SemSem
2430 Bank St., unit 11, 613-733-5736, semsem.ca
Open: Monday to Friday 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday and Sunday 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Prices: Breads $2.75 to $21.95, savoury items $6.50 to $15.50
Access: No steps to front door, accessible washroom

In my ideal Ottawa, there would be casual eateries scattered around the city where we could have baked-to-order savoury Arabic breads, perhaps sprinkled with za’atar, the bewitching sesame-flecked spice blend, or stuffed with halloumi cheese, or dotted with sojok sausage.

If we skipped breakfast, we could indulge at one of these places with a heaping serving of fatteh, in which tangy yogurt served over pieces of flatbread shared a bowl with warmed chickpeas and garnishes such as pomegranate seeds, almond slivers and a slick of clarified butter.

After all, shops selling shawarmas have been legion here for decades. Why couldn’t these other treats from the same part of the world proliferate, too?

I pose this question after several revelatory meals at SemSem, which has been tucked away in a strip mall at Bank Street and Hunt Club Road for the last two years.

The signage outside bills it as a “new concept coffee shop.” But the business, which takes its name from the Arabic word for “sesame” and is run by a Palestinian family, is better understood as a breakfast-and-lunch spot that combines an exceptional and even unique-in-Ottawa on-demand bakery with light, largely meatless meals and superior coffees and warm beverages.

After two visits to this simple but modern place where Arabic music plays, I feel like I’ve barely cracked the bread-rich menu of about two dozen items. But while we have more breads to try, my friends who have discovered SemSem with me and I have been bowled over by the food we’ve shared, which made quick converts of us with its warm-from-the-oven appeal, quality ingredients and consistent, even calibrated flavours.

So, of six man’ouche (savoury flatbreads that can be street food in the Southern Levant), we tried just the version topped with za’atar ($3.50). It was good enough to elicit wows and groans of satisfaction. Later, I was told by Karim Aoude, SemSem’s young floor manager, that the za’atar is a special import from Palestine.

Cheese (L) and za’atar (R) man’ouche at Semsem

I am even more taken by SemSem’s “cheese sunflower” pastry ($6.25), a warm, wreath-shaped loaf that wraps bread around halloumi and is dotted with sesame seeds and thyme. (“Persian thyme,” Aoude specified.) It was terrifically salty, yet somehow still balanced by all of its other bread-y, herb-y, seed-y attributes. Of course, its warmth and magic dwindle with time if it’s brought home for later consumption.

Cheese Sunflower at Semsem

Another “sunflower” bread ($10.50), studded with nubbly bits of sojok, a somewhat spicy sausage, came with a dip made with tahini and tomatoes that makes it even more filling.

Sojok Sunflower at Semsem

Another pastry that definitely worked was SemSem’s popie ($6.95), which combined marinated spinach with halloumi and herbs.

It would be hard for me on subsequent visits to resist ordering the above breads again, although I really should try some of the ka’ak (Arabic word for cake) breads, which are puffier, ring-shaped goods that at SemSem are referred to as “After 8” breads. Most feature a type of cheese — halloumi, less salty akkawi, cheddar-like kashkaval, cheddar itself, or a mix of all four.

After 8 cheese bread at Semsem restaurant

The fondness for cheese here extends to Semsem’s most expensive item, a 16-inch, sesame-seed-dusted loaf called the “cheese overdose” ($21.95). I’ve had the single-serving version ($3.90) and found it to be yet another SemSem delight.

Some breads come with house-made dips that can be sesame- or tomato-based. We also happily scooped up mouthfuls of seasoned mashed fava beans ($9.95) with SemSem’s pita bread.

Classic beans (fava beans) at Semsem restaurant

Moving from breads, we’ve tried the fattehs made with either yogurt ($12.50) or tahini. Both were excellent, and the latter one might appeal to carnivores with its optional morsels of lamb ($13.50 or $15.50 with lamb).

Fatteh Yogurt at Semsem

Fatteh tahini at Semsem

Falafel (five pieces for $6.50), fried to order and blessed with firm exteriors and tender interiors, were the best I can recall tasting. Like other items, they came with side orders of pita bread and a plate of crudités that stressed sharp tastes (pepperoncini peppers, bits of raw onion and radish).

Falafel at Semsem restaurant

We’ve also received branches of mint that we were told came from the owner’s garden. Similarly, SemSem serves a made-in-house fig jam and a spicy, green dipping condiment that made me think of Yemeni zhoug.

The only dish I’ve had at SemSem that was closer to ordinary was the plate of shakshouke ($8.50), which paired fried eggs with vegetables. They were OK, but I expected spicier.

Shakshouke at Semsem

The sole dessert I’ve had was a piece of so-called Mirage cake, which had a creamy centre, a dusting of pistachio and a strong floral note.

Brewed coffee here was strong. I liked the chai-like “SemSem drink” ($2.95) — milky tea, sweetened and flavoured with cardamom and saffron.

You might have guessed that the family behind SemSem had baking in its blood or had run a bakery in its homeland. But you would be wrong.

Aoude told me that his father Issam, who starts baking each day at 6 a.m., was in construction and engineering in the United Arab Emirates when they lived there. His mother, Mayssaa Chaltaf, has an MBA from a British university and was a consultant.

But the family moved to Ottawa in 2015, attracted to Canada because relatives are here. Luckily for us, they chose to make a living with SemSem.

Aoude told me the family’s plan is to franchise SemSem. “We’re in the process of systemizing everything,” he said. “Almost there.”

So, my vision of luscious fattehs, alluring man’ouches and piping-hot breads stuffed with cheese being available beyond South Keys and in other Ottawa neighbourhoods might not be just a bread-lover’s fantasy.

phum@postmedia.com
twitter.com/peterhum
Peter Hum’s restaurant reviews

A Glebe restaurant that drew raves when it opened three years ago has closed, saying it couldn’t attract enough diners to stay in business.

The Pomeroy House was at 749 Bank Street near First Avenue.

“We all tried so hard, and yet we were not able to fill the needs of this wonderful community,” it says an announcement on the restaurant’s website.

“Exactly three years ago we opened this beautiful restaurant. We had some successes, cherished guests, delightful parties, and the response was overwhelmingly positive in regards to food, atmosphere and service. The harsh facts are simply that we didn’t serve enough of you.”

Its Facebook page still carries the menus. Roast duck featured Brussels sprouts, cippolini, turnips, beets, hazelnut butter and spicy lime. Albacore tuna appeared with fingerling potato, oyster mushroom, pickled red onion, hemp, spinach and gribiche.

Our food reviewer, Peter Hum, gave the restaurant top marks soon after it opened, starting with a different version of duck.

“Pomeroy’s chef and co-owner Rich Wilson, formerly the sous chef at Beckta Dining and Wine, had taken the bistro staple and made it sparkle. The duck’s taste and texture were just as it should be, while creamed corn, kale, spiced walnuts and slices of apple made the dish beautiful and doubly delicious,” he wrote.

“That duck of one’s dreams was no fluke. Over my two visits to Pomeroy House, many dishes were deeply satisfying and even the betters of similar dishes in Ottawa …

“Meanwhile, the room’s classy but relaxed vibe and its servers’ exceptional attention have made for special nights out …

“Whatever they’re doing, they should keep at it, because what they do vaults Pomeroy House onto my very short list of Ottawa’s top new restaurants.”

The restaurant’s farewell announcement thanks its staff, customers and suppliers.

“Our amazing staff were the backbone of the concept … ever smiling, so knowledgeable of the wines, full of pairing suggestions, so proud of the foods they cooked & served, and fully engaged in the community. For that, and so much more we thank them, we commend them, we applaud them…along with the suppliers, the farmers, the brewers, the delivery people, the neighbors, and the competitors!!

“As for Lindsay (Gordon) and Rich, they did their best to make PH successful … her graceful elegance, his culinary skills, they will be present in Ottawa for many years to come I know!”

tspears@postmedia.com

twitter.com/TomSpears1

Eldon’s
775 Bank St., 613-565-0101, eldons.ca
Open: Tuesday to Saturday 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., 5 to 10 p.m.; Sunday 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.; closed Monday
Prices: Brunch items $8 to $16, mains $16 to $26 at dinner
Access: small ramp to front door

When we go out to eat, we take for granted that the restaurant’s goal should be to give us, in exchange for our hard-earned money, some very tasty food, perhaps an enjoyable beverage or two, and, overall, a memorable experience.

At Eldon’s, which opened in the Glebe, two months ago, there’s a mission statement posted near its entrance that describes an additional objective.

“We strive to be part of the agricultural community and give back to the farmers that provide for us,” reads the message on the chalkboard. “At Eldon’s, our food waste is put aside and sent back to the farms and serves as an organic food for the animals.”

So, just a few steps in, this narrow, homey eatery announces both its farm-to-table bona fides and its green conscientiousness. If stars were awarded, an extra one should go to recognize Eldon’s virtue. Happily, the easy-going eatery of about 24 seats also delivered tasty food and enjoyable beverages during my three recent and pleasantly recalled visits.

Eldon’s is owned jointly by 32-year-old chef Cory Baird, an Ottawa native, and 26-year-old Marhlee Gaudet, who oversees its books and dining room and has personably dispensed useful information about food and wine while serving. The couple, a team in business and life, met in Toronto, where Baird was cooking in restaurant kitchens and playing in the new wave electro-hip hop group Dream Jefferson.

Shunting music to the side, Baird, who never went to cooking school, returned with Gaudet to Ottawa last spring to open Eldon’s, which replaces a Bank Street burrito place with something more distinctive.

While the vibe of Eldon’s is casual and unassuming, with white brick and concrete walls adorned with mirrors and rustic touches and an open kitchen in the back, it clearly feels like a personalized space. Indeed, Baird told me this week that Eldon’s is named after his grandfather. While serving me last weekend, Gaudet mentioned that the charming teacup-and-saucer combo on our table had been in her family.

Relying on local producers such as Acorn Creek Garden Farm, Juniper Farm, Peabody Farm and Ferme Rêveuse, plus further-afield purveyors including pork producer Gaspor north of Montreal and Pilot Coffee Roasters in Toronto, Baird has drawn up tautly contained but appealing brunch and dinner menus that feature fresh and simple from-scratch dishes.

At lunch and brunch I’ve enjoyed plates in which clean-flavoured and succulent smoked trout and pulled pork were stars, either in sandwiches or paired with brightly dressed greens and fine roasted potatoes and poached eggs. Open-faced sandwiches of roasted vegetables and heirloom tomatoes felt well-composed and complete and pleased the meat abstainers at our table. A French lentil salad melded its herbal and celery notes nicely.

Smoked trout with potatoes and salad at Eldon’s

Pulled pork sandwich at Eldon’s

Lenti salad at Eldon’s

Roasted vegetable sandwich at Eldon’s

Plates at dinner saw quality ingredients presented honestly and with minimal manipulation or distracting accoutrements so that their inherent flavours shone.

The Enright Cattle butcher’s steak ($22) — typically a piece of flatiron, skirt or flank steak, Baird told me this week — and the Gaspor pork “striploin” ($26) — meat taken from the small, milk-fed pig’s loin, but closer to the butt — prioritized forthright flavour and meatiness over tenderness.

Butchers steak at Eldon’s

Pork striploin at Eldon’s

Some at our table objected to extra chewing, but I supported Baird’s priorities and those lesser-known cuts of meat. Both dishes included thoughtfully chosen sides to balance the meats. With the beef came a sauce of roasted red peppers and a blanket of garlic scapes. The pork was offset very well by a white bean purée for starchiness, peaches for sweetness and charred radicchio for bitterness.

Chicken and dumplings ($18) was as comforting as it needed to be, although my bite of a friend’s dumpling did not wow. More impressive, I thought, was a plate of simply crusted and cooked pieces of Lake Erie pickerel ($24), in which the fish played very nicely with creamed corn, Swiss chard and cherry tomatoes.

Chicken and dumplings at Eldon’s

Pickerel with corn, cherry tomatoes and Swiss chard

None of these plates was all that massive. If you seek to get stuffed while dining out, then an all-you-can-eat buffet will suit you better than Eldon’s. But there is something about the avoidance of gluttony — and of super-sized pricing — that’s in line with Eldon’s admirable ethos.

Desserts included fresh berries ($5) with some of the simple farmers cheese — but sweetened — that figures on many a dish, and an OK bowl of poached peach with almond crumble ($7), plus pastries from Ottawa’s Art Is In Bakery.

Berries and cream at Eldon’s

Poached peaches at Eldon’s

What improvements at Eldon’s could I suggest? Perhaps a little more consistency, given that potatoes that were perfect at one mid-day meal were over-cooked at another, or that some dishes, while likeable and interesting, seemed just a touch under-seasoned while those over-cooked potatoes were too heavily salted.

But, I’m talking about a few grains of salt here and there. I should grouse more loudly that Eldon’s hard metal chairs could use some cushions if you want to sit a spell and enjoy the surroundings, which is something that comes entirely naturally here.

phum@postmedia.com
twitter.com/peterhum
Peter Hum’s restaurant reviews

Lexington Smokehouse & Bar
344 Richmond Rd., 613-421-0219, lexingtonottawa.com
Open: Sunday to Thursday 5 p.m. to late, Friday and Saturday 4 p.m. to late
Prices: Sandwiches $16 to $18, mains $23 to $35
Access: One step to washrooms

The best ribs, barbecued chicken and brisket I’ve ever eaten were happily devoured outdoors at picnic tables, without any cutlery but with lots of paper towels on hand to remove sweet, spicy sauce from cheeks, chin and fingers. At those U.S. barbecue joints and events, decor was secondary to deliciousness — if it was even considered.

Lexington Smokehouse and Bar, which opened in June in Westboro, serves its ribs, chicken and brisket, among other items, in more upscale, even Westborovian, surroundings.

While the setting includes visual pointers to the down-home roots of barbecue and Southern food  — distressed white-painted brick walls and a wealth of barn board, assorted knick-knacks and a vintage butcher’s sign from Lexington, North Carolina — Lexington’s space is more sleek than all of that. Its long, wraparound bar, rich teal chairs and banquettes, low-hanging Edison lights and copper accents provide comfort and chic. The ambience of the place helps to explain the crowds we’ve encountered, which in turn explain how loud the place can get.

Then there’s chef Thomas Painer’s food. Drawing admirably from producers that include local purveyors O’Brien Farms, Mike’s Garden Harvest and Terramor Farms, Lexington fancies up barbecue classics and Southern fare. I’ve had dinner twice here and found that the best of Painer’s attractively presented plates were pleasing, if not wowing, iterations with good flavours and yielding textures. But other dishes needed some tweaks.

Some of the best food we had — the “let’s-get-those-again” items, my wife might say — were simple but effective appetizers and snacks. At the top of her list were the panko-crusted and cleanly fried pieces of green tomatoes ($9) on a big smear of distinctive aioli. Our son was big on Lexington’s red-caviar- and aioli-topped deviled eggs ($5 for one).

Fried green tomatoes at Lexington Smokehouse & Bar

Deviled eggs at Lexington Smokehouse & Bar

I commend any restaurant that sells “burnt ends” — the charred, succulent meat candy made from the fattier point cut of beef brisket. Lexington serves a small skillet filled with burnt ends as a $12 starter, which I couldn’t help but. While they haven’t matched the burnt ends I’ve had from competition-level pitmasters, Lexington’s best chunks of brisket were meltingly fatty and beefy while others were puzzlingly lean. Either way, they had some smokiness and as much atypical sweetness as saltiness.

Burnt Ends at Lexington Smokehouse & Bar

Perhaps the burnt ends — promising, pleasing, but also somewhat uneven — represents the overall state of Lexington at two months in.

At one dinner, before main courses arrived, our server brought us Lexington’s selection of barbecue sauces. The four choices, which tended to the runnier side, covered a lot of ground flavour-wise, ranging from a more generic sauce to a root-beer-laced one for those who like it sweet, and an espresso-spiked sauce that went in the other direction. A fourth sauce that tasted of cinnamon and cloves struck us as something that would pair well with tourtière. I give credit to Lexington for making these sauces in-house, but as barbecue competition judges are wont to say, it’s about the meat, not the sauce.

Main courses, which each came with two choices of sides such as fries, cornbread with apple-tomato jam, mac and cheese or potato salad, were a bit of a mixed bag.

A full rack of St. Louis-cut pork ribs ($35), glazed with Lexington’s chunky honey-peach sauce, was a sweet and eminently shareable crowd-pleaser, although I must say I like my ribs to skew smokier, spicier and saltier.

Ribs at Lexington Smokehouse & Bar

Pork chop at Lexington Smokehouse & Bar

Four massive shrimp served on a block of grits ($26) were enjoyable, although shrimp described in the menu as “blackened” were not, and grits described as “creamy” fell short of that descriptor. The smoked half-chicken ($26) did deliver crispy skin and smoke-tinged meat, but a larger serving and more juiciness would have made the dish a winner.

Shrimp and grits at Lexington Smokehouse & Bar

Chicken at Lexington Smokehouse and Bar

At this very meaty restaurant — where even a very good wedge salad ($15) with a punchily chile-perked ranch dressing came garnished with delectable bits of pork belly — the vegan option was a casserole ($23) of assorted vegetables (sweet potato, Brussels sprouts, corn, charred onion) with smoked tofu. It was tasty enough, with well-prepared vegetables, although even the vegetarian at our table was underwhelmed by the smoked tofu. 

Wedge salad at Lexington Smokehouse & Bar

Smoked tofu vegetarian main course at Lexington Smokehouse & Bar

An advance scout to Lexington told me to expect great things from its fried chicken. We ordered it in an open-faced sandwich ($16), and it was fine, and had massiveness and some crispness going for it, although the blanket of slaw on top of the chicken obscured some of its merits.

Fried chicken at Lexington Smokehouse & Bar

Excellent side dishes can do a lot to mitigate the shortcomings of main courses. However, we more often than not thought Lexington’s sides tended to the lacklustre. Corn bread was cold and lacked fluffiness. Fries served in a metal cup degraded quickly into mushiness. Coleslaw with a pronounced sweetness was just so-so. Better was the bacon and egg and potato salad, and best was the mac and cheese.

Chocolate banana pudding at Lexington Smokehouse & Bar

Cobbler at Lexington Smokehouse & Bar

In all, Lexington served food that I liked but wanted to like more. For now, the bustling, happy vibe and cocktails and local beers seem like equal or more significant attractions compared to the dishes. Since my standards for barbecue and Southern food are very high, I’ll hope for better, even dazzling fare down the road.

phum@postmedia.com
twitter.com/peterhum
Peter Hum’s restaurant reviews

Antonyme
150 rue Principale, Gatineau (Aylmer sector), 819-557-0523, restaurant-antonyme.ca
Open: Tuesday and Saturday 5 to 10 p.m., Wednesday to Friday 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5 to 10 p.m., Sunday 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5 to 10 p.m., closed Mondays
Prices: tapas $6, small plates around $15, tasting menus $35 and $45 per person
Access: steps to front door, washrooms upstairs

When we first popped into Antonyme last month, we were a batch of folks who were hungry to the point of impatience, confronted by a blackboard listing plenty of tapas and small plates. All of the choices looked good and the prices — $6 a pop for intriguing and even outré-ingredient-laden tapas, $15 for “large tapas” — were even better.

Sometimes you just have to throw up your hands, put your faith in a restaurant, and order one of everything. And so we did.

“That’s smart,” our server said.

While we waited for our food and sipped our craft beers, we thought that it was too bad our travels didn’t take us that frequently to the main drag of Gatineau’s Aylmer sector, where Antonyme and several other newish restaurants are located.

For its part, Antonyme opened in February 2016 in a cosy, two-storey converted heritage home. There’s room for almost 30 or so downstairs at its bar and a few woody tables, and a few more guests can sit in an upstairs room. During my two dinners, the vibe has been relaxed and the service has been engaging, knowledgeable and bilingual — all the better to prime us for the kitchen’s flights of fancy.

Owned by the youthful trio of Spencer St-Jean, Marc-André Camaraire and Richard Martineau (the latter two are in the kitchen), Antonyme pumps out distinctive, from-scratch dishes that attest to culinary creativity and curiosity, industriousness and even improvisation. Here, the menu on that blackboard changes weekly, while three- and five-course blind tasting menus change nightly.

From what I can tell, the kitchen crew has enviable cooking chops, a fondness for spotlighting proteins such as octopus, bison, cured and seared fish, foie gras and sweetbreads, and a seemingly massive mise en place of fastidiously prepared and often pickled vegetables.

When Antonyme’s food worked well, which happened much of the time, the impeccably prepared star of the plate received fine support from secondary ingredients and garnishes, making for a cohesive, memorable dish.

The drawback, I’ve found, of Antonyme’s restlessness and penchant for change has been dishes that felt overly thrown together, which included components that seemed either jarring or extraneous, and which taken cumulatively felt repetitive in terms of techniques and flavours.

Perhaps these are simply dangers for a restaurant determined to resist serving the same old same old or, indeed, its own greatest hits.

At that first visit, most of the nine tapas we ordered were arrayed together haphazardly on a platter. Still, they hit the spot nicely, with seafood in particular standing out. A chunk of pan-fried halibut was perched on a pleasing tomato salsa, and brightened by persimmon with lime and some ground cherry vinaigrette. Mahi mahi was properly cured and accented with a tarragon cream sauce. A clean-tasting ceviche of bass played with marinated pattypan squash, paprika-bolstered cucumber and crisps of fried kale. We scooped up mild, galanga-brightened shrimp tartare with taro chips. Pork cheek, served with roasted potatoes, was good and unctuous. Like a few other dishes, it could have used a bit more salt.

Assorted tapas at Antonyme

A notch less pleasing was the gazpacho, which was a touch too sweet and watery. Mussels came with a laudable white wine cream sauce, but a few were sandy.

We had no complaints though about the larger plates. Tender octopus tentacle was worth a second helping. Morsels of raw tuna benefitted from the company of beet chips and endive’s bitterness. The red-meat lovers at the table homed in on rosy medallions of bison on a bed of diced sweet potatoes and surrounded by sautéed chanterelles, and slices of beef carpaccio bolstered by perky marinated shallots.

Beef carpaccio, bison, octopus at Antonyme

Tuna crudo at Antonyme

A less venturesome eater among us ordered Antonyme’s fish and chips ($19) and pronounced his battered pickerel excellent. The “veggie surprise” dish ($15), probably another choice geared for diners with particular preferences or eating solo, was built around good deep-fried tofu and featured marinated daikon, carrots, sweet potato mousse and more.

Fish and chips at Antonyme

Tofu and veggie surprise at Antonyme

The playfulness at Antonyme extends to the desserts where brownies can be spiked with jalapeño and even black garlic can find its way into an otherwise sweet meal-ender. Let’s just say that regardless, the dessert trio ($15) disappeared quickly.

Dessert trio at Antonyme

On my return visit this month, I saw a blackboard made over with seven new tapas and four small plates, offering everything from duck gizzards to trout tartare to shrimp risotto. Rather than choose, the two of us put ourselves at the mercy of the kitchen and opted for the blind tasting menu.

The five-course food parade began well, with cod gravlax, lightly cured and buttressed by ground cherries and a watermelon salsa that made for a stimulating dish that popped with saltiness and acid. Then, perfectly seared scallops shared their slate with pickled daikon and sweet potato mousse.

Cod gravlax at Antonyme

Scallops at Antonyme

Chunks of foie gras came hidden in a thicket of ingredients that included everything from lotus root chips to celeriac to blue cheese. While its individual elements were basically sound, this dish felt like a madcap hodgepodge.

Foie gras dish at Antonyme

Juicy pieces of veal steak outshone the overload of ingredients underneath, while a generous mound of sweetbreads seemed a bit one-note to me, sautéed but lacking a crisp exterior, glazed instead with a sweet-soya reduction. Served side by side, the two red-meat courses felt like a crowded jumble.

Veal steak, sweetbreads at Antonyme

Given my meals, I’d recommend choosing from Antonyme’s blackboard over the blind tasting. It would be the more conventional way to go, but you’d be guaranteed to get the night’s most appealing items, and you might not feel, as I did, that dinner was too unrestrained.

But even when it’s somewhat slapdash or over the top, the cooking at Antonyme deserves marks for flair, personality and tastiness.

phum@postmedia.com
twitter.com/peterhum
Peter Hum’s restaurant reviews

Norca Restaurant & Bar
30 Daly Ave., on the second floor of Le Germain Hotel Ottawa, 613-691-3218, norcarestaurant.ca
Open: for lunch Monday to Friday 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., for dinner Monday to Saturday 5:30 to 10 p.m.
Prices: small plates $14 to $21, larger plates $25 to $44
Access: elevator to second floor

At Norca Restaurant & Bar, the sleek new restaurant on the second floor of the Le Germain Hotel Ottawa in Sandy Hill, “Northern cuisine, Canadian ingredients” is both the motto and mission behind the name. And yet, in terms of quality and service, if not geography, my recent experiences eating at the three-month-old boutique hotel in Sandy Hill were somewhat all over the map.

Norca is clearly meant to be a fabulous place not just for visitors to Ottawa, but also for local gastronomes. It presents attractive and intriguing (and expensive) dishes that woo with premium and récherché ingredients, technical flourishes and bits of bounty from Canada’s wilderness. Here, for example, sourdough pasta is flavoured with spruce tip extract.

But the “northernness” here seems to me to be less Nordic in the sense of Scandinavian cuisine (although that pasta does also include cultured whey) and closer to “boréale,” which is the adjective of choice in Montreal and Quebec City for restaurants that give wild and local things — be they berries, plants, game or fish — pride of place.

Bits of the ambience at Norca connect too to the natural world. There’s a neutral colour palette to the room and much woodiness, which extends from the tables to the chunks of branches that hold your bill snugly at meal’s end. But Norca is a more posh space than that — or, rather, a collection of smaller spaces, from the long copper bar to the high tops and low tables beside the wall-to-ceiling windows to the more secluded and cushiest-of-all tables surrounded by couches and wraparound chairs.

One admirable, much-appreciated thing about Norca is that even with jazz or groove music playing, it’s not a loud place that makes you strain to hear a conversation.

Running the kitchen at Norca is chef Dominique Dufour, who worked in recent years in Montreal where she got her culinary start, before wanderlust sent her for a decade to cook in Vancouver, Toronto, the Yukon, Spain and the United Kingdom.

My first sampling of Dufour’s food was at lunch, when the food was more conventional but still tweaked. A lamb smoked meat sandwich ($17) was more mild than expected, putting smoke before seasoning, but nonetheless flavourful and interesting. Its salad and thin, well-seasoned, un-oily duck-fat fries were also superior. My friend’s sous vide-cooked beef ($24), however, was an undisclosed cut that, while flavourful, remained tough despite its long warm-water bath.

Lamb smoked meat sandwich at Norca Restaurant & Bar

Sous-vide beef at Norca Restaurant & Bar

The lack of desserts at lunch beyond sorbet and biscotti surprised us. So too did the rather perfunctory service, which lacked the sparkle of the surroundings. Service at dinner was more engaging and knowledgeable.

At dinner, a menu that included six small plates, four larger plates, and a mix of snacks, deluxe platters and family-style dishes pulled out more stops.

First, a playful amuse-bouche kicked off things with a nice surprise. Rather than ruin it completely, I’ll just say there was a splashy, pleasant liquid centre inside a cocoa butter shell.

Amuse bouche at Norca Restaurant and Bar

Thereafter, small plates, larger plates and desserts were heavy on components and manipulations. The best of them wowed but a few fell short.

The consensus at our table was that of four small plates, the composition ($19) built around Delicata squash, foie-gras-slathered morels, other wild mushrooms, savoury gougères (small, Avonlea cheese-enhanced pastries), a beurre blanc foam and even bits of tomatillo was best, providing bite after harmonious bite of novel pleasures.

Foie gras-stuffed morels with squash and gougeres at Norca Restaurant and Bar

A dish that starred well-made crab dumplings ($21) also impressed us, although I thought the sumptuous sweet corn custard, barley miso brown butter and even wisps of fried corn silk were scene-stealers.

Crab dumplings in corn custard at Norca Restaurant & Bar

Two other small plates were likeable, but perhaps fell short of their potential. Zucchini blossoms ($22) were overwhelmed by their lamb stuffings and sheep’s yogurt, although the sumac in the bowl did sing. The Mexican-inspired braised beef cheek starter ($20), served in a smoked corn husk, was just OK, and seemed like less than the sum of interesting parts.

Zucchini blossoms stuffed with lamb at Norca Restaurant & Bar

Beef cheeks small plate at Norca Restaurant & Bar

The larger plate of boneless quail ($27) stuffed with smoked egg yolk and a smooth pork mousseline was excellent and packed with flavour through and through, from its centrepiece to its eggplant purée to the sunflower seed-“dukkah” (a play on a Middle Eastern, nut-based condiment).

Quail main course at Norca Restaurant and Bar

But the seafood dish of lobster, scallop on its shell and a morsel of Humboldt squid ($44), while pretty, disappointed. Its lobster could have been more tender, its scallop was over-salted, its allocation of seafood could have been larger, and its green spätzle was underwhelmingly flavoured and mushy rather than springy.

Lobster, scallop and squid with spatzle at Norca Restaurant and Bar

Better was a platter of striped bass ($49), meant for two, which was right-sized, moist and clean of flavour, with proper potato “scales,” a nice, bright sauce vierge and fried parsley.

Striped bass at Norca Restaurant and Bar

Norca’s desserts raised expectations with their $12 price tags and creative components. While they were thoughtful and sophisticated, they didn’t really deliver. In one dessert, hay ice cream and sumac-compressed cherries hit the spot, but bay-leaf aerated cake was less striking and a brittle tile of oats did not improve on toasted oats. A dessert of dense Genoise cake, clover marshmallow, haskap berry gel, tarragon meringue and candied tarragon didn’t come together and seemed more creative than enjoyable.

Aerated cake with hay ice cream, oatmeal crisp at Norca Restaurant & Bar

Genoise with tarragon meringue, candied tarragon

There were more straightforward pleasures on Norca’s wine list, which stresses natural, organic and Canadian bottles, and groups them according to the impression they make, from “powerful and earthy” or “fruit-forward and refreshing” reds, to “crisp and clean” or “weird and wonderful” whites. Cocktails and mocktails dovetail with the northern theme, featuring the pop of sumac, bee pollen, toasted barley, clover, sorrel, sea buckthorn and more. The craft beer list scours Ontario for almost all of its choices.

A closing gift of maple fudge was sweeter than our desserts. Coffee at Norca is by Nespresso.

The appealing merits of Dufour’s concept and cooking are clear over the course of an evening at Norca. If only the meal’s highs had been more consistent. Consistency, however, should not be out of reach.

phum@postmedia.com
twitter.com/peterhum
Peter Hum’s restaurant reviews

Oat Couture Oatmeal Cafe

1154 Bank St., 613-737-6654, oatcouturecafe.com
Open: 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily
Prices: bowls of oatmeal with toppings $7 to $14
Access: Small step to front door

Until very recently, my assumption that oatmeal is just for breakfast was pretty deeply ingrained.

But in the past two weeks, I’ve had my outlook on porridge rocked by the oddly savoury yet satisfying bowls at Oat Couture Oatmeal Cafe, which opened in the spring in Old Ottawa South.

At this cosy and apparently unique eatery-coffee shop, the menu lists more than a dozen spins on oatmeal, each made with toppings and stirred-in ingredients. Four are designated “mighty,” meaning that they’re free of refined sugars, five are “sweet,” and five more are “savoury,” meaning that everything from bacon to blue cheese to pesto to peanuts could be involved.

We are a long way away from what the 18th century essayist Samuel Johnson had in mind when he wrote that oats were “a grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.”

The cafe was founded by investment manager Brian Montgomery. But it was chef-partner Ben Baird, formerly of the Urban Pear in the Glebe and the Ottawa Streat Gourmet food truck, who concocted such items as the “Kyoto” bowl, made with brisket, shiitake, fresh pineapple and peanuts on oatmeal, with pickled ginger, sesame and green onion stirred in, and the “Eden,” in which oatmeal shares its bowl with chunks of rosemary-poached pear, dried figs, pecans and blue cheese, while the pears’ poaching liquid and pepper have been stirred in.

Kyoto – brisket, peanuts, pineapple on oatmeal at Oat Couture Oatmeal Cafe

Blue cheese, pecans, poached pear on oatmeal at Oat Couture Oatmeal Cafe

Of course, the more conventional bowls are in the majority here and do not raise eyebrows. I’ve enjoyed a bowl made with sliced bananas, blobs of almond butter, dates and coconut and raspberry purée. My wife took a bowl heavy with chia and hemp seeds and liked it a little less, simply because of how much flossing was needed later to remove the seeds from between her teeth. But in general, both bowls were fine, made, like all the bowls here, with comfortingly textured organic, Canadian steel-cut oats that had been prepared in one of the cafe’s three Instant Pots.

The “Lunchbox” at Oat Couture Oatmeal Cafe

The “Woodstock” at Oat Couture Oatmeal Cafe

However — and perhaps this is my apparently dominant preference for more meaty, salty fare asserting itself — it’s the savoury items that would draw me back to the oatmeal cafe.

The most breakfast-y of the savoury bowls here is the “Hangover,” which involves bits of thickly cut bacon, aged cheddar and chunks of apple, plus a significant amount of caramelized onion and thyme stirred in, plus lemon juice and maple syrup. The mix here was a good one, with all of the contrasts playing nicely with one another and the quality of the ingredients apparent. Indeed, you could basically pay these compliments to all of the cafe’s savoury bowls.

The “Hangover” at Oat Couture Cafe

Other bowls treated oatmeal as a more or less neutral element or as a stand-in for some other starch.

The bowl called “Bubba” starred bits of marinated shrimp, playing loosely on shrimp and grits, perhaps, but taking things in a more southwestern direction, with the additions of avocado, cilantro, lime and cumin. My friend who ordered this bowl liked it, but thought it improved as the tender but cold shrimp morsels warmed up from the heat of the oatmeal.

The “Bubba” at Oat Couture Oatmeal Cafe

The “Caprese” was an oatmeal-based mashup of caprese salad and risotto, you might say, with the basil-and-caper pesto that made the oatmeal green making a big impression, along with grape tomatoes, crumbled goat cheese and crisped prosciutto.

“Caprese” at Oat Couture Oatmeal Cafe

My two favourites, though, were the brisket-based “Kyoto” bowl, which got its protein right and zinged with contrasting flavours and textures, and the funkily cheesy and pear-and-pecan enhanced “Eden.” Both of these bowls delivered the most varied mouthfuls and surprised pleasantly with their combinations.

How much oatmeal should you order before you’ve had your fill? I consistently ordered medium-sized bowls ($11 each) and found them right-sized. A friend who ordered a large “Hangover” ($14) could not polish it off for brunch.

Another friend who enjoyed his “Caprese” nonetheless took issue with its price. He felt that there should have been more to his $11 bowl, given that a little more money would have bought a more filling and meatier bowl of ramen or pho, for example. I think it comes down to the value you place on oatmeal.

The cafe also makes oatmeal-based cookies, dog treats, smoothies and granola. It delivers through Uber Eats and Skip the Dishes, but I would prefer the attractive, comforting, well-lit vibe of the place itself, with its brick and pine walls, high ceiling and industrial chairs and table tops. Fun fact: The address was once home to a bank and the bank safe’s door is the coffee bar.

The cafe serves coffee from Little Victories Coffee about a kilometre away in the Glebe, and it’s very good.

Apparently chef Baird at first dismissed the idea of savoury oatmeals when it was put to him, but experimented just the same. We should thank him and the cafe for being so serious about cereal. Ottawa foodies are better off with their provocative porridges.

phum@postmedia.com
twitter.com/peterhum
Peter Hum’s restaurant reviews

Jackson
10 Daly Ave. (in the Ottawa Art Gallery), 613-680-5225, jacksonottawa.com
Open: Monday to Wednesday 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m., Thursday to Saturday 11:30 a.m. to 1 a.m., closed Sunday
Prices: small plates $10 to $19
Access: no steps to front door or washrooms; washrooms are gender-neutral

Veteran Ottawa chef John Leung, whose résumé includes stints cooking at Restaurant E18hteen, Steak and Sushi on Clarence Street, and at the official residence of the British High Commissioner, has some huge incentives to serve beautiful plates at Jackson.

After all, the latest restaurant Leung is cooking for is located just inside the entrance of the new Ottawa Art Gallery, home to the Firestone Collection of Canadian Art, which includes scores of paintings by the restaurant’s namesake, famed Group of Seven artist A.Y. Jackson.

The sleek surroundings at Jackson are meant to blend with the gallery and art beyond it, with diners gathering in a striking space with several storeys of air above it, amid natural tones, chic finishes and amethyst and rose quartz crystals. Sturdy tables and chairs look onto Daly Avenue, while sofas make for a softer, more lounge-y area closer to Jackson’s bar, which runs along its longest wall. It’s a relaxing but refined place to spend time in — arguably about as “New York” as Ottawa gets.

In the last week, I ate twice at Jackson and had small plates made according to a credo of healthy, plant-based eating developed by Leung and his business partner at Jackson, seasoned ByWard Market restaurateur Caroline Gosselin. Some plates were beauts, visually and otherwise, while others had blemishes. Thankfully, the former outnumbered the latter. For what it’s worth, the food was better at a weekend dinner than during a weekday lunch.

Let’s start with the winners at dinner. While three-quarters of Jackson’s 16-item menu, which is in force both at lunch and dinner, are vegetarian- or vegan-friendly, some fish-based options made big impressions.

A slab of trout ($17) was perfectly cooked, crisp of skin with juicy, just-done flesh. The dish’s mound of lentils and watermelon added some heft, and its ring of cilantro chutney added the bite  the trout needed.

Trout with lentils and cilantro chutney at Jackson

Leung offered an equally simple but effective take on tuna ($17), with a half-dozen raw slices topped with a chia dressing and puffed rice, some salt on the side that bolstered the fish nicely, plus a bright salad of cucumber ribbons, perked by pickled ginger and jalapeño. At lunch, though, the salad was out of whack, with too much jalapeño overwhelming our palates. At dinner, the dish was much more balanced — very light on the jalapeño, I was told — and the tuna fans at my table even ordered a second helping.

Tuna at Jackson

Leung put good things on sourdough toast, whether it was crabmeat with lemon aioli ($14) or a mash of avocado with tomato ($11). Both items felt like indulgences.

Crab on sourdough toast at Jackson

Avocado and tomatoes on toast

Meat abstainers should be pleased with Jackson’s smoked tofu ($17), a firm slab of which was not only smoky but also salty and sweet, prettied by branches of broccolini and a puddle of piri piri sauce.

Smoked tofu with broccolini, almonds and piri piri at Jackson

A puff pastry-based flatbread ($15), which Jackson called a tarte flambée but made us think of pissaladière, the Niçoise bread typically topped with caramelized onions, olives and perhaps anchovies. Jackson’s flatbread, topped with onions, olives, chives and crème fraîche, was more low-key of flavour. Because the flatbread is designated a Mealshare item, Jackson donates $1 to that program for every tarte flambée sold, which pays for a simple, healthy meal to a youth in need.

Tarte flambée at Jackson

With other dishes, however, there were enough shortcomings to remind us that the margin of error is smaller with small plates. At my lunch visit, it didn’t take much to make the dishes below seem a little wobbly and even over-priced.

White kimchi ($12) came quickly from Jackson’s kitchen at lunch. But the big bowlful of gently pickled veg was almost all cabbage and green beans, basically devoid of the asparagus mentioned on the menu. There was also so much pickling liquid in the bowl that when its contents were spooned onto sharing plates, the liquid couldn’t help but meld with everything else on the plate, making for a murkier meal.

White kimchi at Jackson

Scallops were the star on the most expensive dish at Jackson ($19). While those three molluscs were fine, a slightly harder sear wouldn’t have hurt them, either. Dragging the dish down more significantly was the ordinariness and even the oiliness of the medley of sunchokes, mushrooms and celery on the plate.

Scallops at Jackson

Jackson’s brussel sprouts plate ($14) appealed with its intriguing mix of halloumi and maple hummus. But the dish didn’t seem fresh off the heat, the taste of the grilled halloumi cheese was verging on burnt, and the serving of sprouts on this small plate seemed very small, perhaps even stingy.

Brussel sprouts at Jackson

Churros ($9) served on a bed of salted caramel with a side-bowl of chili-spiked chocolate was the best item at lunch, even if its interior was on the gooey and underdone side. (At dinner, the doughy dessert was better, if still a touch moist inside.)

Churros at Jackson

Promotional materials for the restaurant say it avoids genetically modified food, supports small family farms and uses organic, artisanal and environmentally friendly products where possible. The goal is to serve “high-vibrational food, locally sourced and globally creative … healthy food to increase a healthy mind, body, spirit and planet,” Jackson’s materials say.

Such progressiveness is in line with the fact that Gosselin, who has worked in Ottawa’s restaurant industry for almost two decades and is a co-owner of Restaurant E18hteen, Sidedoor and the Clarendon Tavern, is a yoga, meditation and ayurveda practitioner. She even teaches free yoga classes at the art gallery.

Appropriate, then, is the restful classical music that plays on Jackson’s sound system on Mondays “to offer a relaxed environment,” according to a press release. We found the lunch-time music more pop-y and even a bit tinny sound-wise, with the fidelity better at the bar than in the front dining area. On a weekend night, when Jackson was packed, the music was louder still and in full groove-and-dance mode.

phum@postmedia.com
twitter.com/peterhum
Peter Hum’s restaurant reviews

Le Clandestin
45 Laval St., 819-921-9727, leclandestin.ca
Open: Tuesday 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Wednesday to Friday 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., Saturday 4 to 9 p.m., closed Sunday and Monday
Prices: mains under $20
Access: steps to front door and walkway to front door is not well-lit, washrooms downstairs

When we went for dinner last week at Le Clandestin in Gatineau’s Hull sector, our amiable, bilingual server was wearing a suspicious-looking red ball cap with small white lettering on it. Was he trying to trigger us? Who did he think he was — Kanye West?

On closer inspection, the slogan on the cap in fact read “Make Gatineau Great Again,” which was not only a bit of a relief but also a sly nod to this tiny, 24-seat eatery’s fanciful style of cooking.

Tucked away on a pedestrian-only strip of Old Hull and open since May 2017, Le Clandestin sends out bowls and plates fully loaded with what chef-owner Eric Duchesne calls New American fare (or “Néo-américain,” as the small menu says). Among the open kitchen’s items are such comforting and even richly indulgent things as fried chicken thighs, pulled pork, grilled cheese sandwiches and mac and cheese.

I’ll suggest that the fare here also has a nouveau québéecois aspect. Look no further than the kitchen’s Martin Picard-esque love of foie gras and its ubiquity of curds, or its fondness for generosity and even excessiveness when it comes to plating and portion sizes.

However you want to call it, the food here was more often than not surprisingly flavourful and well made, and sometimes whimsically over-the-top. Also, Le Clandestin’s filling food was easy on our wallets — everything was under $20.

Le Clandestin was packed during my weekend and mid-week visits, with guests seemingly as enthralled by its impressive beer list, which puts extra emphasis on funky lambic beers, stouts and porters, or its shorter wine list, which favours natural wines.

I’ve found Le Clandestin’s foie gras French toast to be a must-order, eminently shareable starter, made with exceptional elements from bread to foie to sweet, tangy compote to maple-y drizzle. It was also priced like a steal ($13 for two big slabs).

Foie gras French toast at Le Clandestin

Beef carpaccio ($10) was a second strong appetizer, with its toothsome, cleanly seared beef bolstered by bits of old cheddar and a truffle aioli. Fried, breaded balls of pulled pork and curds ($11 for four) might have raised suspicions on paper, but they were as deftly made as they were decadent.

Beef carpaccio at Le Clandestin

Pulled pork and curd balls at Le Clandestin

Main courses were always big and even sloppy, but all met with our approval. One tip, though — we were glad that we shared every plate, and it did occur to us that if one of us had stuck to eating just one item, especially one of Le Clandestin’s bowl-based dishes, it might have felt like too much of a good thing.

Le Clandestin’s mac and cheese ($19) is perhaps its most eye-widening indulgence. Not only was it cheese-y in the extreme, with cheese sauce, old cheddar and curds, but it was also flecked with bits of fatty thick-cut bacon. It was topped with enough cheese, slices of foie and arugula to obscure the noodles below, and the plate on which the casserole rested was spattered with apple butter and hot sauce. I often don’t warm to such excessive, I-dare-you-to-eat-me dishes, but I will say that the four of us tucked into this one with gusto, and wished there had been more when it was gone.

Foie-gras bacon mac and cheese at Le Clandestin

Fried chicken thighs can be ordered on their own here as a starter, but we had their crisp deliciousness in two larger dishes. Three thighs were precariously contained with kimchi, avocado and curds in a tall, fantastical sandwich ($16) that was as tasty as it was unconventional and supported by a side of triple-cooked, dill-flecked fries. More thighs were obscured by a thick dusting of chia seeds on top of a bowl filled with quinoa, avocado and well-prepared, chopped veg and ranch dressing ($16).

Fried chicken sandwich as Le Clandestin

Fried chicken bowl at Le Clandestin

Fried chicken notwithstanding, the bowls, I believe, are meant to be healthier options at Le Clandestin. That would be truer of the seared-tuna-topped bowl ($18), made with glass noodles, avocado, a lemongrass-ginger dressing and a flourish of spicy mayo, and even truer still of the veggie bowl ($15) that starred smoked tofu, nuts, avocado and glass noodles with a sweet-salty Korean-style sauce.

Tuna poke bowl at Le Clandestin, pic by PEter Hum

Veggie bowl at Le Clandestin

Smoked tofu returned in Duchesne’s veggie Reuben sandwich ($15), along with house-made sauerkraut, curds, pickles, fries — tucked in the sandwich — and zingy Russian dressing. While it was plenty on its own, the sandwich came with potato salad on the side.

The veggie Reuben at Le Clandestin

The kitchen served mussels ($18) in a thin but flavourful red curry-coconut milk broth, with fries on the side. The small mussels were OK, but the other plates provided bigger thrills.

Mussels in red-curry-coconut sauce at Le Clandestin

The menu’s single dessert ($9) was a fine one, combining scoops of strawberry frozen yogurt and dark chocolate mousse with cubes of lightly lemony blondies. In keeping with the friendly vibe one night, our server gave me a free splash of a funky, molasses-y dark beer before that dessert landed.

Strawberry frozen yogurt, dark chocolate mousse and lemon blondies at Le Clandestin

As pleasant food- and drink-wise as our visits to Le Clandestin were, there were two downsides.

The first is that the room felt cold until it filled up with other customers.

The other is that the walkway to Le Clandestin needs some lighting to illuminate its catch-you-offguard steps after sundown. Otherwise, it can be treacherous when you leave the restaurant.

Perhaps the darkened entrance suits Le Clandestin’s name, but no foie gras French toast or fried chicken, no matter how good, is worth a broken ankle.

phum@postmedia.com
twitter.com/peterhum

Rangoon Restaurant
634 Somerset St. W., 613-680-8821, rangoonrestaurant.ca
Open: Monday to Thursday 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m., Friday and Saturday 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., Sunday 5 to 10 p.m.
Prices: Most sharable salads $10.95, most sharable dishes under $20
Access: steps to front door, washrooms upstairs

A few years ago, I had a casual, off-duty meal of fish noodle soup and coconut chicken curry at Rangoon Restaurant. My lunch was tasty and even intriguing, and I resolved to return to give the family-run Burmese eatery’s menu a real spin.

I was finally spurred this month to revisit Rangoon when a Thailand-born, food-loving friend said she was making the trip from Toronto to Ottawa in part for her annual dinner at Rangoon. She had developed a taste for Burmese food while working “really, really north” in her homeland, “where there is no phone signal and lots of malaria,” and where dishes by the Burmese minority beguiled her.

My friend even tries to cook Burmese food at home, but says she can’t match the food at Rangoon, which takes its name from the former name of the largest city in Burma, which itself became Myanmar in 1989.

At our dinner, the delicious and even unique dishes by Rangoon’s chef-owner, Ngun Tial, had me kicking myself for not having enjoyed her food again sooner.

When my Toronto friend last ate at Rangoon, which opened in 2010, the restaurant was on Gloucester Street in downtown. It moved in mid-May of this year to Chinatown, taking over the long-vacant space where ZenKitchen had been.

Tial told me that at her old location, dinner business was scant. But in Chinatown, she’s found lunches quiet. Dishearteningly, we were the restaurant’s only eat-in customers the Saturday night we were there.

Maybe there’s just been too much mystery about Rangoon’s food. It is Ottawa’s only Burmese restaurant, and my Thai friend, who keeps track of such things, believes you could count similar restaurants in Canada on one hand.

Misunderstandings and false expectations may be factors. Before my long-ago lunch at Rangoon, I half-expected spicy, pungent food akin to Thai fare. But the flavours favoured in Tial’s food, while deep and satisfying, are less jarring and extreme, and the influences of Indian and Southwestern Chinese cuisines are also felt.

In Tial’s hands, staples such as onion, garlic and ginger work new magic, while more uncommon ingredients such as tangy tamarind, fried chickpeas and even sour but tantalizing fermented tea leaves can be discoveries.

We were pleased to get a selection of Rangoon’s appetizers, salads and soups into our stomachs.

After trying green tea leaf salad ($10.95), I might never want to eat romaine lettuce any other way. Fermented tea leaves added a tinge of bitterness to a savoury dressing that, while novel, was a quickly acquired taste. We appreciated the crunch of not only sesame seeds but also nutty toasted chickpeas.

Green tea leaf salad at Rangoon Restaurant. October 19, 2018.

Ginger salad ($10.95) provided another variation on bitterness, offsetting shredded cabbage with mild pickled ginger and more crunchy components.

Ginger salad at Rangoon restaurant

Green papaya salad ($10.95) differed markedly from its more wet, bracing and pungent Thai equivalent. Rangoon’s dish was more dry, still tasty but more subtly and nuttily so.

Green papaya salad at Rangoon restaurant in Ottawa

While not as overtly flavourful as the salads, “chickpea bites” ($8) as the menu calls them, or paepyarkyaw in Burmese, were light, puffy triangles that were cleanly fried textural marvels, crisp outside but practically melting inside.

Chickpea bites at Rangoon Restaurant. October 19, 2018.

Five of us shared a big bowl of basa fish noodle soup ($11.95), also known as mohinga. At Rangoon, thin rice vermicelli swam in a fishy stock yellowed and thickened by broken down chickpeas. Like other dishes here, this dish doesn’t assault you with big flavours, but there is a depth to it that makes you want more and more.

Mohinga fish soup at Rangoon restaurant

Of more than a dozen main courses — each is served with rice or noodles and vegetables or a la carte for sharing for $3 less per dish — we were thrilled above all by the spice and complexity of rice noodles ($17.95). They were cooked in the style of Southeast Asia’s Shan people, nearly obscured by a blanket of succulent chicken chunks and bolstered by not just a savoury sauce and chilies but also sour pickled mustard leaves, coriander and crunchy sesame seeds. “Mix, mix,” Tial told us when she brought the dish to our table. We did, before making very quick work of this winner.

Shan-style noodles at Rangoon Restaurant. October 19, 2018.

Earlier, Tial had encouraged us to order her coconut chicken ($19.95). It was indeed a crowd-pleaser. I was most struck by the superior texture and flavour of the dish’s white meat, which Tial later told me had been dry-brined for several hours before cooking.

Coconut chicken at Rangoon restaurant

Beef and basil stir-fry ($19.95) was another dish that differed from its Thai cousin. Here, the long-cooked then fried beef was chunky, and its sauce was mild and garlicky.

Beef and basil stir-fry at Rangoon restaurant

Of three vegetarian dishes, we went for spicy chickpeas. While its price ($16.95) seemed like a lot, the dish delivered more rounded and long-lasting flavours than expected.

Spicy chickpeas at Rangoon restaurant

For dessert, we skipped the ice cream and chose Tial’s house-made and dense cassava and coconut cream cake ($5.95), a sweet meal-ender common in Southeast Asia.

Cassava and coconut cream cake at Rangoon restaurant

The restaurant is not licensed. Its premises are less alluring than ZenKitchen’s were. A few wall hangings evoke Burma, and for some, it will be disconcerting that one wall features a massive portrait of Myanmar leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, whose honorary Canadian citizenship was revoked last month because of Myanmar’s Rohingya crisis.

For what it’s worth, Tial and her family were refugees themselves, who came to Ottawa in 1999 after living in India for several years.

If it’s possible to put one’s palate ahead of politics, I’ll say this: I attended Canada’s Great Kitchen Party a few days before I went to Rangoon, and some haute food plates satisfied me less than Tial’s dishes, which for all their homeyness struck me with their savouriness, expert balance and high standards.

I will also mention that when my Thai friend left Rangoon, a very hospitable Tial sent her home with a packet of hard-to-get fermented tea leaves, so that she could try to make that salad, and a hug.

Le Mien
43 William St., 613-421-8882, lemiencraftnoodle.com
Open: Weekdays 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., Saturday and Sunday 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Prices: soups $11 to $15
Access: No steps to front door or washroom

In French, “le mien” means mine. But as is immediately apparent at Le Mien Craft Noodle in the ByWard Market, the words signify something completely different in Chinese.

Allow me to take a liberty or two and translate — Lā in Mandarin means “to pull or stretch.” Miàn means “noodle.”

But you may have already gleaned that by watching Le Mien’s noodle-meisters through the small, narrow eatery’s front window as they speedily transform blobs of well-prepared dough into toothsome noodles of varying thicknesses by pulling, twisting and looping the dough between their flexing arms.

In a transfixing piece of culinary sleight of hand, a Le Mien cook can take less than half a minute to send instantly made noodles from his floured work counter into the massive pot of boiling water to his left.

No wonder Le Mien’s noodle makers have been stationed in its front window since it opened in April, showing off their skills to passersby.

In Ottawa, Le Mien, which went in on William Street where Sash Gelato Café had been, is not first to market with hand-pulled Chinese noodles. The Chinese franchise La Noodle arrived in a less trafficked stretch of the ByWard Market two years ago, and has even spread west to Kanata Centrum and Merivale Road.

But Le Mien, which is not related to La Noodle, has the marketing edge thanks to pure showmanship and location.

So, the skillful display in Le Mien’s open kitchen both entertains and whets the appetite. But how is the food here?

The restaurant specializes fiercely, with its illustrated menu offering five noodle dishes, four of which are soups (three beef-based and one vegetarian). A flip of the page reveals 10 side dishes.

No one should leave here hungry, as the soup bowls, all priced between $11 to $15, are teeming with food and, in the case of a large-sized bowl, gargantuan and probably best shared.

This fall, I’ve tried three of the four beefy (and spicy) soups, and a few of the sides.

Starting with the smaller dishes, I can tell you that all were better than the menu photos led us to expect.

The enigmatically named sea vegetable potato silk ($2.99) was a green and sharable plate of julienned and seemingly lightly pickled potato, mixed with and made more savoury by the seaweed. It was a mild but appealing starter.

Sea vegetable potato silk at Le Mien

The so-called Chinese hamburger ($5.99) was a bit hard to extricate from the basket in which it came. But the pulled and sauced pork on a well-browned flatbread was filling and likeable.

Le Mien Craft Noodle in Ottawa Tuesday Oct 30, 2018. Chinese meat hamburger. Tony Caldwell

The dish of cold noodles with chicken shreds ($12.99) was large enough to be a must-share as a prelude to soup, or a main course on its own. While it looked like a mess in its bowl, and the noodles were long enough to require a pair of scissors to cut them down to size, the dish was potently sauced with indulgently nutty sesame paste and numbing Sichuan peppers.

Cold noodles and shredded chicken at Le Mien

The star soup at Le Mien, which it touted most prominently on the entirety of the menu’s first page, is traditional hand-pulled noodle soup with beef ($11 to $15).

Le Mien Craft Noodle in Ottawa Tuesday Oct 30, 2018. Traditional hand-pulled noodle with beef (Moxi Style) Tony Caldwell

While the menu leaves out details of the soup’s tradition, it seems to me like a spicier, earthier rendition of Lanzhou beef noodle soup, which originated in Northwestern China.

At Le Mien, the noodles were obviously fresh, springy and toothsome. The piping-hot, glasses-fogging broth, reportedly simmered for eight hours, was full-flavoured and meaty, and a good-sized dollop or two of chilli sauce added a jolt of heat. (For the heat-averse, that finishing condiment could also be omitted.) The beef in this soup consisted of fatty but flavourful slices that were more like garnishes.

In all, in terms of daunting size and flavours, Le Mien’s rustic specialty lived up to a friend’s estimate: “This is a big-boy soup,” he said, as a medium-sized bowl landed in front of him.

One variant of the soup was made almost puckeringly sour with the addition of shreds of pickled cabbage ($13.99). Another swapped out the shredded beef for randomly hacked chunks and tendons of beef, all of varying chewinesses.

Beef soup with pickled cabbage at Le Mien

Beef and tendon noodle soup at Le Mien

While Le Mien rightly stresses the craft involved in the creation of its noodles, its beef preparations are much more rustic and less concerned with sophistication or artisanality. Put another way: If the meat in these soups were also fancy, you would certainly be paying a few more dollars per bowl.

Service is quick and to the point. The eatery is not licensed.

The restaurant, which seats about 40 in close proximity to one another, has been close to full during a dinner visit and one of my lunch visits.

With the cooking on display, some pleasant décor, and large artworks of fish along one wall, Le Mien is an interesting place one step up from a hole-in-a-wall.

Lingering, however, is probably discouraged. A visit here is more about being dazzled by the magic of noodle-making, and then filling one’s belly with those noodles before venturing back into the cold.

phum@postmedia.com
twitter.com/peterhum
instrgram.com/peterhum
Peter Hum’s restaurant reviews

DreamLand Cafe
262 Preston St., 613-422-4200, dreamlandcafe.ca
Open: Tuesday to Thursday 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., Friday and Saturday 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., Sunday 5 p.m. to 9 p.m., closed Monday
Prices: pasta dishes $11 to $19; 20 per cent discount for students
Access: steps to front door

The website for DreamLand Cafe proudly proclaims that the tiny, six-month-old eatery on Preston Street makes “the best pasta in Ottawa.” If that claim isn’t a red flag for a restaurant critic to come by and be the judge, then what is?

After two visits in the last week, I’d say that DreamLand goes a little overboard with its boast. But then, who doesn’t, in these hyperbolic times? I can still lavish a lot of praise on DreamLand, including some qualified superlatives.

Calling DreamLand the cutest pasta place in Ottawa is less of a stretch. From its pink exterior to its bright, leafy-wallpapered interior, the cafe treats guests to a youthful, cheery, unpretentious and even feminine vibe.

Kale Caesar salad at Dreamland Cafe.

That’s as you might expect, given the restaurant’s owners are the young sisters Coco and Marlo De Leo. The DreamLand Cafe on Preston Street is, in fact, their second business. In May 2016, they opened the first DreamLand Cafe on Laurier Avenue, a tiny, weekday lunch counter that doles out made-in-house, cooked-to-order pasta in takeout cartons to downtown workers.

The Preston Street eatery is a step or two up from its older downtown sibling. As at the Laurier Avenue DreamLand, fresh pasta is the focus. But the Little Italy DreamLand, a woody place of hard chairs and cushioned banquettes, features full table service for about 20 people. Through the summer, the patio here appealed. Its menu branches out to offer more from-scratch fare including starters, Italian sodas and desserts. The cafe also offers wine and even some cocktails.

My first lunch here began well with a kale Caesar salad ($8.50) that had nice oomph to it, hitting salty, lemony and pungent notes, likely with some anchovy in its dressing. At my second lunch, we split four big, densely packed meatballs ($6.50) in a sauce with good and concentrated tomato flavour.

Meatballs at DreamLand Cafe

Our pastas here have been, if not the best in town, respectable to very good. Given their prices, the bowls of pasta, available in small (but substantial) or large portions and generally cooked a little beyond al dente, could be called the best wallet-friendly pastas in town.

The table’s favourite last Saturday afternoon was a special of squid-ink rigatoni with a butternut squash-purée-meets-alfredo sauce ($16 for a small bowl; all other pasta prices below are also for small bowls). It was simply made but creative, and chock full of the pinging flavours of oregano and chilli peppers.

Squid-ink rigatoni at DreamLand Cafe

The eatery’s vegan dream pasta ($16) also delivered flavourful excitement, as vegan penne served as a backdrop for vegan pesto, roasted red peppers, sun-dried tomatoes, and mushrooms.

Vegan dream pasta at DreamLand Cafe

A bowl of angel hair aglio e olio ($11) worked more minimalist charms with olive oil, garlic, flecks of chilli and anchovies making their presences felt.

Angel hair aglio e olio at DreamLand Cafe

With a bowl of lemon pesto angel hair pasta with shrimp ($16), the sauce’s flavours were bright and clear and the shrimp, while on the smaller side, were toothsome.

Lemon pesto pasta with shrimp at DreamLand Cafe

As soon as it landed on the table, spaghetti carbonara ($16) tempted with its bright blob of egg yolk, ready to be dispersed. The bowl was easy to enjoy, and happily devoid of cream, as per the right way to make carbonara. But the dish could have been still more luxurious, I thought.

Spaghetti carbonara at DreamLand Cafe

Moving a little laterally from pasta, the cafe also serves mugs of mac and cheese. A classic, four-cheese version topped with bacon ($14.75) was as comforting as it needed to be, while a mac and cheese heavy on the goat cheese was tangy and flavourful, with a topping of raw onion for contrast.

Four-cheese mac and cheese with bacon at DreamLand Cafe

Goat cheese mac and cheese at DreamLand Cafe

We ended our first lunch with a slab of tiramisu ($8.50) that was classic, light and creamy, but missing a boozy kick. A miniature ice cream sandwich ($3.50) was suitably chocolatey. At our second lunch, we had what we thought was the winner among DreamLand’s desserts — an admirably light cheesecake with a subtle caramel topping and a layer of spiced pear ($9).

Tiramisu at DreamLand Cafe

Mini chocolate ice cream sandwich at DreamLand Cafe

Caramel spiced pear cheesecake at DreamLand Cafe

Let me finish by rambling further about the notion of the best pasta in town. In the last week, I also ate at a fancier Italian restaurant where the pasta prompted me and my dining companions to ooh and aah at the rich indulgence of it all.

Whether we’d just eaten Ottawa’s best pasta is up for grabs, but those dishes, at a restaurant still to be reviewed, did make me happier than what I ate at DreamLand.

Mind you, at that fancy place, the pasta started at $25 — considerably more than what you’ll pay at DreamLand.

Of course, our expectations scale up and down with the cost of what we eat. But all things considered, even if DreamLand doesn’t serve Ottawa’s best pasta, what it offers in terms of taste, value and ambience is more than good enough.

MORE RESTAURANT REVIEWS:

Dining Out: Le Mien in ByWard Market dazzles with fresh hand-pulled noodles in spicy soup

Dining Out: Rangoon’s Burmese dishes impress with deep and surprising flavours

Dining Out: The secret’s out about indulgent but affordable hole-in-the-wall Le Candestin

phum@postmedia.com
twitter.com/peterhum
instagram.com/peterhum
Peter Hum’s restaurant reviews

Urban Indian Cafe
1910 St. Laurent Blvd. (in the Elmvale Acres Shopping Centre’s parking lot), 613-247-1010, urbanindiancafe.ca
Open: Tuesday to Friday 7 a.m. to 9:30 p.m., Saturday and Sunday noon to 9 p.m., closed Monday
Prices: most main dishes under $15
Access: no steps to front door or washrooms

Ah, the Taj Mahal. “It is truly, stunningly beautiful. The amount of detail on that marble!” said my friend, who has visited the architectural masterpiece in Agra.

We were both moved to ponder the Northern Indian wonder upon viewing a strikingly large mural of the Taj Mahal on the wall at Urban Indian Cafe, a much less majestic eatery in the Elmvale Acres Shopping Centre’s parking lot that opened this spring.

Beyond the almost mesmerizing mural, the decorations at the cafe are minimal — just some placards showing food. The eatery is not licensed, its cutlery and napkins are available by the cash where you order, and service has ranged from minimal to a little brusque. On the whole, it’s not so much a place to linger as a place for a quick meal or getting food to go.

But because the cafe offers some Indian items that strike me as uncommon in Ottawa, including breads, street snacks and breakfast items, and because its prices appealed (nearly all of its items are less than $15), I’ve paid a few visits this month.

There have been pleasant surprises, especially of the bread-y kind, probably significant enough to spark cravings when I’m next in the vicinity. Also on the plus side, portions too have been generous.

But there also have been dishes that were too cold or tasted too much of shortcuts or of too much salt. The menu could also be better organized, to group and highlight items more, especially for curious non-Indian expats. Also, the kitchen could arguably be better stocked, as it’s been out of at least one thing I wanted to try each time I visited.

I can recommend the breads I’ve had here, which were freshly made and emerged hot from the tandoor oven or frying pan.

Beyond commonplace naan breads — which also serve as the wrapping for the cafe’s tandoori wraps — there were many varieties of stuffed breads, including spicy, pliant Amritsari kulcha ($7.95), which was pleasingly packed with a filling of potato and peas and came with a bowl of chickpea curry.

Left, Amritsari Kulcha and right, Kashmiri naan at Urban Indian Cafe

More substantial was the helping of fried bread that came on the platter called chole bhature ($11.95), a Punjabi dish that pairs the bread, or bhatura, principally with a helping of chickpea curry.

Chole Bhature at Urban Indian Cafe

At a mid-morning visit, we enjoyed paratha flatbreads, stuffed with bits of chicken ($8.95) or potato ($6.95) and cut into quarters. During that visit, we also filled up with chicken stuffed omelette sandwiches ($9.95), which struck us as far-flung Western sandwiches at first glance but in fact are a common Indian street food.

Chicken parathas at Urban Indian Cafe

Bread omelette sandwich at Urban Indian Cafe

While the cafe has no desserts per se, the Kashmiri naan ($4.50), loosely stuffed with raisins and flaked coconut, functioned as a meal-ender.

A fantastic shareable starter here was an order of prawn pakora ($11.95), which featured nine of those massive shrimp perfectly deep-fried and encased in a crisp, chickpea-flour batter. If every dish at Urban Indian Cafe was as good, I’d be proclaiming it the hole-in-the-wall of the year.

Prawn pakora at Urban India Cafe

The cafe serves a few kinds of chaat, the Indian street food, including samosa chaat, which involves chopping up the common doughy snack and saucing the morsels with tamarind sauce, yogurt and chickpeas; aloo tikki chaat, which substitutes potato croquettes for the samosas; and chaat papadi, which involves crispy, fried, savoury wafers.

I had high hopes for the chaat, but was let down somewhat at the cafe. Chaat papadi was not available when I twice asked for it, I assume because no papadis had been made. Meanwhile, the very saucy samosa chaat ($7.50) and aloo tikki chaat (6.95) were OK, but would have been better had their samosas and potato croquettes been cooked to order rather than seemingly tepidly reheated.

Samosa chaat at Urban Indian Cafe

Aloo tikki chaat at Urban Indian Cafe

The cafe serves a handful of Hakka (Indo-Chinese) dishes that skew spicy and sour in what’s thought of as an emulation of Sichuan flavours. I took home some chilli chicken ($14.95) and Hakka noodles with chicken ($13.95), and felt they might have been more enjoyable eaten at the cafe; in particular, the breaded chicken in the first dish was simply soggy and overcooked.

Chili Chicken at Urban Indian Cafe

Much, much better was the cafe’s Malai chicken ($17.95), a standout curry of tender chicken in a savoury sauce enriched by onions and ground cashews. Butter chicken, which a friend had as part of his combo meal ($14.95), was respectable but more pedestrian.

Malai chicken at Urban Indian Cafe

Combo meal including butter chicken and chana masala at Urban Indian Cafe

Beef korma ($16.95) was properly rich, spicy and savoury, and a platter of okra ($10.95) was sharply flavoured and properly textured. Vegetable biryani ($11.75) was too salty.

Beef Korma at Urban Indian Cafe

Okra at Urban Indian Cafe

The cafe’s mango lassis, made in advance and stored with the soft drinks, were thick and cheap ($2.95). Among those soft drinks were bottles of Thums Up, the Indian cola. At my breakfast visit, my friend and I each ordered chai tea ($2.25) and received a heaping pot of the stuff.

In all, I’ve had to sort out treats from frustrations at Urban India Cafe, but the effort was worthwhile. It’s an imperfect but interesting place where savvy, informed, patient ordering can ultimately pay off.

phum@postmedia.com
twitter.com/peterhum
Peter Hum’s restaurant reviews

Banh Mi Girl
292 Dalhousie St.
Open: Monday 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., Tuesday to Sunday 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Datsun
380 Elgin St. eatdatsun.ca
Open: Monday to Saturday from 5:30 p.m. till late, closed Sunday

Gongfu Bao
365 Bank St., gongfu.ca
Open: Wednesday to Friday 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5 to 9 p.m., Saturday and Sunday 5 to 9 p.m., closed Monday and Tuesday

I find it hard to believe there aren’t more bao purveyors in Ottawa.

For a decade at least, Chinese steamed buns with fillings of stewed and braised meats have been practically fetishized by the world’s foodies, after Momofuku Noodle Bar in New York — riffing on food that its star chef David Chang ate in Beijing and Manhattan’s Chinatown — sparked the craze in the mid-2000s with its pork belly bao. The British newspaper The Guardian asked Chang in 2010 if his restaurant empire owed its remarkable success to that humble edible. “Oh, yes. I wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for pork belly,” Chang replied.

But in late 2018, there seem to be just three bao-makers in Ottawa, all of which are downtown. Forgive me if I’m missing someone, but my bao count includes just Banh Mi Girl in the ByWard Market, Datsun on Elgin Street, and Gongfu Bao, now on Bank Street but formerly in food-cart form, located downtown, at the Ottawa Farmers’ Market in Westboro and beyond. Have they saturated the market (with pork fat)?

I’ve listed these three places in alphabetical order, but that also happens to be my order of preference.

Banh Mi Girl, a tiny place where four of us almost filled the only table, opened in late summer where the much-loved Mellos diner had been.

When we popped by this fall, the eatery’s pork belly bao and braised beef bao were adequate ($10 for two), but somewhat underwhelming, made with fresh fixings and tender, if too-mild, meats. Here, the buns were of the pre-packaged and nothing-special kind, and they tended to split down their spines before we could finish out bao, making for some potentially messy eating.

Pork belly and beef bao at Banh Mi Girl

Banh Mi at Banh Mi Girl

Maybe I should cut it some slack bao-wise, as its name — which resembles the Toronto-based Asian sandwich shop chain Banh Mi Boys — gives priority to Vietnamese subs. Indeed, I preferred my Saigon banh at Banh Mi Girl to the bao.

During visits in the last week to Datsun, the hip, pan-Asian restaurant that opened in the fall of 2015 at the south end of Elgin Street, I had better bao. A post-Momofuku place that refines its spins on everything from ramen to dan dan noodles to papaya salad to bao, Datsun made us more distinctive, filling-forward buns. But the Datsun buns also had their problems.

The fried chicken in one of Datsun’s steamed buns ($6.50) was admirably crisp and un-oily, but the meat could have been more juicy and flavourful. The massively portioned beef brisket bao ($6.50) is a good choice for heat-lovers, given the heavy seam of fermented chili running through it. But if you had wanted succulent, tasty beef to be the star of the bun, you would have been let down. A pork belly bun ($6.50) was reasonably stuffed, but not that exciting flavour-wise, and worst of all, it was sadly split along its back. Fillings aside, the Datsun buns themselves could have been softer and fluffier.

Datsun’s fried chicken bao

Datsun’s beef brisket bao

Pork belly bao at Datsun (to go)

For buns that are fresh and fluffy on the outside and well-crafted on the inside, Gongfu Bao in Centretown is the place.

Its founder and chef, Tarek Hassan, was first to market in Ottawa with bao when he began selling buns from a food cart beside Confederation Park in the summer of 2013. With the support of an Indiegogo campaign that last year raised more than $21,000, Hassan in August opened his bricks-and-mortar Gongfu Bao shop where the Aziz and Company store had been.

Here, the made-each-day-in-house buns are fresher and fluffier, although Hassan told me after my last meal at Gongfu Bao that he’s had to tweak the recipe as the weather changes so the buns emerge from the steamer with the texture he wants. (Disclosure: Hassan recognized me when I visited because I was a regular years ago when he sold bao on summer Saturday mornings in Westboro.)

Hassan’s attention to not just texture, but also to succulence and flavour profiles were all winningly apparent with the bao (typically $11 for two) that I’ve tried this fall at his Bank Street shop. His fried chicken bao ($12 for two) delivered not just that audible crunch that foreshadows enjoyment but also moist, seasoned meat, bolstered by pepper-salt mayo and a beguiling relish. Well-sauced beef and Shaoxing roast pork buns featured shredded meats with cooked-in flavour. Hassan told me that the cooking process for his beef brisket involves a “master stock” — a carefully maintained stock that is replenished and reused — that imparts extra depth of flavour and complexity over its many uses.

Fried chicken bao and beef brisket bao at Gongfu Bao

Tofu bao at Gongfu Bao

No less than my carnivorous son was pleasantly surprised by the tofu “belly” bao, which riffed flavourfully, if not texturally, on the iconic Momofuku pork belly bao.

Over all, Hassan’s bao have felt like the best designed, best executed and most balanced to me. They’ve been well-calibrated and even thoughtful, and foodies with nut allergies will appreciate that Hassan substitutes soy nuts for the garnish of crushed peanuts that are a danger for so many people.

Hassan also sources his ingredients from small Ontario and Quebec producers, including vegetables from farms such as Roots and Shoots and Jambican Studio Gardens, duck and chicken from Mariposa Farms, pork from Haanover View Farms near Prince Edward County and beef from Wallace Beef Co-op near Kingston.

Other Gongfu Bao items have also won us over. “Turducken” siu mai ($8 for three, available only at dinner) were a playful, tri-poultry take on dim sum dumplings that gained almost pork-y succulence from the addition of ground chicken skin into the stuffing. Other winners included crisp, un-oily taro chips ($5), a refreshing slaw ($5) and “golden mantou” ($4 for four), which made a convincing dessert of deep-fried morsels of bao buns, topped with a coconut dulce de leche sauce.

Turducken siu mai at Gongfu Bao

Taro chips at Gongfu Bao

Beef rice bowl at Gongfu Bao

Golden Mantou dessert at Gongfu Bao

Hassan told me this week that Gongfu Bao has applied for a liquor licence, and he plans to offer local craft beers and ciders, and to even spike house-made sodas with liquor from craft distilleries.

On second thought, maybe Ottawa doesn’t need more bao purveyors — just more outposts of Gongfu Bao.

phum@postmedia.com
twitter.com/peterhum
instagram.com/peterhum
Peter Hum’s restaurant reviews

Amuse Kitchen & Wine
500 Eagleson Rd., 613-880-8883, amusekitchen.ca
Open: Monday to Friday noon to 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. to closing, Saturday 5 p.m. to closing, closed Sunday
Prices: Small plates $17 to $21, large plates $31 to $39
Access: No steps to front door or washrooms

While Kanata South has restaurants aplenty, most of them, from familiar chains to chip trucks to pho shops, satisfy desires for a meal that’s quick and casual. But where’s a foodie to go for something fancier in that suburban neighbourhood? Where is there a place to linger for, say, grilled octopus with chorizo or duck breast with black cherry and brandy compote?

I can recommend the Eagleson Road strip mall that has not only a shawarma joint and a well-established Chinese-Canadian restaurant, but also Amuse Kitchen & Wine.

Two and a half years ago, I was less keen on Amuse, when the then-fledgling restaurant served me a few too many ambitious dishes that struck me as unevenly made. But after two dinners and a recent lunch there, I have a better opinion of chef-owner Josh Gillard’s food. This year, I’ve found more consistency as well as creativity and generosity evident in his kitchen’s work.

This summer, my table enjoyed well-made starters and mains that in some cases featured bright-flavoured accents and Mediterranean or Spanish inspirations. A plate of cleanly battered and fried portobello mushrooms with parsley gremolata, smoked cashews, a perky lemon dressing and a dollop of rich garlic sour cream was tops among appetizers. A beautiful bowl of crab-stuffed arancini was nearly as good — had its lobster bisque been more luxurious and lobster-y, it would have been my favourite.

Mushrooms appetizer, a summer-menu dish at Amuse Kitchen & Wine in Kanata South

Crab arancini, a summer-menu appetizer at Amuse Kitchen & Wine

We were in a red-meat mood that night, and both Gillard’s Dijon- and merguez-crusted lamb rack and hefty “gaucho” steak with chimichurri were smartly conceived, expertly cooked and chock full of flavour. A massive S’mores-inspired creation was filling and skewed, as desserts seem to do here, in a homier, comforting direction.

Lamb chops at Amuse Kitchen & Wine in Kanata South

Gaucho steak at Amuse Kitchen & Wine in Kanata South

S’Mores dessert at Amuse Kitchen & Wine in Kanata South

Last month, we enjoyed our meals at Amuse even more.

Our November dinner kicked off with two on-point seafood appetizers. Plump, lemony shrimp swam in a zippy cocktail-style sauce that had been bolstered by capers, Dijon and anchovy. Even better was a deluxe rendition of salmon tartare, which had superior flavour and mouth-feel thanks to the addition of a sesame-infused crema and smears of chipotle-bolstered tahini.

Shrimp appetizer at Amuse Kitchen & Wine in Kanata South

Salmon tartare at Amuse Kitchen & Wine in Kanata South

Then came main courses of lamb shank and duck breast, both prepared with care to bring out their best and made better still with punchily flavoured accompaniments. The massive lamb shank came in with a slick of sage-y goat cheese and a puddle of concentrated, fermented garlic-infused lamb demi-glace, while the well-seasoned, crisp-skinned duck breast was offset by a deeply flavoured black cherry and brandy compote and its own richly ducky sauce.

Lamb shank at Amuse Kitchen & Wine in Kanata South

Duck breast at Amuse Kitchen & Wine in Kanata South

I usually think “Shortcut!” when various main courses emerge from a kitchen with the same set of vegetables on the side. But that night, the lamb and duck both came with Gillard’s spin on colcannon that mixed mashed potatoes and Brussel sprouts and instead I thought: “More please!”

Dessert that night was a dauntingly large and definitely boozy ice cream sandwich made with chocolate stout cake, marshmallow ice cream and stout caramel. If you guessed that we could not polish it off after the meal’s earlier indulgences, you were right.

Ice cream sandwich at Amuse Kitchen & Wine in Kanata South

At lunch last week, slightly smaller helpings of Gillard’s food were, despite being a little less complex, very satisfying.

A creamy mac and cheese, bolstered by perfect morsels of duck confit and a splash of duck gravy, was a big hit. Tomato soup was fine of flavour, although its shards of prosciutto could have used a good trim. Amuse’s version of chicken and waffles looked lovely and delivered in terms of flavour and crispness, but its boneless breast meat was, as is often the case, on the dry side.

Mac and cheese with duck confit at Amuse Kitchen & Wine in Kanata South

Tomato soup at Amuse Kitchen & Wine in Kanata South

Chicken and waffles at Amuse Kitchen & Wine in Kanata South

Since its early days, the decor at Amuse has remained constant. The narrow but spacious place seats about 30 at blue banquettes along its long walls or on hard seats that would be improved with cushions. Splashy abstract paintings and mirrors hang along the walls and Edison lights dangle from the high ceiling. The music tends to soft remixes of classic rock and pop.

Josh Gillard and his wife Laurie, owners of Amuse Kitchen & Wine

At our visits this year, general manager Eric Murrell has struck just the right note with respect to service. He was attentive without being intrusive, and he knew the ins and outs of Gillard’s detail-rich menus as needed.

That kind of professional but un-snobby representative always helps to soften the blow of a bill that can mount up as it does at Amuse, where a main course can go for the same as a dinner for three at that Chinese-Canadian restaurant a few doors away.

But if you had left home in the first place for a special night out, then you were more likely seeking a premium cut of meat with a distinguished sauce and a memorable glass of wine, all served warmly and in relaxed but classy quarters. If that’s case, Amuse Kitchen & Wine now meets that high bar.

More Peter Hum’s restaurant reviews

Gezellig
337 Richmond Rd., 613-680-9086, gezelligdining.ca
Open: Sunday 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5:30 to 9 p.m.; Monday to Thursday 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5:30 to 9:30 p.m.; Friday and Saturday 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5:30 to 10 p.m.
Prices: Mains $28 to $36, appetizers $10 to $17
Access: No stairs to entrance, wheelchair-accessible washroom on the ground floor, washrooms downstairs

At Gezellig, restaurateur Stephen Beckta’s refined dining room in Westboro, the chefs Katie Ardington and Rich Wilson have been reunited and the food is so good.

They worked together about five years ago, when Ardington ran the kitchen at Beckta’s eponymous flagship restaurant downtown and Wilson was her sous chef. Eventually, each of them moved on. Wilson soon left to cook and co-own Segue in the Glebe, which became Pomeroy House. In early 2017, Ardington went to cook for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his family.

But this year, both accomplished chefs returned to the Beckta fold. In the spring, Ardington stepped in as executive chef at all three of Beckta’s restaurants after Michael Moffatt left to become managing partner at the catering and prepared foods company Thyme & Again. Pomeroy House closed this summer after three years and innumerable excellent plates, and Wilson this fall landed at Gezellig where he is its chef.

“We are thrilled to have Rich working with us again after the sad closing of Pomeroy House,” Beckta said in an email interview. He added that Wilson’s wife, Lindsay Gordon, who was the general manager at Pomeroy House, now manages Play Food & Wine, his small plates restaurant in the ByWard Market.

“Rich and I have a lot of history together,” Ardington said. “We have a lot of similar ideas and (the) same palate, so it is easy to come up with a menu that we love.” Wilson does most of the initial drafting of menus, and then Ardington and he collaborate to finalize them, she said.

Because I hadn’t eaten at Gezellig since it opened six years ago, and because I enjoyed Wilson’s food so much at Pomeroy House, I figured it was high time to eat again at the restaurant to see if it lived up to its name, which means “convivial, cosy, or nice atmosphere but also belonging, general togetherness, or time spent with loved ones” in Dutch, as per Beckta’s background.

Last month, four of us had a dinner at Gezellig that was filled with very assured, expertly conceived and well-executed food. Combine those culinary satisfactions with the spacious elegance of Gezellig’s welcoming, high-ceiling space and the classy but relaxed service that’s synonymous with a Beckta restaurant and you have all the justification you need for your special dinner’s premium price tag.

(For what it’s worth, when Gezellig opened in 2012, its most expensive main course was $28 — which is now the cost of its cheapest main. Then, the food under chef Che Chartrand, who in this game of musical aprons has replaced Ardington as the prime minister’s cook, was also a little homier, and more diverse in terms of flavour profiles and influences.)

From Gezellig’s offering of seven starters, we picked four that impressed with the precise cooking of their proteins and garnishes and sauces that truly sang.

At this fall’s Ottawa edition of cooking competition Canada’s Great Kitchen Party, Wilson served an interesting tartare of Humboldt squid, a jumbo West Coast cephalopod that’s increasing turning up on restaurant plates. I liked even more Gezellig’s Humboldt squid tempura, with its clean flavour and texture and appropriately Asian accompaniments including a miso mayo that packed a flavour punch.

Humboldt Squid with Miso Mayo, Ponzu, Sesame and Scallions at Gezellig

The fish cake won us over for similar reasons. We enjoyed its panko-crusted goodness and the bracing hit of its pickled ramp tartar.

Fish cake at Gezellig

For me, gnocchi are above all about lightness, especially when I’m more accustomed to encountering leaden and even rubbery specimens while on my rounds. Gezellig’s gnocchi were cloud-like and brightly flavoured with lemony crème fraîche and a horseradish gremolata. The cube of pork belly was dauntingly sized and careful cooking, elevating the humble cut above the sloppiness and fattiness other kitchens are content to serve.

Gnocchi with smoked mackerel at Gezellig

Pork belly at Gezellig

Among our main courses, I thought most highly of the superbly roasted half game hen, perched on a finely tuned celeriac purée and blessed with an excess of jus worthy of bread and sopping.

Roasted game hen at Gezellig

Tucked under a blanket of frisée lettuce, a slab of grilled rainbow trout needed to emerge from hiding. You could then sense equally skilled hands responsible for its spot-on cooking. With it came plate’s Niçoise salad-like accoutrements — fingerling potatoes, green and yellow beans, Kalamata olives — and a perky gribiche sauce.

Trout main course at Gezellig

The menu’s only vegetarian main, as opposed to six meaty options, was a deluxe Asian-themed arrangement of mushrooms including grilled maitake and King eryngii, pickled chanterelles, mushroom-stuffed gyoza dumplings in a mushroom demi-glaze.

Mushrooms main course at Gezellig

The most hefty main was a thick and sprawling pork chop, which, while tasty, could have done more to live up to its jerk-spice designation. Granted, our server was right on the money when she told us beforehand that the dish — and for that matter, none of the dishes at Gezellig — are all that brusquely or potently spiced. But given the sharpness of even run-of-the-mill jerk seasoning, I thought the gentility of Gezellig’s jerk pork, while refined, also arguably missed the point.

Jerk pork chop at Gezellig

Desserts, however, were big on flavour as they combined comfort and craft. I could eat the streusel-y Dutch apple pie from Gezellig every day, and not because it comes with a scoop of whisky gelato. The so-called “butterfinger” dessert was densely chocolatey and peanut butter-y and hits its sweet note without reservation.

Streusel with Whiskey Gelato with Roasted Apple and Lemon Custard at Gezellig

Butterfingers dessert at Gezellig

In its six years, Gezellig, like most restaurants that aren’t owned by chefs, has seen the bosses of their kitchens come and go. Although I’ve not been to Gezellig during the time between my reviews, I can only guess that the restaurant’s true constant would have been the leadership of Beckta and Moffatt. Now, with the return of Beckta alumni Ardington and Wilson, Gezellig could have a golden run ahead of it.

phum@postmedia.com
twitter.com/peterhum
instagram.com/peterhum

Related

• More restaurant reviews by Peter Hum
• Glebe restaurant Pomeroy House closes after three years
• Chef Yannick LaSalle of Les Fougères prevails at the Ottawa edition of the Canada's Great Kitchen Party competition

Lobster Noodle House
947 Somerset St. W., 613-233-1275, facebook.com/lobsternoodlehouse/
Open: Daily from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Prices: most dishes without lobster under $15, most lobster dishes $20 to $35
Access: steps to dining room

Sorry, ramen lovers. If Ottawa has a municipal soup of honour, it’s got to be pho. In the last three decades, the humble Vietnamese meal in a bowl has grown from a Chinatown secret to a familiar, comforting, beefy presence in strip malls from Orléans to Barrhaven to Kanata.

How, then, is a new pho eatery in Ottawa to stand out?

The one-word answer: lobster.

At Lobster Noodle House, which opened this fall on Somerset Street West just west of Preston Street, the luxurious crustacean pops in several specialties, from appetizers to noodle stir-fries to a gargantuan and expensive bowl of pho that emerges from the kitchen ready for its Instagram close-up.

On its Facebook page, the eatery touts that its namesake soup is the only lobster pho offered in Ontario — which prompts the question: where else can you get lobster pho? My cursory online search turned up mentions of the dish — in North America, anyway — at restaurants in Calgary, Dallas, Las Vegas, Maine and Maryland.

None of those restaurants feature the word “lobster” in their name. At the very least, then, Lobster Noodle House deserves kudos for going all-in on its concept, in advance of any global hype for lobster pho. If the dish catches on — as Houston-based Viet-Cajun crawfish notably has in the American south — then Lobster Noodle House will certainly be one of its pioneers.

Related

• More restaurant reviews by Peter Hum
• Hungry in H-town: Peter Hum on Viet-Cajun cuisine and other delights in Texas's largest city

In other respects, Lobster Noodle House is just as modest as other pho joints on Somerset Street West, perhaps even more so. Its dining room, which seats about 40, is a spartan space of white walls and floors and grey tables. Pop music plays on the sound system. The restaurant is not licensed. Nor does it serve any desserts or even Vietnamese coffee.

All the better, perhaps, so as not to distract you from that extra-large bowl of soup that appears to have a whole lobster scuttling out of it ($35; a half-lobster bowl is available for $20). A friend and I split one for lunch last week and it was a good and memorable, if not stellar, meal.

The bowl arrived at our table with not only garnishes but also one lobster cracker and a handful of Wet-Naps. The lobster’s claws and back had been pre-cracked and even scissored, but still, we could have used a second cracker and even some bibs, as wrestling with a whole lobster sitting in broth necessarily involves some splashing. But the extra effort was worth it to extricate heaps of tender claw and tail meat. (Pro tip: you can nicely substitute a chopstick for a lobster pick.)

Lobster pho at Lobster Noodle House

We did wonder if the lobster would have been even better if we’d been able to de-shell it more quickly so that it didn’t cook further in the broth. For what it’s worth, I’ll note that for the $35 lobster pho at Lime Bar & Kitchen in Irving, Texas, as well as the $18.80 satay lobster soup at Saigon Maxim in Calgary, the kitchen has done some or all of the de-shelling.

One thing that Lobster Noodle House definitely gets right is its choice of condiment for its lobster pho. While my friend at lunch was of the opinion that lobster exists as a conduit for garlic butter, Lobster Noodle House provided a more culturally appropriate condiment — a small, shallow bowl of salt, pepper and lime juice. Typically used to bolster Vietnamese and Cambodian beef, poached chicken or crab dishes, the zesty dipping sauce took our enjoyment of lobster to a new level.

As for the rest of the bowl, it brimmed with a dauntingly large mound of rice noodles, toothsome shrimp and mussels, wedges of corn on the cob, a poached egg, and a few pieces of house-made shrimp cake. These generous offerings were submerged in with what was arguably over-billed as lobster broth — it struck me as a more neutral or chicken-y and salty broth, perhaps with a bit of a lobster infusion to it.

Compared to the lobster pho, other dishes at Lobster Noodle House were, unsurprisingly, anti-climactic.

Lobster claws in tempura ($12 for up to a half-dozen) — served with a mildly spicy mayo but arguably better with that lime-pepper dipping sauce — were not in fact tempura-battered, but instead Panko-coated before they were fried. Larger claws were more succulent than smaller, chewier specimens and seemed like a reasonable indulgence.

Lobster claws tempura at Lobster Dining House

Less good were the lobster rice rolls ($7 for two). They were sufficiently meaty, but seemed under-seasoned, and it’s possible that the fallback sauce for such rolls, which is thick and peanut-y, lays it on a bit thick for lobster.

Lobster rice rolls at Lobster Noodle House

Lobster pad Thai ($20) was adequately lobster-y, but its noodles seemed to miss the sour-sweet-pungent flavour punch that I want from pad Thai.

Lobster pad Thai at Lobster Noodle House

The restaurant also serves a range of lobster-free pho-house favourites including more than a dozen appetizers, beef and chicken pho, vermicelli, rice dishes and more.

Lobster Noodle House’s bowls of beef pho that we sampled — a spicy bun bo Hue ($15) with slices of shank and a knobbly chunk of beef rib, a more standard bowl of pho bo ($10 for a small bowl) with rare beef and pieces of brisket — were just fine, and blessed with beefy broths that had depth of flavour.

A small bowl of pho with rare beef and brisket at Lobster Noodle House

Bun bo at Lobster Noodle House

A vermicelli bowl ($11.50) was adequate. Its grilled pork had some char and cooked-in flavour, and its vegetarian spring rolls were fresh and crisp.

Vermicelli with grilled pork and spring rolls at Lobster Noodle House

Still, Lobster Noodle House strikes me as place that should appeal most to lobster lovers, and then to lovers of Vietnamese food. If you’re willing to shell out the extra dollars and wrestle the animal’s meat from its carapace, you’ll be nicely rewarded. Just remember that it’s BYO-bib.

phum@postmedia.com
twitter.com/peterhum
instagram.com/peterhum
Peter Hum’s restaurant reviews

Assayyed Restaurant
1638 Bank St., 613-733-4343, assayyed.com
Open: Tuesday to Saturday 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., Sunday 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., closed Monday
Prices: steaks $24.95 to $44.95
Access: small ramp to front door

The 3.5-kilometre stretch of southern Bank Street between Heron Avenue and Hunt Club Road is dotted with Middle Eastern food businesses selling everything from shawarma to kebabs to groceries to specialty breads. But only at Assayyed Restaurant can you get a halal-approved aged ribeye steak that aspires to steakhouse greatness.

Opened in the fall of 2016, Assayyed is the latest in a succession of freestanding casual restaurants at 1638 Bank St., which have included a doughnut shop, a fish-and-chips franchise, and, a few years ago, a modern Lebanese eatery called Caveau Méditerranéen. That now-shuttered restaurant was a bit of a find, I thought, and I hoped for the same kind of surprisingly good eating when I tried Assayyed this month.

A dinner and two lunches there later, I think that chef-owner Moe Hachem — who does indeed resemble the toque-toting chef whose sketch adorns Assayyed’s large, diverse and photo-packed menu — turns out some reasonably good and budget-friendly grilled meat dishes and even a fine grilled whole fish. Other dishes, however, did leave us less impressed.

The restaurant feels more cluttered than it did when it was home to Caveau Mediterranéen. It is still a collection of booths that nod to the property’s doughnut-shop days, plus a sunny, north-facing atrium that was popular with large family gatherings when I’ve visited. There’s still a lot of stonework on its walls, plus a large aquarium by its entrance. Large-screen TVs are now tuned to CBC News Network. There’s also now a shawarma counter housed within the restaurant, because selling shawarma and gyros are part of the eatery’s business model.

But we’ve been happiest with some of Assayyed’s more ambitious dishes that set it apart from its neighbours. Above all, there was a superbly grilled moist whole sea bass ($24.95). While de-skinning and de-boning was required, the reward of moist fish, bolstered by a garlicky tahini-based sauce, was worth it.

Grilled sea bass at Assayyed Restaurant

Assayyed’s 16-ounce ribeye steak ($33.95) was thinner than its peers at standard steakhouses. But it was notably well-seasoned and grilled to attain a proper char-y crosshatching and an interior that blushed with medium-rare goodness. The kitchen achieved a similar feat with lamb ($33.95) that was tender and flavour-packed.

Ribeye steak at Assayyed Restaurant

Rack of lamb at Assayyed Restaurant

These two red-meat dishes came with fully loaded gravy boats, even if the stars on their respective plates didn’t need their sludgy, thickened contents. Better were the rice and crisp, crusted fries, the grilled breads, the abundance of roasted veg and the salads that made those plates so generously portioned.

The burger man at our table ordered the intimidatingly named “gourmand burger” ($16.95), which Assayyed’s menu says was “35 per cent fat.” It was enjoyable, but fell short of the epicurean hedonism that had been hinted at, in part because the beef bacon that was promised on the menu was absent. The teenager at our table liked the look of the fajita sandwich ($14.95) on the menu, but was let down by its dry chicken.

Gourmand burger at Assayyed Restaurant

Fajita sandwich at Assayyed Restaurant

At my lunch visit last week, there were similar stumbles. Best was the chicken shish taouk ($15.95), although its white meat too was on the dry side. A filet mignon brochette ($20.95) ordered medium rare was closer to raw inside. After Hachem, who was working as our server and, I assume, our cook, took it back to the kitchen and gave it more time on the grill, the beef was much better. Veal ribs ($20.95) were too gristly and slathered in a pomegranate sauce that verged on cloying.

Chicken Shish Taouk at Assayyed Restaurant

Beef brochette at Assayyed Restaurant

Veal ribs with pomegranate sauce

On weekends, Assayyed offers Middle Eastern breakfast items. I was keen to give some of those a try because at other Ottawa venues the yogurt- and hummus-based dishes more often than not have won me over.

We steered clear of Assayyed’s more adventurous breakfast choices — raw lamb liver, sautéed heart, liver and kidney, fatteh (a dish of yogurt, chickpeas and toasted pita bread) topped with a lamb’s foot — and took comfort instead in the cold, meat-free fatteh ($12.95), fine zaatar-crusted bread ($4.95) and Ras-Asfoor tenderloin ($19.95), which nestled succulent chunks of beef in a ring of nut-flecked, dense and lemony hummus.

Fatteh with yogurt at Assayyed Restaurant

Mixed foul with beans at Assayyed Restaurant

Hummus with beef tenderloin at Assayyed Restaurant

Zaatar bread at Assayyed Restaurant

The restaurant’s dessert choices were limited to a thick saffron pudding ($5.95) made in-house and Lebanese baklava with a creamy filling is brought in. The restaurant doesn’t serve alcohol.

Saffron pudding at Assayyed Restaurant

Some would say that without serving wine, Assayyed can hardly provide a full steakhouse experience. But shouldn’t Muslim steak-lovers be afforded their own, halal-approved interpretation of ribeyes, t-bones and even porterhouses?

Yes, Assayyed lacks in posh ambience and its food was inconsistent. But it did succeed in offering a few commendable upscale dishes at a fraction of the price charged for comparable items at ByWard Market restaurants. It’s in that light that modesty becomes the eatery.

Related

• More restaurant reviews by Peter Hum
• Review: Hidden gem SemSem serves special, savoury Middle Eastern breads, breakfasts
• Review: Centrale Bergham's sandwiches are massively meaty and bemusingly multicultural

phum@postmedia.com
twitter.com/peterhum
instagram.com/peterhum

Jasper
18 Beechwood Ave. 613-747-3456, jasperottawa.com
Open: Monday and Tuesday 4 p.m. to 1 a.m., Wednesday to Friday 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. to 1 a.m., Saturday 10 a.m. to midnight, Sunday 10 a.m. to 1 a.m.
Prices: small plates $6 to $21, mains $16 to $49
Access: wheelchair ramp to front door

It takes a certain amount of chutzpah for chefs to make their restaurants synonymous with themselves. Think of star chef Daniel Boulud with his New York restaurants Daniel and Café Boulud. In Ottawa some years ago, chef John Taylor made a point of rebranding Domus Café as John Taylor at Domus Café.

Now, in New Edinburgh, we have the recently opened restaurant Jasper, which prompts the question, “Jasper, who?”

It turns out that the restaurant’s name alludes to its chef and co-owner, Gabe Roberge, whose middle name is Jasper. You could be forgiven for asking at this point, “Gabe Roberge, who?” But Jasper, the chef, may well be poised to make a name for himself through Jasper, the restaurant.

Roberge is just 20, and essentially self-taught when it comes to cooking. He has worked in the kitchens of El Camino, Oz Kafe and Sidedoor, and he oversaw the food at Tavern on the Hill, which opened in 2017 and became known for its gourmet hot dogs. Tavern on the Hill’s owner is Ottawa entrepreneur Andre Schad, who is a partner with Roberge in Jasper.

Schad and Roberge opened the restaurant in early November, in the space where the Beechwood Gastropub had been before it shut down last August. 

Like the gastropub, Jasper stresses a from-scratch, farm-to-table approach to Canadian-inspired small plates and heartier fare. (“Jasper,” then, also refers to the quintessentially Canadian outdoors of Jasper in Alberta, Roberge said last week.) Roberge also considers himself a keen experimenter in the kitchen, and the evidence can be seen and tasted in trendy transformations such as gels, powders and foams that appear on plates. Roberge also seems interested in Nordic and boreal touches, such as wild moss in the beef tartare or a pine branch beside the scallops.

The most immediate difference between Jasper and its predecessor has to do with a new, brighter look and feel. It’s striking what mustard-y banquettes and walls, an infusion of chandeliers, and some strategically placed bundles of herbs and jars of pickled goods have done to the dining room, which otherwise has retained its length of barn board along its longest wall, opposite its TV screen-equipped bar.

In addition to being brighter, the room also struck us as louder — at least during our Friday happy-hour visit last month when the room’s front half was packed. If you want to converse without straining at Jasper, you will hopefully encounter less of a ruckus there. We even found that the din that night got in the way of our efforts to take in all of the stimulations of Roberge’s ambitious cooking, such as the subtle aromas of atomized thyme.

We’ve eaten most of the items on Roberge’s menu. A common thread has been the thoughtfulness of all his dishes in terms of their components and presentation. When Roberge got everything on a plate working, his successes delivered big satisfactions.

But other dishes were more unevenly crafted or less impressive than the menu’s descriptions made them out to be. Those lapses were all the more irksome because the prices at Jasper can seem high.

What worked best for us at Jasper? We couldn’t fault warm, simple rounds of bannock flatbread ($4 for four), topped with bacon-enriched butter. The kitchen’s cauliflower dish ($20), while a little small to fit the bill as a vegetarian main course, packed a main’s worth of flavours, from the smokiness Roberge added to the florets to the earthiness of the dish’s cashew smear to the bracing brightness of some acidic greens and the dusting of nutritional yeast on the plate.

Bannock with bacon butter at Jasper

Sage smoked cauliflower at Jasper restaurant

For the menu’s heftiest prices, Jasper’s meatiest and most filling dishes — some slide-off-the-bone wild boar ribs ($35) and slabs of ribeye steak ($49) from O’Brien Farms near Greely — were tender, flavourful and well-sauced.

Ribeye steak at Jasper

Wild boar ribs at Jasper

Two sandwiches — a lobster roll ($16) and a two-patty, nicely crusted “smash” burger ($19) — were ample and well-made. Their fries on the side, however, were more ordinary.

Smash burger at Jasper

Lobster roll at Jasper

There was a similar shortcoming with otherwise well-made beef tartare ($21), in that the plate’s “ketchup chips” were just oily and soggy, and not much good for picking up the meat on the plate.

Beef tartare at Jasper

Two other small plates — one that featured too-few slices of smoked duck breast ($15) and another built around seared scallops ($19) — featured well-prepared main elements that pointed to aptitudes in the kitchen, while récherché additions such as sea asparagus powder and pickled sea asparagus with the scallops, and arugula emulsion with the duck, added interest. That said, these creations were also a little haphazardly plated and too casually made. The wild rice porridge with the scallops had just slipped into mushiness, for example.

Duck breast small plate at Jasper

Scallops at Jasper

Perhaps the best-looking of Roberge’s dishes was his salmon main course ($23), with its artfully arranged, multi-coloured blobs of various vegetable purées. But too much of the food on the plate struck us as under-seasoned — and even jarringly so, given how closer to the mark other dishes were in that department.

Salmon at Jasper

If only Roberge’s “silly chicken” dish ($27) had been as pleasing as it was whimsical. Its white meat was too dry, while the foie gras tucked into the dish had less impact than a luxury item should have had.

“Silly chicken” at Jasper

Desserts here were more homey than the plates that had preceded them, ending meals on simple, memorable notes. A citrus-poached pear ($9) was toothsome and refreshing, although the candied nuts were over-sugared and a little clunky. A tart of haskap berry jam and caramel ($11) was small but potent, and it made bit players of the chocolate mousse and macaron on the dish. Sugar pie ($11) topped with raspberry jam was fine, although the foie gras that we were told had been worked into the crust scarcely registered for us.

Poached pear at Jasper

Haskap caramel tart at Jasper

Sugar Pie at Jasper

The drinks menu gives top billing to creative cocktails starting at $14 and eight craft beers on tap.

For all the niggles above, the overall impression I have of Jasper remains a positive one. Roberge is an evident talent, and I liked the vision and creativity that he brings to his food. While there are some kinks to iron out, with some good luck and business, Jasper will hopefully afford its namesake the opportunity to fulfill his potential.

Related

• Acclaimed young chef to close her restaurant, the Beechwood Gastropub
• Peter Hum's restaurant reviews
• Peter Hum's best bites of 2018

phum@postmedia.com
twitter.com/peterhum

J:unique Kitchen
381 Cooper St., 613-234-8877, facebook.com/juniquekitchen
Open: Tuesday to Sunday 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and 5 to 9 p.m., closed Monday
Prices: special sushi rolls $11.95 to $21.95, noodle dishes $14.95-$18.95
Access: several steps to front door

Before a proper baked Alaska hits your table, it should be doused with dark rum and lit on fire to set its admirers oohing and aahing. Bananas Foster, crèpes Suzette, and, on the savoury side, steak Diane would also be just as incomplete without a flaming finish.

But sushi?

At J:unique Kitchen, which opened Nov. 20 in Centretown, several of its myriad sushi preparations arrive with a side order of fire. Flanked by vividly burning tempura crumbs, the “fire dragon roll” would otherwise, I guess, be misnamed. At dinner last week, the special roll called “Gozila bite” caught us off-guard with its pupu platter-like, flaming centrepiece.

Fire Dragon Roll at J:unique Kitchen

“Gozila bites” at J:unique Kitchen

These attention-grabbing dishes, perfect for the Instagram generation, are just part of the allure at this narrow, minimalist, woody place that seats fewer than 30 people, including three at its sushi bar.

J:unique also serves such standard Japanese fare as teriyaki, yakisoba and ramen, as well as the usual raw fish preparations, plus appetizers to nibble on. But the menu gives pride of place to creatively constructed sushi rolls that are typically massive, assertively sauced, and, over all, styled to make eyes pop — even without a flaming component.

The menu also flags J:unique’s oshi sushi — a variant known elsewhere as pressed sushi, box sushi, or battera, which is made by placing ingredients into a box and pressing down on them — as well as “aburi sushi,” which is distinguished by a bit of torching on top.

Some Googling suggests that Vancouver’s sushi scene lays claim to popularizing, if not quite creating, oshi sushi and aburi sushi out West. J:unique’s chef-owner, James Park, was a sushi chef in Vancouver for almost 10 years before he and his wife moved to Ottawa last May, and J:unique touts itself online for bringing “Vancouver-style sushi” to Ottawa.

Now, a stickler might note that aburi or oshi sushi were already available, if not stressed, at the established sushi eateries Sushi 88 in Chinatown and the two Soul Stone locations in Orléans, if not elsewhere in Ottawa.

But the more important point is that J:unique’s sushi — whether unadorned for purists, elaborately accompanied and sauced for North American tastes, or torched — was usually quite well-made and generously portioned.

I should confess that after being wowed by sashimi at several high-end New York restaurants, raw fish in Ottawa rarely impresses me that much. Still, I thought favourably of J:unique’s fresh, plump sashimi and nigiri that were part of its “mega lunch set” one afternoon. It’s also been heartening to see that J:unique serves premium choices such as tuna belly and spot prawn.

Mega lunch set at J:Unique Kitchen

Of J:unique’s 26 special rolls, we tried four of the apparently more elaborate, over-sized constructions — the big boss ($16.95), beef tataki ($16.95), fire dragon ($21.95) and Gozila bite ($19.95).

The danger of such “more-is-more” rolls is that if poorly made, they can slip over into confusing and sloppy eating. J:unique’s examples, however, usually worked for us. Showiness aside, the fire dragon, with its much-larger-than-a-mouthful rolls, made sense when you took it apart and savoured it well-sauced unagi before digging into its real crab-meat-rich interior. The Gozila bite satisfied with layers of torched, sauced tuna, salmon and scallop on a bed of deep-fried rice and seaweed.

Once you got past the blanket of fried julienned sweet potato, the imposingly large big boss teemed with crab, avocado, chopped tuna and deep-fried prawn. Beef tataki was more crab than beef, but still enjoyable.

Big Boss Roll at J:unique Kitchen

Beef tataki roll at J:unique Kitchen

The less extravagant spicy “chop scallop roll” ($9.95) tasted sweet and then spicy, but less so of scallop. Next time, I’d order the un-spicy “chop scallop roll.”

Spicy scallop roll at J:unique Kitchen

Among our favourites were the aburi and oshi sushi samples we tried. Salmon tartare oshi sushi ($18.95) pleasingly melded cooked and raw fish, and its rice was spot-on texturally. Torched toro (albacore tuna belly) and salmon belly (each $4.95 a piece) were fatty-good while the spot and tiger prawns (also $4.95 a piece) were pristine and tasty.

Pressed salmon sushi at J:unique Kitchen

Assorted aburi sushi (from left: spot prawn, salmon belly, tuna, tiger prawn) at J:unique Kitchen, pic by Peter Hum

Well-filled beef gyoza, shrimp and vegetable tempura and bits of chicken karaage all emerged from the kitchen’s deep-fryer cleanly made and unoily. But chicken yakisoba ($16.95), while tasty, was oilier than it needed to be.

Beef gyoza at J:unique Kitchen

Assorted tempura at J:unique Kitchen

Not one to miss out on ramen fever in Ottawa, J:unique serves three kinds of the popular Japanese noodle soup — porky tonkotsu, a miso-enriched bowl, and shoyu ramen, flavoured with soy. A bowl of tonkotsu ramen spoke well of the kitchen’s ramen talents. Its broth was sufficiently hefty and clean-flavoured, its noodles had some spring, and its pork belly and generous garnishes had been prepared with evident care, down to bits of sweetly cooked shiitake mushroom. Plus, the soup came with a small California roll and either gyoza or chicken karaage. Those bonus items make J:unique’s ramen a stomach-filling steal at $14.95.

Tonkotsu ramen, chicken karage and California roll combo at J:unique Kitchen

Service here has been brisk and personable, and we liked the hot towels that have come at the beginning of our meals for hand-cleaning. We liked less the cleaning of other tables with a strong-smelling cleanser while we were there.

The restaurant does not serve desserts beyond some complimentary frozen grapes.

J:unique’s liquor licence application is pending. If it comes through, I would just advise that you keep any flammable spirits away from open flames.

phum@postmedia.com
twitter.com/peterhum