Tingz Restaurant + Bar
55 York St., 613-241-6221,
tingzrestaurant.com
Hours:
Tuesday and Thursday 2 p.m. to midnight, Wednesday and Friday 2 p.m. to 2 a.m, Saturday noon to 2 a.m., Sunday noon to 10 p.m., closed Monday
Prices:
most dishes between $13 and $22
Access:
small patio, dining room is downstairs
On the one-to-10 pandemic uneasiness scale I’ve concocted, where one is “I would march in an anti-mask rally” and 10 is “I never leave the house,” I’d say I’m probably a four or five.
Take that into consideration when I say that you should visit Tingz, the new modern Caribbean restaurant on York Street, to enjoy its best dishes on its patio, but maybe you’ll want to forego eating in its just-opened dining room until service is somewhat less slack.
An exterior shot of TINGZ restaurant in the ByWard Market.Chef Jae-Anthony’s jerk chicken, deftly grilled and bathed in a definitive savoury sauce, is among the very best I’ve had in town. Hefty chicken wings, exhibiting a fine char from the grill and nicely seasoned, were winners, too. Tingz’s fish cakes brought back fond memories of the doughy salt cod treats I enjoyed a few years ago in Barbados. When featured in dishes, chunks of oxtail and goat were tamed into succulence. Mac and cheese was a rich and satisfying indulgence, even if it struck us as not so summery. By all means, give these items, which were often piquantly seasoned or garnished, a try.
For that matter, wet your whistle with a refreshing and reasonably priced cocktail or mocktail. We liked the beat-the-heat Watermelon Madness, made with vodka, watermelon juice and 7-Up, and the Moscow Mule’s gingery oomph.
But, since we’re assessing our restaurant experiences during COVID-19 times, we weigh service and ambience not just in terms of how good they make us feel, but also how safe. Call me too easily uneasy, but, of two visits last weekend to Tingz’s patio and then a Sunday night dinner in the basement restaurant’s dining room, I markedly preferred the al fresco meals.
At Friday night’s patio dinner, we liked the little bottle of hand sanitizer on the table and the fact that our server was masked. At Saturday’s lunch on the patio, we liked a little less that our servers were unmasked, and we wondered where the hand sanitizer had gone.
On Sunday night, the patio, to our surprise, was closed, perhaps because a downpour was possible. (Restaurant patios on nearby Clarence Street, however, were open.) Down the stairs we went to Tingz’s dining room, where we encountered some smaller disappointments (noisy music that forced us to lean in or speak more loudly, a lack of soap and paper towels in the men’s room) and, more frustratingly, a wait of some 40 minutes for a dessert of plantain doughnuts that ultimately was deemed by the kitchen to be unservable because, we were told, its dough was less than perfect.
That dessert would have ended an already lacklustre meal that included jerk calamari rings that did not thrum with jerk goodness, some appealing cups of fried plantain filled with ackee, the Caribbean fruit that uncannily brings scrambled eggs to mind, and a visually stunning escovitch snapper that sadly was too bland, too dry and too expensive.
Meanwhile, at Friday’s dinner, the grilled cauliflower dish showed no signs of having been grilled, and seemed more like it had been steamed and even a bit overcooked.
Because of the no-show dessert on Sunday, we received a discount on our bill. But that break was not enough to compensate us for the unease of lingering too long and unnecessarily in an indoor space during the pandemic. (There were several other tables of unmasked customers in the dining room that night.)
Yes, Ottawa entered “Stage 3” of its reopening last Friday, with the province approving the city’s restaurants to operate indoor dining rooms, provided that physical distancing exists between tables. But I would have preferred more anti-infection rigour with my indoor experience at Tingz.
In response to questions from this newspaper, owner David Amar said the restaurant had a mask policy indoors, but masks were optional outside. Servers can opt out if they have difficulty breathing, and especially if the heat is a factor.
Amar counts himself among those who may choose to not wear a mask, as he is asthmatic.
Regarding hand sanitizer, Amar said he tried to have small bottles of it available for customers when they were seated, but “we’ve had a lot of hand sanitizer go missing. People have been stealing some.”
Maybe you rank lower on my COVID-19 uneasiness scale and would have been more relaxed. But, for now at least, I’ll choose the seemingly greater safety of savouring Tingz’s jerk chicken on its patio or to go.