The Ottawa Guide part 2: drinking

I’m not a big party animal, which is probably why Ottawa and I get along so well. More club-minded people will be quick to tell you that the best place to go out on the weekend in Ottawa is Montreal, but I think there are some great little places to grab a drink and hang out with friends, and even a few places to shake your groove thing.

the acorn at Maverick’s

While it’s true that not a ton of bands pass through Ottawa while on tour, those that do often play at small venues that afford a great view. My favourite is Maverick’s – they’ve got the best acoustics and the least sticky floor.

Zaphod Beeblebrox is another popular choice – I’ll never forget seeing Ted Leo and the Pharmacists there a few years ago.

Mello’s has long been a breakfast institution in Ottawa, but last year some geniuses bought a share and opened a late-night restaurant-within-a-restaurant in the diner. They make amazing cocktails and an always-rotating menu of delicious snacks.

The Byward Market is, unfortunately, filled with lots of shitty pseudo-Irish pubs, but I do enjoy a pint at the Clocktower. They brew their own beer (including pumpkin in the fall) and have a lovely patio.

Elgin St is full of bars and pubs; my favourite is the Manx, a cosy basement full of board games and above-average food and brews.

I am of course cheating and mentioning several restaurants that also serve amazing drinks - Supply and Demand, the Elmdale Tavern, and Hintonburg Public House are some of my favourite local places to sip a microbrew or oyster-laden cocktail. But I’m also incredibly spoiled to have a micro-micro-brewery across the street – Beyond the Pale opened this winter and continually sell out of their delicious beer.

On my list of places to check out before we move are the Union 613 speakeasy (shh!) and the Moon Room on Preston, which serves tapas and cocktails until far past my bedtime.

Banana Doughnuts

I.

The sun wakes us early,

even before the alarm set so ambitiously last night

before the party.

As we layer on high-tech,

sweat-wicking running gear, I tell you about my dream – banana doughnuts for two.

II.

We gasp at the chill spring air and head our separate ways.

My mind wanders away as my feet plot a well-known course

River, turn, park, geese.

My body finally back to doing what I tell it with only a minimum of complaint.

III.

At the doughnut shop, out of breath,

serendipity

never-before-seen sunshine yellow

banana doughnuts.

“I’ll take two,” I tell the clerk, and “I dreamt about them” comes out

before I can filter my stream-of-consciousness tendencies.

“Wow,” she smiles, “you should tell your husband about more of your dreams.”

We laugh, but of course I already do.

IV.

I head home, slower (mustn’t jostle the doughnuts)

composing punny text messages all the way -

the holey prophesy has been cream-filled.

Saffron snickerdoodles; marriage

The weekend we got married in New York was made memorable not only by our nuptials but by the sheer volume of amazing food we ate. Our favourite (measured by the number of repeat visits we made, anyways) was Blue Bottle Coffee; we stayed across the street from one and another makes an appearance in our beautiful photos. The drip coffee was phenomenal but it was the cookies that really won me over, especially the saffron snickerdoodles.

photo by the formidably talented Kateryn Silva, obvs

We’ve been married for over six months now, and it’s becoming normal to call each other husband and wife (but I still love partner best). My finger feels weird without my ring rather than with; the thin strip of gold now boasts some new scratches besides all the ones I put there on purpose. Watching friends plan their weddings has convinced us that we made the right decision, and every time I hear this song I smile because it was stuck in my head all that day.

Those cookies were also stuck in my head one day recently when I decided to google them, and it turns out that the recipe had been printed not only in the Blue Bottle Coffee cookbook, but on one of my very favourite recipe blogs less than two weeks before we wed. So I bookmarked them, forgot, remembered, had brunch instead, and finally made them tonight, the smell of New York in October filling our apartment while I sat with my husband and enjoyed being in our tiny family.

the Ottawa Guide part 1: eating

Several times a day, Eric and I turn to each other and say, “we’re moving… to… Jordan? We’re moving to Jordan. What?” It doesn’t seem real yet; the Lonely Planet sits on our kitchen table but we still can’t seem to make out how this is different from a vacation.

What helps the idea to sink in is thinking about leaving Ottawa. Parts of that make me very happy – saying goodbye to salt caked onto the hems of my pants, -40 windchills, and curiously slow drivers who inexplicably seem to hate cyclists with a particularly righteous fervour.

And yet there are certain things I’m going to really miss, especially eating. Ottawa tends to get looked down upon from people who come from Toronto or Montreal (or who have ever been to either of those cities), but it has a vibrant food scene. In the hopes that these places might still be around and great whenever we’re back, here’s a list of my favourites. Should you ever find yourself in Canada’s frosty capital, enjoy!

Bridgehead coffee

Bridgehead is a local chain that sells fair-trade, organic coffee. But unlike a lot of places that stick an organic label on crappy coffee and feel justified in charging $2.50 for a tepid cup of sludge, their coffee is really good, especially since they opened their own local roastery last spring. Their baristas are generally quite talented, too – they know not to burn the milk, and the espresso is generally well-pulled. We spend an embarrassingly large amount of money there.

Suzy Q doughnuts

rocky road; one of the constantly revolving flavours

This place opened up last year in the old Hintonburger shack (see below), and I haven’t been able to look at a mass-market doughnut since. I’ve written about them before – pillowy mounds of dough, covered in fresh and creative glazes. My all-time favourite was the pumpkin pie, although a close second is the raspberry white chocolate.

Hintonburger

A burger joint that serves phenomenal burgers using local, free-range beef, local cheese, and amazing fries. They used to be located in the shack now occupied by Suzy Q; when a KFC closed down up the street they relocated (but kept the bucket). Go expecting a 15-minute wait at minimum; half an hour if it’s a gorgeous summer night.

Hintonburg Public House

This eclectic gastropub has adorably mismatched everything, but don’t let the awesome decor distract you from the menu. They make a mean burger, pull pints of local beer, and host fun events (including bingo and open mike nights). They used to have a duck confit hash on the brunch menu that made me want it to be groundhog day in my mouth. I’m eventually going to steal their electric blue bar (pictured).

Town

We used to live right near Town, but never got around to eating there before we moved. I finally made it there this year and have been kicking myself for missing out on years of ricotta-stuffed meatballs ever since. It’s cosy, italian-inspired small plates that are impressive without showing off.

Murray St Café

This 100% locally sourced restaurant does a ton of cool in-house charcuterie and puts together a great cheese board, but the real deal is their lunch menu. Fantastic sandwiches, spatzle mac-n-cheese, and a s’more pudding in a mason jar. I trick work colleagues into going there every time there’s a goodbye lunch to be had (a common occurrence when one works in the foreign service).

Shawarma Palace

Ask three Ottawaians where the best shawarma is, and you’ll get three different answers… but they’re all wrong, unless they say Shawarma Palace. This Lebanese joint on Rideau makes amazing shawarma and falafel that were entirely responsible for my freshman 15 20 35 (sad but true) back in first year. I don’t let myself walk by more than a few times a year.

Whalesbone / Supply and Demand / Elmdale Oyster House

Oysters at the Elmdale with fresh horseradish and a bevy of sauces

I call this the seafood trifecta of Ottawa. My understanding of the kitchen line-up composition of these restaurants is that they’re all vaguely intertwined and awesome. Whalesbone is pretty special-occasion-y (read: pricey but worth it), but Supply and Demand is incredibly reasonable and the freshly opened Elmdale is dangerously low-priced (considering the huge number of oysters I ate last weekend, I thought they had made a mistake on our bill).

Allium

This little dining room is right around the corner from us, and they have a really clever way of packing the restaurant on a Monday – tapas! The menu is always changing and everything is delicious. In the spring and summer, they grow fresh herbs out front in big planters.

Foolish Chicken

The Foolish Chicken is what Swiss Chalet dreams of being – succulent roast chicken and ribs, great fries, and amazing cheesecakes. Sometimes our whole block smells like rotisserie and the dog goes nuts (okay, so do we). They also have a lot of gluten-free options.

The Wild Oat

This veggie heaven is up in the Glebe. When I used to work beside it, I would love to grab an Americano and a maple hemp cookie (I’ve been unsuccessfully trying to reverse-engineer them for years!). They also make amazing sandwiches – my favourite is the beet and sprouts!

Coconut Lagoon

Like shawarma, everyone has an opinion on the best indian food in town. My vote goes to Coconut Lagoon, a South Indian eatery in Vanier that has the best thali around.

***

Anyways, I’m sure I’m missing some Ottawa favourites, but this town is seriously full of great food. I’d like to try and get to them all one last time before we leave, but it’s coming up so fast that we’re going to have to start eating out a lot more to squeeze them all in!

Pans not shaken

I’ve whined before about not being able to hold multiple careers simultaneously, but indulge me – I’m in my twenties, after all. At dinner the other night at a restaurant with an open kitchen, my eyes were continuously drawn to the line of knife blades flashing, pans being jostled, and flames licking the ceiling (actually, the fire department came; the flashing red lights lent a certain excitement to the meal). Eric caught me staring and put his hand over his heart. “Your idealized dream!”

And here’s the thing – I would hate working in a restaurant. Intellectually, I know that. I don’t like being rushed, I don’t like working at night, I don’t like fire or being too busy to go to the bathroom and I cannot abide cranky customers (as a barista, I would give mean people decaf).

But despite that, there’s this part of me that desperately wants to be a chef, in addition to all the other things I currently do or want to do (a diplochefsmithcher?). I love cooking, and I enjoy making things with my hands, and maybe I would get used to the late nights and enjoy an easy camaraderie with my fellow cooks and I could totally get neck tattoos and nobody would care, although it might get in the way of my cookware line (would I be too edgy to have my picture on the box?!).

alliums

Probably not, though. I love cooking in my little kitchen. I like the mindful spacing out I can do over the chopping block and a big pile of garlic cloves – dice dice dice, smash dice dice dice, scrape dice dice dice, repeat. I like having three burners on and something in the oven, checking, tasting, spilling, swearing; I mostly like pulling up to the dining room table and nodding yup, I did this.

It’s the missing piece from my otherwise much-beloved job; the production of a concrete useful thing. Like most office jobs, although I am involved in useful work, and occasionally am even lucky enough to see a direct impact, I leave empty-handed each day, laden down with only an empty travel mug.

I’ll stick with my current gig for the time being. I still mess up some pretty basic things (including the weird scones I just took out of the oven, which decided to eject their butter all over the pan instead of absorbing it) and the late shift doesn’t really appeal to me. But they do say that people have multiple careers these days, so who knows?

Ducking

Whenever duck is on the menu at a restaurant, I have an inner dialogue that resembles the following:

“Oh, duck, yum! I think I’ll get the duck.”

“Meaghan, you had duck last time. Get something else.”

“But…duck!”

Despite my love of crazy canard, I had never cooked it. Partly because I never had it at home, partly because at restaurants it always seemed sort of exotic and fancy, partly because it’s just not something you see recipes for that often.

In the hopes of killing two birds with one stone, as it were, I decided to make Thomas Keller’s duck confit from Ad Hoc at Home. I deviated slightly from his recipe (by cutting it down in size and adding a metric ton of garlic to the duck fat), but otherwise stuck with him, salt rub and low cooking temperature and all.

I took a bite before I even considered taking a photo.

It. Was. Phenomenal.

It was the type of recipe that felt like cheating – I rinsed the salt rub off the legs, put them in a pan of duck fat, and shoved it in the oven. Then I hovered anxiously in the kitchen for 45 minutes, feeling like I should have been doing something. I prepped my side dishes hours in advance to occupy my hands – washing and chopping brussels sprouts, dicing an onion, measuring out cornmeal for polenta. Then I wandered away, only to realize two hours later that our house smelled fantastic, and it had somehow been my doing.

 

Life list fail – croquembouche for New Year’s Eve

I just want to make it clear: this was not Thomas Keller’s fault.

Choux pastry and I have a testy relationship. The first time I tried making it, the result was abject failure. Several factors contributed at the time – a terribly calibrated oven, a bad recipe from the internet, a lack of understanding on my part about the science of choux pastry (and therefore, the purpose of the process).

The next time I made profiteroles, the pastry worked just fine. I filled them with ice cream and ate them happily; if I recall correctly there was some plate-licking on Eric’s part.

How hard could it be, then, to make a pastry cream and some caramel, fill the pastries, and then pile them into a pyramid?

Bouchon did not let me down; it was hubris that did me in

Whipping up the pastry and the cream was a breeze (although I found that I really don’t like the chalky taste that custard powder imparts). But I never reached the caramel, because it turns out that a plastic bag with a hole cut into the corner is not an ideal tool for filling choux pastry with thick pudding. In fact, it’s much more likely to result in empty choux pastries and pastry cream all over your hands, counter, floor, and very happy dog.

At 530 on New Years Eve, I was left with only one choice. I ate 5 choux pastries, dropped one on the floor, shoved the remaining 39 in the freezer, and made brownies, which are always a hit anyways.

Maybe next year!

Thomas Keller’s Banana Bread Pudding

the main reason I run is to eat three pieces of this in one day, let’s be real.

As much as I love Eric, if Thomas Keller ever came into my life I might face some tough choices. Ideally, he would agree to just join our family as a platonic, kitchen-dwelling member, but he might want something in return. All I’m saying is that I’d be prepared to make that sacrifice.

Until that happens, I’m content with working my way through Ad Hoc at Home. My mom got it for me last christmas, and I spent the first year of owning it flipping through the pages in awe, mostly too intimidated to try the recipes. I dipped my toe in the waters with the chocolate chip cookies, and made the peppercorn beef tenderloin for Eric’s birthday, but other than that I would mostly use it for inspiration.

At some point this summer, though, I realized that I wasn’t intimidated by the recipes anymore. It’s partly that I’ve reached a point where I want to be more challenged when I’m cooking, and partly that I’ve read them enough times to realize that, while there are a lot of components to his recipes, they break down fairly simply.

So, with a carton of cream in the fridge and a loaf of stale bread in the freezer, I did what anyone would do – I made the most complicated bread pudding recipe I’ve ever seen. And cousin, it was worth it. This truly lives up to the “pudding” part of the dessert – it’s bread suspended in a light, vanilla-scented custard, fried golden on the outside; speckled with wild blueberries and striated with bananas.

Eras and eras

Arthur Pollock, 1964.

It seems like just five minutes ago we were trumpeting the arrival of summer, with burgers, fireworks, and strawberries stretched out before us as far as we could see. But this past week I’ve needed a sweater on our evening walks, and there are apples and squash shouldering aside the peaches in the market stands.

Friends, autumn is approaching. It’s time for dirty chai lattes, pumpkin everything, and a new cardigan (my long-standing favourite is more hole than sweater at this stage). Layers of clothes and spices, orange and red everywhere, and birthday cake.

Be excited. It’s the best time of the year in Ontariariario, and as it may be my last for a while, I plan on making the most of it.

Confessions of a terrible food blogger

So as you may recall, my 25 before 26 list included “cook 10 new things” (#6). Now, for someone like me, who loves to cook (ie, reads cookbooks for fun, has 100s of recipes bookmarked in safari, runs solely so that I can justify the consumption of more calories), this should be easy, yet with a month to go, I’m only at seven things.

Ad Hoc at Home burgers and grilled veggies

Okay, the game’s up – I’ve probably cooked 50 new things this year. I’ve made new kinds of pasta sauces, experimented with different vegetables, broken the spine on Super Natural Every Day, and even been starting to work on some Ad Hoc at Home recipes I’ve been drooling over for ages. But… I’ve discovered that I’m really bad at food blogging.

It sounds easy, but think about it – next time you sit down to eat, spend a few minutes looking for your camera. Then try and get a shot with decent lighting, in Canada, at 6pm in the winter, with east-facing windows (difficulty level: a million). While you’re doing this, wrestle a Great Dane away from the plate. Now sit down and eat your lukewarm meal, plug the camera into your 5-year old laptop, and watch a spinning beachball for an hour. Finally, you’re ready to type out a riveting 300 words and a recipe, then to increase hits you should probably do some social media stuff.

You guys, that is a lot. of. work. And I’m too lazy to do it when three-quarters of the internet is already doing it better than I am. Which is why you’ll have noticed that the lousy seven posts I’ve made usually have one instagram picture and a link to a recipe (or no recipe – I promised nothing!).

Go read Smitten Kitchen (I’m beyond excited for her book!). Pop over to 101 Cookbooks for some amazing vegetarian fare. Check out Tastespotting for hit-or-miss recipes but tons of inspiration. I may love cooking, eating, and writing, but I’ve discovered that I don’t think I like doing them all at once.*

*Unless someone wants to pay me for it to be my full-time job, and also teach me off-camera lighting. Then we could talk.