Parlour
1319 Wellington St. W., 613-761-1302, parlourxdish.ca , instagram.com/parlourplace
Open: Tuesday to Friday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., Saturday 5 to 10 p.m., closed Sunday and Monday; patio service and food to go
Prices: snacks $5 to $8, burgers $10 to $14, feasts $35 and $75

When the worst that you can say about a patio is that some tables wobble on the uneven ground beneath them, you know it’s a patio worth a linger.

Parlour’s patio, which opened a month ago, has that wee drawback, but also charm to spare. Facing quiet Grange Avenue and noticeably removed from the bustle of nearby Wellington Street West, the patio is a shady, unfussy oasis of mis-matched furniture beneath a string of lights and acacia trees. If you’re lucky, a DJ will be spinning some relaxing reggae tracks.

And then there’s Parlour’s food, which during my visits last week consisted of casual yet very well-crafted summery indulgences, troubled only by quibbles that would be as easy to fix as putting a bit of styrofoam under a too-short table leg.

In all, this new al fresco hangout ought to appeal powerfully for however long (or short) patio season lasts.

Closer to Wellington Street West, there’s a counter where you check in for the patio. You order from the menu written on the Parlour’s windows, pay, and write down some information for contact tracing.

For a light dinner, we began with the addictively good potato crisps and chive dip ($5). The only reason to skip them might be because some of the pretty russet chips also come with Parlour’s burgers. Smooth, refreshing gazpacho ($8), made with tomatoes, melon and cucumber, was just as irresistible.

Two salads — a seared tuna Nicoise salad ($19) and a fried green tomato and burrata salad ($20) — put prime ingredients on good display. Our small bit of constructive criticism with both was that they would have benefited from a sharper, umami-rich or salty dressing to pull them together and give a bit more zip.

But then dinner ended with a lovely dessert of brightly tart lemon curd and berry trifle ($5) in a jar, and all was forgiven.

A few days later, lunch began with a box of fresh, crunchy veg with a thick, hearty blue cheese dip ($8.50), which set us up nicely for two exemplary burgers ($10 each). I can only shrug if asked to choose between Parlour’s crispy cod burger and sweet and hot fried chicken burger. Both were simple and simply bang-on.

Last weekend, I took three hungry teenagers to Parlour’s patio for its so-called feast offerings. We took the half-sized feasts ($35 each) of grilled chicken and grilled flank steak.

The feasting opened with small bowls of gazpacho for each of us, before plates of pre-sliced steak, lightly sweetened by its marinade and served with a mellow chimichurri on the side, and pieces of well-charred but beautifully moist chicken touched down. Accompanying them were boxes of greens and plates of the best fries that I’ve had in a long time, which were snappably crisp on the outside and fluffy on the inside.

Had we wanted, we could have accessorized our feast with oysters and tuna crudo from the patio station operated by staff from Supply and Demand, the acclaimed restaurant around the block from Parlour. That seafood station is open Fridays and Saturdays.

Our only letdown for that meal was that Parlour was out of ice cream sandwiches.

Parlour is licensed and serves a limited selection of canned craft beers and wines by the bottle or the plastic glass.

Now that you know about Parlour’s patio, I should tell you more about Parlour proper.

That in-door business takes up what was formerly the eastern half of the Ottawa Bagelshop and Deli, following that space’s gutting, renovation and restoration last year. Parlour is a 4,000-square-foot event space that holds 250 (in a pre-COVID-19 measurement) and is available for corporate, social and musical gatherings, as well as community-based and social enterprise projects.

Next month, Parlour will open an indoor culinary market with six curated suppliers including a farmer, a florist, prepared food vendors and a bottle shop with an in-house sommelier. Small wine and food shows and collaborations with other chefs, restaurants and producers are also expected.

The veteran business DISH Catering, which was located on nearby Ross Avenue, is the in-house caterer of Parlour, which explains why we ate so well on the patio.

Erin Clatney, managing director of DISH and Parlour, says she sees the patio as “as an elevated food court,” which I’d say is a good thing in pandemic times.

Clatney says she will keep the patio open as long as possible.

“I’m looking forward to Oktoberfest, blankets and heaters and sausages, and having local beer companies come and pour,” Clatney says. “I would like to do a winter market. I see braised stews and soups.

“We’ll see what the community dictates, but I’d like to keep it open for as long as we can,” Clatney says.

phum@postmedia.com

Brassica
309 Richmond Rd., 613-680-7575, brassicaottawa.com , instagram.com/brassica_ottawa/
Open: Thursday 5 to 8:30 p.m., Friday and Saturday 5 to 9 p.m., Sunday 5 to 8 p.m., closed Monday to Wednesday
Prices: five-course take-out dinner for two $85, patio and dining room mains $16 to $32, appetizers $8 to $18
Access: steps to front door

If there’s one restaurant for Ottawa food-lovers to root for these days, it has to be Brassica.

Not only must the seven-month-old Westboro restaurant struggle with all of the pandemic-based challenges that trouble the city’s eateries at large, but its chef-owner, Arup Jana, and all of his team at Brassica make up a comeback crew, still committed to offering fine dishes and exceptional hospitality after Jana’s first restaurant, the long-running and much-admired Allium on Holland Avenue, was destroyed by a fire in March 2019.

While the novel coronavirus put plans to rebuild and reopen Allium on hold this spring, Brassica, operating four nights a week with just two people in the kitchen, is proof of Jana’s indefatigability.

“It’s Allium II,” our server, Jess, told us Saturday night. For anyone who recalls how good everything was at Brassica’s predecessor during its 14-year run, that’s reason to rejoice.

I confirmed that last weekend when we had dinner on Brassica’s narrow sidewalk patio, choosing from Jana’s dine-in menu that changes weekly. Jana served on-point, elevated neighbourhood-restaurant fare in a neighbourhood already blessed with impressive dining-out choices.

For those who want something familiar, Jana’s fried calamari ($15), fried chicken ($17) and yellowfin tuna crudo ($18) were definitive versions of those dishes dressed up with interesting sauces and garnishes that made their proteins irresistible.

Impeccably fried squid benefited from the richness and mellow heat of horseradish aioli. Juicy chicken pieces were bolstered by house-made pickles, blobs of green chili aioli and a scattering of peanuts, all of which seemed essential. The pristine red slices of raw fish were as pretty as a picture, supported by pieces of grapefruit and cucumber, and the dual treats of canola oil and lime aioli.

A mound of delicious duck rillettes ($14), served with all the right pickled accompaniments, demonstrated true charcuterie prowess.

Toothsome scallops and a strip of masterfully cooked pork belly ($28), brimming with rendered fat and flavour, shared a plate with succotash perked by pickled raisins and a Worcestershire sauce reduction.

The vegetable-lover at our table liked the variety and flavours on his plate of spice-roasted cauliflower ($16), a brassica vegetable dish to make its namesake restaurant proud. The florets were served with chickpeas, cucumber, feta, pomegranate seeds and roast almonds, all brought to life by a herb-y green dressing.

A slab of beef brisket ($24) was tamed and tenderized by a long sit at low heat, and was topped by a bourbon-y sauce and offset by a charred jalapeno aioli. With the meat came a perfect slab of polenta that nearly stole the show.

The award for the prettiest main course went to a plate of shrimp with cavatelli, zucchini, tomato and more, all in a lemon butter sauce ($24). Oh — the dish tasted as good as it looked.

Allium-goers will probably choose the banoffee pie ($10) not just for old time’s sake but for the signature dessert’s reliable, chocolate-enhanced delights. That said, they would then miss out on the sumptuous sour cream blueberry pie with vanilla ice cream ($11) and orange blueberry pudding ($9), neither of which disappointed in the least.

Brassica’s wine list is quite limited, but interesting and affordable. The same goes for its list of beers and cocktails.

Traffic sounds aside, eating outside Brassica was lovely, with service that was not only astute and prompt, but also extremely personable and pleasantly sassy.

Ultimately, although Brassica follows on the very hard knocks that befell Allium, it doesn’t need your sympathy. Sure, it’s yours to give, but the experience at Brassica shines brightly entirely on its own.

phum@postmedia.com

Thr33’s Co. Snack Bar
589 Bank St., thr33sco.ca
Open: Tuesday to Sunday 4 p.m. to 2 a.m., closed Monday
Prices: snacks $7 to $14
Access: One small step to front door

In my pre-restaurant reviewing days, all an eatery needed to do to keep me coming back was make one great item. I was unswervingly loyal to both the restaurant and its dish that had won my heart, and for all I cared, the rest of the menu could have been blank.

It’s in that spirit that I’ll tell you to go to Thr33’s Co. Snack Bar for the pork sliders, which mounded pulled pork tinged with Chinese five-spice powder between wee, lightly toasted buns. Bolstering the rich meat, and making those sliders sing, were slices of nicely pickled cucumber and mayo with just a hint of citrus-y brightness.

The sliders come four for $13, and let’s just say that if you brought teenaged boys like the ones I took to Thr33’s Co. last week, they would be happy stuffing themselves with slider after slider — and less happy if you made them try the grilled frog legs.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Thr33’s Co., which opened in June on Bank Street south of the Queensway, is chef Tyler Da Silva’s casual, snack-driven hangout where portions and prices are small and opening hours are long.

In what was previously the all-white brunch and dessert cafe called Indulgence, the much darkened and funkier Thr33’s Co. stays open until 2 a.m. six nights a week, and its ball-cap- and T-shirt-clad male servers offer about 20 kinds of gin and various spins on gin and tonic as well as wine, craft beer and cocktails.

As for Da Silva’s menu, I’ve tried all 11 of its items during two recent visits, and can rank what I ate from best to worst.

While those pulled pork sliders were tops, the yellowfin tuna tartare ($14) was a very close second, thanks to fine fish, a punchy miso- and Thai basil-powered sauce, and big, crisp seaweed chips.

Next, I’d rank the crisp and refreshing slaw of sorts of sliced brussels sprouts, fennel and strawberries ($8), served with a lightly ginger-y dressing and shards of crunchy vegan “bacon,” which were just fine as long as you didn’t think of them as bacon.

I have equal affection for three of Da Silva’s snacks, which respectively starred gnocchi, shrimp and tofu.

Pillowy on the inside and crisp on the outside, the gnocchi ($11) hit their textural target, although I though the dish needed more than just rich creme fraiche, tomato and the advertised but scarcely detectable cumin salt to really fly.

The shrimp ($12.50), stir-fried with cabbage and a mix of sesame, sweet hoisin sauce and chili sauce, were satisfying but not thrilling, and I kept thinking that some rice would have allowed us to enjoy all of the dish’s sauce. Cubes of gochujang-coated crispy tofu ($7) were too brashly funky and hot, but they were also redeemed by the dish’s miso-accented charred bok choy.

Meatballs (three for $9) served with a roasted red pepper sauce were pleasant, as was the menu’s only dessert — a plate of three moist banana chocolate chip cookies ($3.50).

Three dishes clearly disappointed. Drumsticks (two for $8.50) were under-seasoned and received little help from a too-thin peanut butter habanero sauce that didn’t really register. Corn ($5.50) grilled in the Mexican style was to have benefited from a tequila cilantro sauce, feta and the condiment tajin, which consists mainly of chile peppers, lime, and salt. But our cobs were so harshly grilled as to taste of little else than their char.

Finally, those frog legs ($9) briefly entertained our table with their ick factor but their harsh mustard sauce overwhelmed their delicate flavour. Ultimately, the teenagers, initially intrigued by frog legs, preferred to use them as biology class specimens rather than eat them.

“Just make chicken wings. Don’t do frog,” was one teen’s terse critique. My pro opinion is the same, at least if you stacked those overly mustard-y legs up against crispy, interestingly sauced, meaty wings.

Earlier that night, that same teen had said: “If everything’s as good as the sliders, I’m going to be very satisfied.” It’s too bad then that the food at Thr33’s Co. wasn’t excellent across the board.

Gyubee
95 York St. 613-367-5065, gyubeejapanesegrill.com
Open: Sunday to Thursday 11:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m., Friday and Saturday 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m.
Prices: $32.99 for all-you-can-eat dinner Monday to Thursday, $35.99 for AYCE dinner Friday to Sunday, $22.99 for AYCE lunch Monday to Thursday,  $24.99 for AYCE lunch Friday to Sunday; children aged five to 10 pay a little less than half price, infants 0 to 4 play $3; a la carte dishes available for takeout and delivery
Access: steps to front door
Note: reservations available only for parties of six or more

Not long ago, a friend of mine wanted to try the food from Gyubee, the Japanese grill restaurant that opened on York Street in February. However, her anxieties about COVID-19 made her stop short of dining at the restaurant, and instead she ordered some thinly sliced, grilled pork belly and rice to be delivered.

“How was it?” I asked. “Just OK,” she said.

After dining this month at the Ottawa location of the Toronto-based chain, I can clarify: ordering takeout from Gyubee is a bit like watching a superhero movie on your phone.

What you really want is the thrill of cooking your dinner on the grill embedded in your table. What you want is immediate, all-you-can-eat gratification, in the form of charred but succulent morsels of beef, pork and chicken, with cooked-through shrimp, clams, squid, mushrooms and pineapple as secondary pleasures.

Indeed, when I visited Gyubee on the Friday just before Labour Day, it was packed with customers whose meaty cravings superseded any COVID-19 anxieties.

The restaurant was filled with young people, most of whom were Asian, who seemed to be enjoying themselves as if it were February 2020, boisterously flipping bits of their dinners with their tongs.

To be sure, Gyubee, which only accepts reservations for parties of six or more, follows pandemic guidelines. Staff, who are masked, take guest information for contact tracing and rigorously clean tables once guests have left.

But given how busy the restaurant was, complete with an indoor lineup as well as guests waiting outside for texts that would tell them their tables were ready at last, dining at Gyubee had an almost surreal, pre-pandemic feel to it.

Our wait for a table was a good 90 minutes, although we were told that on weekdays and at lunch, when a smaller menu is in effect, the restaurant is less busy.

Fortunately, once we were seated and our grill was activated, there was no further testing of our patience. A server arrived nearly immediately to take our order, and had we been Gyubee adepts, we would have known that the most efficient answer to “What would you like?” would have been “One of everything.”

While the menu teems with options, from marinated short rib to slices of brisket slathered in miso or sweet soy to chunks of steak to chicken thigh to sake-steamed clam to oyster mushrooms, if you came to maximize your all-you-can-eat gluttony, you could just waste no time and ask for the works. Or at least order all of the beef and pork options, which we ultimately found were the most satisfying, and then ask for repeats.

As Gyubee newbies, we ordered a little more selectively at first and even asked timidly, “Can we order more?”

“Yes, sure! This is just the start!” we were told.

Thereafter, plates of raw meats and other items (even chicken cartilage, which is a taste, or rather, a texture, to be acquired, if at all) landed at our table, and we threw ingredients onto our grill with abandon. The only limit to our dining was that we had a maximum of two hours at our table, which made for a carnivores’ race against the clock.

Soon, we grew accustomed to the sprightly rhythm of gorging at Gyubee. We lightly charred our meats and seasoned them with a sweet-salty dipping sauce or togarashi, a chili-forward Japanese spice mixture. As our plates of raw items emptied, we deliberated what to order next.

Punctual servers were always on hand to help us fulfill our all-you-can-eat dreams, and the grill was changed when it became too crusted. We paused at the sight of an empty grill, which made us sad, but soon returned to our communal, casual, culinary fun.

There were side dishes to order, too, including miniature servings of edamame, cold tofu, kimchi, rice, cold Japanese soba noodles and bibimbap, the Korean dish. Until dessert, which can be either a mini creme brulee or a frozen fruit bar, anything that was not meat felt refreshing.

Despite our ambitions, we were very pleasantly full before the two-hour mark arrived.

I don’t know when my friend will opt for the full Gyubee experience. Maybe it will take the arrival of a vaccine to make dining rooms more alluring to her. I certainly wouldn’t argue with that stance, although it bears repeating that at present, the current surge in Ottawa’s COVID-19 numbers comes mostly from large private gatherings and not from more generalized community spread.

If you’re a vegetarian or vegan, Gyubee would basically be hellish. If you are uneasy about indoor dining, then Gyubee, especially at full occupancy, would best be avoided for now.

But if fun, carnivorous eating is your thing, then Gyubee, later if not now, deserves your attention.

phum@postmedia.com

Dal Moro’s Fresh Pasta To Go
8 ByWard Market Square, 613-680-2019, dalmoros.ca
Open: Monday to Thursday 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., Friday 11 a.m. to midnight, Sunday noon to 10 p.m.

The Burger’s Priest
1365 Baseline Rd., 613-422-1111, theburgerspriest.com
Open: Monday to Wednesday 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., Thursday to Saturday 11 a.m. to 10:30 p.m., Sunday 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Royal Paan
1943 Baseline Rd., 613-421-9010, royalpaan.com
Open: Sunday to Thursday 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m., Friday and Saturday 11:30 a.m. to midnight

Back when the novel coronavirus was something happening on the other side of the world, several new-generation franchises and chains were planning to jump into the Ottawa market.

Related

• Rise of Ottawa's modern franchises

They could not have predicted that quarantining, physical distancing and social bubbles would become aspects of our new normal. Among the pandemic’s countless disruptions is the impact it has had on restaurants that satisfy casual cravings.

One anticipated new arrival, Hot Star Chicken, never arrived, leaving its Dalhousie Street address with signage that whetted appetites above papered-up windows. At least one other chain, The Burger’s Priest, delayed its expansion into Ottawa by a few months.

Ultimately, despite all of the pandemic’s uncertainties, new chains and franchises are now hawking their wares, and indeed, their food-to-go ethic works for restaurant fans who aren’t keen on dining rooms.

Among the new franchises and chains I’ve recently tried are two that attempt to tweak and improve upon the familiar, plus a third that brings to Ottawa its first tastes of some boldly flavoured Indian street foods.

In the ByWard Market, Dal Moro’s Fresh Pasta To Go, which opened in February, lived up to its name and the promise of the commercial pasta machine in its window.

The narrow little franchise eatery’s fare, served in cardboard cartons, is not as pretty as the nicely plated servings of pasta you might find at other ByWard Market restaurants. But the freshness of the spaghetti, rigatoni and linguine I tried was admirably apparent, and the pasta was prepared to a proper al dente.

Using recipes and processes developed by its namesake Venetian chef, Gabriele Dal Moro, and scaled up by its Toronto-based owners, the eatery served sauces that were a cut above at their price point ($12.25) in terms of flavour and texture. A pesto sauce was vibrant and its scattering of pine nuts was generous. Tomato-based sauces skewed a touch sweet, but had richness, and when called for, pleasing meatiness, going for them. The beef and chicken used here is halal.

For those who find desserts obligatory, the alcohol-free tiramisu ($5) should be good enough.

The eatery has a small patio plus a few indoor tables. If you’re taking its pasta to go, and have a ways to go, you can get separate cartons for your pasta and its sauce to avoid a mushy meal. Dal Moro’s also sells its house-made pastas, uncooked and bagged, to go.

Ottawa’s burger buffs anticipated the arrival of The Burger’s Priest for quite some time before the Toronto-based chain finally touched down in July on Baseline Road near Merivale Road, after a three-month delay.

When I interviewed him earlier this year, Alex Rechichi, CEO of the Crave It Restaurant Group in Oakville, called The Burger’s Priest, a chain in his group’s portfolio, “the anti-corporate corporate brand” because its practices, such as using “ultra, ultra fresh” meat ground from whole muscle rather than lesser cuts, are rooted in the award-winning and tiny original Burger’s Priest that opened in Toronto in 2010.

I’ve been a few times to the Ottawa outpost and found that the burgers here did live up to the hype. For a franchise burger, I’d recommend the patties from The Burger’s Priest or Ottawa’s own Burger n’ Fries Forever.

I’m not so keen on the chicken burgers here, because I’ve had breading come off them in big chunks, making for some unwieldy bites. Also the chicken, while moist, wasn’t flavourful on its own. Nor have the fries or shakes rocked my world enough to make me want more.

The franchise I’m most keen to return to, motivated as much by curiosity as by hunger, is Royal Paan.

Since the first Royal Paan opened in 2001 in Mississauga, the vegetarian Indian street food franchise has grown to include 28 locations as far-flung as Surrey, B.C. and Edison, New Jersey in the U.S. The Ottawa franchise opened in July.

More than any other new eatery in Ottawa, Royal Paan disproves the common wisdom that franchise fare has to be familiar, bland and boring.

While in recent years I have come across the occasional Indian street food item such as samosa chaat (chopped samosa pastries topped with chutney and yogurt) and pani puri (crisp, hollow, savoury stuffed dough balls), the long list of choices on Royal Paan’s menu made my head spin a little.

Across the board, the intense and intermingling flavours of the food, seemingly not dialled down for Canadian palates, were also dizzying — in a good, novel way.

There were dishes I and some vegetarian pals shared on my patio, after a 15-minute ride back from Royal Paan. Sev batata puri topped crisps of dough with potatoes, red onions, tomatoes, spiced peanuts, chickpea-flour noodles, tamarind sauce and coriander chutney. Aaloo tikki chaat topped potato patties with chickpeas, onions, and more tamarind sauce, coriander chutney and whipped yogurt.

Other choices such as aaloo tikki wrap (potato patties in a flatbread, mingling with chickpeas, chopped onions and a trio of sauces), pav bhaji (vegetable curry with a soft bread roll) and Bombay vada pav (spicy potato fritters served with bread) were handheld treats.

The biggest revelations were the paans — betel leaves wrapped around combinations of various tiny items including areca nuts, fennel seeds, preserved rose petals, coconut and more, which guaranteed a punch of lingering and even jostling flavours. Trying them made me feel like a flavour neophyte.

Perhaps you’re experienced when it comes to Indian street food, and paan pav bhaji are no less new for you than burgers and pasta. For our part, Royal Paan’s items, as franchised and formulaic as they may be, were thrilling discoveries, and we’ll go back for more.

phum@postmedia.com

Kitchen Maroo
710 Gladstone Ave., 613-234-2945, instagram.com/kitchen_maroo
Open:  Monday to Saturday 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m., Sunday 11:30 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Prices: mains up to $14, fried chicken $30 or $18 for a half order. Food is available for take-out and Uber Eats delivery only
Access: steps upon entrance to dining area

In the early days of fusion cuisine, that term referred to Caucasian chefs borrowing heavily from other culinary traditions with impunity, if not always great effectiveness.

More recently, the use of the fusion label has waned, and dishes that once might have been deemed fusion fare have been subsumed into a more omnivorous and diversely seasoned, modern Canadian cuisine. I call that progress.

Still, there are still real dilemmas to be confronted regarding the cultural appropriation of food. I can direct you if you’re interested to look into what happened when the award-winning Montreal restaurant Le Mousso earlier this year decided to stage a “Seoul Train” pop-up. Let’s just say that some Montreal foodies scoffed when Le Mousso proposed that “the menu will be nothing like what we know of typical Korean dishes, but rather offer a creative experience, revisited and rich in flavours, as Le Mousso knows so well.”

All of this is a roundabout introduction to the food I’ve eaten in the past week from Kitchen Maroo, a tiny, three-month-old restaurant on Gladstone Avenue west of Bronson Avenue. The restaurant, whose chef and front-of-house person are Korean, bills itself as a Korea n fusion restaurant. Leaving politics aside momentarily, I would call Maroo’s most self-evidently mashed-up efforts — think bulgogi sandwiches, bulgogi pasta and Korean fried chicken — casual but flavourful successes that I would happily eat again.

Maroo is a very humble eatery that until this week seated 16 at four well-spaced tables while pop music played on the sound system. On Tuesday it announced on its Instagram page that it would offer food to go only. Its menu consists of about 20 items, with a good amount of repetition, such that cutlets of pork, chicken or vegetables can appear in sandwiches, in wraps, or with sauces and starch on the side.

In all, Maroo knows how to be practical and hits its marks in terms of flavours, textures and consistency. Kimchi here is made in house, as are sauces and salad dressings, I was told.

Maroo’s bulgogi sandwich ($13) — why not call it a bulgogi hoagie? — has quickly become a new favourite sandwich for myself and my son. On my own, I might not have combined bulgogi’s sweet-salty beef with cheddar cheese, grilled mushrooms, garlic butter and mayo. That would definitely have been my loss, as Maroo has shown me.

The cutlet sandwiches, which featured crisp, breaded meat, were very fine too. That said, I was most keen on the chicken cutlet with a curry sauce, served with baby potatoes and house salad ($13). Again, the cutlet was crisp and not greasy, and its white meat was pleasantly moist. The curry sauce was mellow and sweet, as Asian interpretations of Indian curry — a now classic fusion move — typically are.

Maroo offers two kinds of noodle dishes. The more Italian-Korean pasta choices come with seafood mixes, either spicy or not, or bulgogi or tofu. The spicy seafood linguine ($14) featured shrimp, squid rings and mussels, all toothsome, in a moderately spiced sauce. Much punchier, I thought, was the stir-fry of chewy udon noodles with spicy pork and potent kimchi ($14). The spice-averse could opt for the beef udon stir-fry ($14) and be well satisfied.

Maroo also makes Korean fried chicken, that most fetishized of fusion dishes. Our full serving ($30) was shared among five people along with other dishes. Small chicken pieces were admirably crisp and moist while the two potent sauces, spicy-sweet and garlic-soy, did most of the lifting flavour-wise.

Only one dessert was available when we visited. Tofu cheese cake ($5) was a light, smooth and sweet winner.

For a cheap and no-fuss place like Maroo, it’s too bad that many international students at Ottawa’s universities are living in their Asian homelands this fall rather than in Ottawa. They would be perfect customers for the limited but satisfying short-order cooking here that mixes East and West. But if you don’t flinch at the phrase “culinary fusion,” and as long as you’re OK with a Korean chef appropriating buns and pasta, you might be Maroo’s perfect customer too.

phum@postmedia.com

Carben Food + Drink
1100 Wellington St. W., 613-792-4000, carbenrestaurant.com , instagram.com/carbenrestaurant
Open: Tuesday to Sunday 5 to 9 p.m., plus Saturday and Sunday 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Prices: plates ranging from $14 to $36, eight-course tasting menu $75, small plates $10 or less on Tuesday, Thanksgiving dinner for two to go $80

Last Friday was one of those nights when we felt like giving the middle finger to the novel coronavirus and our latest feelings of growing dread.

That’s not to say we’re Trumpian pandemic deniers. We’d like to think we’re not foolhardy. We practice physical distancing. We wear masks in public. We wash our hands.

But after the day’s glut of bad news — that Ottawa’s health system was in crisis because of COVID-19, that restaurants, bars, gyms and event spaces would further limit their capacities, that social circles would be retired — we wanted to do something other than submit and be hermits.

We wanted a meal out as a morale booster, the more celebratory the better, but not at a break-the-bank price. We put our faith in Carben Food + Drink and were happily rewarded.

I lauded the Hintonburg restaurant in the fall of 2015, a few months after it opened. But I’d not been back since. My visit last week found its owners and chefs, the husband-and-wife team of Kevin Benes and Caroline Ngo, serving fine dining practically on the cheap. At least, that’s what I’d call an eight-course tasting menu for just $75. The parade of dishes delivered a steady flow of surprises and satisfactions and just one dish that fell short.

The courses came from Carben’s 12-item menu of plates ranging from $14 to $36, and diners wanting a scaled-down version of the tasting-menu experience could visit Carben on Tuesday nights, when small plates are $10 or less. If COVID-19 rules out dining-room visits for you, Carben does offer its dishes to go, although some degradation due to the increased time from its kitchen to your table would likely be unavoidable.

Of course, the restaurant takes measures to help quell the pandemic’s spread and anxieties. It maintains a contact tracing list. Its cool, narrow, minimalist interior, which seated 40 before the pandemic, now holds 26 people at eight well-spaced tables.

That said, during our two-hour stay, just two other tables were occupied. But if Carben was feeling blue over such a sparse turnout on a Friday night, its servers, personable and knowledgeable, weren’t letting on.

While complimentary bread service seems like an outdated notion these days, Carben treated us to a Hokkaido milk roll that was puffy, warm and tender and a rosette of butter enriched but not overwhelmed by miso, which lent some subdued but discernible funk.

Our first course proper starred slices of raw tuna, set apart from many similar dishes in the city by its crispy enoki mushrooms and and smoked, powdered coconut oil — two garnishes attesting to Carben’s fondness for playful culinary transformations.

The kitchen’s take on fried Brussels sprouts was also a winner, with vegetables smartly perked by a zesty walnut gremolata and a sprinkling of nutritional yeast.

Next came one of Carben’s signature dishes, which I recall wowed me five years ago. The dish made an unlikely star of smoked wood ear mushrooms, supporting the squidgy-textured fungus with a savoury miso glaze and rich turmeric aioli. Bok choy and edamame added as much colour as flavour to the pretty, edible arc of food, served on dishware by Ottawa’s LOAM Clay Studio.

A big bowl contained a perfectly tender morsel of Humboldt squid, tamed with low, slow, sous-vide cooking and then grilled. Dehydrated olives and the jolting heat of pickled cherry bomb peppers dressed up the squid, which sat on a mound of diced, soft, comforting eggplant.

Sea bass, mild, moist and crisp of skin, was well supported by its turmeric cream, fingerling potatoes, subtle hint of shrimp oil and bits of pickled cucumber.

The final savoury course was the only letdown. The wee serving of short rib, while tender, underwhelmed. The jus mentioned in the menu was absent, and the thin slices of beef paled when compared to the more robust satisfaction of a long-braised slab of on-the-bone short rib.

Two desserts made up for the short-rib misstep. The first starred a big scoop of sweet-tart elderberry ice cream offset by cubes of lemon sponge cake and a scattering of poppy seed crumble. And if we were not yet feeling full, the second dessert, a cream tart with light fruity accents, put a definite stop to our appetites.

This then is why we go out for dinner — not just to feel full, and not just to spare ourselves the effort of cooking, but to treat ourselves to deliciousness, novelty and hospitality, all of which remain strong suits at Carben, five years on and despite the pandemic.

With next weekend’s Thanksgiving dinner at home looking like a more scaled-down affair, I’m even considering leaving the cooking to Carben. COVID-19 has prompted Carben and other smaller restaurants such as the Wellington Gastropub on Wellington Street West, two six {ate} on Preston Street and Town on Elgin Street to offer takeout Thanksgiving dinners for two, while the kitchens at the National Arts Centre, the Brookstreet Hotel in Kanata and NeXT in Stittsville, among others, are preparing turkey feasts for pickup that will serve larger families.

phum@postmedia.com

Aroy Thai
1 Rideaucrest Dr. (inside the Quickie convenience store), 613-823-2224, aroythaibarrhaven.ca
Open: Tuesday to Sunday 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., 4 to 8 p.m. closed Monday

Pinn-To Thai Food Truck
4100 Albion Rd. S., 613-617-1881, pinntothaifood.ca
Open: Monday to Friday 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., 4:30 to 7:30p.m., Saturday 4:30 to 7:30 p.m., closed Sunday

For me, Thai cuisine counts as comfort food, even if the kitchen’s gone heavy on the bird’s eye chilies. That explains why last week I sought some boldly flavoured curries, stir-fries and noodles to lift spirits that were sagging due to the second wave of COVID-19.

Had the Ontario government not banned indoor dining for 28 days starting on Oct. 10, I might have eaten at one of my Thai favourites such as Nana Thai Cuisine or Wandee Thai Cuisine, both in Little Italy, or Thai Flame, in Bells Corners. I like the hospitality at those three places, as well as their willingness to dial up the heat.

But with dining out forbidden, I decided to try some more far-flung specialists in takeout Thai food to see how they fared.

My travels took me to Aroy Thai, which is tucked inside a Quickie convenience store in Barrhaven, and to the Pinn-To Thai Food Truck, which is in an Albion Road parking lot. I went looking for tasty Thai dishes in some unlikely places, you might say, hoping that tiny operations staffed by one or two cooks might yield some gems.

For the most part, what I ate was pleasing and well-made, if less fiery or pungent than I would have liked (the menus I consulted showed one or even three chili symbols beside dishes). Perhaps it’s significant that both Aroy Thai and Pinn-To Thai Food Truck seem to rely on ground chili peppers rather than fresh chilies for heat — I associate the jolt of heat I like with the latter.

The tastiest item I had from either restaurant was the chicken satay from Pinn-To, which was moist, nicely seared and taken to the next level by a superior peanut-y sauce. Alas, Aroy doesn’t offer chicken satay, so there’s no comparison I can make.

I’d say the soups from both eateries — whether it was tom kha gai, mellowed with coconut milk or tom yum goong, in which tender shrimp bobbed in a mildly sour and hot broth — ran neck and neck with one another.

We appreciated the depth of flavour and richness of all the curries we tried, from the peanut-y panang curry and yellow chicken curry from Aroy to the red curry with pineapple from Pinn-To. We tried beef curries from both kitchens and found the thinly sliced beef a little tough. With that in mind, I’d lean more to chicken and shrimp curries in the future.

Pad Thai from both purveyors won us over with toothsome shrimp and noodles. We had the chicken basil stir-fry from both Aroy and Pinn-To, but I thought both were too subdued in terms of heat and basil-y goodness.

From a downtown Thai restaurant, I’d hope for mango with sticky rice for dessert. But if you order from Aroy or Pinn-To, then you’ll be left with whatever’s in your fridge or freezer for your meal’s sweet finish.

Even if I would have liked more complex and chili-powered dishes from Aroy and Pinn-To, I’m glad they’re around to offer their nonetheless enjoyable food to the south end of Ottawa. Residents there shouldn’t have to drive downtown and back to get their Thai food fix. Perhaps all they need is some bird’s eye chilies at home to perk the dishes up a bit.

phum@postmedia.com

Chili Chili Restaurant
706A Somerset St. W., 613-421-6789, restozone.ca/ottawa/chilichili
Open: 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday; closed Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday
Prices: main courses $13.99 to $17.99 if ordered online, large shareable items $32.95 to $79.95 if ordered online (dishes are cheaper if orders are phoned into the restaurant and picked up by customers)
Access: Restaurant is downstairs

The Chinatown restaurant Chili Chili is easy to miss. There’s a street-level sign for the two-year-old business, but no windows to peer into, as the eatery is entirely downstairs. Eventually I spotted Chili Chili, and it piqued my interest. Finally, I popped by in mid-February for a meal that was as surprisingly pleasing as it was fiery.

A buddy and I each ordered a customized spicy stir-fry. Each plate was heaped with impeccably cooked proteins or vegetables that we had asked for, and was as tongue-teasing as we had hoped for. Each bite delivered not only the heat that lived up to the restaurant’s name but also the numbing stimulations of Sichuan peppers galore. We assuaged the thrilling sting of those orders with mouthfuls of softshell crab fried rice that did not skimp on the crab.

I left Chili Chili resolving to return with some optimism and then write about it. Then, the coronavirus descended.

Eight months later, and Chili Chili has since pivoted to offer food to go only. That’s too bad for a few reasons. For the restaurant, there’s the gloom of working in the brightly coloured and once lively setting that previously drew Chinese students for tastes of their homeland. Also, it’s unfortunate that some Chili Chili dishes that taste best fresh from the wok now degrade a bit during the trip from kitchen to home dining table.

Still, my conclusion after two recent takeout dinners from Chili Chili is that its chef concocts some splendid and authentic Chinese dishes, whether they are Sichuanese and spicy or Cantonese and comforting.

I’m going to blame COVID-19 for making me a bit timid in my ordering from Chili Chili’s interesting menu of roughly 30 items. We passed on the pork intestines with hot peppers, and also on dishes made with unshelled, head-on shrimps. Nor was our party large enough to tackle the grilled whole fish for six ($79.95).

Still, the more familiar Sichuanese and Cantonese dishes we tried were for the most part very appealing winners.

The combo stir-fry of three proteins and three vegetables, ordered medium spicy, was punchy enough to make us think it would have been punishing to have had it any spicier. Its thinly sliced chicken, lamb and pork had grown tough while in transit for 15 minutes, I think, but that too I will blame on COVID-19 rather than a cook’s mistake.

Mapo tofu was invigoratingly spicy and complex, with big chunks of tofu and minced pork swimming in a bracing brown sauce. To us, it tasted like one of the best versions of this dish in the city.

Braised eggplant with chili and garlic sauce, also known as “fish-fragrant eggplant” on some menus was also exceptional, melding its salty, sweet, spicy and sour tastes in well-calibrated harmony.

Eating diced chicken and chilies involved fishing out crisp but meaty bits of bone-in, free-range chicken from an intimidating backdrop of red chilies. But the dish did not scream with heat and made for pleasant nibbling.

Stir-fried pork belly with green peppers intrigued, but did involve considerable chewing of somewhat tough pork. Next time for pork belly, I might opt for the braised or twice-cooked preparations.

The Cantonese dish of scrambled eggs and shrimp was blessed with soft, rich, fluffy eggs and tender, shelled shrimp. While the wok-scrambled eggs might have been transcendently silky if eaten in Chili Chili’s dining room, we would still order it again for home enjoyment.

Fried rice was un-greasy and satisfying, whether it starred chunks of softshell crab, or minced pork and plenty of chili. Shanghai noodles were solidly made and easy to like.

If you’re looking to eat more cheaply, here’s a tip. Get your food the old-school way by phoning your order in to the restaurant and then picking it up yourself. Every dish that way is a few dollars cheaper, while the online prices are marked up to offset the commissions of the delivery services. Why not commend yourself not just for your love of spicy food but also your frugality?

phum@postmedia.com

Cantina Gia
749 Bank St., 613-569-0464, instagram.com/cantinagia/
Open: Wednesday to Sunday 11 a.m. to 8:30 p.m., closed Monday and Tuesday
Prices: sandwiches $10 to $12, pasta dishes $12 to $18

Shelby Burger
11 William St., 613-562-4978, instagram.com/eatshelbyburger
Open: Monday to Saturday 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., closed Sunday
Prices: burgers $4 to $16.50

On Wednesday afternoon, feeling a mix of relief, disgust and sleep deprivation, I marked the latest developments in U.S. politics with a quintessentially American lunch, namely a really good smash burger.

Off I went to the ByWard Market to order from Shelby Burger, the recently opened William Street joint where smash burgers rule.

What’s a smash burger, you say? It’s an au courant style of hamburger made with smaller, three-ounce beef patties (balls, actually) that are smashed flat so that their exteriors develop a tasty crust. The revered U.S. burger chains Shake Shack and In-N-Out Burger swear by smash burgers.

While Shelby Burger wasn’t the first to offer smash burgers in Ottawa — that honour might go to The Third in Hintonburg — it does serve some mighty compelling specimens, I’ve found, made with grass-fed beef from P.E.I. farms sitting pretty between the requisite soft and squishy potato buns.

With visions of flipping states in mind, I ordered a two-patty double onion Shelby burger ($9.25). It was the best item that I’ve yet tasted at Shelby Burger — deliciously juicy but also lightly crusty, additionally moistened by special sauce and oozy American cheese, and bolstered by onions that had been fried with the beef, plus pickles. While I don’t think I’m a glutton, single-patty burgers from Shelby Burger felt a little undersized to me.

The crispy chicken burger ($10) that I tried from Shelby Burger was admirably crisp, but also joltingly salty. Herb-dusted fries and sweet potato fries were solidly made and all the more enjoyable when we ate them immediately on the William Street sidewalk. (Shelby burger’s dining room could open as soon as Saturday, following the relaxation of the Ontario government’s current pandemic restrictions.)

I had high expectations for Shelby Burger’s fare, which includes a celery root schnitzel and an Impossible Burger as vegetarian options, given that a top Ottawa chef oversees its food, even if he isn’t smashing its burgers. Jordan Holley, executive chef at the Spark Street fine-dining hotspot Riviera, is a Shelby Burger partner.

Similarly, Cantina Gia in the Glebe is a new casual eatery under a leading Ottawa chef’s direction. Opened a month ago at the address where Pomeroy House and then Nosh had been, Gia is a new venture by chef Adam Vettorel and his business partner Chris Schlesak, who launched the fine-dining Italian restaurant North & Navy in Centretown five years ago.

For now, Gia offers sandwiches, pasta dishes and more to go through its window onto Bank Street. Last week, a colleague and I took our eggplant parmigiana and porchetta sandwiches to a picnic table on a side street and dug in.

The vegetarian sandwich ($12) was enjoyable, although it had lost some appeal because it had cooled down by the time we were seated and eating. But the porchetta sandwich ($12) was outstanding, thanks to its heap of thinly sliced, moist and fennel-tinged roast pork. It did lack the crisp, crackling skin that makes me adore a similar sandwich at Pesto’s Deli in Kanata. But Gia did substitute slices of pear for sweetness as well as crunch, and its focaccia was studded with grapes that gave the sandwich extra personality.

We had room for dessert after our sandwiches. Tiramisu ($8) was classically good and quickly devoured. Gia’s small, stuffed doughnuts called bomboloni ($7) came in three varieties — chocolate, dulce de leche and pumpkin spice — that made choosing a favourite difficult.

Last weekend, I sampled Gia’s dinner-time pastas and found they were as good or better than the sandwiches, with straight-forward, authentic underpinnings, fresh al dente noodles and big, clear flavours.

Rigatoni bolognese featured a stripped-down version of that much-loved but often too tomato-y sauce. The dish put its minced meat front and centre and like some of Gia’s other pasta dishes resonated with a bright, lemony note that seems like a signature move.

Orechiette with sausage and rapini balanced its meatiness and bitterness on top of its tender, ear-shaped pasta. Linguini vongole packed the proper clammy punch, although I would have liked it even more if its sauce had been based on white wine rather than tomatoes. Bucatini all’amatriciana let me down a little, as I wanted a more tubular texture from its thick noodles and more porkiness from its sauce.

Our dinner’s meaty splurge was a crisply breaded pork “Milanese” cutlet ($22), impressively flattened and attached to its bone, supported by arugula, a roasted lemon and cherry tomatoes whose flavours had been intensely concentrated.

We preceded the mains with some ricotta-stuffed zucchini blossoms ($12 for four), which were delicate indulgences. We also split Gia’s Caesar salad, which was enlivened by fried garlic chips and fried capers and whose dressing had an assertive savouriness.

Because Gia’s dining room has yet to be finished, I can only look forward to the night when I’ll be able to eat under its roof — perhaps when the next U.S. president is inaugurated.

phum@postmedia.com

Fairouz Cafe
15 Clarence St., 613-422-7700, fairouz.ca
Open: Wednesday to Sunday 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., closed Monday and Tuesday
Prices: mains $18 to $25, Middle Eastern feast $125

As a fan of fine dining, I was a bit glum when I learned in early September that Fairouz, the upscale Middle Eastern restaurant on Somerset Street West, would close. At least its plan was to change rather than shut for good. In mid-October, the business re-launched as Fairouz Cafe, a more relaxed eatery in the ByWard Market.

After Fairouz opened in the spring of 2016, I was very keen on its sophisticated but boldly flavoured dishes that ambitiously channelled chef Walid El-Tawel’s Palestinian roots. Nor was I alone. A year after it opened, Fairouz made it onto the Canada’s 100 Best Restaurants list — an achievement that acknowledged its refined setting and service as well as the quality on its plates.

But amid this year’s COVID-19-based disruptions, Fairouz’s owners decided their best move to weather the pandemic was to relocate to the west end of Clarence Street while, in the words of co-owner Tony Garcia, “casualizing” their food and orienting the cafe more to takeout and delivery.

I wondered: Does Ottawa, one of the universe’s hotspots for shawarma, really need another place that serves meat in pita bread?

That cynical take, I discovered last Sunday, does a serious disservice to the new Fairouz Cafe. We brought home its Middle Eastern feast ($125) and felt like we were eating the best meat in pita bread in the city, augmented by some fantastically flavourful house-made condiments.

Opening chef El-Tawel is no longer part of the Fairouz team, having taken a position this spring with the high-end kitchen supply store Chef’s Paradise. However, overseeing the cafe’s kitchen is Justin Laferriere, who was El-Tawel’s sous chef and was with the restaurant since it opened.

So, after eating our consistently delicious dinner, I should not have been that surprised to note the clear connections between my extravagant dinners at Fairouz four years ago and the takeout fare that delighted us in my dining room. (We could have eaten in the cafe, whose dining area opened last Saturday, following the loosening of Ottawa’s pandemic restrictions. But our plans to eat at home had already been made.)

The components of the cafe’s Middle Eastern feast were familiar but strikingly elevated. That was true not only of its lean and tender beef kebabs, succulent pulled lamb and surprisingly moist chunks of chicken, but also of the house-made pita bread, dips, side dishes and garnishes that came with them.

The feast’s hearty dips  — a chunky muhammara of cashew, red pepper and pomegranate, hummus that was rich and paprika-topped, labneh (strained yogurt) dusted with za’atar (wild thyme) — would have been familiar to Fairouz regulars. I see that my summer 2016 review of the restaurant lauded them too, as well as other Fairouz staple items that remain on the cafe’s menu.

We were also grateful for a smokey pilaf of al dente freekeh, an eggplant-based relish with some mellow heat to it, and plenty of deeply charred tomatoes, cipollini onions and shishito peppers. Even the cafe’s garlic sauce and marinated olives, flecked with chili and lightly bitter ajwain seeds, seemed several cuts above the usual.

To take a bigger tour of the cafe’s menu, we additionally ordered the fried cauliflower side dish ($13) and the eggplant mashi main course ($22). Both were hits. The cauliflower was fortified with tahini and refreshing pomegranate seeds, while the eggplant dish stuffed its star with onion, garlic and tomatoes and topped it with toothsome green lentils and marinated red onions.

For dessert, there were slices of sumptuous, pistachio-topped chocolate cake, made extra-moist and complex with the addition of tahini.

The four of us tucked into all that we ordered, satiating ourselves but still leaving enough food behind to feed us the next day for lunch. Couples or singletons could opt for any of the feast’s components a la carte.

Perhaps the best we can ask for in this crazy year is to affirm continuity and growth despite the pandemic’s staggering setbacks. Fairouz Cafe shows us how that’s done.

phum@postmedia.com

Vivaan
225 Preston St., 613-265-6444, vivaanottawa.com
Open: Tuesday to Sunday 4 to 10 p.m., closed Monday
Prices : appetizers and curries from $14 to $21

In our light-hearted past, there was no need to do a risk-benefit analysis before going out for dinner.

You’re familiar, of course, with the usual pluses of a restaurant meal — the prospects of being pampered, of enjoying delicious food that we didn’t have to cook ourselves, and of skipping dish-cleaning drudgery. But now, we weigh on the other side not only the exertions of venturing into the November cold but also anxieties about possibly being sickened by a global health scourge.

If your decision to stay home or go out is a toss-up, let me add one more specific pro — the dessert at Vivaan that mounds squares of lightly crisped, buttery fried bread in a puddle of sweet, milky, nutty sauce.

That dish, which we enjoyed last week at the month-old Indian restaurant on Preston Street, might sound simple and even homey. But trust me — it’s revelatory.

We had chef-owner Teegavarapu Sarath Mohan, toiling in the open kitchen of the classy space that used to be DiVino Wine Studio, to thank for that perfectly executed meal-ender, and for the parade of treats that came before it.

Mohan is scarcely into his 30s but the self-taught chef, who was previously a tech worker and food blogger, is already running his third restaurant kitchen in three years. Vivaan presents the latest evolution of Mohan’s cooking exploits, which began at Flavours of Kerala in Kanata and then moved to NH44, his initial venture of his own, on Lancaster Road.

Vivaan offers a curated and elevated Indian cuisine, several notches above steam tables loaded with items at lunchtime. Mohan’s menu ranges from dressed-up street food, which was one of NH44’s calling cards, to well-plated appetizers to curries, rice, flatbreads and desserts.

We went a little heavier on appetizers, thinking they would be better enjoyed on site, unlike other less time-sensitive items we could one day order to go from Vivaan.

Scallops ($16 for three) were nicely seared and complemented by a mild coconut-milk froth. More potently flavoured were Mohan’s tender, spice-crusted lamb chops ($17 for two). The most memorable starter was a plate of humble chicken drumsticks ($16) that were both fiery and tasty, offset by a punchy slaw, some even punchier chutney and a big swipe of sauce made with cilantro, peas and mint.

The only street food item we chose was Vivaan’s pani puri ($13). Their crisp semolina shells filled with spiced potatoes require a bit of playful interaction — we added finishing “injections” of cilantro and mint water with plastic syringes.

While Vivaan also serves such Indian street fare as Bombay sliders and stuffed flatbreads, I’m more likely to get such items from Royal Paan, the newcomer Indian street-food eatery on Baseline Road, while preferring Mohan’s restaurant for its most distinctive dishes.

We shared three larger items that we would absolutely have again, and which, I think, would be fine ordered to go.

Mohan is from Hyderabad, India and he makes an exceptional Hyderabadi chicken biryani ($18), notable for its light, fluffy rice, moist and flavourful chicken, and bracing hits of spice paste. For one of my friends, some raita to tamp down the biryani’s heat was a very good idea.

The chef also serves Hyderabadi katli dal ($18), which is made with spinach and tamarind as well as yellow lentils. It intrigued me with a depth of flavour that made other dals seem second-rate.

Drawing upon a preparation for seafood from Kerala, the tropical state on India’s southwestern coast, mussels moilee ($21) was packed with plump, toothsome shellfish in a mildly spicy coconut-milk sauce flecked with curry leaves.

That sauce, like Mohan’s other concoctions, was too good to waste, and we savoured it as a dip for his made-to-order parotta flatbread ($3) and the even better onion-stuffed kulcha bread ($4).

You already know Mohan’s bread dessert ($9), a version of the Hyderabadi treat shahi tukda, was sublime. Vivaan’s mango shrikhand ($9), made with sweetened, extra-creamy yogurt that had been hung in cheesecloth to shed some of its water content, was compelling in a different way, and would travel better.

Both desserts successfully reflected Vivaan’s desire to improve upon the status quo of other Indian restaurants, which frequently settle for so-so store-bought Indian sweets to conclude their meals.

During prime time for dinner last Thursday, we were the only customers in Vivaan’s spacious dining room, which includes six very distantly separated tables under a high ceiling, all within view of the kitchen. (That meant that Mohan, who knows me, saw I was eating his food and in fact came out to say hello.)

Service was warm and hospitable, and our only complaints were small. We wished that the poppy dinner music had been quieter and that Vivaan offered cocktails as well as basic beers and wines.

Earlier this fall, Mohan told me opening Vivaan was a huge risk. But NH44 was hidden in an industrial park and severely struggling before Mohan closed it in September, and he hoped being on Preston Street would lead to more visibility and business.

For at least the time being, COVID-19 may well frustrate Mohan’s hopes for customers packing his dining room. But pandemic or no pandemic, his food deserves fans, even if they prefer the safer choice of Vivaan’s delectable curries to go.

phum@postmedia.com

Aiana Restaurant Collective
50 O’Connor St., 613-680-6100, aiana.ca
Open: Tuesday to Friday noon to 10 p.m., Saturday and Sunday 5 to 10 p.m., closed Monday
Prices (which include service): lunch $22 to $51, dinner $35 to $65, tasting menu (regular or vegetarian) $185
Access: entrances are wheelchair-accessible

Because this has not exactly been a year of pleasant surprises, I’ll start by sharing one with you.

Ottawa, I learned last week, has a recently opened restaurant that kicks off its most lavish dinner with tiny snacks that brim with caviar and truffles.

At Aiana, our tasting-menu experience began with impeccably thin potato-chip cones filled with the prized Acadian sturgeon eggs or, for a momentary vegetarian, the prized end-of-summer fungus from Burgundy. They arrived at our table with a lightly choreographed flourish as two servers placed the amuse-bouches before us in unison. The sight of these amusements promised us gourmet pleasures, and as we munched on them, we became a little giddy.

Mind you, caviar and truffles have not been top of mind for me in 2020. Even for a restaurant critic, life during the pandemic has been more about comfort food and getting by than about celebration or opulence.

And yet, perhaps improbably, we have Aiana pulling out the stops, aspiring to give Ottawans the kind of elevated fine dining that would earn a Michelin star or two if that company’s inspectors considered Canadian restaurants.

Aiana, which opened in August, also pioneers in Ottawa a business decision that’s been taken at certain U.S. upscale restaurants. Aiana’s lofty prices include service charges, ensuring that its staff receive progressive wages, Devinder Chaudhary, Aiana’s owner and a consulting accountant, told me.

Among those workers is Raghav Chaudhary, Aiana’s executive chef and Devinder’s 27-year-old son, an Ottawa native who was trained at the Culinary Institute of America and has worked at Michelin-starred restaurants in San Francisco and Sweden.

So, while some mains at Aiana are just under $40, a roast chicken dinner for two costs $80 and a nine-course tasting menu comes in at $185, there are good reasons and even mitigations. I think tipping wasn’t even an option when I paid.

I have heard some very knowledgeable restaurant-goers in Ottawa say a place like Aiana, with its high prices, fondness for caviar and truffles, and slightly more formal service, is too rich for the city’s blood, pandemic or no pandemic. I’d like to disagree.

It is true that COVID-19 has forced many leading Ottawa restaurants to pivot to making simpler, takeout fare a priority. (Aiana, too, offers its fare to go.) It’s also true that other restaurants seeking to dazzle with tasting menus price them more modestly. Atelier’s 12-course menu is $135. Alice’s vegetable-forward tasting menu is $120. Carben’s eight-course tasting menu, which delighted us earlier this fall, is just $80.

But places like Atelier, Alice and Carben, for all of their quality and innovation, are still neighbourhood restaurants with modest settings. Aiana, in the Sun Life Financial Centre, is closer to Beckta on Elgin Street, which has a $125 tasting menu but also $48 main courses, and Riviera, which has no tasting menu but offers main courses topping $45 as well as $100 caviar service. These are restaurants that are not shy about extolling luxury as a temporary indulgence.

Even if I wasn’t partial to caviar and truffles, I think Ottawa, as the capital of a G7 country, ought to have restaurants that champion that kind of haute cuisine — provided they meet the high standards they should set for themselves.

For the most part, Aiana’s nine-course tasting menu — a well-paced mix of diverse items from the à la carte menu and some exclusive delicacies — kept the delights coming, although some slight constructive criticisms were warranted.

After those splendid potato-chip cones, the lightly curried and warming squash soup was a triumph, poured tableside and replete with puffed wild rice, sumac-dusted crème fraîche and wee, crunchy maple leaves made of squash.

Smoked sturgeon pâté, topped with caviar and served with some buttery brioche sticks, made me swoon, while my friend’s vegetarian course, a quinoa porridge, was strikingly creamy (enriched with Boursin cheese, we were told) and comforting.

We thought our respective tartares — some finely chopped bison and beet — were well-made but could have popped more in terms of salt and acidity. After came a more substantial but sophisticated course. For me, a lightly spiced half quail was a touch dry but benefited from some punchy pickled ground cherries and a cute, miniature Scotch egg. Its vegetarian counterpart replaced the bird with oblongs of rutabaga.

Then, we were bowled over by two small wonders — a perfect chocolate-foie gras macaron, which leaned more into its savouriness, and a mushroom tart of concentrated flavour.

Of the final savoury courses, the meatier option topped the vegetarian alternative. I received a deeply beefy pithivier (a puff pastry pie stuffed with Wagyu beef trimmings and mushrooms) with parsnip purée and jus, both supremely rich. My friend’s bowl of tomato-sauced farro was fine, but suffered in comparison with the more special pithivier.

A wave of sweets concluded dinner — too-generous servings of sweet ginger granité, a complex, satisfying hazelnut tart dessert, and then some bonbons. We were too stuffed to have coffee or tea.

I also had an easier-on-the-budget lunch at Aiana last week. If you accept the proposition that a serving of popcorn can cost $12, Aiana’s dressed-up popcorn, which mixes kernels coated in caramel and truffle-oiled corn, is irresistible. A Wagyu burger ($26) was big, juicy and flavourfully garnished. A massive serving of short ribs ($37) had great depth of flavour, as well as some shaved black truffles, more of that fine parsnip purée and some on-point lentils.

At both visits, service was well-trained and attentive, but also unstuffy — perhaps just a bit more deferential and a bit less chummy than at other upscale restaurants. At lunch and dinner, chef Chaudhary came to our table and to see other guests, too.

Designed by Linebox Studio, Aiana’s space is a beautiful, welcoming mix of teal blues and greys, with well-distanced tables positioned under posh lighting and flanked by a stunning open kitchen on one side and an impressive bar and wall of wines on the other.

Aiana’s instrumental groove music was occasionally a little intrusive, although that might have been less noticeable had the restaurant been blessed with the uplifting buzz of conversations and clinking glasses in the background.

Indeed, the only significant letdown about Aiana was something practically beyond its control — that it felt more empty than full of guests when we visited, presumably because of the pandemic’s impact on our collective morale and finances.

That’s really regrettable, because it does feel as if the Chaudharys are on their way to providing Ottawa with a distinctive, tip-top restaurant that could be the latest jewel on our dining scene. Hopefully, they can prevail against the fierce headwinds of COVID-19.

phum@postmedia.com

Shibayan
437 Sunnyside Ave., 613-421-5888, shibayan.ca
Open: Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Sunday noon to 9 p.m., Friday and Saturday noon to 10 .p.m., closed Tuesday
Prices: appetizers $4 to $10, soups and mains $11 to $15
Access: steps to front door

Yuzumi
83 Holland Ave., 613-422-8301, yuzumi.ca
Open: Monday to Saturday noon to 7 p.m., closed Sunday
Prices: sushi tacos $3.50 and $4, sushi rolls $11.99 to $13.99, bao buns $10.99 to $12.99
Access: steps to front door

Nearly two years ago, I assigned myself the enjoyable, but gut-stretching task of ranking Ottawa’s ramen .

Back then, in that dimly recalled, pre-pandemic past, I catalogued 13 eateries that doled out piping hot and frequently porky bowls of Japanese soup, noodles and garnishes. Three of them — Sansotei, J:unique Kijtchen and Koichi Ramen — made top-tier stuff. But even medium-tier ramen could make my day.

With that much research under my belt, I’ve remained keen to try ramen restaurants as they pop up in Ottawa, wanting to see where they would fit on my list. As far as I can tell, the latest arrival on Ottawa’s ramen scene, and the only newcomer since my early 2019 ranking of ramen, is Shibayan on Sunnyside Avenue.

The tiny and almost two-month-old eatery, one big block east of Carleton University, serves mid-tier ramen that would certainly cross my mind if I were hungry and driving through its neighbourhood.

In line with pandemic living, Shibayan, which used to be home to a burrito joint, is a takeout-only business. So, we’ve sped home with our ramen separated, its broth in one plastic tub and its solids in a sturdy recyclable bowl.

By and large, we liked the ramen that we assembled at our dining table. For me, ramen is about broth, noodles and then everything else, in that order, and I think Shibayan gets its broths right. (It might have helped that Shibayan’s co-owner, Eric Carbonneau, worked for a year at Sansotei.) Its noodles are more pedestrian, and garnishes can be great or just so-so.

Of its seven types of ramen, ranging in price from $12 to $15, I was most satisfied by the tantanmen, which had a rich, spicy broth, seasoned ground pork, a good soy-marinated egg and corn going for it. I was less keen on Shibayan’s tonkotsu and black garlic ramen — arguably Ottawa’s default settings for ramen — but only because their slices of pork belly were dry.

Vegetarian ramen from Shibayan, with a tomato-based broth and braised and tasty oyster and shiitake mushrooms, also appealed.

I can also recommend the juicy karage (nuggets of fried chicken, $7) and vegetarian dumplings ($8) as starters, as well as the tempura shrimp ($10), which did lose its sogginess after a bit of oven time once they were unpacked at home. Slices of mango and matcha cheesecake ($4.50) were cheap, sweet finishers. I was less keen on the only rice-bowl dish that I tried because its admittedly generous portion of chicken cutlet and Japanese curry on rice had been squashed to its detriment in its container. Still, I would not be put off from trying Shibayans’ broiled eel or chicken and egg on rice at a later date.

Also offering Japanese takeout, but specializing in new-generation sushi and fusion fare, rather than ramen, is the modest eatery Yuzumi, located on Holland Avenue north of Wellington Street West.

Yuzumi also makes bao buns ($10.99 to $12.99 for two), but they were not of a calibre that should worry Gongfu Bao and its artisanal buns in Centretown. Given its punchy flavours, the Cajun shrimp bun was my pick over the more traditional, but mediocre pork belly bun.

Yuzumi also serves poke bowls, rice bowls and some fancy sushi rolls. On the one fancy sushi roll that I tried, the salmon was lacking in flavour, sufficiently so to make me propose that items with tuna and Cajun or tempura shrimp could be the best choices here.

Overall, the sushi tacos here were tops. If I were ever to compile a ranking of Ottawa’s sushi tacos, I would expect Yuzumi’s entries to do well.

Related

• Your guide to the best (and worst) ramen in Ottawa

phum@postmedia.com

When working in my home office, eating at my kitchen table, or binging on Netflix, I find it easy to lapse and forget that a lethal virus is raging outside.

But during the last five months, any trip to a restaurant has been a grim reality check. What was previously one of my job’s big perks and a weekly highlight now brings the pandemic front of mind.

I’m quite conflicted. On one hand, after the spring and fall bans on indoor dining in Ottawa were lifted, I was happy to return to the gourmet pleasures I’ve enjoyed since 2012, when I took over this newspaper’s Dining Out column. While the novel coronavirus brought many things to a screeching halt, great restaurant cooking and hospitality were not among them.

But on the other hand, I don’t want to get sick. Nor do I want to make anyone sick or encourage behaviours that might make anyone sick.

Like many people, I keep an eye on Ottawa’s daily COVID-19 case numbers. My discomfort about dining out, and indeed about leaving my house, has grown or dwindled in lockstep with them. These days, I breathe more easily about eating in restaurants and recommending that readers do the same because Ottawa’s daily tally of new cases has held low and steady for much of the past month.

And yet, I still have trepidations to overcome each time I dine in a restaurant. Nor did it help when I checked the internet for columns in which other restaurant critics wrote about how COVID-19 affected their work.

Most recently, Washington Post food writer Tim Carman documented the sheer misery of contracting the disease himself a month ago.

Throughout pandemic times, Carman practiced physical distancing, mask-wearing and other protocols more rigorously than I do. He only ate outdoors, and even then he covered his face when interacting with people. Still, he somehow became infected.

“I’m not the first food writer and critic to get the coronavirus, and I probably won’t be the last, given what I know about infection rates and the work ethic of my peers, who continue to move about their communities to tell you about the good, the bad and the tasty,” Carman wrote.

Carman did not lose his sense of taste or smell, as some people infected with COVID-19 do and as he worried he might. He did, however, experience “a pain so profound and all-encompassing I couldn’t put it into words.”

The New York Times suspended its restaurant reviews from mid-March to mid-September, when indoor dining in one of the world’s greatest cities for eating went on a long COVID-19 break. When Pete Wells, the newspaper’s esteemed restaurant critic, returned to reviewing, he wrote: “the word that best sums up my feelings about it is: Yikes!”

Related

• The weather outside is frightful: A guide to some of the Ottawa patios still open for business
• Wood: Reopening rules for Ottawa restaurants are too tough – and may not enhance public safety

Seeking to assess the risks his return to reviewing would entail, Wells cited a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study that was released in September and which pointed out the correlation between dining in restaurants and contracting COVID-19.

“In the study, adults who had tested positive for the virus were asked where they had been and what they had done in the two weeks before coming down with symptoms,” Wells wrote. “They were twice as likely to say they had eaten at a restaurant as people with negative test results. No other activity the researchers asked about was linked to as many cases.”

Fortunately, I and Ottawa’s other restaurant-lovers have our own numbers in which to seek comfort. Just three known outbreaks accounting for two per cent of Ottawa’s 189 total outbreaks between Aug. 1 and Oct. 24 were traced to restaurants. Toronto’s comparable numbers were more damning — it saw 27 outbreaks in restaurants and bars, accounting for 14 per cent of its outbreaks.

Now, the seriousness with which a restaurant views the pandemic is a conscious part of my reviewing, along with the deliciousness of its food and the polish of its service. (Ambience, meanwhile, can basically be discounted, because physical distancing, sparse customer attendance and the abnormalities of the times have so thoroughly shattered the usual buzz and conviviality of restaurants.) I could never have imagined the day when I would be praising restaurants for their Plexiglas shields between tables, their temperature checks of guests upon arrival or their rapid disinfecting regimens.

It’s been suggested to me that it’s a bad time to be restaurant critic — not because restaurant-going is riskier during a pandemic but because giving a bad review would amount to kicking a business when it’s down.

I can say I did visit a few eateries that really didn’t do it for me, and I chose not to write about them at all, when I might’ve done so pre-pandemic. Also, in light of COVID-19’s assault on restaurants, when I did choose to write, I think I have been more forgiving and granted more marks for effort. I note that Wells of The New York Times stopped awarding the newspaper’s customary star ratings and other food publications have ditched numerical scores, presumably because they think the current moment calls for more leniency and less harsh judgement. This might well be a good attitude to help us get through the pandemic, period.

Given how badly Ottawa’s restaurants have been battered in 2020, I even feel more acutely a duty to advocate for restaurants at large.

A pithy saying about journalism holds that one of its purposes is to comfort the afflicted. On my beat these days, telling the incremental story of restaurants as they struggle with the pandemic’s ever-shifting circumstances feels a bit like doing just that.

phum@postmedia.com

Wellington Gastropub
1325 Wellington St. W., 613- 729-1315, thewellingtongastropub.com
Open: takeout Wednesday to Friday noon to 7 p.m., Saturday 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., dine-in Wednesday to Saturday 5 to 10 p.m., closed Sunday to Tuesday
Prices: mains $24 to $33, lunch boxes to go $20
Access: steps to front doors, then flight of stairs to second-floor restaurant

When the Wellington Gastropub opened in 2006, its name required some explanation.

Then, Ottawa had a clear demarcation between its ambitious restaurants and its more casual pubs. The Wellie, as it came to be nicknamed, was a hybrid, mixing gastronomical offerings with easy conviviality, not to mention a fondness for better beers. My predecessor loved the Wellie so much when it opened, and then again, in 2010, that I never stopped by to check it out after my reviewer’s stint began in 2012. I just assumed, and word of mouth led me to believe, that co-owners Shane Waldron and chef Chris Deraiche had refined their formula to the point of very smooth sailing, inspiring more than a few, albeit lesser, gastropubs along the way.

But then 2020, the year of anything but smooth sailing for Ottawa’s restaurants, happened. In addition to COVID-19, Waldron had to cope with Deraiche’s decision this summer to step away from the business and its kitchen.

Meanwhile, at the beginning of the pandemic, chef Jonathan Korecki, formerly of Restaurant E18hteen and a Top Chef Canada finalist, returned to Ottawa after several years of cooking in Tokyo. The culinary stars aligned: Korecki was out of work, the Wellie needed a chef, and Waldron hired Korecki.

Given that change, I figured it was the right time to finally eat at the gastropub.

My two recent dinners confirmed that Korecki, not surprisingly, still sends quality plates out of the kitchen, which remains in good hands after Deraiche’s departure.

At the same time, the gastropub’s menu leans as hard as it ever did into a traditional meat-and-veg mandate. There’s no obvious nod to the fact that Korecki was previously the executive chef at the official residence of Canada’s ambassador to Japan, where he developed a deep love for that country’s food and people.

The chef and Waldron must feel that the gastropub’s brand is bigger than Korecki’s and that, during a pandemic, when customers are skittish about dining out, it’s not the best time to stray from proven hits and comfort food.

Speaking of proven hits, I’m reliably informed that one of Ottawa’s luminaries of photojournalism treats himself each birthday to the Wellie’s beef tartare ($22). I can’t say whether Korecki has tweaked Deraiche’s recipe, but I can say that the Wellie’s tartare is both classically made and exceptionally big-flavoured and well balanced, one of the best beef tartares in the city. We also had the Wellie’s lemony fishcakes with dill dressing ($14), which were fine, if not as eye-wideningly good as the tartare.

As for main courses, there was very little to complain about regarding plates that starred braised lamb shanks ($28) or beef short rib taken off the bone ($32), or a roasted chicken breast ($25) or pounded-until-thin and then fried pork schnitzel ($26). The chicken breast stood out as a juicy, crisp-skinned wonder that restored one’s faith in chicken breasts after too many dry disappointments, and its truffle sauce was a luxurious add-on that distinguished the dish from its homier peers.

The Wellie’s kabocha squash gnocchi ($24) were lightly sweet and a touch heavy, but they made for a satisfying and even self-indulgent dinner with their fine tarragon cream sauce.

The only dish that I thought was lacking was a mushroom risotto with properly seared scallops ($33), but only because the rice seemed short on savoury umami punch.

Korecki’s main-course plates, while hefty, seemed somewhat minimalist as they generally contained meat, starch and sauce and were scarcely garnished. If you wanted more veg, you would have to order the Brussel sprouts, parsnips, or Swiss chard and kale on the side for $6.

But, then, you might not have room for dessert. The gastropub’s decadently rich dark chocolate pavé with whisky-macerated cherries and moist, sumptuous vanilla cake (both $8) sent us home on sweet, happy notes.

True to its pub side, the restaurant offers a page of interesting wines, 10 Ontario craft beers on tap and many more Ontario and Belgian beers in bottles and cans, as well as several featured cocktails.

Service at the gastropub was friendly and welcoming, and it began with us checking in on the restaurant’s COVID-19 guests’ list with our cellphones. We received our menus on our phones, too. For all its popularity, the restaurant was barely busier than our own table on the weeknights we visited.

The gastropub also offers its full menu to go for pickup, as well as some box lunches that Korecki calls “bento boxes,” referring to the Japanese meals that contain multiple delights in their partitioned trays. That said, the Wellie’s bento boxes contain such distinctly non-Japanese items as stewed beef and pork meatballs in tomato ragout with Lancaster gouda.

Perhaps when the pandemic abates, the gastropub will be able to allow Korecki to show off more food that acknowledges the Japanese part of his life journey without detracting from the restaurant’s comfort-food mission. In my book, that would be yet another reason to bid COVID-19 good riddance.

phum@postmedia.com

Del Piacere
416 Preston St., 613-422-4416, delpiacere.ca
Open: Monday to Thursday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., Friday 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., Saturday 9:30 a.m. to 11 p.m., Sunday 9:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Prices: appetizers $8 to $20, mains (including pasta) $24 to $36, pizzas and calzones $14 to $19
Access: two steps to front door

How do you feel about spelling errors on menus? Are they charming? Or do they warn that other aspects of a restaurant might be a little sloppy, too?

Pietro Amariello, chef-owner of Del Piacere on Preston Street, would have you interpret the imperfections on his menus as signs of his culinary authenticity.

“He says leave it like that, so that they know the chef is actually Italian,” says Sofia Iaboni, Del Piacere’s server.

Amariello, she says, cooked in Lucca, Italy for 30 years before he came to Ottawa in 2018. He worked at La Favorita, the veteran pizza and calzone eatery 100 metres up the street, but left to open Del Piacere in early October, pandemic be damned.

This month, I put my lexical prejudices aside and was rewarded with two very good dinners at Del Piacere. The generously portioned and unpretentious from-scratch cooking by Amariello, who is very much alone in his kitchen, lived up to his restaurant’s name, which roughly means “it is pleasing.”

Located where Stoneface Dolly’s had been, Del Piacere has an open kitchen that includes a wood-burning oven. We tried just one of Amariello’s 10 pizzas. (Gluten-free pizzas are also available, Iaboni says.) The tasty prosciutto and mushroom pizza ($15) that we took home was massive and thin of crust, true to the Neapolitan style Amariello promises.

Del Piacere also serves five calzones, but we were more interested in trying the appetizers, pastas and mains in the restaurant’s bright, basic dining room where a radio station provided dinner music.

Three shareable appetizer platters hit the right notes. Plump shrimps and strikingly tender squid rings had been deftly fried for the plate of fritto misto ($16). The deep-frying was equally on the mark for the plate of fried artichoke, zucchini and batons of polenta ($14), served with ranch dressing. The simply sauteed mix of squid, mussels, scallops, shrimp and vegetables in a garlic lemon sauce ($18) would be a good choice for those who eschew deep-fried treats.

The two exceptional pastas we had at Del Piacere, which are served as hefty mains rather than smaller first courses, were the most impressive dishes we sampled.

Spaghetti carbonara ($24) had the ring of truth, with its house-made al dente noodles bathed in egg-y goodness. The serving was also big enough to provide a next-day lunch.

The pasta of the day was a bowl of ravioli stuffed with gorgonzola and artichoke in a tomato and cream sauce ($22). The ravioli were thin, toothsome and nicely filled, and the sauce was straightforward and zesty.

With more protein-heavy main courses, we had only small regrets that the starch and vegetables on those plates were not as good as the meat and fish. But otherwise, a hefty, breaded bone-in veal chop ($34), a chunk of medium-rare beef tenderloin with green peppercorn sauce ($36) and a big portion of sole ($33) won us over, even if the more pedestrian saffron risotto that came with the fish and veal chop could have been improved upon.

The restaurant’s three pieces of veal scaloppine with mushrooms and marsala sauce ($32), was fine, but seemed like a better choice for smaller appetites. Its accompanying “zucchini pie” was a small tart that was heavy on the bread and light on the zucchini, while its mashed potatoes were more homey than luxurious.

But if that veal dish left room for dessert, that was a good thing.

Amariello’s big bowl of classically satisfying tiramisu, a bargain at $7, is likely to induce sighs of contentment. I was just as happy with a big slice of chocolate ricotta crostata ($7), which emerged from Del Piacere’s dessert showcase. The chef also makes cookies ($6) known as “brutti ma buoni,” or “ugly but tasty,” which were like lumpy biscotti, flecked with nuts and raisins.

Iaboni, who is upbeat and enthusiastic about her boss’s food, is Del Piacere’s only server. Her personal touch is one reason to visit the restaurant. But if pandemic concerns trump your desire for dining out, Del Piacere makes food to go, for pickup and through three of the big delivery services. Iaboni says older people on the residential streets of Little Italy are ordering Amariello’s food.

Del Piacere’s website also says Amariello can cook whatever you would like of him, given 48 hours’ notice.

“Do you have a favorite dish you miss? Something mamma used to make?” the website asks. I don’t, but I do have enough curiosity about the food in Amariello’s native Tuscany, as well as sufficient confidence in his cooking, that I might make a special request in the future.

phum@postmedia.com

In 2020, when Ottawa’s restaurants closed their dining rooms, switched to takeout, built patios, re-opened their dining rooms, closed them again and then re-opened them again, there was nonetheless one constant.

Despite the poundings they took from COVID-19, the restaurants still doled out delicious dishes just as worthy of year’s-end kudos as the memorable fare I’ve celebrated each December since 2012.

As you’ll see, some of my categories have changed this year — I’ve had to pivot a bit too, so to speak. But I will have to repeat some of my annual caveats. The picks below are not the best in their categories bar none in the Ottawa area. They’re my faves drawn from my eating exploits this past, and unprecedented, year. Nor should they be taken as wholesale endorsements of all the dishes at the restaurants that made them.

They may also no longer be available, especially given how transitory some things have been during the pandemic. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t fondly recall them, and the pleasures they gave in a year when we too often needed our spirits lifted.

Best takeout dinner

After my Dining Out column pivoted this spring to Dining In, I was pleasantly surprised by the family and couple’s dinners I picked up from several restaurants, which themselves had out of necessity gotten into the takeout game during 2020’s first ban on indoor restaurant dining. The established restaurants Stofa, North & Navy and Absinthe Cafe won us over with simpler homier fare meant for home consumption.

The newcomer eatery Ayla’s Social Kitchen also impressed us with its lamb shanks and risotto. But my favourite takeout dinner was the elevated Middle Eastern feast from Fairouz Cafe, which made kebab-and-pita eating seem like a fresh and boldly flavoured experience.

Best tasting menu

Although my indoor dining was intermittent in 2020, I did enjoy several multi-course splurges. I even had two tasting-menu dinners at the ever-innovative Atelier — a “normal,” pre-pandemic, 12-course parade of surprises in January, and a seven-course “drive-in” dinner in May, for which I picked up courses from the restaurant’s front door and ate them in a nearby parking lot. If bang-for-bucks was the deciding factor, then Carben, in Hintonburg, would get the nod for its $80 tasting menu.

But I’ll give the newcomer Aiana, and its luxury-loving chef Raghav Chaudhary, the prize because sometimes I’m just a sucker for caviar, truffles and foie gras.

Best burger

This year saw a few burger businesses and pop-ups open, and I’m sure the thought of a public skittish about eating in dining rooms was in some cases a factor. Toronto-based The Burger’s Priest came to town. For a time, NeXT in Stittsville made “Dirty Burgers.” Gitanes on Elgin Street launched Gitanes Burger, a separate enterprise I’ve yet to try.

Aiana made me a mean Wagyu burger, and if you count sliders as burgers, then the Asian pulled pork sliders from Thr33’s Co. Snack Bar deserve a shoutout. But in all, my most satisfying burger was Shelby Burger’s onion-y double-patty smash burger.

Best sandwich

Kitchen Maroo, the tiny eatery on Gladstone Avenue that opened during the pandemic, made a bulgogi sandwich that redeems Asian-fusion cuisine all on its own.

Best pasta

I have to tip my hat to chef Adam Vettorel for the pastas we took away from his two restaurants, North & Navy in Centretown and Cantina Gia in the Glebe.

But the pasta dish I crave the most is the cavatelli with shrimp that emerged from chef Arup Jana’s kitchen at Brassica in Westboro in August.

Best pizza

Quite a few players entered Ottawa’s pizza space this year.

Tops for me were the wet-centred, Neapolitan-style ultra-fast pies from Pi Co., the Toronto-based franchise operation that came to Ottawa, and especially the pies from Heartbreakers Pizza — the mushroom pizza, sausage and fennel pizza and the pepperoni and jalapeno pizza finished with honey, to be specific.

Best kebabs

Having already complemented Fairouz Cafe’s chicken and beef kebabs, I want to equally laud the entirely different skewers of lamb, shrimp and short rib I had last summer at 98 La La Noodles in Lowertown.

Their spicy, cumin-y seasoning is an instant cure for the flavour-deprived.

Best amuse-bouche

If I were an oligarch, I would have the chef on my superyacht docked in the Cayman Islands prepare a steady supply of potato-chip cones filled with caviar or truffles, like the ones that launch Aiana’s tasting menu.

Best cookie

I created this category so I could mention the chocolate foie-gras macaron, which skews more savoury than sweet, that graces Aiana’s tasting menu.

Best soup

I’m torn. One one hand, there’s the refined squash soup from Aiana, and on the other there’s the beef noodle and mustard greens soup with fresh noodles at 98 La La Noodles.

The first soup is a young chef’s elevated epicurean fare, while the second is a proletarian Chinese staple, beautifully executed. They’re starkly different, and because it’s 2020, I refuse to choose.

Best red meat dish

Again, I see a tie. Arlo’s flank steak, bolstered by a highly herbal salsa verde, was oh-so-summery. But then, Gyubee’s all-you-can-eat meat-fest has to figure in here somewhere, even if we were doing the cooking on our table-mounted grill at the ByWard Market restaurant.

Best poultry dish

Yet another tie, but this time between two roasted chickens I brought home — the classically beautiful bird from Absinthe Cafe, and the jerk chicken from Baccanalle in Ottawa’s east end.

Best seafood dish

Too often, mussels make me think, “meh.” Vivaan’s mussels moilee in their creamy coconut-milk sauce were so luscious and bathed in flavour that they washed away my prejudice.

Best vegetarian dish

Chef Jamie Stunt excels at making simple ingredients strikingly delicious. This summer, he worked his magic on a kohlrabi salad that helped make our evening special on the patio of Arlo on Somerset Street West.

Best dessert

Despite, or perhaps because of, its humble roots, Vivaan’s fried bread and milk sauce really made us sit up and take notice.

Best spicy dish

There were many contenders, including the Hyderabadi chicken biryani from Vivaan, the dan dan noodles from 98 La La Noodles, the fried lamb from Bukhari on Carling Avenue and the Chongqing noodles at Hey Kitchen on Somerset Street West. But how could I not give the award to the spicy combo stir-fry from Chili Chili — the Somerset Street restaurant that advertises its predilection for heat in its name? (Its mapo tofu is also a must-have.)

phum@postmedia.com

Mont Tacos
3059 Carling Ave., 343-984-3927, mont-tacos.com
Open: 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily

Chili Craft Pizza
68 Wylie Ave., 613-828-1111, chilicraft.ca
Open: Sunday noon to 11 p.m., Monday to Thursday 11 a.m. to midnight, Friday and Saturday 11 a.m. to 2 a.m.

Seoul Dog
105 B Clarence St. (inside La Catrina), 613-619-1503, seouldogott.square.site
Open: Tuesday to Sunday 5 to 10 p.m., closed Monday

A new year brings a yearning for new foods, and few items strike me as more novel than French tacos, Indian pizza and Korean corn dogs.

If you’re part of the foie-gras set or the healthy-eating club, these new fast foods, which touched down in Ottawa in recent months, may be closer to junk food than food. But I resolved to put my curiosity ahead of other predilections and gave these culinary mashups, which as takeout fare are utterly in line with our latest lockdown protocols, an open-minded try.

Mont Tacos, the maker of so-called French tacos, is a Montreal-based franchise operation that opened its first location there in the fall of 2019. The Carling Avenue location opened in October last year, where a Centrale Bergham sandwich shop had been. You can find the new business by looking for the window decorated with a graphic of dripping melted cheese, as that’s a defining feature of a French taco.

According to the chronology on Mont Taco’s website, French tacos became a standard fast food in France in 2013, following their creation in the French alps. Some might say designating French tacos as tacos is a mistake, as what we’re really talking about is a grilled tortilla stuffed with meat, veg, sauce, fries and cheese. They say tacos, but I might equally say burritos or even paninis.

Mont Tacos’ French tacos are custom-designed affairs. You build what you want from nine sauces (from ketchup to harissa to samurai), six proteins (from ground beef to Philly steak to falafel), three kinds of charcuterie (beef bacon, merguez sausage, smoked turkey), six kinds of cheese (from Swiss to cheddar to curds) and seven kinds of vegetables (from fried onions to jalapenos to olives).

As a French taco neophyte, I went for a marinated chicken taco with Algerian (sweet-spicy) sauce, raclette cheese, and a mix of vegetables. It tasted just fine. Perhaps it would have been better still if it were sopping up an excess of alcohol in my gut.

I should say that out of caution, I ordered a small French taco. It’s possible to go bigger — indeed much, much bigger. On Tuesday nights, you can take the “Mont Défi” challenge — order a two-kilogram, five-meat XXL French taco and finish it, and your gluttony is on the house. For indemnification’s sake, I advise against it.

In the same west-end block as Mont Tacos, you’ll find Chili Craft Pizza, the maker of not just “classic” pizzas, burgers, poutine and jalapeno poppers but also pizzas topped with butter chicken, tandoori chicken, shahi paneer and other Indian cuisine staples.

It is no happy coincidence that Chili Craft Pizza, which opened in October, is beside the Little India Cafe, which has attracted a devoted following since the late 1990s. The sauces for Chili Craft’s Indian pizzas come from its neighbour, I was told when I picked up my small tandoori chicken pizza.

Ordered medium spicy, that pizza packed a big punch that lingered in our mouths, and I didn’t feel there was a disconnect between the pizza’s mozzarella and its Indian flavour profile. The chicken, as finely minced as the peppers and onions on the pizza, barely registered, however. More prominent, we’d argue, were the fennel seeds in the pizza crust.

We also tried Chili Craft’s “signature” vegetarian spring rolls, which brought to mind a crispier, oblong version of samosas.

Perhaps the most daunting of my mashup samples were the Korean corn dogs which, flavourings aside, were much more massive than the Pogo dogs of yore, like corn dogs on steroids. Made since last May in the ByWard Market ghost kitchen called Seoul Dog, the corn dogs were almost as extreme in terms of crispiness and taste as they were in size.

By ordering online and toggling various options, we selected the all-beef hot dog with a nubby, potato-flecked coating and the half-beef, half-cheese corn dog, dusted with garlic sugar. I preferred the all-beef dog, but if you’ve read this far in an article about meat-and-cheese fast foods, you probably would prefer the half-beef, half-cheese hybrid dog. I will say this about garlic sugar seasoning — it was not as bad as I thought it would be.

In the end, I like the sheer fact that French tacos, Indian pizzas and Korean corn dogs exist more than I enjoy eating them. While I may prefer Mexican tacos and Italian pizzas (and I may have outgrown corn dogs), I would never want to stifle innovation and the diversification of food, especially at its meatiest and cheesiest.

phum@postmedia.com

two six {ate}
268 Preston St., 613-695-8200, twosixate.com , instagram.com/twosixate
Open: Thursday to Sunday 4 to 8:30 p.m. for takeout during the current lockdown
Prices: four-course dinners for two $80, a la carte items $10 to $32
Access: steps to front door, washrooms in basement

In the distant pre-pandemic past, one of my favourite late-night snacks was the foie gras burger at two six {ate} on Preston Street.

I don’t know how many times I walked over to the funky Preston Street eatery after an evening’s exertions to ask for that affordable splurge, a carnal, beefy treat with a slathering of liver-y luxury. It was just the indulgence I needed to put an exclamation mark on some quality time spent with friends.

Of course, those happy memories date back years, to nights when the Little Italy restaurant, which opened in 2012, served hip, small plates into the wee hours to a youthful throng that set its crowded space buzzing. Of course, the novel coronavirus has disrupted almost everything about that happy scenario. Two six {ate}, with its patio long closed and dining room shut due to the current pandemic-related state of emergency, serves dinners four nights a week for scheduled pickups but not deliveries (and I meet up with my pals via videoconferences).

COVID-19 pivots notwithstanding, I hoped two six {ate}’s chef Steven Harris would pack his takeout containers with fare as pleasing as my go-to foie gras burgers. These days, two six {ate} stresses very affordable but elevated four-course dinners for two, whose components can also be ordered à la carte. We tried different dinners for two ($80) on consecutive weekends this month, relying on menus posted on the restaurant’s Instagram page. One dinner yielded nothing but winners. The other dinner was more ordinary, with some dishes that were overly simple and one or two in which Harris’s creativity — he’s a former Ottawa Gold Medal Plates competitor — got the better of his food.

It should be said first though that both dinners for two were extremely generous — more like a dinner for two plus a hearty lunch for two the next day.

Each dinner began with a thick soup made with coconut milk and roasted winter vegetables, with crème fraîche and scatterings of nuts and spices on the side to enliven things. A potage of miso-roasted celeriac, squash and carrots was exceptionally good, complex and well-calibrated. The following weekend, the Caribbean sweet potato soup, amped up with Scotch bonnet peppers, was a little less interesting and a touch too salty.

Among Harris’s appetizer choices were little baked and fried goodies with meaty fillings we couldn’t resist ordering. Some very pleasing duck turnovers contained smoked duck breast and foie gras, some roasted sunchoke and cabbage. The following week, the wild boar egg rolls were a little less special, but nonetheless persuasive. Both came with a sweet and sour dipping sauce of fermented grapes, which really did the trick.

Between two salads, we had a clear preference. With Harris’s winter salad of confit carrots, pickled cauliflower, goat feta, pear mostarda, pistachios, pea shoots, radishes and tarragon vinaigrette, every element sang. But the chef’s spin on Caesar salad wandered too far from its namesake, chiefly because the bitterness of its frisée and radicchio threw the dish out of whack, outweighing the novelty of the chickpea puffs that stood in for croutons and the smoked mushrooms that subbed for bacon.

Harris’s Cornish hen course was so good we couldn’t stop raving about it in between bites. The pan-roasted sous vide breast was moist and flavourful, and the blocky sausage of dark meat was even better. Brussels sprouts roasted in fat from the hens, braised turnips, pearl onions, and smashed fingerling potatoes ensured we would feel stuffed.

But the next week, when we chose a promising looking duck course, we were underwhelmed. The pan-roasted duck breast was overcooked and the cavatelli pasta with duck-leg ragu, while homey and filling, just didn’t wow us.

Of two desserts, the coconut cream pie that topped an Oreo crust with coconut pudding was a hit, preferable to the ricotta cheesecake topped with crowberry compote we had the following week.

When I first wrote of two six {ate} more than eight years ago, I said its food was both admirable and hit and miss. As much as things have changed over time, especially in the last 10 months, the same assessment may nonetheless again apply. But even if not every dish sparkles, that amazing Cornish hen, and the memory of foie gras burgers from convivial nights gone by, still make me want to put two six {ate} up on a pedestal.

phum@postmedia.com