The only cartoon-themed restaurants that I've eaten at have been at theme parks and the only memorable one was Marvel Mania at Universal Studios, Hollywood. It has since closed down (probably because the food wasn't that great), but it was kind of entertaining to have Spidey hanging out at the dinner table. Perhaps drawing inspiration from that one selling point - that it is fun to sit with the characters - from such themed restaurants, a new cartoon-themed restaurant has opened up in Toronto that takes the theme further.

iMaid Cafe is a cosplay restaurant, which basically means that all the staff members are dressed in costumes and play a certain role. In this particular case, that role is of a maid from Japanese anime cartoons. "I call them maids not waitresses," said 24-year old Aaron Wang, the owner of the restaurant who is originally from Beijing. "They smile a lot and they are cute. I want somebody cute like the characters from cartoons -- big eyes, long hair and young."

Feedback from customers over the past few weeks has been nothing but positive, as both men and women come to enjoy the costumes and the atmosphere.

If you have ever seen a Hot Dog on A Stick, the first thing that you'll note is the wacky uniforms that their employees wear. If you venture closer, you'll see that their menu is simple and true to their name, with corndogs, french fries and lemonade. The concept is clearly to provide fair favorites in non-fair locations, such as malls. A corndog is a corndog, but their cherry lemonade is maddeningly addictive. Unfortunately a 12-oz. size packs in 160 calories, and people tend to order the larger 24-oz. and 32-oz. (410 calories) sizes to wash down their salty snacks.

The company fairly recently introduced sugar free lemonade to their stores, but it's just not the same. After all, it doesn't deliver that cherry punch. If you want a low-calorie alternative to the cherry version, try the Minute Maid Light Cherry Limeade, which manages to deliver that cherry taste with only 10 calories in a 12-ounce serving. The difference between lime and lemon flavors, especially in drinks that have additional levels of flavor, is minimal. And the best part is that you can pick up a 12-pack at the market for much less than you would spend at the restaurant itself.