The Rex
40 Adeline St., 613-695-9739, therexottawa.com
Open: Monday to Friday 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., Friday and Saturday 5:30 to 10 p.m.
Prices: Sandwiches, with soup or salad, $12; three-course dinners for $35
Access: Steps to front door
Patience, Ottawa food-lovers. Hopefully one day the Rex will grow into the restaurant you and I want it to be.
The cosy, nine-month-old restaurant on Adeline Street is usually open just a few hours a day, targeting federal public servants toiling in Rochester Street’s office towers. Those who work in proximity to the Rex have easy access to soup-or-salad-and-sandwich lunches on weekdays for just $12. Every Friday and Saturday, chef-owner Cody Starr serves a three-course dinner that changes weekly, for just $35.
As Starr told me last week, he’s waiting until the demand is there to expand his business, with more dishes on more nights. After eating Starr’s food over the last few months, all I can do is drum my fingers until those hordes arrive.
Like many a recently opened Ottawa restaurant, the Rex means to offer refined, well-crafted versions of familiar, comforting food, keeping its prices down as it goes. That could be just what his lunch crowd craves. It’s certainly to Starr’s tastes. “I love sandwiches. I could eat sandwiches every day,” he says.
Either way, the Rex, as per its name, is one of the rulers in Ottawa’s upscale sandwich-based eatery scene. Almost everything that I’ve eaten from Starr, a 31-year-old who previously was chef de cuisine at the Urban Pear in the Glebe, has been finessed and big-flavoured, with succulent, slow-cooked meats offering the feeling of a splurge at non-splurge prices.
From the compact blackboard menu, I’ve enjoyed Starr’s sandwich of roasted wild boar shoulder and crispy belly, a pork-two-ways treat that could have been too rich if it hadn’t be offset by fennel slaw and mustard aioli.
I’ve also eaten as much of Starr’s signature Reuben sandwich, made with his short-rib pastrami, as a fellow diner would let me steal. It was next-level deli food, topped with smoked gruyere and sandwiched between Starr’s Beau’s Lug Tread bread.
“The Rex Reuben” sandwich at the Rex. (Wayne Cuddington/Ottawa Citizen)
Beyond sandwiches, there was Starr’s shepherd’s pie, more short rib meat, slow-braised overnight to top-notch tenderness and studded with corn, packing a punch beneath a blanket of brown butter mashed potatoes.
Shepherd’s pie at the Rex.
Mac and cheese with roasted broccoli, served like the shepherd’s pie in a small cast-iron pan, was simple and right on the money if you prefer comfort to meaty thrills.
Mac and Cheese at the Rex.
I’ve always opted for the full flavour and luxurious mouthfeel of Starr’s roasted cauliflower, potato and leek soup to go with my sandwich, not that his duck-prosciutto-bolstered salad hasn’t tempted.
Roasted cauliflower, potato and leek soup at the Rex.
Each Wednesday, Starr puts his weekend dinner menu on Facebook and Twitter. I’ve seen him keep things meaty and traditional with steakhouse-, Tex-Mex- and beer-themed dinners, and venture a bit further with Greek-, New Orleans- and World Cup-themed menus. In every case, two appetizers, two mains and two desserts figured on the menu, making it perfect for date nights.
A month ago, we ate the Father’s Day menu. The fare was definitely Dad-friendly: salty-sweet confit chicken wings with a blue cheese dip or a mini-grilled cheese with more of Starr’s short-rib meat to start;
Confit chicken wings at the Rex.
Short rib grilled cheese appetizer at the Rex.
a brined pork chop on maple sweet potato mash or a hanger steak topped with a Hollandaise-sauced fried egg and served with hash;
Pork chop main course at the Rex.
Hanger steak main course at the Rex.
and a peanut butter milkshake with a piece of brownie or some fried doughnut holes with a coffee sauce to finish.
Peanut butter milkshake and chocolate brownie at the Rex.
Doughnut holes dessert at the Rex.
The steak, while maybe a little too rare, had more going on than the pork chop, thanks to the spurt of egg yolk, a streak of Hollandaise sauce and some assertively salted mushrooms. The doughnut holes were a little wet and underdone, but the milkshake and brownie were exactly as much dessert as I wanted.
That warm June night, the air conditioning was broken, and the wine was too warm. But there were apologies, in keeping with the warm, attentive service.
But for $35 for three courses, served in a straightforward, uncomplicated bistro setting with cloth napkins on the dark wood tables, these are quibbles. I’ve heard others complain that the portions could be larger at lunch and dinner at the Rex. Me, I’ve always left feeling full and happy, if not stuffed.
Maybe next year, there will be Sunday brunches at the Rex. When condos open nearby, there might be dinners on other nights too, says Starr, who is in the kitchen each day, with one other cook.
“I’m in it for the long haul,” says Starr.
So until then, we wait.
phum@ottawacitizen.com
Twitter.com/peterhum
