Help an Ottawa food blogger win her dream job!

One of our favourite food bloggers has the chance to win the opportunity of a lifetime!

The very talented Kelly Brisson of The Gouda Life (I hope you love the name of her blog as much as we do) is a Top 12 finalist in Richmond, B.C.’s 365 Days of Dining competition. 

Vote for Kelly!

Some of Kelly's dishes - are you hungry yet?

The position is basically a paid opportunity for Kelly to do what she loves – write about food, explore the city, and share it all with the world.

As the competition description says, it’s not all fun and games… 

But this position won’t be a walk in the park – the selected applicant is required to visit at least one of Richmond’s 800+ restaurants per day, post online content daily, manage community engagement across various social media channels and must demonstrate a willingness to explore all that Richmond has to offer outside of its food scene.

Eating is a tough gig, but we think Kelly is just the person for the job. 

So how can you vote?

Click the picture to the right to be directed to Richmond’s Facebook page. Click “vote” under Kelly’s picture (look for the adorable picture of girl and goat) and that’s it!

You can vote once a day until April 29, and the top three bloggers will advance to the next round.

Help make Kelly’s dream come true!

She’ll make our beautiful city proud.

Follow the competition online by tweeting Kelly @TheGoudaLife or using the hashtag #Richmond365.

The second-annual Ottawa Foodie Challenge: A day of bicycle-powered fun

Hilary Duff (blog/Twitter) is a quirky 21-year-old who loves multimedia journalism, cycling, food blogging, and churning massive amounts of baked goods out of her cramped student kitchen. She is also a contributing editor for Local Tourist Ottawa.

Take a typical day in the life of Hilary and multiply it by a trillion. Welcome to my Sunday.

My days are normally composed of food, biking and roommate love, and this past weekend all three were exaggerated exponentially. To my great pleasure, I might add.

Sunday was the date of the second-annual Ottawa Foodie Challenge.

Perplexed? For those that don’t know, OFC is an event held to help combat community hunger and raise money for the Ottawa Food Bank. The day operates like a scavenger hunt: participants are given a list of tasks at the beginning of the day that they need to complete and photograph over the next several hours. This year’s challenge saw 30 teams competing for the grand prize: a load of wine, gift certificates for local restaurants and food shops, and bragging rights for the next year.

As soon as I heard about the hunt, I knew it was right up my alley. I asked my roommate Brittany if she wanted to be my partner and, just like that, Team YUKON DO IT! was born. I was more that a little pleased to become a honourary Yukoner for the day.

Brittany and I with our Yukon ski team jackets (well, with her Yukon ski team jackets..)

Being students, Britt and I faced a tricky dilemma: we don’t have a car. This concerned us. We knew the hunt would send us across the city, and that time and speedy transportation would be of the essence. A combination of determination and a desire to be active (mixed with our no-other-option circumstances) led to our decision to do the OFC on our bikes.

And so, on Sunday morning, Britt and I rolled up to the Urban Element in Wellington West for the morning kick-off. After the grand prize was announced and several delicious Life of Pie freebie scones were consumed, we received THE LIST. Our route was promptly plotted, and we left in a flurry, leaving behind a screeching of tires and a blur of saddlebags.

Task 17: You at any bagel shop with a bagel on your fingers

For the next six hours, Britt and I made our way across the city, fueled only by our competitive will to win and a bag of a dozen day-old bagels that we had bought to complete an earlier challenge. I swear, doughy carbohydrates have never tasted so good.

As far as neighbourhood hopping went, we planned the day to minimize backtracking, a goal that I think we accomplished fairly well. Being on bikes, we managed to illegally enter parking lots, dodge/carefully peddle through construction, park on sidewalks and nearly run over a few people in the Market.

This year’s tasks were fun and creative, some more challenging than others. Here are the stories that accompany a few of our favourites…

1. Task #20: You and a Kraft single beside the most expensive piece of cheese you can find

Who knew that journalism student persistence would pay off in the form of processed cheese? For this challenge, Britt and I were left stranded outside of La Bottega in the Market, at a loss for where to find a piece of cheese to juxtapose the $74.99/kg chunk we eventually found. The answer was McDonalds. Surely the golden arches didn’t use real cheese on their Big Macs, I thought. After rushing to the cash at the downtown location and pestering a couple of employees, I eventually managed to convince one of them to wrap up a piece of their processed cheese for me. Disobeying social norms and asking strange requests while pouting really pays off. 

2. Task #23: You holding a live “Sebastien” from the Little Mermaid

Come on, you can’t honestly tell me that you wouldn’t love to hang out with a lobster. Maybe it’s because I’m a Pisces and one with the water, or something, but holding a wriggling sea creature was one of the highlights of my day. 

3. Task #36: You shaving chicken off any shawarma skewer

Britt and I biked past shawarma shops all day long, telling ourselves as we whizzed past each that we were reserving this task completion for Cedar Springs, the tiny grocery shop and shawarma deli in our neighbourhood, Old Ottawa South. It was the end of the day when Britt and I finally burst into the shop and begged the men behind the counter to let us wield sharp knives and pose with their chicken spits. After some persuasive talk and a promise to plug their groceria to everyone we know (plug, plug, plug) they let us take our picture. Bonus: they even lent us a chef’s coat and hat so we could check that task off our list. Britt still has the hat and can be seen wearing it around the house on occasion. 

4. Task #9: Crawl down Preston with a plate on your head! (Make sure we can see the Little Italy street sign!)

In which we convinced the fine folk at Pub Italia to lend us a plate as we biked one-handed down Preston Street holding said dish. Bikes tossed aside, we paid tribute to the next Dishcrawl Ottawa neighbourhood.

 5.  Task #32: You rolling a sushi roll anywhere but at home

This was actually the most difficult challenge to accomplish. We were close to giving up on this one after several sushi restaurant visits filled with rejection and sadness (they all claimed something ridiculous about health regulations…). Finally, one sushi joint on the corner of Murray Street and Dalhousie let me behind the counter. I think they could see the desperation in my eyes.

To see all our pictures from the other challenges, check out the Flickr set Britt and I submitted to be judged. Please ignore my helmet hair and general dishevelment.

That night at the closing ceremonies, people didn’t even recognize us. We promptly reminded them that we were the girls on bikes wearing spandex and Yukon ski team windbreakers. This helped.

When the lead organizer Carolynn got up to announce the winners, Britt and I held our breath. We had completed all the tasks except one, but were unsure how well our score would stand up to the 29 other teams.

And then we won.

It was a FANTASTIC moment, and we ecstatically jumped out of our seats to accept our prize, golden crowns and dog-toy-on-a-plate sandwich trophy, the latter of which now sits on our fireplace mantle.

The place of pride

It was the perfect end to an already great day. Thanks again to Carolynn, Larissa Beznaczuk-Smyrnew, Kyle Braatz and Matt Richling for doing such a great job planning things.

Now, would someone like to massage my calves? I’m feeling a little sore…

To check out the other albums from the Ottawa Foodie Challenge, visit their blog where they’ll eventually be posting the links to all the Flickr photo sets. Did any of you participate in the OFC? Tell us about your day! 

On the menu for Hintonburg: A flurry of new restaurant openings, with a side of gentrification

Burnt Butter (1100 Wellington) is just one of several new restaurants moving into Ottawa's Hintonburg neighbourhood

Hilary Duff (blog/Twitter) is a quirky 21-year-old who loves multimedia journalism, cycling, food blogging, and churning massive amounts of baked goods out of her cramped student kitchen. She is also a contributing editor for Local Tourist Ottawa.

The Hintonburg restaurant scene is on the rise.

The neighbourhood is the latest in Ottawa to facedown with the issue of gentrification. The sweeping of new eateries has caused some businesses, like the old KFC location, to shut down, worrying some lower income families in the area that relied on the diner’s weekly specials. Now, the folks at the Hintonburger (who are moving into the old KFC location in 2012) are looking to help fill that gap.

And so, here’s what the Hintonburg food scene is looking like now. The trend is generally a positive one, and we recommend you check out the up-and-coming restaurants while they’re still young.

This radio piece was first produced for the current affairs radio show Midweek, broadcast every Wednesday from noon until 1:30 p.m. on the Carleton University radio station CKCU-FM 93.1.

Need a visual to illustrate the last few restaurant openings? Here’s a look at the new places that have opened (or plan on opening) in the neighbourhood. Click on the map pointer to find out more.

View Larger Map

What do you think of the new restaurants in Hintonburg? Which is your favourite so far?  

The Ottawa Foodie Challenge: a delicious day for an excellent cause

Carolynn Lacasse is a 24-year-old marketing manager at SWIX. She’s also the founder and director of the Ottawa Foodie Challenge, a coffee addict, fashion enthusiast, rookie foodie and token geek.

We asked Carolynn to tell us a little more about a delicious upcoming event – the second annual Ottawa Foodie Challenge happening on Sunday, November 13. 

How did the Ottawa Foodie Challenge get started?

Click the picture to visit the Ottawa Foodie Challenge website!

The Ottawa Foodie Challenge (OFC) actually took its inspiration from another blogger: Adam Roberts of the Amateur Gourmet Blog. Adam is an uber-hilarious, New York City law student turned food reporter and blogger and ran an event similar to OFC called the New York Foodie Photo Challenge. I am an avid reader of his blog and read about the event and thought ‘THIS IS AWESOME.’ Ottawa isn’t as big as New York and might not have the same amount of “notorious” restaurants, but what I do know about this city is that its food community is PASSIONATE. What better way to celebrate what Ottawa has to offer then to run a similar challenge?

The Ottawa Foodie Challenge organizers: (l-r) Carolynn Lacasse, Kyle Braatz, Larissa Beznaczuk-Smyrnew and Matt Richling

Who else is helping you organize the challenge?

I enlisted a group of my close friends, all of whom bring different expertise to the table. Our team consists of Larissa Beznaczuk-Smyrnew, currently the catering manager of Essence Catering; Kyle Braatz, the CEO of Netgen, a local web design firm and a local philanthropist (Kyle biked across Canada to raise funds for the Canadian Cancer Society in 2009); and Matt Richling, a real estate agent with a passion for the community as well. We all pitched in to make the event work for its first go in 2010.

Why did you want to get involved?

What we wanted to do with the Ottawa Foodie Challenge was different than what Adam’s event did in New York. We wanted the OFC to bring to light something that most foodies might not think about when they are about to dig into their tasty meals. The Ottawa Food Bank provides emergency food to 43,000 people a month in our city and a whopping 35 per cent of those people are children. We thought we could help fight community hunger by enlisting those who are most passionate about food to help the cause. That’s why our event is run completely on sponsorships and donations; so we could donate 100 per cent of the money we raise to the Ottawa Food Bank.

The website says the challenge is like a scavenger hunt. How exactly does it work?

Two participants in front of one of last year's foodie destinations

This is how it all comes together. On the morning of the Ottawa Foodie Challenge, a list of 40 clues will be released on our blog. The clues will ask teams to venture to different Ottawa eateries, shops and other fun foodie destinations where they will perform different tasks. It’s the job of the participants to capture the completion of each clue with a photo. Each clue completion is associated with a different number of points. The team with the most points at the end of the day wins the challenge and the prize. There are a few catches though – not all the clues are worth the same number of points, and some tasks are more difficult to accomplish than others. You could win the challenge by collecting the highest number of points, but not necessarily completing all clues.

What were some of the fun tasks participants had to complete as part of last year’s challenge?

A participant from last year's challenge riding the Serious Cheese Beemster Cow

We have to admit, half the fun of running last year’s challenge was going through all the photos. Ottawa’s foodies are adventurous and creative, and some teams went above and beyond what we had imagined when snapping photos. Last year teams where asked to climb on the Beemster Cow at Serious Cheese, shuck an oyster somewhere that wasn’t at home and track down some of Ottawa’s finest chefs. The results were amazing!

What have you discovered about the Ottawa food community through your involvement with planning the Foodie Challenge?

I’ve discovered that our food community has an obsession for any new. Last year was our inaugural year and gastronomes that we had never met before were signing up to participate. The organizing team was shocked at the amount of sign-ups we received for our first year out of the gates. Food fanatics are always into trying plates they’ve never had before and exploring restaurants they’ve never visited. The same goes with trying new experiences – they are up for any new challenge.

Where can people go to find out more information about the foodie challenge?

If you want to find out more about the Ottawa Foodie Challenge visit our website, follow us on Twitter, check out our blog or like our Facebook Page!

We loved last year’s photos so much that we thought we would share a few more with you…

Thanks for the information, Carolynn. I can’t wait to participate in this year’s challenge with my food-loving roommate!

You can still sign-up to take part in the Ottawa Foodie Challenge – it’s easy, just visit their website. May the best foodie win!

Being rendered unmovable by the moveable feast (a delicious night of food, wine and Little Italy exploration)

Hilary Duff (blog/Twitter) is a quirky 21-year-old who loves multimedia journalism, cycling, food blogging, and churning massive amounts of baked goods out of her cramped student kitchen. She is also a contributing editor for Local Tourist Ottawa.

My Thursday evening ended with me lying in a crumpled mess on the couch with a blanket covering my stomach.

Click the image to go to the La Vendemmia website

No, I wasn’t stricken by some horrible disease, nor was I worn down from a four-day alcohol-induced bender. Rather, my state was the result of six courses of delicious food consumed within a short, four hours. It was the result of the La Vendemmia festival’s moveable feast.

Full, I may have been, but miserable, I was not. Now that you’ve heard how my evening ended, let me tell you how it began.

It’s 5:30 p.m. I rush out of class and jump on my bike, peddling towards Little Italy faster than the speed of light. My destination: moveable feast, the opening event of the neighbourhood’s La Vendemmia festival. The name of the festival – now in its fifteenth year – translates to mean “the harvest.” It is the perfect title for a weekend that is to be filled with food and fun.

For those still gawking at the name “moveable feast,” well, it’s exactly what it sounds like. If anyone has been to any of the Ottawa Dishcrawl events or read my posts about them, they are what I liken last night’s event to be. Except with wine. Lots and lots of gourmet wine, all perfectly paired thanks to the talented sommeliers at Savvy Grapes. This was the seventh year for the moveable feast.

The night was a chance for the 100 attendees to try the culinary gems of the Little Italy neighbourhood. It was also the opportunity to celebrate the diversity of the area – both the Italian and international cuisine housed off Preston Street. Since all 100 of us couldn’t very well storm each and every restaurant one at a time, we were split into a dozen groups, each led by one very qualified Little Italy expert.

Appetizers at Sala San Marco

I wasn’t sure what to expect from the night, but was completely sold by the idea of stuffing my face full of absolutely everything. The evening started at Sala San Marco, a banquet and conference centre just past Preston and Gladstone. Here, I was excited to meet up with Katy Watts, another Ottawa blogger who had decided to write about the event. Someone else who had a mutual desire to eat lots of food. Perfect.

At Sala San Marco were met with appetizers and flutes of (delicious) sparkling wine. It was these initial appetizers that paved the way for my night of gluttony. It’s bad, but I think I use my age and the fact that I’m a student as an excuse to eat way too much food. Be it seconds, thirds or, heaven forbid, fourths, I shamelessly stuffed my face full of smoked salmon-topped bread and deep fried risotto balls. Katy joined me on all counts, and we circled the appetizer table like hungry piranhas.

Giovanni's Ristorante was our first formal stop of the night

After enjoying the fare at Sala San Marco, my group headed over to Giovanni’s Ristorante, a Little Italy gem that was apparently once a local haunt for Mr. Trudeau. Under low light, the nine of us were ushered to our table and promptly served glasses of our second wine of the evening, a 2010 MURELLE Trebbiano D’Abruzzo D.O.C. Our meal arrived in the form of a too-neat-to-eat piece of chicken stuffed with mozzarella and prosciutto and served with a white wine sauce. My wine glass was refilled and I used crispy, warm-on-the-inside bread to soak up the savoury sauce. It was bliss.

Our second stop of the night was our international location. Each group on the moveable feast went to two traditional Italian restaurants and one international place. We went to The Lindenhof a 37-year-old restaurant serving German cuisine. Here we met Alison, the women who bought the restaurant two years ago. Alison was very hospitable and sat with us through our entire meal, chatting about the food, wine and atmosphere of the location.

The Lindenhof: (top left) Alison explains the wine choice, (top bottom) a piece of the flammkuchen

On the subject of food, our dish at The Lindenhof was definitely my favourite of the night.

Here, we had flammkuchen, a harvest pizza that literally translates to mean “flame cake or flame tarte.” The Alsatian (technically French) dish was a thin crust pizza covered with a special smoked cheese, caramelized onions and bacon. It was to die for and there was so much of it. To accompany the flammkuchen was another white wine, a 2010 Riesling from the Niagara Peninsula. Alison told us that “prost” was the German word for toast, and so we all shouted the phrase and clinked glasses. Danke schön (thank you very much, in German) to Alison for the delicious course.

My three courses at La Favorita

Our last stop was La Favorita restaurant. At this point in the night, I was already half keeled over while walking, and felt like my stomach was being pulled towards the ground by the sheer power of gravity. Things were not looking up. Despite my lack of appetite, La Favorita had plenty of food to offer us, and three out of my six courses came from this final location. To start, we had an artichoke, tomato, red onion and hazelnut salad. For the record, artichokes in salads are a revelation. For the main dish, we got a seafood linguine that I was shamefully not able to even nearly finish. For dessert, we had a variety of pastries, bites of which got passed around the table so everyone could share their unique tastes. Two types of wine accompanied the meal – one red (2009 Italian Bar Bera Q) and one white (2010 unoaked chardonnay, again from the Niagara Peninsula).

My moveable feast group at La Favorita

After doing my best to pick away at the three courses (which were good, although painfully filling), it was time to go. Kicking myself for biking, I peddled my bloated, insanely full self home and collapsed on the couch. The night ended with a big glass of water, stretchy pajama pants and sleep.

The moveable feast had accomplished its ironic goal, and made me incapable of moving by the end of the night.

A huge thank you goes out to my group leader, Preston Street BIA executive director Lori Mellor for leading a successful tour. The La Vendemmia festival is happening all weekend in Little Italy and there’s something for everyone, from the classic wine and food events to art displays aplenty. Maybe I’ll see you there.

Did any of you attend the moveable feast? Could you still walk afterwards? Local Tourist’s very own Jessey and Amy will be heading to the wine show on Sunday – we hope to see you there!

Getting Grounded: Kitchen & Coffeehouse offers solid food and warm welcome

Grounded Kitchen & Coffeehouse (100 Gloucester Street)

Yuko Inoue (blog) came to Ottawa from Japan one year ago to study at Carleton University. After a summer serving as photo editor of The Charlatan, Carleton’s student newspaper, she’s now starting her second year of journalism. In her spare time, Yuko likes art, live music and exploring the city’s food scene. 

“We pick good quality ingredients to make good quality food” says Gabriel Pollock, a co-owner and the head chef of the Grounded Kitchen.

The kitchen/coffeehouse opened in Centretown just over a year ago (in the summer of 2010), serving breakfast, lunch and dinner. The decor is a combination of recycled and refurbished things — including a bar made out of old whiskey barrels.

The welcoming atmosphere of Grounded triumphs: The staff welcomes people with an actual “Good morning!”  and talk over from the kitchen to answer any questions one might have. They also bring your meals over to the table — including the breakfast sandwiches — which is a treat for such a relaxed space.

A breakfast sandwich and coffee costs $6.50

For breakfast, I enjoyed a big mug of bold coffee and a toasted twelve-grain sandwich with melted brie cheese, ham and fresh sliced tomatoes. It was a bit of a steal, ringing in at $6.50 in total (with the sandwich itself being $4.50). The ingredients went along well together, but were perhaps not exceptional. The bold coffee I had was not too sour and offered that the deep kind of feeling you can only get from strong coffees.

Next, let’s try lunch time!

The salad was called Green & Gold: Baby spinach with diced beets, toasted nuts, goat cheese and cider vinaigrette. The “modest” size set me back $6. The cheese melted in my mouth, but I might have liked it with a little less oil. Still, it was good.

Grounded offers breakfast, lunch and dinner

My friend had “Today’s Special.” (Yes, I know, I’m boring by comparison.) It was a cutlet with a rich meat & mushroom sauce on top. It came with seasonal vegetables, like asparagus. The cost? $10.

As hinted at before, what I loved the most about Grounded was the warm atmosphere. Entering, you feel like you’re almost friends with the staff there — people who were clearly passionate about providing the best food they could.

Grounded Kitchen is located at 100 Gloucester St. (near O’Connor) and is open an impressive 7 am to 9 pm on Monday to Friday.

Thanks for sharing, Yuko! Sounds like a bit of a hidden gem! Do you have a favourite space you’d like to share? Tell us about it!

Experiencing two ByWard Market patios: Kinki Sushi and Mambo

Hilary Duff (blog/Twitter) is a quirky 21-year-old who loves multimedia journalism, cycling, food blogging, and churning massive amounts of baked goods out of her cramped student kitchen. She has officially wrapped her LTOttawa series on the hunt for Ottawa’s perfect cupcake, but is continuing on as one of LTO’s top Local Tourists.  She is guest editing LTO this week.

Summer in the ByWard Market is practically synonymous with patio dining.

In fact, the only thing more plentiful than restaurant patios are the hundreds of tourists that pile onto them, making the area a hub of outdoor activity and experiential eating during the warm months.

Since I am neither a tourist nor a miraculously wealthy student who is particularly prone to dining at such locations, I was excited when Local Tourist Ottawa got the invitation to go experience the food and patio atmosphere at two of the Market’s restaurants: Kinki Sushi and Mambo.

I had been to the restaurants once prior when I participated in Ottawa’s first Dishcrawl at the beginning of June, but was eager to go back and sample more of what each had to offer.

Kinki Sushi

The front patio at Kinki Sushi. The restaurant is located at 41 York St.

I met Claira, the promotions manager for both restaurants, at Kinki – an Asian fusion restaurant on York Street.  If the name is a little alarming for you conservative types, fret not.  The restaurant was actually named after the Kinki region in Japan, a festive area abundant with places to eat, drink and share.

We went to sit out on the side patio, a large space to the left of the main restaurant building.  According to Claira, the side patio was created five years ago and has since become a main feature of the decade-old restaurant.

Scenes from the patio at Kinki Sushi

The patio itself is really is quite stunning.  Tall tables stand in the middle area, surrounded by equally tall wicker chairs.  In the back, three large sitting areas would be the perfect meet-up location for a close group of friends.  In front of them, bright orange chiffon curtains hang, ready to be closed for those more intimate of dining sessions.  Overhead, large black umbrellas create a canopy, ready to block out any of nature’s obstacles, be it the blazing sun or a sudden summer downpour.

As for the meal at Kinki, Claira wanted me to have the full experience.  This experience just so happened to contain two of the restaurant’s most popular cocktails – the China Doll and the Wild Orchid.

My two cocktails at Kinki Sushi: China Doll (l) and Wild Orchid (r)

In the first, a blend of Absolut mandarin, mango liquor, pineapple juice and tonic.  It tasted exactly like fuzzy peaches, but I didn’t want to say that out loud since it made me feel like a seven-year-old.  The Wild Orchid was more of a dessert cocktail, with vodka and lychee liquor/juice.

Oh, you want to know about the food?  Okay, well Claira had a chef’s platter prepared for us – basically we were served whatever the chef chose.  Our platter was a mixture of the traditional rolls (ours had cucumber and roasted red pepper with a salmon top), nigiri sushi topped with neta (what they call the raw fish), and a cocktail glass filled with thinly cut slices of scallops, salmon, red tuna and butter fish.  There was also octopus in the middle, but I just couldn’t muster up the bravery needed to try it out.

Our sushi platter

Looking at the plate, it’s clear that presentation and artistry is a fundamental part of the meal.  Claira says chefs are encouraged to make their own creations, and what often comes out of the kitchen is something that isn’t even on the menu.  She says the ingredients are also top notch, with the best quality fish being shipped fresh (as fresh as you can get after a 20-hour-long plane ride, that is) from Australia.

We finished off our meal with warm Dragonberry sake, my first time ever trying the traditional Japanese drink.

Mambo

Mambo is located at 77 Clarence St.

Keep walking deeper into the Market and you’ll eventually stumble on Mambo.  In fact, you’ll stumble on a whole lot more than that – Mambo is located on Clarence Street, the centre of all patio activity in the neighbourhood.  Restaurant after restaurant lines the street, and patios sit like gated communities, luring in potential diners.

Mambo, along with its neighbouring venue Stella, are the only two restaurants in the Market that boast rooftop patios.  This roof patio was where Claira and I would be sitting for our samplings.  Unlike the patio at Kinki which was more laidback, Claira said Mambo’s patio is meant to romanticize the aspects of outdoor eating.  I can see that.  At rooftop level, you’re high enough that the hustle and bustle of street level tourist traffic is drowned out.  Although we were seated while it was still light out, I can imagine the vibe created once the sun sets – the soft music humming in the background, twinkle lights dangling over the exposed grey stone and the buzz of good conversation.  It all seems like the ideal romantic retreat (translation: if you’re looking for brownie points with the significant other, you might want to check Mambo out).

(From L-R): Shrimp and scallops, mojitos, flatbread and soft tacos

At Mambo I also sampled one of their signature drinks: the Mojito Clasico, with Havana Club light and spiced rum, sugar, mint, soda and fresh lime juice.  On the plate were several different items.  The first platter was predominantly seafood, with garlic shrimp and Callos Latinos (Claira says this is the Latin American term for tangy and unique) scallops.  The second platter had two of my favourites from the night: pulled pork soft tacos toasted with cheese, onion and sautéed vegetables and the verano flatbread topped with (get this) a balsamic reduction, pesto, onion, jalapeno, tomato, cucumber, goat cheese (!!!!!), roasted almonds and strawberries.  So many of my favourite things were combined into one dish.  Needless to say I will be recreating this at home.

Mambo's rooftop patio

Overall, the patio atmosphere at each restaurant was great.  While not too much was happening on the Tuesday night that I visited, both patios play host to a live DJ on Friday and Saturday.  During the week, there’s also a Wednesday vegetarian night to look forward to (at both restaurants) and Mambo offers a salsa night on Thursday (a huge hit with singles, Claira says).

So are there any new restaurant plans in store for owner Marisol Simoes?  Claira tells me she recently purchased a location on Elgin and has plans to open a new steakhouse next spring.

But until that happens, patio party away – balmy summer nights are waiting for you.

Thanks so much to Claira for giving us a fun patio experience! What is your favourite summer hangout in the ByWard Market?

Date night at Chinatown’s Mekong Restaurant

Photo Credit: Mekong.ca

 

Shelly Lyonnais is a local elementary school teacher who has been living in Ottawa on and off for 20 years.  She spends her weekends in search of Ottawa’s great date night dinner locations.

Date night last week was to one of our old favourites: Mekong Restaurant in Chinatown. This resto has been serving Asian cuisine for more than 20 years, featuring a delicious variety of Cantonese, Szechwan, Vietnamese and Thai foods.

I introduced my husband to Mekong many years ago and it has been part of our regular rotation ever since.  A piece of advice if you choose to try this little gem: make reservations.  Occasionally you can get in on a Saturday night without one, but generally the dining room is full – both upstairs and down.

Photo Credit: Mekong.ca

The last evening we went we watched the friendly staff turn away at least 10 tables in the first 10 minutes, though once our food started to arrive our eyes quickly turned from the crowd to the delicious meals before us.

We started our meal with pork pot stickers (my husband gets these every time we go) and shrimp and crab cakes.  I usually get steamed shrimp dumplings which I love, but this time I was determined to try new dishes.  I enjoyed the dumplings, especially dunked into the sauce that they provided, but I must say that the shrimp dumplings are still my favourite.

Also, I caution you to beware of the long list of plates: we always over order because we love so many of the dishes on the menu.

At the top of my husband’s list is the crispy beef (saucy, a bit spicy and really crispy as the name suggests) –  definitely a must try! The second is chicken fried rice.  I am not a huge fan of fried rice but he says that it is filled with “yummy goodness”…  so I guess that can’t be a bad thing! Since I was on a new dish kick we decided to spice things up by choosing the Shanghai noodle with shredded pork.  We love thick noodles, and the mushrooms in this dish made it. The last dish that we ordered was stir fry shrimp with eggplant – Szechwan style.  All around, it was a delicious date night, and I’m glad I tried so many new things.

We absolutely love this restaurant. No matter how full the dining rooms are, the noise level is never overbearing, the food is always fresh, and the service is warm and friendly –  we will be going back very soon.

Thanks for the snapshot Shelly!