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.
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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.