Capital City Smokehouse & Restaurant
2900 Woodroffe Ave., 613-627-3227, capitalcitysmokehouse.com
Open: Monday and Tuesday 11 a.m. to midnight, Wednesday to Sunday 7 a.m. to midnight
Prices: mains $12 to $27
Access: wheelchair access to front door, washroom stalls

If you are like me, the mere mention of the words “smokehouse” and “barbecue” gets your hopes up.

You imagine deeply flavoured, smoky indulgences, preferably in massive portions. You grow indecisive. Will it be pork ribs or beef ribs? Pulled pork or brisket? All of the above?

I’ve not yet visited the famous joints or competitions of barbecue’s Southern U.S. homeland. That’s a trip for the bucket list. But I’ve gone out of my way to try, for example, the beef ribs at Redbones in Boston, as well as the consistently delicious fare at Dinosaur Bar-B-Que in Syracuse, New York.

All this to say, when a barbecue eatery opens in Ottawa, I’m hoping for barbecue greatness.

I’ve had two recent dinners at Capital City Smokehouse, which opened in July in Barrhaven. What I’ve sampled has been closer to barbecue adequacy.

There was one notable dish that was better than the rest, one distinct dud and  much food that fell in the middle, somewhere between satisfactory and satisfying. Generally the food was more simplified and tame than I’d like.

Maybe that’s what this high-volume, family-friendly restaurant thinks is the best fit for the neighbourhood. Maybe it’s all that the admittedly reasonable price points will allow.

The restaurant’s menu is a large two-pager that moves beyond barbecue staples to burgers, entrée-sized salads and even a smoked tofu sandwich.

We were most pleased by the smoky basics. On the four-item, “BBQ Feast” platter ($52), which served four nicely as promised, the moist, flavourful, distinctly smoky on-the-bone chicken was the winner. A full rack of pork ribs was tasty and sweetly glazed, but a touch less tender than hoped for. Brisket and pulled pork were strikingly lean — probably too lean — and both came shredded. Flavour-wise, the brisket beat the more bland pork, although some “burnt ends” — the most charred bits of traditional Kansas City brisket — would have been welcomed.

All of the meats were smoked over wood pellets made of a blend of woods — no chunks of hickory, mesquite or any other hardwood involved in the process here.

There were smaller samplers available, and each feast item could be ordered separately. On my second visit, the pairing of a half-rack of ribs and a quarter chicken ($23) was almost as good as the equivalent meats from the feast.

Ribs and Chicken at Capital City Smokehouse.

On every table is a selection of three sauces, including mustard- and  vinegar-based options. They added some sweetness, tang or moisture, bolstering the pulled pork in particular. No sauce was that distinctive or spicy. There is a potent extra-hot sauce available on demand, although it struck me as merely harsh rather than tasty.

Of the sides we’ve tried, the fries and cornbread were best. Baked beans were pleasant enough, mac ‘n’ cheese was alright and buttermilk biscuits were very ordinary.

Venturing beyond barbecue staples usually brought some level of disappointment. Wings ($13) were admirably juicy, and accompanying raw veggies were welcome, but plain old sour cream seemed like a bare minimum. Fried chicken (four pieces for $15) was freshly fried and succulent, if a bit salty and greasy. A fried chicken breast on a waffle ($14) was more dry, and the waffle was mediocre. Ditto the club sandwich ($12) made with smoked chicken. Markedly worse was the beef dip sandwich ($12), due to some dry, lacklustre beef and an off-puttingly bland dipping sauce.

Fried Chicken at Capital City Smokehouse.

Chicken and Waffles at Capital City Smokehouse.

Club Sandwich and biscuit at Capital City Smokehouse.

House-made desserts (pumpkin pie, apple cake, gluten-free chocolate mud cake, each $4.50) were by-the-book and unmemorable.

Apple Cake at Capital City Smokehouse.

The restaurant has been busy and boisterous during my visits, especially on the bar side. Mass-market beers rule here, and local craft brews are absent.

While I’m lukewarm about this place, I could envision wanting some smoked chicken or some ribs or brisket if I were in the vicinity. It may not be artisanal or exceptional, but in a pinch, generic, acceptable barbecue can beat no barbecue at all.

phum@ottawacitizen.com

twitter.com/peterhum

Galo Piri Piri

40 du Portage, Gatineau, 819-771-7474, galopiripiri.com

Pili Pili Grilled Chicken

205 Dalhousie St., 613-695-7404, pilipiligrilledchicken.com
355 Montreal Rd., 613-695-7454, pilipiligrilledchicken.com

Nando’s Flame-Grilled Chicken

1461 Merivale Rd., 613-749-7445, nandos.ca
3838 Innes Rd., 613-424-2821, nandos.ca

Laziz Broast & Mix Grill

1900 Innes Rd., 613-746-6111, lazizbroastmixgrill.ca

The column takes a break this week from considering one restaurant in depth in an attempt to answer the spicy question: Whose piri piri chicken reigns supreme?

I’ve been from Gloucester to Vanier to Lowertown to Hull to Nepean, visiting fast, casual restaurants that serve their variations on a dish that has its roots in the former Portuguese colonies of East Africa. There, and elsewhere on the continent, they grow African bird’s eye chilies, known in Swahili as piri-piri peppers. Grill some chicken, preferably marinated, and season it liberally piri-piri-style, and you have piri-piri chicken.

In my Ottawa-Hull travels, I discovered four very different interpretations of the dish. (I could also have tried the piri piri fish at Palki, an Indian restaurant on Ogilvie Road, since the Portuguese brought the pepper to Goa on India’s West Coast, but I digress.)

In Hull, there’s Galo Piri Piri, in the shadow of Les Terrasses de la Chaudière, a Portuguese fast-food restaurant, down to the fruity Sumol soft drinks available by the cash. Service here is cafeteria-style, with customers queuing to place orders with staff at an open kitchen. At the back of the kitchen, butterflied chickens spin over the charcoal grill.

The chicken ($14.49 for a half-chicken dinner) I tried twice here has been moist enough, but only slightly smoky. The medium-strength, strikingly red piri piri sauce that was painted on the bird once it came off the grill struck me and a companion as very salty and harshly sour. There’s a bottled piri piri sauce on the tables, and I wonder if I’d prefer the chicken without the paint job, but sauced with the bottled stuff, which I was told wasn’t the same formulation.

Piri piri chicken at Galo Piri Piri in Hull.

Piri piri chicken’s also on the menu at Laziz Broast & Mix Grill, an Afghan fast-food place in an Innes Road strip mall. In addition to the indigenous beef and chicken kebabs, Laziz also serves pressure-fried chicken, chicken fajitas and piri piri chicken — it’s a wide world of poultry, if you will.

I tried just the piri piri chicken, ordered “medium.”  Of the half-chicken ($13.50, with rice and salad), grilled over gas, the dark quarter was moist but the white meat was dry. More seasoned than sauced, the chicken was sour but closer to mellow than punchy. Some extra hot sauce was joltingly sharp. Sumac-dusted rice and salad, which I expect on Afghan dishes, completed the platter.

Piri Piri chicken at Laziz Broast and Grill on Innes Road.

Usually I don’t review chains and franchises, but I did try the more westerly of Ottawa’s two Nando’s Flame-Grilled Chicken outposts, where the spicy, gas-grilled specialty is dubbed “peri peri chicken.” Given that Nando’s, begun in 1987 by Mozambicans in South Africa, has popularized peri peri chicken at about 1,000 outlets in 30 countries, it’s arguably the global standard for the dish — which is not to say it’s the best.

To the sound of Afro pop, across from the wall where many bottles of branded hot sauce were on display, I dug into the gas-grilled, medium-spicy chicken ($9.65 for a leg with fries). The dark meat was moist, (Some Nando’s white meat tried later at home was less so) and the slathered light orange sauce had some character, but was as sour as it was hot. A peek at the ingredients’ list on a bottle showed that after water, vinegar, lemon juice and onion were leading ingredients.

Peri peri chicken at Nando’s

I might choose some Nando’s chicken in a pinch, simply because it’s more interesting than, say, other franchise food. But the spicy grilled chicken that I’d cross town for is at either of the Pili Pili restaurants.

That’s not a typo. In francophone Africa, they say pili pili, and the owner of Pili Pili on Montreal Road, and its six-week-old sister eatery on Dalhousie Street, is from a West African country that’s part of La Francophonie. Pili Pili’s Vanier outpost is tiny, with just six seats and take-out. Still, after phoning in an order to avoid waiting, I’ve brought home a hacked-up whole bird ($18.75, including sides)and been transfixed by the blend of spices rubbed into every piece, as well as the robust but not overpowering smokiness from the hardwood charcoal grill. The next day, I polished off the left-overs cold, gnawing every bit of meat off the bones. It had the kind of flavour that blocks off other thoughts and sets the mouth happily jangling.

At the new downtown Pili Pili, which has about 18 seats, I had the $5 lunch special of a chicken leg with choice of side dish (I picked rice, that while likely made with bouillon and frozen vegetables, was just fine). The seasoning was once again intoxicating and the skin had enough crispness to it.

Lunch special at Pili Pili Grilled Chicken on Dalhousie Street

This is probably one of the best $5 lunches in Ottawa. Of these four piri piri/peri peri/pili pili chickens, it’s my favourite, beak and shoulders above the rest.

phum@ottawacitizen.com

twitter.com/peterhum

ottawacitizen.com/tag/diningout

MeNa Restaurant

276 Preston St., 613-233-6462, menarestaurant.com

Open: Tuesday to Saturday, 5 p.m. to closing

Prices: appetizers $11 to $14, mains $24 to $32, tasting menus

Access: One step to front door

A few weekends ago at MeNa, they sure knew how to properly kick off a birthday celebration.

We took our seats at the refined, intimate restaurant on Preston Street, and before you could say “More grey hair!” there was a complimentary round of sparkling wine, proactively poured for the four of us.

Furthermore, the gifts kept coming, although the other guests who filled MeNa’s cosy, 40-seat dining room, celebrating or not, also received these made-in-house, on-the-house treats.

We enjoyed our amuse bouche of espresso cups filled with clove-tinged pumpkin potage. Then came some freshly baked buns with crisp exteriors and bubbly crumbs. Not to make too much of this gesture, but it seems to me that good bread, free of charge, is in shorter supply at Ottawa restaurants nowadays.

Before too long, I was wondering: shouldn’t more nights out at restaurants feel like a gracious, but relaxed party?

The vibe at MeNa, which opened in February and was a contender for enRoute magazine’s 2014 list of Canada’s Top 10 new restaurants, mixes warm, upscale elegance with contemporary casualness.

On one hand, there are the young, apron- and jeans-clad servers, the rustic wood walls and the classic rock soundtrack that struck me as a little too plebeian. (Of course, for those servers, and for MeNa’s owner Bryan Livingston and chef James Bratsberg, both in their late 20s, maybe listening to vintage Eagles, Queen and Rod Stewart is ironic.)

On the other, those servers are astute, attentive and impeccably mannered, in keeping with the feel of James Bratsberg’s refined dishes.

MeNa restaurant’s chef is James Bratsberg, in charge of his first kitchen after stints at Restaurant E18hteen and Social.

From MeNa’s very concise menu of five appetizers and five main courses, came plate after attractive plate — or from what I could see at other tables, in the case of cauliflower soup: a pitcher, poured with a tableside flourish to a guest’s bowl. Bratsberg’s food looked alluring but not ostentatious — although a bit more light from the Edison lights overhead would have made it easier to appreciate their charms.

We tried two seafood appetizers that stressed technique and deftly arranged components.

Seared Scallops ($14) combined the shellfish with a posse of provocateurs. Along with the three scallops in the bowl were “noodles” and purée of celeriac, a bundle of wilted angel’s hair pasta tinted green by the addition of wilted spinach and a poached egg. The appetizer’s flavours were mild but clear, and its unctuous, comforting textures were its talking points.

Seared scallops at MeNa restaurant

Tuna tartare ($13) was enjoyable, although a bit more acid or brightness would have made it even better. Garnishes elevated the dish considerably, including crisp-fried chips of fingerling potatoes atop the tuna, a precisely dressed “potato salad” fanned out to the left of the fish and a fine dice of tomatoes and vegetables to the right.

Tuna Tartare at MeNa restaurant

Poultry profited too from time spent with Bratsberg. A starter of quail, seasoned with cinnamon and cloves, stood out as memorable. A duck breast main course ($32), perfectly pink and served with a peppery jus, quinoa, endives, sweet Nantes carrots and orange demi-glace was one of our table’s favourites, topping the roasted Cornish hen ($25) that was a bit dry and wanting of sauce.

At MeNa restaurant, one of the best main courses was duck breast with carrots and quinoa.

The menu’s only red-meat option was a flank steak ($32) with good, robust flavour. I thought the demi-glace was a touch too salty, but other elements — cubes of confit potato, a classy crab croquette and especially a rich tomatillo-based condiment — more than compensated.

Flank steak at MeNa restaurant

Although MeNa’s wine list includes only bottles, wine by the glass is available. I asked for something to match with the steak and was very pleased with a big pour of Château Musar Hochar Père et Fils, a lovely and surprising Lebanese blend of red varietals.

For the table’s last diner, gnocchi ($24), made Parisian-style with pâte à choux rather than potatoes, were light and airy, and bolstered with oyster mushrooms, chanterelles, roasted squash and beets.

Parisian gnocchi at MeNa restaurant.

Like the gnocchi and bavette steak in particular, the peach Melba ($10) on the menu nodded to MeNa’s French-cuisine roots, which Bratsberg has run with and personalized. This dessert was another balanced success, with light sponge toffee, whipped cream and a potent raspberry sorbet complimenting the cooked fruit. Of course, a birthday candle adorned the bowl.

A more modern dessert paired a stick of chocolate ganache with caramelized banana and blueberry ice cream ($10). The chocolate’s texture struck me as just a little odd, with more resistance than I expected, but we still polished off this sweet plate with gusto.

Chocolate and Bananas dessert at MeNa restaurant.

MeNa also offers four-, five- and seven-course tasting menus, ranging in price from $55 to $85 without wine and providing a parade of smaller-portioned menu items. For fans of sophisticated and well-crafted food, these splurges should appeal.

Their course counts would not include the final freebie that we received before we put our coats on — some bites of dense lemon olive oil cake, scented with thyme. One last parting gift sent us into the cold, further strengthening the desire to return.

phum@ottawacitizen.com

twitter.com/peterhum

ottawacitizen.com/tag/dining-out

Brampton Meats

178 Meadowlands Dr. W, 613-695-9915, bramptonmeats.ca

Open: Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday 10 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., Friday and Saturday 10 a.m. to 8:30 p.m., closed Tuesdays.

Access: Steps to front door, sweet shop, no washroom

At Brampton Meats, an Indian butcher shop on Meadowlands Drive near Woodroffe Avenue, the walls are covered with an array of coloured papers listing in big print the many take-out dishes available, along with their prices.

It was all a little bit disorienting some weeks ago for this first-time visitor. My show of indecision prompted the man behind the counter, who I later learned was co-owner Ravinder Singh, to suggest options, all of which he extolled as “tasteful.”

To some, that might mean refined, or even restrained or mellow. After eating much of Brampton Meat’s wares, I think “full of taste” is closer to the truth — as in assertively spiced, robust, or mouth-tingling.

While it’s common for other Indian eateries to mute their spices and push creaminess or sweetness to soothe non-Indian palates, Brampton Meats pulls far fewer punches. Yes, for the multitude of curries, kabobs or grilled meats served here you can specify mild, medium or spicy. But my sense is that Brampton’s “medium” is more like a seven or eight out of 10, compared to fours and fives elsewhere.

“If some dish is spicy, it has to be spicy,” Singh said.

Consider yourself warned. Or enticed.

The business model, which Singh says is unique in Ottawa, is focused on takeout foods and marinated meats prepped for barbecuing, grilling or baking. The extensive menu at bramptonmeats.ca makes the combination of phoning in an order for pickup 20 minutes later a snap. Brampton also delivers if your order is large enough (at least $30) and you live close enough (within 10 kilometres).

You can dine, extremely casually, on site, at one of two tables for four beside the door, next to the display case filled with marinated chicken legs of many colours. You’ll eat from takeout containers with plastic utensils. The upside is that deep-fried items such as crisp pakoras, vibrantly flavoured chicken legs and wings grilled to order, or naan bread fresh from the tandoor will taste better, spared the degrading trip home.

Chingari chicken, marinated with coconut, curry leaves and black pepper and spices, at Brampton Meats

I’d also counsel eating in when it comes to the thali samplers, rather than risk the TV dinner-like trays spilling in car.

A vegetarian version ($9.99) featured tray compartments filled with, for example, gingery, peppery peas and tofu or mouth-warming cauliflower and green beans plus a meaty, savoury chickpea masala.

A meatier thali ($10.99) included more of those savoury chickpeas, goat meat in a sumptuous gravy, and butter chicken that was more tomatoey than creamy. The meat in these and other items was cleaved and trimmed with less finesse than you might encounter elsewhere.

Non-vegetarian thali at Brampton Meats

Curries (various sizes, up to $14.99) from the approachable goat curry, chicken bhuna and bracing beef vindaloo to the less common chicken takatak, bolstered with green peppers, or the thickened chicken lababdar, were full-on flavour bombs.

Beef vindaloo at Brampton Meats

Chicken Lababdar at Brampton Meats

Chicken Takatak at Brampton Meats

There were some items at Brampton Meats that I’ve not seen elsewhere. (But then, I’ve not been to India — or Brampton, Ont., where according to the 2011 census, 200,220 South Asians are the city’s largest ethnic group, making up almost 40 per cent of the population.)

Goat and chicken pickle were new to me, to name two examples.

Chicken pickle at Brampton Meats

Brampton applies pickling spices to those meats to yield potent, sharply sour and salty, somewhat preserved snacks, sold cold and by weight ($8.99 for a half-pound of chicken pickle). Singh said the pickled meats can star inside wraps or as cocktail snacks. I enjoyed it when chicken pickle was added to Brampton Meats’ biryani for a puckering, enticing rice dish.

Achari chicken biryani at Brampton Meats

I’m also a fan of the amritsari kulcha ($6.99), a flat bread stuffed with mashed chickpeas, which was served with butter chicken sauce and goat curry gravy for sumptuous dipping.

New to me was the bread pakora ($2.25), a sandwich of spiced potato that had been coated in chickpea batter, deep-fried and microwaved, served with tamarind sauce and mango salt, which was a revelation of a condiment. Filling and cheap, I imagine bread pakoras as hangover food on the other side of the world, the poutine of South Asia.

Bread Pakora at Brampton Meats

Speaking of which, they serve butter chicken poutine ($6.99) here — which I couldn’t bring myself to try.

Another dish that strikes me as cultural outreach is Brampton’s desi pizza ($16.99 to $18.99), slices of chicken or goat kebab on cheese. I’ve tried one, and thought it all right, but less appealing than other specialties.

Chicken kebab desi pizza at Brampton Meats

Maybe these India-meets-North America dishes lure in students from nearby Algonquin College, along with the discounted lunch deals.

Need relief from the all the spices? In September, Brampton Meats became, in a fashion, Brampton Meats and Sweets, when it opened a large counter teeming with Indian sweets by the Toronto company Brar’s.

I liked rasgulla and gulab jamun (but syrup-soaked milk-based pastries) as well as milk cake, which strike me as entry-level sweets for non-Indian palates. I’d like to go deeper in the selection, though, as orienting oneself within a landscape of vivid, foreign flavours is the right mindset to bring to Brampton Meats.

phum@ottawacitizen.com

twitter.com/peterhum

ottawacitizen.com/tag/dining-out

Les Vilains Garcons

39A Laval St., Gatineau (Hull sector),819-205-5855, lesvilainsgarcons.ca

Open: Tuesday to Thursday 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., Friday 11:30 a.m. to 11:45 p.m., Saturday and Sunday 5 to 10 p.m., closed Monday

Access: restaurant is upstairs

I would be Ottawa’s happiest foodie if a local restaurant served dynamite pintxos.

In Spain’s Basque region, pintxos (pronounced pinchos) are bar snacks — the region’s diverse and delicious tapas, you could say. The smallest of small plates, they can be as simple as perfect ham from acorn-fed pigs, served on bread, or as fancy as seared foie gras with caramelized apples and mango purée.

Pintxos were also jaw-droppingly cheap — about $3 each — when I filled my stomach with them in San Sebastian, Spain, in 2013. At every bar I visited, tempting pintxos were heaped on plates for patrons to eye. Once chosen, they were heated and served immediately. For any food lover, eating pintxos in northern Spain is a bucket list trip.

Related

• A perfect pintxos pub crawl in San Sebastian, Spain

I recently learned that a Hull eatery called Les Vilains Garcons, which opened in April, focuses on its own interpretation of pintxos.

Kudos to this convivial, popular upstairs place for seizing on the notion. However, I’ve been three times this fall, and regrettably, the food has too often disappointed. Some items hit the spot, but more were dragged down by blandness, off-the-mark or muddled flavours or odd combinations of ingredients.

Running LVG’s kitchen is its young chef/co-owner Romain Riva. Previously the Wakefield Mill’s executive chef, Riva is from Bordeaux in France, about two-and-a-half hours north of Spain’s pintxos country.

He’s made LVG’s pintxos appealing, price-wise. Each pintxo, which consists roughly of a few bites, goes for $6 a piece. Three cost $15 and five cost $25. For non-snackers, there’s often an main-course-sized choice such as steak with foie gras ($25) or fish and chips ($18).

LVG has no fixed menu, relying instead on blackboards listing each day’s selection of, say, a half-dozen pintxos at lunch or more than a dozen at dinner. For those averse to surprises, LVG promptly posts photos of those blackboards on its Facebook page.

Examine a batch of blackboards over time and you’ll see Riva’s go-to ingredients reoccurring in mix-and-match juxtapositions. Veal tongue might come with eggplant purée one night or celeriac on another. Lamb sweetbreads (yes, Riva’s creations can appeal to curious, adventurous eaters) might come with carrots and corn or spaghetti squash or spinach. Tofu tempura might come with carrots, onion compote and hoisin sauce, or with sunchokes.

And yet, what’s worked best for me has been the most direct, conventional fare — some haddock fritters with a spicy mayo, or a large portion of crisp, beer-battered cod, fresh from the fryer, albeit with too-salty fries.

Fish and chips at Les Vilains Garcons

I also liked the generosity and complexity of two amuse-bouches. One night’s interesting starter was some marinated zucchini and confit corn served with an espelette-pepper-spiked raspberry purée. At lunch last week, the gift of a bit of cured fish, nestled in beet purée, offset by a slice of pickled vegetable, was lucid and well balanced.

Amuse-bouche at Les Vilains Garcons

But during my initial visit in October, we wished for more food of that calibre.

Slices of veal tongue were OK, but would have been better with a crisp sear. Their sweet accompaniments — parsnip with chocolate, hoisin sauce — seemed like a mismatch. Similarly, pork cheek was fine, if unseared, but its partner, marinated celeriac, added little.

Morsels of deep-fried tofu were underseasoned and needed more than soy and some seaweed to amount to much. Beef tartare came with cabbage slaw, but missed the perky acidity, saltiness and mouthfeel pleasures of more usual toppings such as capers or a quail’s egg.

Clockwise from top right: veal tongue, beef tartare, pork cheeks, haddock fritters, beef cheeks, tofu tempura at Les Vilains Garcons

A plate of raw items ($22) seemed dull on our palates and lacked winners. Two oysters were very small and clumsily shucked, with debris from the shell. Beef carpaccio and arctic char sashimi, a nice and uncommon choice, needed acidity and salt. Scallop ceviche was underseasoned and too simple. Meanwhile, beet purée and candied tomatoes puzzlingly skewed the plate in the sweet direction.

Two weeks ago, at my next visit, more was amiss. Oily, unappealing lamb sweetbreads came with a too-bitter green-tea-salsify purée and a bit of spaghetti squash. A round of foie gras torchon came with a giant dollop of pear purée. Salmon ceviche was so-so. Shell-on shrimps were moist, but tricky to eat, to be picked out of a bowl of tomato-jalapeno broth.

From left to right: salmon tartare, foie gras torchon, mackerel, shrimp, lamb sweetbreads at Les Vilains Garcons

A lunch visit last week was more on track. There were better proteins — flavourful, nicely textured smoked sturgeon (paired with corn) and meaty, if perhaps too-lean, rabbit rillettes (paired with beets) — as well as the lowlight of ho-hum beef gyoza with a negligibly spicy cream sauce.

Smoked sturgeon, rabbit rillettes, beef gyoza at Les Vilains Garcons

The pintxos-on-toast plate ($10) was a mish-mash of chorizo sausage, mushrooms, manchego cheese and corn — pintxos as hangover food, served with beet-bolstered salad.

Pintxos on toast at Les Vilains Garcons- pic by Drake Fenton Ottawa Citizen Photo Email

Of LVG’s desserts ($6 each), creme brûlée was twice more custardy than creamy, and a spiced pumpkin rendition was too much spice, not enough pumpkin. Chocolate in a spring roll wrapper had a grainy texture and was supposed to be spiced but wasn’t. Mango sorbet from La Cigale in Chelsea was good.

I haven’t tried the wines at LVG, listed on a separate blackboard. But nearly all are private imports and available by the glass.

The eatery’s website speaks of “deliciously irreverent gastronomy” and dishes that are “never the same, inevitably original.” I get the whimsical, risk-taking concept, but think that if LVG focused on and perfected a few knockout specialties, as Spanish pintxos bars often do, there could be better results and more consistent, meal-length satisfactions.

phum@ottawacitizen.com

twitter.com/peterhum

ottawacitizen.com/tag/dining-out

Tao Asian Kitchen

3-280 Elgin St., 613-695-1300, taoasiankitchen.ca
Open: Monday to Friday 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., Saturday noon to 10 p.m., Sunday 12:30 to 10 p.m.
Prices: Three dumplings for $4.95, other dishes up to $14.95.
Access: No steps to front door or washrooms

Dumpling Bowl

730 Somerset St. W., 613-845-0880, dumplingbowl.com
Open: Monday to Thursday,  11 a.m. to 10 p.m., Friday to Sunday  11 a.m. to 11 p.m.
Prices: 15 dumplings for up to $9.99, other dishes up to $9.99
Access: A few steps to front door

When it comes to cheap but well-crafted eats, Ottawa is all about burgers, tacos and maybe the occasional macaron. But foodies might want to take stock of some recent developments when it comes to Chinese dumplings.

First, there’s what seems to me to be the long-overdue arrival in town of some quite good soup dumplings. Originally from Shanghai, they’re steamed, porky buns with a difference. A bit bigger than bite-sized, soup dumplings are filled not just with savoury forcemeat but also some gelatinized broth. When the dumplings are cooked, the broth liquefies. When eaten, the dumpling delivers a initial slurp of delicious soup for the genteel eater, or an extra juicy mouthful for the more ravenous.

The previous time I tried soup dumplings in Ottawa, they were nothing to get excited about — casually made, not that tasty and worse, maybe even leaky.

Happily, Tao Asian Kitchen, which opened in October on Elgin Street, appears to be the place to go for soup dumplings. The owners of Tao also opened Ottawa’s two Ginza ramen restaurants this year, and for now they’re threatening to corner the market on bringing trendier Asian dishes to a wider audience.

Tao, a sleek 20-seater, decorated notably with a TV tuned to Food Network Canada, is pretty pan-Asian. It serves mango salad (mundane and proteinless, $6.95), OK salad rolls (two for $5.50) and meal-sized soups ($10.95 and $11.95), including reasonable beef- and chicken-based pho and won ton soups, although the latter, broth-wise, garnish-wise and noodle-wise, skews more Vietnamese than Chinese.

Mango salad at Tao Asian Kitchen.

Wonton soup with shrimp at Tao Asian Kitchen

It stands out, though, because of its dim sum items, which are made, or at least finished, à la carte rather than wheeled around on carts. Of the 10 or so dumpling-based dishes, the soup dumplings (also known as  xiao long bao, three for $4.95) were the rushed-from-the-kitchen standouts, with good meatiness and soupiness going for them, plus the requisite red vinegar for dipping. The dumplings’ skins were a little thick, but on the other hand, they didn’t leak. Plus, we were told that if they had leaked, we would have received free replacements.

From left: soup dumplings, shrimp and mushroom dumplings, spinach dumplings at Tao Asian Kitchen

Shrimp and sticky rice dumplings at Tao Asian Kitchen

Also served at Tao are pan-fried pork soup dumplings (sheng jian bao, three for $4.95), which are more oblong and less sack-shaped, and are thicker-skinned so as to accommodate some crisping. They’re larger and more unwieldy to eat, but that’s the trade-off for a bit of crispness.

Pan-fried pork soup dumplings at Tao Asian Kitchen

The shrimp dumplings (three for $4.95) were a little lacking in terms of their wrappers but good filling-wise, with chunks of toothsome shrimp.

All of the dim sum items, I was told, were made by “a lady in Toronto.” Ideally, the dumplings would be made in-house. Still, Tao’s imports surpassed the leak-prone soup dumplings that I had this summer in Richmond, B.C.

Meanwhile, on Somerset Street West, Dumpling Bowl has been open for some months. There, staff, which include women from the central Chinese megacity of Wuhan, serve freshly made dumplings filled with pork, beef, chicken or, for undaunted vegetarians, zucchini, black fungus and mung bean noodles.

Beyond its namesakes, this even more spartan and inexpensive 30-seater serves a few smaller items (to name one, kid-friendly nuggets of “salted, crunchy fried chicken,” $4.99) and some meal-sized bowls.

Salted crunchy fried chicken at Dumpling Bowl

Of the latter, wonton soup ($7.99) was nothing more than some ungarnished, wan broth and a sizable portion of thin-skinned, tasty pork-and-shrimp wontons.

Wonton soup at Dumpling Bowl

Extremely simple “noodles with minced meat and Beijing-style sauce” (also known as zhajiangmian, $9.99) united thick wheat noodles with batons of cucumber and intensely salted meat, which tasted more of soy sauce than the preferable soybean paste.

Noodles with minced meat with Beijing style sauce at Dumpling Bowl

But while these dishes don’t exactly draw me back, Dumpling Bowl’s dumplings definitely appeal. First of all, they are a steal, priced at 10 for no more than $7.49 or $15 for $9.99. (That’s for boiled dumplings. Paying an extra $1.50 for a bit of pan-frying and dipping sauce is worth it.) Available frozen for take-out, they are cheaper still, as in 30 dumplings for $14.50.

I’ve tried beef-and-coriander dumplings and pork-chive-and-shrimp dumplings, and both hit the spot, 10 at a time. They were served piping hot, and were meaty and well-seasoned. Each of the latter had a good morsel of shrimp inside. While these were not literally soup dumplings, they still packed little explosions of juice.

Pan-fried pork, chive and shrimp dumplings at Dumpling Bowl

There have been little shortcomings at both Tao and Dumpling Bowl. Once, at lunch, Tao was out of its lemongrass pork chop, its short ribs, and, worst of all, red vinegar. Dumpling Bowl’s front area was chilly last week. Neither serves much in the way of dessert. Neither has a liquor license, although Tao is applying.

But from my two visits to each unassuming eatery, it’s clear that both take dumplings seriously and can satisfy those homey, if not haute, cravings.

phum@ottawacitizen.com
twitter.com/peterhum
ottawacitizen.com/tag/dining-out

Very few things go together like Christmas and beer.

Monks and priests have long celebrated the occasion with specially brewed beers. They even used beer to try and entice other cultures to celebrate Christmas.

Even before the holiday became an annual Christian tradition, beer was involved in events such as Saturnalia and the Winter Solstice, bringing people together in mass gatherings.

As the holidays approach, with so many options to choose from, here are 10 beers that you can’t go wrong with. Six are available at the LCBO, while two can only be bought in Quebec. For the other two, you need to drive to the breweries in Ottawa to get them.

Let’s start with lighter, less intimidating, offerings. Easy-drinking Golden Rail Honey Brown Ale by Cassel Brewery comes in at 5.2 per cent alcohol and a meager 20 IBUS, presenting itself as a slightly sweet and bready beer that will appeal to a wide variety of palates.

For those looking for something a little more distinct in flavour, I recommend  Saison Dupont by Brasserie Dupont in Belgium. The beer, which contains 6.5 per cent alcohol by volume and is rated at a low 25 IBUs, is largely regarded as the world’s best example of the saison style of beer. The beer pours a hazy straw, almost orange colour with a thick white head. It gives off lemony, citrus scents as well as bread-like, spicy and sweet, malty flavours. There’s a lot going on in this glass.

Fans of pale ales won’t be disappointed by California Sunshine APA, which is brewed by Cameron’s Brewing in Oakville, Ont. The beer comes in at 5.1 per cent ABV and around 35 IBUs and screams summer with tropical and citrus smells. The beer is sweet and bready and finishes with a hint of bitter citrus flavours. It begs for another sip, especially on a cold winter night.

Fans of wheat beers looking for something different should try Shawinigan Handshake, which is one of my perennial favourites. The made-in-Quebec brew, coming in at 6.5 per cent ABV and 42 IBUs, is technically “Weizenbock,” which is a German style of wheat beer, that is refreshing, slightly bitter and bready, and sure to please hop heads and fans of wheat beers alike.

For fans of hoppier beers, I’d recommend Lake of Bay’s 10 Point IPA. But get it soon, as this seasonal is now finished and what’s left at the LCBO is all there will be until next year. The beer contains 6 per cent ABV and has around 55 IBUs, which isn’t a mind-blowing amount of hops. Instead, what you get is a well balanced, yet hop-forward beer that salutes the traditional style of British IPAs.

Dark beer lovers can’t go wrong with Belle Hop Porter, from Beyond the Pale Brewery, which can be bought at the Ottawa brewery on Hamilton Avenue North in Hintonburg. The beer is a strong 7.8 per cent ABV and is rated at 51 IBUs, but it certainly isn’t bitter. All of the roasted malts used in the brew balance out the hop additions nicely to produce a beer that’s has big coffee and roasted malt flavours, and is slightly sweet, but not overly so.

For lovers of stouts, St. Ambroise’s 2014 Russian Imperial Stout would make a special gift, worth the trip to the Gatineau side to purchase it. At 9.2-per-cent alcohol and 84 IBUs, this is a thick, dry, hearty stout that is only released once a year around Christmas and it’s aged in bourbon-soaked oak barrels. It’s rich and dominated by flavours of oak, bourbon, chocolate and coffee. Its high alcohol level makes it a fantastic sipping beer that can be enjoyed over an evening.

There’s also Winterbeard, by Muskoka Brewery, which is a double chocolate cranberry stout. At 8 per cent ABV and 25 IBUs this is one flavourful stout. The complex chocolate, tartness and bread-like flavours are due to the addition of locally grown cranberries as well as real cocoa (70-per-cent dark chocolate), making this a winter warmer that is worth giving to stout or chocolate lovers.

Another Christmas favourite is Big Rig Brewery’s Gingerbread Porter. This is a beer for someone with a sweet tooth. The beer tastes like cinnamon and freshly baked gingerbread and is perfect for sharing with a group. The beer, available at Big Rig on Iris Street, contains 5.6 per cent ABV and is a mere 15 IBUs.

For my last pick, let’s go with a classic, Abt 12 brewed by St. Bernardus Brouwerij. Abt 12 is a Belgian Quadruple style beer, brewed by the monks at St. Bernardus in Belgium, making it a genuine abbey beer. It’s certainly not light, at 10 per cent ABV, but it’s definitely sweet with a mere 12 IBUs.  This dark complex beer is compared to Westvleteren XII (which is largely considered to be the best beer in the world). The difference between the two is that Abt 12 is far more accessible that Westvleteren is. The beer pours nearly flat with very little head, and tastes of plums, dates, raisins and dark fruit. It’s a sweet beer that would best be served after dinner with dessert.

vpilieci@ottawacitizen.com

Twitter.com/Vpilieci 

Sam’s Cafe at Fairmont Confectionery

102 Fairmont Ave., 613-728-0931, www.facebook.com/FairmontConfectionery
Open: 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily
Prices: Vietnamese subs $4, single-serving entrées with rice $7, entrées $9.75 to $15.95
Access: Steps to front door

Since some time in the Great Depression, the Fairmont Confectionery has met the corner-store needs of its neighbours in Hintonburg.

But last month, there was a shake-up at the back of the store, something that the original shopkeeper of eight or so decades ago could scarcely have imagined.

Last month, the store’s new owner created a 10-seat mini-eatery and take-out counter within the confectionery and named it Sam’s Café, after himself. But since Sam Souryavong is from Laos, and since the former legal clerk spent four months last year at the long-established and accredited Wandee Culinary Art School in Bangkok, the café’s fare is resolutely Southeast Asian.

Sam Souryavong, owner and chef of Sam’s Cafe. (Jean Levac/ Ottawa Citizen)

Its soups are Thai and its sandwiches are Vietnamese. Most importantly, Souryavong’s Thai curries and stir-fries are sufficiently complex, calibrated and potent in their flavours to make you forget that you’re eating in a corner store.

It will help if you sit at the table for six, facing the red back wall adorned with Thai art. But even then, you won’t feel swaddled in the exotic ambience of other fancier Thai dining rooms. The buzz of the door opening will be audible, as will be the bells of the lottery ticket machine. You’ll be just a few steps from Souryavong and his sister Sandy (who previously owned a Vietnamese restaurant in Markham), working in the well-organized galley kitchen.

But then, the transparency of the home-style experience here is one of its charms. You can see the pantry that the Souryavongs rely on, covet the massive mortar and pestle used to make the fragrant curry pastes from scratch. You can ask the siblings, who always wear aprons from that Bangkok cooking school, about their food. Of course, you can ask for the dishes to be made as hot as desired.

In short, the confectionery’s a good place to have Thai cooking demystified, as well as purchase lottery tickets or a newspaper.

The lightest and quickest of lunches here would be a Vietnamese Banh Mi sub ($3 0r $4 each). Souryavong makes a traditional one filled with Vietnamese sausage, ham and pâté, as well as one that substitutes his own prikpow, a pungent Thai chili paste, for thepâté. Curry chicken banh mi and baked chicken banh mi, both with chunks of well-seasoned meat, were pleasing and accessible.

Grilled chicken sub from Sam’s Cafe in Fairmont Confectionery

Vietnamese salad rolls, with shrimp or chicken, were fine and fresh.

Salad rolls at Sam’s Cafe in Fairmont Confectionery

But the dishes that really sing are those that display the Thai mastery of blending intense, complimentary flavours, such as Souryavong’s punchy version of tom kha soup, thick with aromatics and medium-sized shrimp or chicken.

The curries here were flavour-forward and exemplary, thanks to those made-from-scratch curry pastes.

There were distinctive touches too — green chicken curry came with round Thai eggplants, including miniatures that packed a small sour pop.

Green chicken curry at Sam’s Cafe in Fairmont Confectionery (Jean Levac/ Ottawa Citizen)

Red beef curry came with pumpkin or squash.

Red curry with beef at Sam’s Cafe at Fairmont Confectionery

Both curries, Souryavong said in an interview, barely deviate from his cooking school’s recipe.

If you’re lucky, the café will have Massaman curry as a daily special posted on its white board.

Massaman curry at Sam’s Cafe in Fairmont Confectionery. (Jean Levac/ Ottawa Citizen)

While the café’s version, Souryavong said, has been dialed down to be less chili-packed than his textbook’s version, it was richly textured and still teeming with flavour, including hints of nutmeg and cardamom. Souryavong said that his Massaman curry paste has twice as many ingredients as his other pastes, and that’s it’s a half-morning of roasting, toasting, pounding, blending and grinding to make a batch.

A focused stir-fry of chicken and basil had the fresh hit of Thai basil, and could be made with as many Thai chilis, finely minced, as a customer demands.

Chicken basil stir-fry at Sam’s Cafe in Fairmont Confectionery

The bracing papaya salad, chili-flecked and nicely nudged with the funk of shrimp paste, was sharp and incendiary.

Papaya salad at Sam’s Cafe in Fairmont Confectionery (Jean Levac/ Ottawa Citizen)

Larb, the Laotian salad, set taste buds jangling in all directions with its finely chopped roast chicken, green onion, shallots, cilantro, ground toasted rice, fish sauce and lime juice.

Laotian chicken salad at Sam’s Cafe in Fairmont Confectionery

What’s missing at the café? A customer might wish for a wider range of meal-enders, as house-made desserts have consisted simply of small containers of coconut-cream-topped tapioca, with hidden pieces of taro or squash.

Tapioca butternut squash coconut cream dessert at Sam’s Cafe in Fairmont Confectionery

You might prefer an ice-cream treat from the confectionery freezer.

There’s no beer here, and no tea either — just water, or a soft drink from the corner store’s coolers.

Finally, there’s no Pad Thai served at the café. Souryavong explained that his standard four-burner range doesn’t produce sufficient heat, and he refuses to serve a “soggy” version.

“I don’t have a lot of choices, but whatever I have is what I do best,” Souryavong said. His admirable standards should be high enough to delight Thai food fans and newcomers to the cuisine alike.

phum@ottawacitizen.com

twitter.com/peterhum

After 100 or so meals out in 2014, I’m still struggling to digest what kind of year it was for Ottawa’s restaurants.

On one hand, in late October, the Gold Medal Plates organization introduced emblem of distinction plaques to fête restaurants in Ottawa and elsewhere that participated in its much-celebrated competition. Reason to celebrate?

On the other:  2014 was also the year in which three highly regarded Ottawa restaurants, all associated with Gold Medal Plates in previous years, shut their doors. Goodbye John Taylor’s Domus Cafe, ZenKitchen and Juniper Kitchen and Wine Bar. We’ll miss your fine food.

That’s not to mention the 25-year-old downtown steakhouse Prime 360, or the not-even-a-year-old Skirt Steak in Kanata. Or Brut Cantina Sociale in Hull, Comfort by AJ’s in Kemptville, and the Ottawa neighbourhood restaurants Carmen’s Veranda and Milagro Grill.

Yes, restaurants don’t last forever. The good news: upstarts such as Fauna Food and Bar, MeNa, and Salt Dining Lounge, to name a few, are distinctive and promising new destinations for foodies.

I single out these three spots because Fauna is my favourite new restaurant, MeNa would take my prize for best service, and Salt so proudly says night-on-the-town with its sleek food and ambience.

Still, I don’t recall the city’s chefs previously uniting to stage an event to kickstart a special fund to, in the words of the Chef Bites website, “provide a safety net for Ottawa’s restaurant industry.” That event took place in mid-December.

Meanwhile, many of the restaurants that did open chose to stress small plates, many of which delivered refinement at sub-$20 prices. You have to wonder if they’re all sensing not just a dining-out trend, but also what the market will bear in a city that’s seen its federal public sector so downsized and demoralized in recent years.

But fortunes of the restaurant community aside, there were eateries, both cheap and cheerful or swish and splurgy, that delivered memorable and even delicious dishes. Below are 10 of my highlights, plus just as many honourable mentions, in roughly the order that I’d want to eat them if I were having that proverbial over-the-top last supper.

But first, the usual caveats: Some restaurants may have tweaked or even removed that dish that won me over earlier this year. And while I wish it were otherwise, my fondness for these dishes can’t be read as an endorsement of everything on their respective menus.

Bison Carpaccio at Fauna Food and Bar

Bison carpaccio at Fauna.

Chef Jon Svazas elicited an audible “wow” from me with some edible abstract art that featured not just finely seasoned raw meat but an ensemble of dazzling garnishes. Aioli made with black garlic, a sherry reduction, dehydrated mushroom chips for a crisp hit of umami, an underpadding of burnt miso for further funkiness, and crushed wasabi peas for crunchy and powdery heat made for a small plate with big flavours, but also complexity and even harmony.

Honourable mention: If you’d rather have your bison cooked, I’d suggest the bison skewers I had at Teatro Café.

Leche de tigre at L’Epicerie Petit Peru or Petit Peru Resto Bar

Leche de tigre at Epicerie Petit Peru.

At either of chef-owner Jorge Bahamonde’s locations, you have to get past the naive surroundings — L’Epicerie is a corner store and the resto bar converts to a dance club after 9 p.m. But both are worth visiting if you love vibrant raw fish creations, of which my favourite are the addictive cups of  “leche de tigre” that combine lush chunks of tilapia with concentrated ceviche broth, toasted corn nuts and the distinctive heat of Peruvian peppers.

Honourable mention: Of the many seared tuna apps I tried in 2014, I loved the one at Town, with thick slabs of fish, a bracing orange-and-fennel salad and even the indulgences of sausage-stuffed olives.

Kale-and-ricotta malfatti at Town

Kale and ricotta malfatti at Town.

It might seem funny to pick a vegetarian dish from the Elgin Street boite where chef Marc Doiron is renowned for ricotta-stuffed meatballs and artful, Italian-inspired dishes. Still, my shout-out goes to the ricotta-and-kale malfatti ($17), a sophisticated, satisfying gathering of loose dumplings in an deliciously soppable sage-tinged brown butter, accented by toasted garlic and pickled jalapeno.

Honourable mention: the hearty, savoury vegetarian “meat” loaf at Bowman’s Bar  & Grill.

Smelts at Clover Food | Drink

Smelts at Clover.

My late father loved his smelts. I’m can take them or leave them, except for the little fillets I had at lunch at Clover. Chef West de Castro made smelts I could crave  — pleasantly salted, clean-tasting and texturally perfect, while the mound of salad beneath them was thick with slices of cucumber, tomatoes, the hit of black olives and dabs of basil aioli.

Honourable mention: Since we’re talking about salad, I want to salute the deluxe root vegetable salad at Salt Dining Lounge.

Massaman Curry at Sam’s Café in the Fairmont Confectionery

If you’re lucky, the café will have Massaman curry as a daily special posted on its white board.

Although Sam Souryavong has dialed down the recipe that he learned in Bangkok, the devoted Thai cook/corner store owner concocts a Massaman curry that still teems with richness and flavour, including hints of nutmeg and cardamom as well as plenty of heat.

Honourable mention: For different kinds of curry, there’s the lamb masala, distinguished by caramelized onions, or the beef kolhapuri, made with poppy and sesame seeds and dessicated coconut, at Palki.

Seafood paella at Rosie’s Southern Kitchen and Raw Bar

Paella at Rosie’s

The newest purveyor of Southern food at 895 Bank St. took a detour to Spain and turned out a fine seafood paella, which boasted plump shrimp, fine mussels, clams, squid and bits of chorizo mingling with well-cooked and seasoned rice.

Honourable mention: the briny, teeming-with-seafood linguine pescatore at La Porto A Casa.

Chicken at Pili Pili Grilled Chicken

Pili Pili Chicken at Pili Pili Grilled Chicken on Dalhousie Street.

It’s tough to choose my favourite roast chicken of 2014. By the skin of its teeth — do chickens have teeth? — I’ll pick the alluringly spiced, grilled-over-hardwood birds at the two humble Pili Pili Grilled Chicken joints. At the Dalhousie Street location, I had a sublime $5 chicken leg lunch. From the Montreal Road location, I brought home a hacked-up whole bird that thrilled with its balance of spice and smokiness and provided left-overs worth gnawing on the next day.

Honourable mentions: the moist, flavourful roast chickens at Petit Peru and EVOO Greek Kitchen that do their home countries proud.

Duck at Social

Duck main course at Social

At the Sussex Drive hotspot, chef Kyrn Stein served a knockout of a duck dish with deep flavour and vivid pink succulence going for it. Morsels of breast and confit leg were mounted on pumpkin puree and offset with a jolting, dark purple smear of tart huckleberries.

Honourable mention: chef Mook Sutton’s duck breast small plate at Teatro Cafe.

Lamb chops at EVOO Greek Kitchen

Plate of Lamb chops with tzatziki and lemon potatoes at EVOO restaurant

The year-old Preston Street restaurant brings in top-notch lamb chops from Washington State and serves them charbroiled and lemony, pinkly succulent and full of flavour. 

Honourable mention: Moving from one homey chop to another, I’d single out the luscious pork chop at Bistro l’Alambic in Gatineau’s Hull sector.

Aerated sponge cake with fennel at Salt Dining Lounge

Aerated lemon sponge cake with fennel ice cream at Salt

Too many desserts in Ottawa eateries feel like obligatory, sugary placeholders on their menus. If I never have crème brûlée again, I’ll be just fine. But at Salt, a plush Preston Street space, chef Ryan Edwards is heavily invested in desserts, and the winner of those we tried was an outré, sweet-meets-savoury meeting of “aerated” sponge cake (indebted to El Bulli) with dehydrated fennel chips, fennel jam and fennel-meets-brown-butter ice cream.

Honourable mention: the Rocky Road dessert featuring a squiggle of ganache, roasted marshmallows, almonds and cereal milk ice cream (indebted to Momofuku Milk Bar) at Social.

THE RESTAURANTS

Clover Food | Drink
155 Bank St., 613-680-8803, cloverottawa.ca

Epicerie Petit Perú/Petit Peru Resto Bar
89 Boul. St-Raymond, Gatineau (Hull sector), 819-205-6231, and 349 Dalhousie St., upstairs, 613-562-9756, petitperu.com

EVOO Greek Kitchen
438 Preston St., 613-695-3860,  evoogreekkitchen.ca

Fauna Food and Bar
425 Bank St., 613-563-2862, faunaottawa.ca

Pili Pili Grilled Chicken
355 Montreal Rd., 613-695-7454, 205 Dalhousie St. 613-695-7404  pilipiligrilledchicken.com

Rosie’s Southern Kitchen and Raw Bar
895 Bank St., 613-234-7674, rosiesonbank.ca

Salt Dining Lounge
345A Preston St., 613-693-0333, saltottawa.ca

Sam’s Cafe at Fairmont Confectionery
102 Fairmont Ave., 613-728-0931, www.facebook.com/FairmontConfectionery

Social
537 Sussex Drive, 613-789-7355, social.ca

Town
296 Elgin St.,  613-695-8696,  townlovesyou.ca

Silk Road Restaurant

4055 Carling Ave., Unit 3, 613-270-8866, carling.silkroadkabobhouse.com
Hours: Monday to Friday 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m., Saturday noon to to 9 p.m., closed Sunday
Prices: Mains $12.99 to $22.99
Access: No steps to front door or washrooms

Let’s begin the new year by delving into a new cuisine — or, at least, one that’s new to me.

I’ve had my eyes and palate opened thanks to the intriguing food at Silk Road Restaurant, a Persian eatery that’s very modest of setting but ambitious of menu.

The no-frills 40-seater, which in appearance is just a step up from a fast food counter, has been in business for more than three years in a Kanata strip mall where Carling Avenue meets March Road. It’s the younger and smaller sibling of the six-year-old, more easterly Silk Road on Cyrville Road. Both are owned by Rostam and Hamid Mehdipour, an Iranian uncle-and-nephew partnership, and the restaurants are unrelated to the Silk Roads Afghan restaurants that operated in Ottawa in the 1980s and 1990s.

Given that I can count every Iranian meal I’ve had on one hand, and they have all been at the Kanata Silk Road, I can’t say how well the food there represents its homeland’s storied cuisine. But over three visits, what I’ve eaten has struck me as consistently tasty, conscientiously made, and served with knowledgeable, friendly flair.

Iran borders Afghanistan and, not surprisingly, some of Silk Road’s dishes will remind you of fare at, say, Ottawa’s Afghan kabob houses, although the level of spiciness is generally more muted.

Indeed, Silk Road’s website brands it as a kabob house, and it repeatedly served us commendably tender and flavourful cubes of beef, chicken and lamb, all halal. Whether ordered as single-plate dinners or family-style ($69.99 for an array of kabobs plus side dishes meant to serve five), kabob dishes came with mammoth servings of basmati rice, enhanced at its centre with saffron, and basic but fresh salad.

A family pack of kebabs at Silk Road restaurant.

Plates of steamed beef-and-lamb mantu dumplings ($7.99) and bowls of chicken qorma stew ($5.99) were solid and satisfying, comparable to their equivalents at Ottawa Afghan restaurants I’ve tried and liked.

Mantu dumplings at Silk Road restaurant

Chicken Qorma at Silk Road restaurant.

So far, so familiar. But it paid off to sample the specialties on Silk Road’s extensive menu, which delivered some tart, sour and herbal hits among their distinctive, yet accessible, flavours.

For example, of Silk Road’s half-dozen or so beef kabobs, we tried and enjoyed the Torsh Kabob ($19.99), with its undertones of sweet and sour thanks to its pomegranate juice and walnut marinade.

Torsh Kabob at Silk Road restaurant.

Another worthwhile splurge was the delectable, yogurt-marinated lamb rack, which, while not fancied up in appearance, yielded four toothsome, well-seasoned chops plus the ubiquitous rice and salad ($22.99).

Lamb rack at Silk Road restaurant.

Two warm eggplant-based dips — the smokier mirza ghasemi and the creamy, yogurt-enriched halim bademjan, both $6.99 — served with piping hot, crisp flatbread were winners. Zitoon parvardeh ($6.99) was a salty-sour cold appetizer of green olives, pomegranate molasses, walnuts and herbs.

Mirza ghasemi at Silk Road restaurant.

Pomegranate paste and walnuts were paired with pieces of chicken breast in fesemjoon ($15.99), one of several stews. Our table was hard-pressed to pick a favourite between the fesemjoon, the green and assertively herbal ghormeh sabzi that also featured pieces of beef and lamb and kidney beans ($13.99), and the gheimeh ($11.99), a concoction thick with yellow split peas and beef, flavoured with dried lemon.

Fesenjoon at Silk Road restaurant.

Ghormeh Sabzi at Silk Road restaurant.

Gheimeh stew at Silk Road restaurant.

Silk Road also makes meatless versions of these stews, and further woos vegetarians with several tofu dishes. It also extends the unthreatening options of chicken fingers and meatballs with spaghetti on its kids’ menu, and for that matter, delivers to Kanata, Crystal Beach and Bells Corners.

To end meals, we’ve had baklava ($1.99), firnee ($2.99), a comforting milk-based pudding, and, best of all, made-in-house saffron-and-pistachio ice cream ($4.99).

Saffron ice cream at Silk Road restaurant.

Our experiences at Silk Road were quite positive, leaving me curious to return and go deeper into Iranian cuisine. Anyone else up for some ash-e reshteh (bean-and-noodle soup), torshi-e seer (garlic pickled in red vinegar), or Silk Road’s supplemental zereshk (wild barberry) to add more tangy sourness to the rice with any dish?

peterhum@ottawacitizen.com
twitter.com/peterhum
ottawacitizen.com/tags/dining-out

Le Cellier Saint-Jacques

49 Saint-Jacques St., Gatineau (Hull sector), 819-205-4200, restaurantlecellier.com
Open: Monday 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Tuesday and Wednesday 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., Thursday and Friday 10 a.m. to 11 p.m.,
Saturday 5 p.m. to 10 p.m., closed Sunday
Prices: appetizers $7 to $13, mains $22 to $39, sharing platters $55 to $72
Access: Wheelchair ramp to front door, dining rooms and washrooms on two floors

It was a few nights before Christmas, and a few of us were getting a jump on our overdoing-it dining.

The venue was Le Cellier Saint-Jacques in Gatineau’s Hull sector, opened in the fall of 2013 in the venerable old house that was Café Jean-Sébastien Bar, a well-liked and affordable Bach-themed bistro, in the 1990s and 2000s.

Le Cellier, which can be more of a splurge, was doing good business with folks who were visibly celebrating during my late December dinner and early January lunch.

One draw is the restaurant’s wine list of 100 or so bottles. It’s admirably diverse and interesting, even as it emphasizes European and especially French bottles over New World offerings, as well as reds over whites. Another plus is the cosiness and comfort of Le Cellier’s multiple dining rooms where leather chairs, oversized banquettes and black tablecloths set the tone.

Finally, there’s a protein-forward menu that unites bistro fare with haute cuisine flourishes to wave the flag for dining out as classic indulgence. There’s filet mignon topped with foie gras, quail stuffed with foie gras, and foie gras “candies” as a starter. Need I say more? How about veal chops, various tartares, oysters, and butter-poached lobster tail?

In addition to the menu’s French flair, there are Portuguese accents such as chorizo, pili pili chicken and pastel de nata tarts for dessert. Much of the food is available in platters to be shared convivially, which is a nice touch that strikes me as more natural than the small-plates approach.

We’ve appreciated Le Cellier’s mission, and enough of its dishes to have a positive impression of the place. But there were instances where finesse and attention to detail were lacking, and a few execution flops too.

That night in December began promisingly with a platter of seafood appetizers ($24). Salt cod fritters had good flavour and weren’t greasy, sautéed shrimps were plump, moist and succulent, two small Malpeque oysters had a briny pop, and nicely chopped and salted tuna tartare was good, if not great. For that, more acid and imagination would have been needed.

Less refined was the duck confit poutine ($10), a sludgy mess, better suited for hardcore poutine lovers than duck confit fans.

Duck confit mini-poutine at Le Cellier

The kitchen stumbled with two steaks. Filet mignon Rossini ($40), a hit from 19th century haute cuisine that mounts quivering seared foie gras on a slab of tenderloin, got everything right except the doneness of the beef. Ordered medium rare, the filet was unforgivably almost well done. Meanwhile, a bison flank steak ($24), also ordered medium rare, was a too-rare chew. Both were sent back to the kitchen and, fortunately, second tries were much improved.

Filet Mignon Rossini at Le Cellier

Bison flank steak at Le Cellier

The night’s award for best meat went to the sizeable veal chop that starred in the Portuguese platter for two ($55) and teemed with deep, gnawable flavour. Sautéed shrimps and scallops and grilled chorizo played good supporting roles, but the piri-piri chicken, which sat in a lightly piquant broth with the seafood and might as well have been braised, had little of the brightness and none of the grilled goodness that I expected. Fries were run-of-the-mill.

Portuguese platter at Le Cellier

For dessert, pastel de nata egg tarts ($6), served on a slick of dulce de leche, struck us as oddly flat, more homespun than bake shop, lacking in custard and caramelization.

Pastel de nata tarts at Le Cellier

At lunch, more of the food was closer to the mark. There was a fine spinach soup of the day ($5). Three of us split the “L’indécise” platter for two ($55), on which nearly everything satisfied nicely, including a massive, yielding, and not-too-salty confit duck leg, four small but tasty lamb chops, truffle-oiled arugula salad, assorted vegetables, roast potatoes and demi-glace galore.

Duck confit, quail stuffed with foie gras- lamb rack for two at Le Cellier

The platter’s disappointment was its quail stuffed with foie gras. Optimally, that component would be more refined, with the little bird broken down and a delight of molten foie enhancing the breast meat. But what we received was a more brusquely cooked whole quail, surrounding a less appealing foie stuffing with no ooze to it.

Dessert that time was a rich and straightforward chocolate terrine studded with pistachios ($5). For one of us, it was the meal’s star.

Chocolate Terrine at Le Cellier

Le Cellier provided some high points, some low points and some in-betweens. It had friendly, bilingual service in its favour, and some measure of luxurious eating at less-than-luxe prices, if not the stops-out dazzle of the real thing.

phum@ottawacitizen.com
twitter.com/peterhum
ottawacitizen.com/tags/dining-out

Soca Pub

93 Holland Ave., 613-695-9190, socapub.com
Open: Monday to Friday 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., Saturday 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Monday to Wednesday 5:30 to 9:30 p.m., Thursday to Saturday 5:30 to 10 p.m., Closed Sunday
Prices: small plates $12 to 20, larger plates $22 to $32
Access: steps to front door, washrooms upstairs

The Soca Pub, which opened in late November on Holland Avenue just north of the Great Canadian Theatre Company, knows how to make a good and distinctive first impression.

Each of my two visits this month to the self-described Spanish gastropub began with small, on-the-house treats delivered in quick succession. First came wee glasses of soca (sugar cane) juice, mixed with lime juice and sparkling water. Then came a plate of freshly fried arepitas, cornbread fritters dusted in this case with feta, one for each of us.

We gobbled down these tasty, signature freebies and had expectations of even better to follow. Soca did not disappoint.

Behind the woody, casual 40-seater is chef/co-owner Daniela Manrique, 27, who was born in Venezuela and lived there until she was 11. She has lived in Montreal and later in Miami, and she moved to Ottawa about six months ago with her partner, Gustavo Belisario to open Soca Pub.

Manrique’s food has lots of welcome tweaks, finesses and vivid flavours that draw from not just her homeland but from elsewhere. It’s telling that three clocks hang overhead at Soca Pub, telling the time in Ottawa, Barcelona and Caracas.

If it were up to me, I would tinker a bit with Soca’s prices and the portions here and there, shrinking the former and enlarging the latter. But of the dozen or so items I’ve tried, all were enjoyable and most were off the beaten track for Ottawa. My favourites will hopefully remain on Soca’s constantly menu to sate my cravings down the road.

Of Soca’s dozen or so small plates, I’ve tried five, and I would gladly order each again. Topping my list, but not by much, was a sumptuous dish of arroz sucio, or dirty rice ($19). This was complex, soulful, salty, comfort food, flecked with chunks of made-in-house pork sausage, sobrasada (a spicier cured pork sausage), chickpeas, and even some Venezuelan cacao.

Dirty Rice appeals with an earthy mix of pork sausage, chickpeas and even some Venezuelan cacao.

Soca’s raw fish dishes were winners that drew on the influence and especially the peppers of Peru. Ceviche made with snapper ($16) was a refined fiesta of flavours and textures.

Snapper ceviche at Soca Pub

More minimalist was a tiradito of yellowtail ($14), which sandwiched the pristine slices of seared fish between fried capers and a tapenade-like slick on top and mound of potent rocoto pepper sauce below.

Hamachi Tiradito is a study in salty, spicy contrasts.

Braised and then grilled octopus tentacles ($20) were meaty and good, and the warm fingerling potato salad that came with them was better still.

Braised octopus at Soca Pub

Yielding veal sweetbreads ($12) filled crisp spring rolls and were served with arugula pesto, a go-to condiment for Manriques.

Crispy Sweetbread Rolls at Soca Pub

The menu calls Manriques’ large plate of chicken “simple,” but that’s no insult for so-moist, expertly seasoned breast meat that has been cooked sous-vide and crisped ($24). The sections of bird come with a funky, slightly tangy mash of potato and yucca, and a tomato-based “brava” sauce that packs a punch thanks to chili flakes and smoked paprika.

Simple Chicken, a Soca Pub main course, has been cooked sous vide and is expertly seasoned.

For red-meat lovers, Soca’s bavette ($28) was a huge, partitioned slab of well-seasoned, robustly flavoured muscle, which required some work to chew. On the side, hazelnut romesco sauce was superb.

Bavette steak at Soca Pub

Kale ravioli, al dente and browned, in a nice mushroom broth ($22) weren’t bad, but they were outdone by the bolder flavours of other dishes. Fideuà, vermicelli-like noodles typical of Valencia, Spain, was a saffron-tinged seafood splurge speckled with pieces of lobster and clams. The dish has clean flavours going for it, but for $32, the serving seemed small.

Fideua with lobster and clams at Soca Pub

Instead of ordering small and large plates, lighter ways to go would have been to graze on Whalesbone oysters, and shrimp and langoustines cooked in Old Bay seasoning, or to assemble a DIY charcuterie plate, selecting from five tempting cheeses and three cured pork products. We’ve limited ourselves to slices of San David Jamon Iberico, a majestic, superior ham made in Spain from fabled acorn-fed pigs, topping crusty bread spread with tomato and garlic ($15). Simplicity again was a tremendous virtue.

Jamon Iberico on Crusty Bread at Soca Pub

I’ve ended my meals with a top-dollar dessert of rich, melting chocolate cake, flambéed with rum ($13) and with a few bites of charred, spiced, palate-cleansing pineapple ($3). Both did the trick, but the miser in me prefers the pineapple.

Chocolate cake at Soca Pub

Pineapple bites at Soca Pub

Add speedy, enthusiastic service and a range of intriguing cocktails to this mix, and Soca Pub emerges clearly a newcomer that’s hit the ground running, blessed with vision, flair and chops in the kitchen. I look forward to repeat visits in 2015.

phum@ottawacitizen.com
twitter.com/peterhum
ottawacitizen.com/tags/dining-out

Beechwood Gastropub
18 Beechwood Ave., 613-744-6509, facebook.com/beechwoodgastropub
Open: Tuesday to Sunday 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., closed Monday
Prices: small plates from $6 to $17
Access: wheelchair ramp to front door

In one of Ottawa’s most notable and quickest restaurant turnovers last year, Farbs Kitchen & Wine Bar closed in October, on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. About a month later, at the same New Edinburgh address, the Beechwood Gastropub opened, with a length of barn board added to the dining room’s longest wall, some fresh teal paint on a wall or two, and monogrammed mirrors as renovations.

The new business is the third within a three-block stretch of Beechwood Avenue for the young entrepreneur Andre Cloutier, who opened the Italian eatery Arturo’s Market in 2007 and in 2013 bought the venerable Spanish restaurant El Meson.

How has the transition gone from wine bar to gastropub? Apparently well, based on the many guests that kept the place busy when I was there. But more choppily, I’d add, given the inconsistent food I’ve sampled. That said, the meals did improve with each of my three visits, as I, perhaps like the fledgling restaurant, homed in on what worked best and what didn’t.

The Beechwood Gastropub, which is not connected to the Wellington Gastropub on Wellington Street West, is yet another new Ottawa restaurant dedicated to small plates. Its smartly written, sassy menu talks a good game, raising expectations for elevated fare.

But here the food usually felt more like small portions than small plates. What I mean is that the dishes generally struck a less refined note, with dishes eating more like comfort food or lightly tweaked pub food rather than tautly crafted, artier dishes. Apart from that, when dishes fell short, they were often too bland or a little too sweet.

On the restaurant’s Facebook page, it says that a new menu is due Feb. 3. If it’s not too late, here’s my feedback on what to keep, adjust and lose.

House-made gnocchi ($15), pillowy, lightly browned, twice hit the mark, although they were a little lost beneath much kale, fried cauliflower and a bit of Brussel sprouts.

Gnocchi with kale and cauliflower at Beechwood Gastropub.

This dish seemed better composed and executed than the house-made perogies ($11), which were massive — two to an order — and not so exciting. I expected more cheesy and bacony goodness.

Perogies at Beechwood Gastropub

Crispy calamari ($15) were well made and served with a bit of flair, nestled with some mussels and chorizo in a snappy, smokey sauce.

Calamari at Beechwood Gastropub

A sizeable chunk of pork belly ($14) was nicely crispy and then unctuous, and received a flavour boost from a balanced, sweet-savoury sauce. A quibble: the huge mound of slaw needed more zip, though.

Pork belly at Beechwood Gastropub.

A plate of chicken and waffles ($16) simplified the Southern classic, but was still enjoyable, consisting of three moist and nicely sauced deep-fried boneless thighs plus crisp sections of waffles.

Chicken and waffles at Beechwood Gastropub.

Albacore tuna crudo ($15) had the right elements — some citrus, cilantro, puffed kasha for crunch — but would have been better with thicker cuts of fish and more vivid flavours.

At one lunch, I had some fine hot smoked trout ($13), unfortunately offset with rosti that were burnt and black on the bottom.

Hot-smoked trout with slaw, greens and rosti at Beechwood Gastropub

The flank steak ($17) needs a re-think. Our order was too chewy, and short on flavour, and it needed a better condiment than the too-sweet red pepper jelly. Plus, the meat was served over its fries, ensuring soggy fries.

Flank steak at Beechwood Gastropub

Mushrooms ($12) cooked with balsamic and served on flatbread with goat cheese and caramelized onions amounted to a large, ungainly plate that ate too messily and too sweetly.

Baked cauliflower ($12) was on a mid-December dinner menu, but absent a month later, which was no great loss, because the dish was lacklustre. Coq au vin ($15) too was similarly cut, and that was another good call. What we had tasted like a shortcut version of the great French dish, with little cooked-in flavour to the chicken.

Homemade pogos ($8) were made with large, local sausages, but weren’t much of an improvement over the concession-stand staple.

Desserts tended be the sweet and basic. I liked the arborio rice pudding ($7) with poached pear and candied walnuts more than the single-note, sticky toffee pudding ($8) with a brown sugar molasses sauce.

Arborio rice pudding with candied walnuts, red wine poached pear at Beechwood Gastropub.

Sticky toffee pudding with brown sugar molasses sauce at Beechwood Gastropub.

Also pretty basic has been the selection of beers, which I hope will grow as this place leaves its wine-bar beginnings behind.

Service, like the food, improved with each of my visits. When I ate here in mid-December, servers, while friendly and well-intentioned, said that dishes were to be shared and that two or three items per person was about right. Given the portion sizes, three seems like over-doing it to me. Also, many items came in bowls, which made sharing harder, and we had to ask for sharing plates and cutlery. This month, service has felt more proactive and clear on the concept.

Overall, it seems like the eatery is meeting a need, and that neighbours have embraced it. But I’d bet that they would like it even more if the kitchen adds more vibrancy and consistent highs to the food.

phum@ottawacitizen.com
twitter.com/peterhum
ottawacitizen.com/tags/dining-out

Ace Mercado

121 Clarence St.,613-627-2353, acemercado.com
Open: Sunday to Thursday 5 p.m. to midnight, Friday and Saturday noon to 2 a.m.
Prices: $6 a taco, appetizers starting at $7, main courses starting at $26
Access: No steps into restaurant, but washrooms down some steep stairs

Some like it hot. My dining companion at Ace Mercado on Clarence Street the other night, though, not so much.

He approached his first bites a little nervously at the five-month-old, Mexican-inspired restaurant, given that the braised lamb taco was topped with, among other condiments, “lime habanero mojo.” Fortunately, he was right to go out on a limb. “Oh my God, that’s good. Spicy, but good,” he said.

You could heap similar praise on the best items on Ace Mercado’s tautly composed menu. The dishes that we would want to return for rewarded us with complex flavours, spicy or otherwise, working harmoniously, plus some commendable craft.

That’s what you would expect from a glance at the sandwich board in the restaurant’s entrance that announces the talent in the kitchen.

Ace’s menu was developed by René Rodriguez, the chef and owner of Navarra on Murray Street who enjoyed a breakout year in 2014 after winning Top Chef Canada. “I’m only there as a consultant, about 10 hours a week,” Rodriguez told me in late August, as Ace was about to open. “Navarra is still my baby.”

In charge of Ace’s kitchen day-to-day is Trisha Donaldson, who over the years has turned out fine food at the Black Cat Café, Pelican Grill and Almonte Riverside Kitchen, and who was Rodriguez’s sous chef along the way.

In some ways, Ace Mercado is to Navarra as Clarence Street is to Murray Street. Ace is larger, darker, and more bar-like, with many high-top tables for four surrounding a large bar. Drinks at Ace are a big deal — specifically, Mexican-themed cocktails and several dozen varieties of tequila, offered with a punchy verdita (a green, refreshingly herby, jalapeno-spiked concoction) or sangrita (a red, tomato-and-orange-juice-based accompaniment bolstered with chipotle, hot sauce, fish sauce and cilantro) on the side. Also, Ace grows much louder than Navarra as the night goes on.

Food-wise, some of Navarra’s well-established dishes — Rodriguez’s spins on steak tartare and scallop ceviche — have made the move to Ace. Otherwise, the food pitches a little lower. Rather than Navarra’s new tasting-menu treats, Ace offers tacos, tortilla soup, guacamole or Caesar salad, although we’re talking about refined renditions, not fast food.

Refinement costs extra, mind you. Ace’s prices might give some cause for pause. At $11, that guacamole ought to cure cancer, I think, and I didn’t order it. Tacos are $6 each, making them Ottawa’s priciest, I believe, and they must be ordered two at time. Mind you, the braised lamb and snapper (with chimichurri and corn relish) versions were distinctive creations. Like he said, OMG.

Lamb tacos at Ace Mercado

Red Snapper tacos at Ace Mercado

We also swooned over the tuna tostada ($14), with its seared, coriander-crusted exterior and play of sweet caramelized onions, its acidic hits and crisp tortilla.

Tuna Tostada at Ace Mercado

Kudos too for Ace’s spins on several standbys, including a Caesar salad ($12) that consisted of perkily dressed grilled baby romaine with thick-cut, almost sweet, house-smoked bacon and shavings of mellow manchego cheese.

Caesar salad at Ace Mercado

Tortilla soup ($9) had depth of flavour and good crunch, plus the novelty of liquid-nitrogen-doused popcorn. After the smoke quickly cleared, the real wow was its tomatoey goodness and creeping heat.

Tortilla soup at Ace Mercado

Tuna tartare ($17) dazzled visually, with puck of raw fish joined on a long stone slab by many additions — chicharrons, grilled avocado, root chips and assorted splashes of colour. It was an expansive and enjoyable dish, but I liked even more the huddled tuna tostada.

Tuna tartare at Ace Mercado

Scallop ceviche ($17) was less vivid than expected. I recall the Navarra version that I ate in 2012 had smaller slices of scallop, more potent contrasts of flavours, and above all, more brightness.

Scallop ceviche at Ace Mercado

Related

• From Sept. 2012: Navarra turns out Mexican-inspired treasures

Fries ($7)  were better than many around town, large but crisp. They came with hot sauce liberally applied, but I’d ask for them au naturel. Indeed, we received a comped bucket of unsauced fries after some misgivings were expressed.

Papas fritas (fries topped wiht manchego cheese and hot sauce) at Ace Mercado

Of the four main courses, I’ve sampled three. Generally, I think there’s more distilled excitement on the smaller plates, although the ribeye steak ($32) was deeply beefy, satisfying and well supported with clearly defined treats such as fried cherry tomatoes, pickled cactus and two kinds of hot sauce.

Rib-eye steak at Ace Mercado

Chicken in a tamale ($26) was moist and comforting. The duck duo (slices of breast and a duck confit empanada, $28) arrived with nice add-ons, but needed more salt to come alive.

Chicken tamale at Ace Mercado

Duck duo (duck confit empanada, duck breast) at Ace Mercado

Ace serves just two desserts, but both stack up well against similar rivals elsewhere. Chocolate fondant cake ($7) came with superior raspberry sorbet, chocolate soil and caramelized banana. Churros ($7), while a bit greasier than hoped for, were redeemed by a balanced coconut caramel dipping sauce.

Chocolate fondant with caramelized plantain, chocolate soil, raspberry sorbet at Ace Mercado.

Churros with coconut caramel sauce at Ace Mercado

I see that Urbanspoon’s crowdsourced take on Ace is not good — a mere 59 per cent like it. This doesn’t line up with my two visits, where in addition to commendable, fresh and at times thrilling food, the service was knowledgeable and amiable.

My suggestion to optimize a meal at Ace is to go early when it’s more quiet and less busy, angle for the comfortable banquette beneath the gaudily painted skulls or the more private back room, and make friends with a tequila, verdita on the side.

phum@ottawacitizen.com
twitter.com/peterhum
ottawacitizen.com/tags/dining-out

Cacao 70
51-53 William St., 613-860-1991, cacao70.ca

Luna Crêpes & Café
29 March Rd., 613-254-5551, lunacafe.ca

Mon Resto
532 Boul. Maloney Est, Gatineau, 819-893-3344, mon-resto.ca

A Thing For Chocolate
1262 Wellington St. W., 613-695-3533, facebook.com/athingforchocolate

While visiting Quebec City last fall, I was struck by the notion that within a few basse-ville blocks there were seemingly as many crêperies as in all of Ottawa-Gatineau.

The abundance reminded me of what our dining scene had lost — not just the former ByWard Market fixtures Le Crêperie and Café Crêpe de France, but also the more recently closed Gatineau restaurant L’Argoat, which specialized in buckwheat crêpes, and even the shuttered little eatery Crepella in South Keys. From its Facebook page, and other online information, it seems to have been “closed temporarily” since the middle of 2013.

Fortunately, the Mill Street Crepe Company in Almonte, which in late 2011 was reviewed in this space, and favourably so, hasn’t gone under.

And yet, once I poked around a bit, I realized the region’s stock of crêpes is not as depleted as I’d thought. It’s just that the new venues serving crêpes can be more casual and far-flung. They usually give crêpes secondary billing, and the selection is generally more limited. Also, you’re more likely to order crêpes for breakfast or lunch, or perhaps an early dinner, at the four restaurants I recently surveyed.

One was Luna Crêpes & Café, which has been open for a few years in a Kanata strip mall. Despite its name, Luna is as much about paninis, sandwiches and gelato as crêpes, with 10 savoury fillings that can be had between bread (grilled or not) or wrapped in a crêpe.

Here, I found the crêpes (two savoury and one sweet) to be pretty ordinary — satisfactory, but lacking in finesse. If anything, a crêpe that bundled some pesto-sauced chicken ($9.99) seemed a little gummy, and a dessert crêpe ($5.99) was too tough. A bit of mitigation is that a scoop of gelato comes for dessert with each savoury crêpe.

Chicken pesto crepe with Caesar salad at Luna Crepes & Cafe

Meanwhile, at the bustling breakfast-and-lunch spot Mon Resto in suburban Gatineau, a few crêpes figure on the menu. A rolled crêpe with ham, asparagus topped with thick Hollandaise sauce, served with fried potatoes and a complimentary coffee ($9.95), was amply stuffed and well-proportioned. But a vegetarian crêpe ($8.95) felt quite run-of-the-mill and bland.

Ham and asparagus crepe at Mon Resto

Much more memorable was the house special crêpe ($12.50) at Cacao 70, which opened in August on William Street in the ByWard Market. This pillowy affair, very much suitable for sharing, was stuffed with lots of assertively seasoned chicken, spinach, mayonnaise and cheese.

House special crepe at Cacao 70

Its proportions were in keeping with the generous specialities at Cacao 70, which is part of a franchise that has two Montreal locations. Waffles, fondues, hot chocolates, drinks and the like are large, indulgently sweet and worth the linger.

Crêpes here are also available “pressed,” like a cross between a stuffed pancake and a panini. We tried the ham and smoked-turkey pressed crêpes, but neither matched the saltier and more saucy impact of the unpressed house special. Also, their side salads were a little tired, with too much of a too-sweet dressing.

Pressed crepe at Cacao 70

I’ve also tried Cacao 70’s simple, thin buckwheat crêpe ($12.75), available from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. It was a spartan plate that layered egg and thin, lean ham in its pancake. It was a nice, light lunch (and gluten-free to boot), although I would have liked it more had it been more tangy or nutty.

Buckwheat crepe stuffed with ham and egg at Cacao 70

I think most highly of the crêpes at A Thing For Chocolate, a small and charming coffee, crêpes and dessert shop that opened about a year ago on Wellington Street West. There, the friendly owner Omar Fares turned out slightly smaller but consistently tasty and conscientiously made crêpes.

Fares has the largest selection of crêpes I’ve seen in the area — more than two dozen, including savoury, sweet and even vegan options. Every one that I’ve sampled has had the right texture and a balanced proportion of filling to pancake to crêpe. I though the best savoury crêpe was Fares’ La Med ($8.50), filled with chicken, aioli, tomato and mushrooms, but my companions were just as pleased with a pulled pork-filled crêpe ($8.99), bolstered by some not-cloying barbecue sauce and beets, as well as a cheese steak crêpe ($11.99) that featured marinated beef, mozzarella and Swiss cheese.

Crepe at A Thing For Chocolate

No complaints either about the house special sweet crêpe ($7.50) made with Fares’ house-made hazelnut chocolate spread rather than Nutella, plus fruit. It was better, in fact, than a slice of hazelnut chocolate cake ($4.75), which was a touch dry.

House special dessert crepe at A Thing For Chocolate

Only now, at the conclusion of my crêpes tour, do I see from the fine print in Fares’ menu that for an extra $1, he will make buckwheat versions of his many crêpes. An option worth investigating on another day, I think.

phum@ottawacitizen.com
twitter.com/peterhum
ottawacitizen.com/tags/dining-out

The ByWard Market’s 24th annual stew cook-off earlier this month was won by Tucker’s Marketplace, which served a beef and Italian sausage concoction that it called Parisienne Hot Pot. The recipe is below.

The event, which pitted the stews of more than 20 market businesses against one another, attracted 500 people to sample their wares and raised more than $5,000 for the Lowertown Community Resource Centre’s summer camp programs.

The Tucker’s stew came first with the event’s judges, and third in the people choice competition. No other stew made the top three of both lists.

A similar stew by Tucker’s also won the market cook-off in 2012.

Tucker’s Marketplace Parisienne Hot Pot

Makes: 10 servings

6 pieces bacon

2 oz vegetable oil

2 cups (500 mL) diced onion

¼ cup (60 mL) minced fresh garlic or roasted garlic (optional)

2 lb (900 g) stewing beef, ¾-inch diced

2 lb (900 g) Italian sausage – cut into ½-inch coins

2 cups (500 mL) dry red cooking wine

1 cup (250 mL) tomato paste

2 cups (500 mL) celery coarsely chopped

2 cups (500 mL) carrots

2 cups (500 mL) fresh tomatoes ¾-inch diced

2 cups (500 mL) redskin potatoes ¾-inch diced

8 cups (2 L) water

¼ cup (60 mL) beef soup base

¼ cup (60 mL) Worcestershire sauce

½ tsp (2.5 mL) garam masala

1 tbsp (15 mL) ground cumin

1 tbsp (15 mL) fresh thyme

1 tbsp (15 mL) dried oregano

1 tbsp (15 mL) dried sweet basil

½ tsp (2.5 mL) allspice

pinch crushed chili peppers

1 tsp (5 mL) brown sugar

For the Flour Mix

½ cup (125 m) flour

3 cups (750 mL) water

1. Marinate cubed beef in red wine and minced garlic for 4 hours.

2. In a large, heavy-bottom pot, cook bacon, then remove when crispy and set aside. Add onions to 2 oz of vegetable oil over a low heat and simmer until translucent.

3. Increase heat to medium-high and add thyme.

4. Pour wine marinade off of beef and retain for later step.

5. Add beef and Italian sausage to onions and thyme. Cook until seared and browned.

6. Add celery, carrots, and potatoes and cook for 5 minutes, stirring constantly.

7. Add tomatoes, tomato paste, beef base, spices, brown sugar, reserved wine marinade and water, and bring to a boil.

8. Reduce temperature to a simmer, cover and stir occasionally. Allow to simmer for 3 – 5 hours.

9. Combine flour and water, and mix well.

10. Increase heat to medium, and slowly add flour mixture to thicken to desired consistency.

11. Reduce heat and simmer for an additional 20 minutes.

12. Chop bacon and garnish top of stew.

13. Sprinkle with cilantro or parsley.

Kochin Kitchen

271 Dalhousie St, 613-562-4461,
Open: Tuesday to Saturday 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., 5 to 9:30 p.m., Sunday 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., 5 to 9 p.m., Closed Monday
Prices: Curries from $16 to $24
Access: One small step to front door, washrooms downstairs

Someone at Kochin Kitchen must have a playful sense of humour. At the new South Indian restaurant on Dalhousie Street, salt and pepper shakers grace the tables. But for the life of me, I can’t imagine the eatery’s vibrantly seasoned, enthralling food needing any extra flavour pick-me-ups.

I’ve been twice and each time was wowed by the potently spiced yet varied and nuanced dishes. The best, most sumptuous fare here delivers stunning, long-lasting flavours; deftly balancing blends of pepper, ginger, cardamom, chilies, curry leaves, turmeric, caramelized onions and much more as required.

Named after a major port city on India’s south west coast, Kochin Kitchen and the highly regarded Coconut Lagoon on St. Laurent Boulevard are the only Ottawa restaurants that specialize in the cuisine from India’s Kerala province. In fact, Kochin Kitchen’s chef and co-owner Anil Oorkolil, formerly cooked at Coconut Lagoon, and on paper, their menus are similar.

Kochin Kitchen’s chef and co-owner, Anil Oorkolil with an array of his dishes.

I’m not in a position though, to find one superior. That’s a call to be made after much delicious research. I can say, based on my two visits to Kochin Kitchen and one off-duty buffet lunch at Coconut Lagoon, that there were some differences between comparable dishes that I ate. For example, pepper lamb, while far from shy at Kochin Kitchen, was more peppery at Coconut Lagoon.

Kochin Kitchen replaces Cafe Spiga, which had served Italian and Portuguese food for more than two decades until it closed Dec. 27. Kochin opened Jan. 10 in turn-key fashion — salt shakers, wine cellar and all, I guess — and it retains Spiga’s clean, contemporary ambiance and blonde tables. For now, the restaurant stresses its ethnicity with a Keralan wall hanging and piped-in Indian classical music.

Our servers at dinner last weekend, including co-owner Anil Nair, were friendly, attentive and confident, offering dish details and recommendations. Ultimately our curious foursome chose main dishes en masse, limiting ourselves to two suggested starters — five plump, brightly flavoured coriander shrimp ($10) and a massive masala dosa ($10), the comforting, stuffed South Indian crepe — from a larger selection.

Coriander shrimp at Kochin Kitchen

Once the main dishes and rices arrived, we were hard-pressed to pick a favourite.

Array of dishes at Kochin Kitchen

Ranking highly with me was the luscious lobster masala ($24), its tail meat respectfully cooked and elevated by a chili-tinted, sweetly oniony sauce. Almost as impressive was a moist, meaty salmon fillet smeared with its own delectable masala, wrapped in a banana leaf and grilled ($20).

Salmon grilled in a banana leaf at Kochin Kitchen

Kodanadu chicken ($18) was lick-the-bowl good, but a more polite move was to sop up its sauce with parotta — dense, grilled flatbreads. Morsels of fried and admitted dry beef ($18) were more a snack with the Kingfisher beer, winning us over with their dusky flavour profile and the accompanying chunks of coconut.

Roasted eggplant ($9) received the royal treatment, merged with a thick, dark complex sauce that brought heat, acidity and an almost chocolatey richness to the table.

Kochin Kitchen, in the Byward Market, features fine Indian cuisine, including Eggplant Masala. (Julie Oliver / Ottawa Citizen)

Pumpkin ($9) underwent its own alchemy with coconut, green chilies and curry leaves.

Turmeric-stained lemon rice ($4) was a nice change. More intriguing, and soothing, was curd rice ($4), which mixed basmati with lightly seasoned yogurt, like a cross between raita and rice pudding.

Next time, as far as rice goes, I want to try dum biryani ($20), in which rice and meat are baked together, sealed in dough.

For dessert, we opted for the more Western scoop of vanilla ice cream with caramelized banana ($4), which nonetheless had small hit of ginger to it, and the old-country lentil payasam ($3), a warm, somewhat sweet slurry of lentils pureed with coconut milk and spices.

I also tried Kochin Kitchen’s lunch buffet ($14.50) for unlimited quantities of the restaurant’s spicy fix. A creamy tomato soup had good gingery bite. Pepper lamb was fall-apart tender and intense. Salmon shone in a bright-yellow curry. Thoran was a fine mince of vegetables. Lemon rice had good freshness and fluff.

Kochin Kitchen, in the Byward Market, features fine Indian cuisine, including Salmon Curry.

The few complaints I’ve had were minor. Some, but not all, okra pods in a bowl of sambar soup and aviyal, a mixed vegetable stew, were fibrous and inedible. The stuffed dosa was just a tiny bit grainy. At dinner, the lamb in the pepper lamb could have been a little better trimmed. At the lunch-buffet steam table, the chicken breast in the otherwise excellent butter chicken — not just sweet or tomatoey as run-of-the-mill versions are, but complex and nutty — was a bit overcooked.

But I would happily eat around these flaws rather than skip the flavourable pleasures of these items. And as for the other mouth-watering dishes at Kochin Kitchen, I wouldn’t change a single spicy thing.

phum@ottawacitizen.com
twitter.com/peterhum
ottawacitizen.com/tag/dining-out

The Daily Grind Art Café

601 Somerset St. W., 613-233-2233, thedailygrindartcafe.com
Open: ​​​Monday, Wednesday, Thursday 11 a.m. to midnight, Friday 11 a.m. to  2 a.m., Saturday 9 a.m. to 2 a.m., ​Sunday 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., closed Tuesdays
​Prices: most dishes between $12 and $18
Access: washrooms upstairs

The thing that I like the most about the Daily Grind, the Somerset Street West café, is that it feels like an escape from the daily grind, or rather, the monotonous tasks that occupy too much of our waking hours.

It’s a funky, artsy, relaxed, somewhat dishevelled, but quintessentially Centretown kind of place that’s been open for almost three-and-a-half years. Before that, the Seoul House Restaurant was at the address for at least a good 15 years.

Above all, the Daily Grind is welcoming and casual, to the point of being DIY in its directions to customers. Grab a clean spoon from this cup for your coffee, get your own water from this cooler; and pay at the bar when you feel like it. These stipulations were OK once you caught on, although I wasn’t a fan during one visit when we had to get our own cutlery, minutes after our plates had landed. Clearly this was a sin of omission.

On the cafe’s main-floor dining room that seats about two dozen or so, the chairs, tables and even a long church pew are well-used and a little mis-matched. Upstairs there are three cosy rooms, some with couches. It can really feel as if you’ve come to chill out at a friend’s house, where the Wi-Fi’s free and you can play a board game or spin a CD if you want.

The food here is down-to-earth, inspired by, but not really duplicating, Tex-Mex, Southern, Cajun and Caribbean dishes. Breakfast, that most important meal of the day, is served all day, with more than 20 colourful options listed, more prominently than anything else the café serves, on the blackboard by the bar.

The food’s well-intentioned too. All of it is gluten-free — “to the celiac degree” its website says — including home-made bread, baked goods and desserts that sit in a showcase outside the kitchen. Eggs and maple syrup are local and organic, coffees and teas are organic too, and freshly made juices are a healthy plus.

Over three visits, I’ve had a range of highlights and low points, from a much-too-fatty pork belly sandwich that I’d rate as “avoid,” to some so-so, inoffensive dishes, to a few that were noticeably better made and more tasty.

I thought highly enough of the shrimp tacos to want to eat them again, even if they weren’t as artisanal as others in town. The shrimps were small in the three tacos, but they had good sweetness, while bacon and avocado meaningfully bolstered the dish. The home-made salsa had good acidity, but the side salad was too heavy-handed with the onions.

Shrimp tacos at The Daily Grind

The spin here on chicken and waffles is to offer the breast meat blackened Cajun-style, rather than deep-fried parts. That’s a step down, if you ask me, but the chicken, while a little dry, was nicely seasoned and the waffle was commendably crunchy and then fluffy.

Chicken and waffles at The Daily Grind

The burger was not bad, a hefty and herbed half-pounder between a biscuit-like, gluten-free bun, along with good toppings. Be warned though, that you will need to go elsewhere for your French-fry fix, as the café opts with this and other sandwiches for chips.

Bacon cheeseburger at The Daily Grind

In the average-fare column, I’d place the very ordinary beef enchilada and the jerk chicken sandwich, which was likeably moist but lacked the full spectrum of jerk-seasoned deliciousness, hitting only the hot and sour notes hard.

Jerk Chicken sandwich at The Daily Grind

Pork received top billing on a number of dishes. I’ve not had the pulled pork with waffles dish that I was told is a top-seller. I was not that happy, though, with that much-too-fatty pork belly sandwich (and I do like pork belly), and the lacklustre, somewhat dry, pork chop that came with the otherwise fine “Porky Pig” breakfast.

Fat Back Pork Belly sandwich at The Daily Grind

Porky Pig at at The Daily Grind

Of those homespun, gluten-free desserts, I’ve had a satisfying slice of brownie-like chocolate cake, as well as a too-sweet macaroon and some arguably under-sweet chocolate espresso cake.

Gluten-free chocolate cake at The Daily Grind

Chocolate espresso cake at The Daily Grind

In the end, I liked the Daily Grind’s vibe more than its food. But I was thankful for a few dishes that merited re-ordering and left my curiosity and optimism about the rest of the menu intact.

phum@ottawacitizen.com
twitter.com/peterhum
ottawacitizen.com/tag/dining-out

Escape the cold and grey with this lively Caribbean chicken dish, which is full of bright flavours and tropical colours, but can be made easily in less than half an hour.

The sweet coating on the chicken chars slightly as you sauté, giving barbecue flavour without the need to venture outdoors. The mango salsa is optional, but adds a blast of sunshiny colour and taste.

To top it all off, it’s actually good for you: low in fat, sugar and sodium, but full of protein and fresh-fruit vitamins.

The recipe come from Kate Sherwood, who writes a column called The Healthy Cook in the Nutrition Action Health Letter, which is published by the Centre for Science in the Public Interest.

Caribbean Barbecue Chicken

Makes: 6 servings

Preparation time: about 30 minutes

8 pitted prunes

3 cloves garlic

1/2 cup (125 mL) orange juice

2 tbsp (30 mL) freshly squeezed lime juice

3 tbsp (45 mL) reduced-sodium soy sauce

1 tsp (5 mL) red pepper flakes (optional)

1 tsp (5 mL) ground allspice

2.2 lb (1 kg) boneless, skinless chicken breasts

2 tbsp (30 mL) canola oil

1. In a blender, purée the prunes, garlic, orange juice, lime juice, soy sauce and spices.

2. In a large zip-top plastic bag, pound the chicken to an even 1/2-inch (1.3-cm) thickness.

3. Pour the prune purée into the bag with the chicken and coat the chicken evenly.

4. In a large non-stick skillet, heat the oil over medium heat until shimmering. Sauté the chicken in two batches until lightly charred and cooked through, 3 to 4 minutes per side. (If your chicken is thicker and still pink inside after the outside is charred, remove pieces to an ovenproof dish and continue baking at 350 F/175 C just until cooked through.) Serve topped with mango salsa if desired (recipe follows).

Per serving (1 medium chicken breast, without salsa): calories: 290; fat: 9 g; sodium: 340 mg; carbs: 12 g; fibre: 1 g; protein: 39 g

Mango Salsa

Makes: about 4 cups (1 L)

Preparation time: about 10 minutes

2 cups (500 mL) chopped mango

1 cup (250 mL) chopped cucumber

1 cup (250 mL) chopped cherry tomatoes

1/4 cup (60 mL) cilantro leaves

1 jalapeño pepper, seeded and minced (optional)

2 tbsp (30 mL) lime juice

1/4 tsp (1 mL) kosher salt

In food processor, pulse all ingredients until minced (or chop by hand and combine in a bowl, as shown here.) Serve immediately with grilled or sautéed chicken, shrimp or fish.

The Parlour Pizza Kitchen & Bar

250 Greenbank Rd. (beside Tim Hortons), 613-820-4444, theparlourpizza.ca
Open: Tuesday to Sunday 4:30 to 10 p.m., closed Mondays
Prices: Pizzas and pastas $12 to $18, specials $19 to $26
Access: No steps, washrooms wheelchair-accessible

What’s the best word to describe how the Parlour Pizza Kitchen & Bar came to open last May? “Unintentionally” comes close.

Its co-owner, Linda Price, told me last week that she and her husband, Joe, had not meant to open a restaurant last year. What they did want was a larger space for their business, Toss It Up Catering. Then they learned of the Parlour’s space coming available, in the same Greenbank Road mall where, from 2001 until 2012, they had run the P.J. Quigley’s Bar and Grill.

It made sense, Price said, to operate Toss It Up from that nicely renovated 1,000-square-foot space in the mornings and afternoons, then to serve dinners in the evening, in the cosy, darkened, 28-seat dining room. Or, perhaps it made as much sense as running two businesses back-to-back during 16-hour work days.

Price told me this interesting tale and more after I had eaten thrice at the Parlour, which was enough times to form a positive, if not knocked-out, opinion of its Neapolitan-style pizzas, of many of its starters, of its admittedly in-the-box specials and pastas and its friendly service.

There’s fancier food out there than what chef Michael Hargreaves, who is also the catering company’s chef, puts out. But the Parlour’s best dishes have showed off clear flavours, respect for key ingredients and nice attention to detail.

Perhaps most notably, the restaurant strikes me as providing fine value for money, especially with $19 chalkboard specials that come with batons of pillowy, house-baked focaccia served with mascarpone-enriched butter, plus a sizable portion of salad bolstered with roasted beets.

Salad with beets at Parlour Pizza Kitchen and Bar

The value proposition also gets a gold star on Tuesdays, when pizzas cost just $10 each.

Here, thin-crust, 11-inch pizzas, are made with Italian “00” flour, which, thanks to its fine grind and slightly lower protein content, reputedly results in crusts that are crispy on the outside and tender inside. Crusts made with all-purpose flour tend to be more chewy. (The Parlour will also make gluten-free versions of pizzas for an extra $3.) Tomato-wise, Hargreaves uses the much-loved San Marzanos for his pizzas.

While the Prices couldn’t install a wood-burning oven as they had originally wanted  — it would have been too heavy — the oven does reach 600 F, I was told. It fires up to make “Neapolitan-style” rather than true Neapolitan pizzas proper. Certainly Hargreaves’ more untraditional creations — a tandoori-chicken pizza, a duck-confit-with-hoisin-sauce-and-pear pizza that I found too sweet and on the dry side — would make pizza purists flinch.

Duck confit pizza at the Parlour Pizza Kitchen and Bar

I’ve noted some fluctuations in the tastiness of the crust and pizzas at the Parlour. A vegetarian pizza, dubbed “the Answer,” was bang-on, with a toothsome crust loaded with fine pre-roasted zucchini, red onions, mushrooms and grape tomatoes, plus plenty of pesto and goat cheese.

The crust on the “LaLa” pizza ordered that same night was more dense, but the main impression that it left was that it was one spicy red pie, generously topped with potent Calabrian peppers as well as hot soppressata and San Marzano tomatoes.

A fan of all-day breakfasts liked his “Wake N Bake” pizza topped with double-smoked bacon and a sunny-side-up egg bacon, plus baby spinach and grape tomatoes.

Wake N Bake pizza at the Parlour Pizza Kitchen and Bar

I’ve had nothing but simple and satisfying starters at the Parlour, including tender, skewered grilled calamari; a massive, panko-crusted risotto cake that hid hits of provolone and sausage inside; some seared scallops served with bits of bacon, tarragon and lemon.

Grilled Calamari at the Parlour Pizza Kitchen and Bar.

Risotto cake at The Parlour Pizza Kitchen and Bar

Pan-seared scallops at The Parlour Kitchen and Bar

Best, and most filling, was a hearty plate of frito misto, with commendably ungreasy deep-fried discs of eggplant, fingers of red pepper, broccoli florets, mushrooms, and zingy slices of deep-fried lemon, all enlivened with aioli on the side.

Frito Misto at the Parlour Pizza on Greenbank Road.

Specials have been well-made, if less imaginative than some of the pizzas. But even served with basic accompaniments like plain rice or mundane mashed potatoes and julienned veg, a blackened salmon filet and stuffed chicken breast were both well executed and affordable.

Blackened Salmon at Parlour Pizza Kitchen and Bar

Stuffed chicken breast at the Parlour Pizza Kitchen and Bar

Home-made pastas were mainstream choices — spaghetti and meatballs, lasagna, a seafood linguine dish. The latter contained the slip-ups of cooked but pale, unseared scallops and a so-so cream sauce, but its shrimp were fine.

Linguine with seafood at Parlour Pizza Kitchen and Bar

The best of three desserts was a slab of classic, lady-fingered tiramisu, better than the chocolate mousse and the diavoletti (fried nuggets of dough, served with caramel and Nutella).

Tiramisu at The Parlour Pizza Kitchen and Bar

Diavoletti at Parlour Pizza Kitchen and Bar

Overall, this is a small and unpretentious place with some better-than-average food at commendable prices. It will be even more appealing with the weather warming and the polar chill that had whipped in the door long gone, and especially on Tuesdays.

phum@ottawacitizen.com
twitter.com/peterhum
ottawacitizen.com/tag/dining-out