Comfort by AJ’s
115 Sanders St., Kemptville, 613-258-5115, comfortbyajs.com
Open: Tuesday to Saturday 5 to 9 p.m.
Prices: $29 three-course table d’hote, mains $18 to $21
Access: accessible, including wheelchair-accessible washroom
For the longest time, I’ve had few if any reasons to make the 30-minute trip from Ottawa to Kemptville.
But that changed recently, thanks to Comfort by AJ’s, a cosy, welcoming restaurant in a small strip mall near the bottom of Saunders Street.
The 30-seat eatery’s best, made-from scratch, generously made and served dishes — a sandwich heaped with oh-so-satisfying pork rib meat; a bright, well-executed bowl of seafood pasta; a notably above-average Caesar salad — make me ponder what other activities I could schedule nearby so that an AJ’s meal would be the next logical step.
In the kitchen at AJ’s is Phil Carswell, 33, a self-taught but experienced cook who, in May 2013, made the jump from being the chef at AJ’s catering in Metcalfe to being a chef/restaurateur in Kemptville where he lives.
AJ’s front of house is Carswell’s wife Jessica, most nights all by herself. During my two visits she was always sunny and attentive. Hers is the kind of service where, if the coffee arrives late, it’s offered on the house with an apology.
She presides over a pretty room that seats 30, plus a patio that holds 20, weather permitting. Maybe I’ve eaten at too many deliberately casual places recently, but I was struck by AJ’s white tablecloths and dark cloth napkins, touches that seem to say that comfort food can still be special.
The most striking sight in the dining room is the ceiling-to-table-height menu on one wall. It lists AJ’s tightly contained menu, which consists of three starters (a soup and two salads), five or six mains (of which one can be swapped out every few weeks), and a few desserts.
Generally, you do best to arrive hungry at AJ’s, because the best deal is a $29, three-course table d‘hote that, by the way, can involve a massive main course that will generate leftovers.
Before any starters arrive, there’s Carswell’s pillowy baked-fresh bread. I’ve had two cheese – and spice-infused versions and both were hard to resist.
Of the starters, I’ve most enjoyed a crisp, clean-flavoured Caesar salad with a bang-on, anchovy-accented dressing, real lardons and big shavings of Parmesan. It put to shame many Caesars I’ve had in Ottawa.
The garden salad, prettied up with edible flowers, was almost as commendable. While Carswell switches up his soups, I’ve twice had a finely pureed gazpacho that got its fundamental flavours right, but would have been a bit fancier and diversified with a garnishing puddle of olive oil, a coarse chop of vegetables, or a crouton.
Garden salad with lemon vinaigrette at Comfort by AJ’s.
The main that made my carnivore companion swoon was a mammoth rib sandwich, which Phil told me takes the tender, flavour-packed meat from a half-side of ribs that had been cooked low and slow in an oven, tossed in his tangy barbecue sauce. Fresh, assertive slaw and good, traditional potato salad came on the side.
Rib sandwich at Comfort by AJ’s.
I’ve enjoyed Carswell’s seafood twice paired with a bright, simple, tomato-and-white-wine sauce. One night, there was a moist halibut filet served on the sauce, with snap peas.
Pan-seared Halibut at Comfort by AJ’s.
More recently, Carswell concocted a “cioppino” of mussels, shrimps, scallops and catfish, mixed with that sauce on top of his toothsome home-made fettucine. A true cioppino might have had a more complex broth in its make up, more aromatics and brininess, but the AJ’s rendition did hit the spot.
Cioppino: sautéed scallops, shrimp, mussels and haddock in a white wine tomato sauce, served on fettucine.
Flautas consisted of heavily sauced rolled tacos filled with flank steak and looked a little down-market, but its flavours and craft didn’t lie, especially in the sauce that was more perky and finessed than expected. Plus, there was so much of it.
Chicken Parmigiana impressed first with its plate-covering size, but the slab of chicken was thick, juicy and bettered by breading that held up to the dish’s clean tomato sauce, good homemade fettucine.
Chicken Parm at Comfort by AJ’s.
AJ’s gnocchi — termed “mac ‘n’ cheese” on the menu — are atypical. Carswell freezes his large potato dumplings and deep-fries them. The resulting dish might be his menu’s heaviest, not only because of the frying but because of the thick, salty, bacon-and-cheese sauce that fills the bowl that’s already loaded with dumplings. My preference would be a lighter bowl, but I might be in the minority, as the Carswells say their gnocchi is a favourite of regulars whose demand has kept it on the menu since Day One.
Desserts, by Jessica, have been home-style creations stressing sweet, seasonal, familiar satisfactions over creativity and flourishes. I’ve tasted pecan pie, strawberry rhubarb pie and several varieties of cheesecake, which generally topped the pies, which could have been a little better crafted.
Strawberry Cheesecake at Comfort by AJ’s.
But with three tasty, filling, courses at under $30, courtesy of a kind couple whose hearts are in the right spots, it’s hard to get too riled about any shortcoming, and easy to wonder, “When can I next scoot to Kemptville?”
phum@ottawacitizen.com
Twitter.com/peterhum
