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chicken fingers! Originally uploaded by ticonderoga’s malevolent marsupial

For the past 3 summers, I was one of the many people in the city who worked downtown. Downtown was kind of a deadly place to work, only because I’d NEVER bring a lunch and ALWAYS go out to eat.

One of my favorite places to go eat?? Mitzi’s! They’re known for their homemade chicken fingers created by restaurant owner, Shirley Eng. Chicken fingers weren’t always on their menu. Mitzi’s used to be a Chinese food restaurant, but chicken fingers were added to the mix about 19 years ago.

My favorite thing to get at Mitizi’s? It most definitely has to be the chicken fingers and fries, with their homemade honey dill and coleslaw..SOO GOOD! Not a fan of the fries? Chicken fingers can also be served with fried rice, just in case you wanted to keep the “Chinese” in your meal.

A warning however! If you DO decide to sample these world famous chicken fingers, I suggest you hit the restaurant EARLY! Mitzi’s fills up FAST.

Mitzi’s Chicken Finger Restaurant
250 St Mary Avenue
Winnipeg, MB R3C 0M5
(204) 943-9770

Lunch: Monday to Friday: 11am-230pm
Dinner: Monday to Saturday 430pm-10pm

Choclair made his appearance at Sonar Night Club on Friday. Our contest winner sadly could not make it due to personal reasons and we didn’t have enough time to contact a runner up.

It was a busy Friday night so we couldn’t stay for the whole concert but Choclair and the various local Winnipeg acts really had Sonar going that night. Local Winnipeg hip hop acts demonstrated the Winnipeg’s hip hop scene is stronger than ever.

Choclair came out and performed some classics that brought me down memory lane. “Choclair comin’ down with the Northern t-t-touch… b-b-baby!!!”

Check out these awesome photos from guest photographer Rith M.

Access Winnipeg reader miss1030 sent in these awesome pictures and videos from the Backstreet Boys concert.

I think its safe to say that she had the time of her life! She had awesome seats as well as got a kiss from Nick!

Thanks for the awesome pictures and video miss1030.

Hit the jump for all the goodies.

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porschenext copy Originally uploaded by AccessWinnipeg

It was a slow Friday for me. Froze my ass off walking downtown for a ‘cut & style’ then continued to fight off the cold for the rest of it. Well, I decided to stay out and about and after grabbing a coffee and muffin from McD’s, I did a quick stroll downtown. The Hydro building still isn’t finished, the local unemployed still ask me for change and I’m cold. Not much different…until my walk back.

Click “read more” to see the rest of my adventure.

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Here’s the post you’ve all been waiting for! Videos and Photos from all the local dance crews at Reprezent 2008.

I want to give a huge congratulations to SoundRepublic.ca and all the Winnipeg dance crews for making this a night to remember. It was one of the biggest dance showcases I have ever attended and every single crew stepped it up to show the world that Winnipeg’s dance culture is up there with everyone else.

The Centennial Concert Hall was a full house on the warm Remembrance Day. The show started on time and move forward at a perfect pace. The host from Bun Down Sound kept the night alive giving background introductions to all the dance crews so we could learn a bit about their story and history. Bun Down did an amazing job with the sound that night as well. The only small mishap was that the front speakers weren’t turned on for the first dance performance, but it was fixed immediately and there would be no technical difficulties for the remainder of the night.

If you missed this live event, then you may have missed the greatest dance showcase of 2008 (or possibly ever in Winnipeg!) - but SoundRepublic stated that they have one more big dance bash before the end of the year, the Americas Best Dance Crew Tour in December. Crews such as Super Cr3w, So Real, Fanny Pack, and many more will be at the Pantages this December so stay tuned for more information!

Dangerous Goods and Sikat were my favorites of the night. Dangerous Good tore the stage up by keeping it real to their bboy roots. Sikat FILLED the stage up (literally) but kept in sync throughout the whole performance. It takes a lot of discipline to have a full stage and still keep it together - hats of to Sikat for making it work, it came together beautifully!

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If you are looking for photos and videos of the Jabbawockeez, you can find them on our previous post.

Hit the jump for all the videos and photos from our Videographer Huy, and Photographer Oli.

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DSC_0747 Originally uploaded by AccessWinnipeg

Access Winnipeg editor Stacey will have a full impressions post up later this week, but in the mean time… here are some of the photos and video from last nights Reprezent 2008 event presented by SoundRepublic.ca

Props goes out to our official Photographer Oli and our Videographer Huy for all their awesome shots!

Hit the jump for the goodies.

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IMG_0513 Originally uploaded by AccessWinnipeg

It’s been too long for some — but Hooters is now open at their new location 1501 St. James Street.  I popped in last Monday for Monday Night Football and chowed down on the yummy curly fries and had a couple of pitchers of *puke* Bud Light *puke*.  Order it though, the waitresses benefit, and who wouldn’t want to help the lovely ladies out?

Not much has changed with the move, the Hooters girls are still there.  There are better placements of televisions and a larger bar area than the old location.

Here is the lowdown on Monday Night Football (or MNF if you are American or just love acronyms):

*Hosted by wheeler and Hal from power 97
*Reservations available - tables go quickly
*Weekly competition for prizes at half time. ex. hoola hoop howl, wing eating competition
*Door prizes (winning tickets under stools/seats or hidden in balloons)
*Draws for additional prizes at 2min warning of 4th quarter.
*Ability to sign up for MNF and attend no less than 14 of 16 reg season games and the super bowl can win a trip to pro bowl in Hawaii. The draw will take place at half time of the super bowl.

I had the joys of watching first a super spicy wing eating competition followed by bobbing for apples to get into the Halloween spirit.

cos9 Originally uploaded by AccessWinnipeg

AccessWinnipeg.com reader vinnydisilvio sent us his Impressions of the Bill Cosby show that was in Winnipeg during Halloween. If you have any impressions of various shows/restaurants you see in Winnipeg and would like to do an article, please feel free to send them in and we’ll post them just like this!

Understand that I practically grew up watching The Cosby Show. My whole family was into it. I mean, I think I missed the pilot when it was originally on, but I’m pretty sure I saw all the other episodes. I also saw 2 of Bill Cosby’s stand-up concert videos. The dude is funny and he understands how families work.

So when I heard that Bill Cosby was coming to Winnipeg (incidentally, I heard about it first on AXS), it was everything I could do to stop myself from falling over. I bought the tickets almost immediately and waited anxiously for the day.

Well, Bill definitely didn’t disappoint. I’m not going to lie to you people, it wasn’t wall-to-wall, gutbusting hilarity. It’s not like that with the Cos. He does narrative comedy…it’s kind of like someone’s grandfather (he’s 71 now) sits down to tell you stories for a couple of hours and it’s really entertaining and funny.

Bill mostly did new stuff. When I say new…I really don’t know if it’s entirely new. I haven’t seen his stand-up act for a long time. But he did 95% stuff that I’ve never heard before. A large portion of the first half of his act was stuff about being a teenager. He talks about puberty openly like he experienced it yesterday. But he doesn’t just talk about what guys experience, he very openly talks about what his daughters went through. He mostly finds it funny that moms will often prepare their daughters for the “beauty” of womanhood, but then their daughter’s first experience with it doesn’t feel beautiful. I couldn’t believe he did it, because it’s actually a little risque to talk about, but it got huge laughs from the whole crowd.

He also talked a lot about marriage. He was very clear that it’s not that he discourages it, but he addressed all the young men in the audience when he said “you just need to have the full picture before you go for it!” He also talked about the story of creation from the Bible, but was very clear that he wasn’t talking about the Bible to “recruit” anyone, he just wanted to talk about his experience of reading it.

It’s impossible to re-tell any of Cosby’s “jokes” though. That’s actually one thing he jokes about. When someone’s act is that personal and that observational, you have to let it speak for itself. I will end with this though, it was pretty clear that everyone around me had a good time. I went to see Bill Cosby because I knew it would be funny but also because this may be my last chance to do so. If you get a chance to see him though, I say splurge. It’s worth every penny!

DSC_0981 Originally uploaded by AccessWinnipeg

Girlicious made its second appearance in Winnipeg last week and they never fail to impress! All seats in the Pantages were filled with screaming teens going crazy for their favorite girl group.

Elise Estrada (who we featured at Shopgirl) opened up the show at 8:08. She hit the stage with a DJ and a hypeman/piano player. She had 2 female dancers with her on stage as well. She would perform 10 songs and end her set at 8:50.

Danny Fernandez followed with another opening at 9:06. He would hit the stage with 2 male dancers. Danny Fernandez is more known for his dancing abilities which came as a relief since Elise Estrada’s dancers were more their for their ‘looks’ than their dancing. Danny would throw multiple copies of his newest CD ‘Intro’ into the crowd and they would go crazy! One of Danny’s dancer actually almost fell off the stage while tossing CD’s - that wouldn’t have been good at all since it was a pretty high drop to the floor. Danny Fernandez’s set would end at 9:35.

Girlicious hit the stage at 9:53 with nothing but 4 mic stands. They had some nice track and field style clothing probably sponsored by Adidas. Tiffany was sporting an AWESOME Obama shirt that you can see in the pictures below. The biggest disappoint of the show however was that Girlicious was lip-syncing their entire set. It was very unfortunate since they did an AMAZING job with their live performance at Blush earlier this year that had no lip syncing at all. Regardless, the girls danced their hearts out and still put on an amazing show for their fans. Their set would end at 10:26.

A big shout out goes out to Stephen and Sound Republic for putting on another amazing show. Since the show was on a Monday night and a lot of the teens attending had school the next day, Sound Republic did an amazing job keeping the show on time and moving forward. Danny Fernandez and Elise Estrada both stayed after to do an autograph signing in the lobby. All ticket holders also got free entrance to the official after party at the EEC with Elise Estrada.

I’m looking forward to Sound Republics next event, Jabbawockeez at the Centennial Concert Hall on Novemeber 11, and I hope its just as organized as this one! Hit the jump for all the photos from our official photographer, Oli.

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