From my run in the 2010s as a restaurant critic, here are the dozen dishes that burn most brightly in my memory. That goes double for the atomic jerk chicken.
I’ve compiled my favourites as a grand, unfurling, tasting menu — something epic to see out the decade and welcome in 2020.
If only all of these dishes were still available. In the spirit of looking back, I give special nods to several restaurants that shut in recent years, leaving me and no doubt others still feeling deprived. Should old acquaintances be forgot, and all that.
1) Bread at Semsem (2018)
What to pick from the hidden-gem bakery and coffee shop in a South Keys mall, where savoury Arabic breads are baked to order? It’s a very tough choice, given that many appeal. I most fondly recall the “cheese sunflower” pastry, a wreath-shaped loaf that wraps bread, dotted with sesame seeds and Persian thyme, around the salty punch of halloumi cheese.
2) Crab salad at Navarra (2012)
It was a big blow to Ottawa’s dining scene in 2017 when chef-owner René Rodriguez closed Navarra on William Street. While the 2014 Top Chef Canada winner now runs the kitchen at the Lord Elgin Hotel’s Grill 41, Navarra was Rodriguez’s personal culinary playground, with a menu that drew upon his Mexican roots and Spanish inspirations. I was wowed by his salad of sweet crabmeat, avocado and even dried mango, nestled in a puddle of grapefruit, serrano chili and vanilla aguachile, and topped with black sesame ash.
3) Tomatillo gazpacho at Carben (2015)
At his Hintonburg restaurant, chef-owner Kevin Benes had a summery hit several years ago with this perfectly balanced soup that was topped with a long almond cracker, in turn garnished with ribbons of cucumber, compressed watermelon and house-cured Arctic char. It was a beautiful dish that tasted as good as it looked.
4) Salad at Alice (2019)
Only the most hardened carnivore could fail to be delighted by the flavours and ingenuity at chef-owner Briana Kim’s new vegetable-focused fine-dining restaurant. Her mini-bouquet of greens from Juniper Farms, garnished with flaxseed, offset by a ring of kohlrabi enclosing sea buckthorn jelly and dressed with fermented almond milk, set a new standard for salads.
5) Tuna crudo at Supply and Demand (2012, 2019)
At the Wellington Street West restaurant, this perfectly calibrated, big-flavoured dish doesn’t budge from chef-owner Steve Wall’s menu for good reason. Raw fish dishes in Ottawa don’t get any better.
6) Shan noodles at Rangoon (2018)
So humble, yet so complex. At Ottawa’s only Burmese restaurant, rice noodles came blanketed in succulent chunks of chicken and bolstered by a savoury sauce, chilies, pickled mustard leaves that added an enticing amount of sourness, coriander and sesame seeds. “Mix, mix,” chef-owner Ngun Tial said when she served us. We were glad we did.
7) “Atomic” jerk chicken at Flavours of the Caribbean (2015)
Confession: I could only handle the intoxicatingly delicious jerk chicken at the now-shuttered Flavours of the Caribbean at its medium level of spiciness. But I cite chef Frederick White’s “atomic” jerk chicken because I remember so well the agonies that its maximum-level heat inflicted on a co-worker/consenting victim.
“Curry at Sam’s Cafe.
8) Massaman curry at Sam’s Cafe (2014)
In the back of his Hintonburg corner store, Sam Souryavong made bold yet exquisite Thai curries that shamed their more North Americanized, homogenized peers in Ottawa. I loved most the Massaman curry, that relied on Souryavong’s house-made, thrillingly complex curry paste and as a result teemed with heat and flavour, including hints of nutmeg and cardamom. Sadly, Sam’s Cafe closed, and is now the Merry Dairy ice cream outpost. I like its frozen treats, but visits there are still bittersweet.
9) Duck platter at feast + revel (2016)
Soon after feast + revel opened in the Andaz Ottawa ByWard Market, executive chef Stephen La Salle knocked us out with his duck platter that was fully loaded with excellent components that celebrated the best of the bird — roasted duck breast, smoked and cured duck “pastrami,” duck confit, fried duck wings and plenty of rich duck liver aioli.
10) Guinea fowl at Bar Lupulus (2019)
My favourite savoury dish of 2019 was chef Justin Champagne’s guinea fowl, which had its funkiness amped up with a koji rice marinade and umami-rich, snail- and truffle-enriched wheatberry risotto. Come to think of it, it’s one of my very favourite mains of the decade.
11) Dry-aged ribeye at Bar Laurel (2016)
Chef-owner Jon Svazas’ go-big-or-go-home, 20-ounce ribeye that had been dry-aged for 80 days delivered concentrated beefiness with nuanced side notes and fat that was too tasty to squander. What’s more, the meat was made better with demi-glace, salsa verde, fingerlings, enoki mushrooms and broccolini.
12) Ice cream, almonds, blueberries, chocolate and espresso at Odile (2012)
At Odile, the second business opened in Hull by chef-restaurateur Marysol Foucault, served a dessert that seven years later still seems beguilingly spot-on. The sophisticated yet unfussy triumph consisted of vanilla and praline ice cream, roasted almonds and clusters of frozen wild blueberries enrobed in dark chocolate. A server emptied a small cup of espresso into the bowl, and voila — a deluxe, melting, caffeinated, nutty mud pie. Sadly, Odile closed after 15 months. Fortunately, Foucault’s brunch-lunch spot, Edgar, remains a vital, if non-reservable, table for Ottawa-area food-lovers craving her signature Dutch baby pancakes and more.
phum@postmedia.com
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