely and went for a sandwich while M2 and De (one of our visitors from corporate HQ) went for the pasta bar.

The OK Burger and Slimy Wings Comb

D found his burger delicious while I thought the onions had been fried to that tough to reach point at which most of the raw flavour is gone but none of the carmelized flavour has developed; they’re just soggy and tasteless. I also found the bacon to be kind of bland. The fries were good but my chicken wings were just like those microwave ones you get in the frozen food section of your grocery store. You know that microwaved wings are gonna be kinda slimy and gross but you buy them anyway and they turn out, unsurprisingly, to be slimy and gross. Luckily for you at home, you probably only eat them at 3 am after way too much beer so they taste fabulous. In the harsh, sober, dusty light of a KAF DFAC, they are just slimy and gross.

"Sorta fresh" beats "sorta stale" any day.

T commented that his sandwich was really good because the bread was “sorta fresh”. The cold cuts and sliced cheese can usually be counted on to be pretty tasty so a sandwich is often a safe bet…provided you’re not some prima dona who demands “totally fresh” bread.

M2 thought his pasta was pretty good while De raved about it. T confided to me after dinner that De had liked everything he’d eaten since arriving in KAF about a week earlier so his commentary may not be reliable. I thought living in KAF had the potential to impair one’s judgment; perhaps being at corporate HQ is even more detrimental to one’s faculties.

The Bright Lights of Niagara

So, bottom line is: If you want to visit a place called Niagara that has glitz, decent food, relatively carefree patrons, and crowds, I recommend you opt for the Kandahar DFAC rather than the Falls. Sure, dinner is sometimes interrupted by a rocket attack and things can get a little dusty but its still a hell of a lot more pleasant than a trip to the Niagara Falls gift shop.