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It was clear my dinner date was anxious as we made our final approach to L'Echelle de Jacob. We had just found it behind its low stone wall (because we paid attention to the small sign off boulevard Lucerne) in an old building that was once a streetcar barn and now houses apartments, a déppaneur and this long running French restaurant. Her apprehension continued through the pot-holed, puddle-hopping parking lot, and continued to mount during the cold climb up the dank staircase (with its corny painted clouds on sky blue walls). She remained nervous as we walked through the front door, where we were met by a rustic room boasting thick stone walls, arched windows, timbered beams and a corner fireplace, as well as a jumble of dated design and clutter and furnishings that looked borrowed from the attic.

But I was grinning from the moment we pulled in. I kept smiling through the parking lot, up those goofy stairs and into that unfashionably busy room. If L'Echelle de Jacob proved still to be the tucked-away pearl I had encountered five years ago, I was feeling pretty confident. My experience had shown that there may be nothing too fancy up past those puffy clouds, but there was plenty that was tasteful.

Sure enough, L'Echelle de Jacob remains a family-run, décor-be-damned, unrepentantly old-school French restaurant of nostalgic dishes, caring service, and gentle prices. The food takes no shortcuts. It tastes of integrity and a sure, steady hand. The service too is no-nonsense. It quietly, rather shyly gets on with the business of pleasing houseguests. The husband and wife team (she's the chef, he runs the front of the house) is much of the pleasure of this place.

The four course table d'hote menu is only in French, and is explained in detail, dish by dish. Happily, there aren't many details. The choices are not adventurous. They are homey bistro concoctions (fish soup with rouille, coquilles St Jacques, rognons de veau with Calvados, confit of duck) with some wistful dishes thrown in the mix (like airy, creamy fish quenelles).

You start with a choice of soup. A purée of cauliflower and apple is perked with curry, or the peppery fish soup, filled in with tomato and vegetables, served with a garlic mayonnaise on a crostini, the blob reddened and roused with harissa. Both very good.

Toasted walnuts, black grapes and slivers of ripe pear garnish a pile of fresh salad greens, dressed in a walnut oil vinaigrette. The quenelles are fashioned of pike, perfectly seasoned, light and flavourful, rising out of a lobster sauce.

Vanilla perfumes the pork, the pink meat is tender, its cream sauce memorable. The duck confit suffers from a bit of under-curing, though the rich flavour is fine and the dish suitably filling. It's filled out with triangles of crisp polenta, slow cooked red cabbage, carrots and peas threaded with soft leek.

Desserts are homestyle French classics: nougat glacé, profiteroles au chocolat, gateau au fromage, crème brûlée, all on doilied plates. The crème brûlée is a classic, the cheesecake is flecked with lime and crusted with toasted coconut and both are excellent.

Our bill for an almost without-a-hitch four-course dinner for two, with a half litre of passable house wine - something from France our host reportedly drinks every day - came to $100.

When a restaurant lasts this long in a location as out of sight as this one and in such plain wrapping, it's clearly doing something right. In this family run place what's right is reliable, traditional French cooking delivered at moderate prices with old-fashioned courtesy.

Cuisine: French
Cost: $$$: Four course table d'hote, $37 to $43

Hours: Wednesday to Sunday for dinner only

Features: Fireplace dining.
Accessibility: Flight of stairs to restaurant.

27, boulevard Lucerne, Gatineau, Quebec
819-684-1040
website

I have a soft spot for this space. It used to house a gem: a little restaurant called the Ironwood Café, before the Ironwood moved to the Somerset Village strip and then, shortly thereafter, closed for good. Post Ironwood, 374 Bank was a shawarma restaurant for a little while, and then in 2003, The Buzz opened.

I reviewed the new restaurant in the spring of 2004 and found the space terrific but the food a yawn. Then lately a bit of a buzz emerged about a new chef: word was the food had taken on some verve under Terry Foster's charge.

So I'm back at Buzz.

It remains a very attractive room - long and narrow with tall walls the colour of dark moss and olive between swaths of craggy old brick. Globe lights are on dim, but not so dim we can't read. Add candlelight, interesting art, music at the right volume, service that goes the distance and we're off to a pretty fine beginning.

On that first visit, the food is up and down. There's the coconut shrimp thing (with out-of-a-jar marmalade dip) and what tastes like PC spring rolls on an outrageously expensive sharing plate ($22). Then there's a dynamite venison steak with a scattering of blueberries and a rough hash of rosemaried root vegetables (a better way to spend $22). The soup on that first visit was apparently pumpkin, but had scant pumpkin flavour, tasting mostly of infused oil and cream, and of the crostini-perched Brie on its pale, thin surface. A plate of al dente linguine with scallops in a lemon cream sauce is pleasant enough (but for a final flourish of some Kraft-like shredded cheese, which we flick off before eating). The dessert works - a lemon crème brûlée that is more pudding than custard, but is as comforting as lemon pudding can be.

Two weeks later, we return. Our server is delightful, determined to level a wobbly table, excited about the new chef. NO, not THAT new chef. (THAT new chef has left.) The new Buzz chef now is the former sous chef, whose name appears on the tapas menu -Chef Jishnu Sreenivasan, newly promoted.

I choke on my glass of Ravenswood. Really, I should leave. Give this new guy a chance, return in a few weeks. But we're hungry and thirsty. And she's so nice. We order his "tapas" (the buzz word for any appetizer lately). They go down pretty well. So does their price: $6 a plate. The best of the bunch is the polenta with peppers. Two crisp disks of soft polenta, rich with ricotta and parmesan, sandwiching well roasted red peppers. Simple, delicious and almost a meal. Duck confit teams up with smoked Gouda in two good sized empanadas. Chunks of red snapper are wrapped in ribbons of prosciutto. A mound of arugula is perky and fresh in a lemon vinaigrette, and blood orange sections are a bright addition. The shrimp in this salad, however, are dull, unseasoned things.

The Buzz steak frites is a flap steak. (Sometimes called a steak bavette.) Like the skirt or flank steak, it comes from the less tender, but more flavourful region of cow. It's a nice steak - marinated, grilled dry to rare (don't order it past medium-rare) sliced into thin-nish strips of good flavour and great chew. It comes with sweet potato fries and a bundle of well-done vegetables for $19.

If a good fibrous steak isn't your thing, there's a gentler option in a homemade nut and vegetable burger with ground chickpeas, cheddar cheese and a tomatillo salsa.

We like our second dinner. It wasn't all perfect, but if you avoid the trappings of those sharing plates, and focus more on the chef's specials than on the somewhat pedestrian menu, you may find at Buzz that the price is right, the room is right, the service is right and the wine list, though not long, pours practically all its offerings by the glass or half litre. Nor does it gouge us on prices or charge much for BYOB - $5 corkage fee Sunday through Tuesday.

Cuisine: Eclectic
Cost: $$: Starters, $8.50 to $10; main dishes, $13 to $27

Hours: Open daily from 4PM for drinks and dinner, and for Sunday brunch, 10am to 4pm

Features: Late dining, Bring your own bottle.
Accessibility: Easy access into restaurant; washrooms in basement.

374 Bank Street, Ottawa, ON
613-565-9595
website

So you live in Barrhaven but loathe the chain eateries that litter its big box malls? There's a solution. Standing tall beside a nail salon, conveniently close to a newish megaplex movie theatre, Pho Thi Fusion is a one-year-old restaurant that forays into upscale looks and Pan Asian offerings, with a manageable menu of popular Vietnamese, Chinese, Thai dishes, and a page or so of sushi.

It may one day become a chain eatery (this one is affiliated with the Pho Thi Noodle House on Merivale Road and there's word that a second one is set to open in Kanata) but for now, it is a sleekly modern restaurant in the deepest (southern) reaches of Barrhaven, with a pleasing atmosphere, kind service, tasty food, fair-enough prices and with a wine list that offers choices beyond Kressman red or white. Would I drive miles and miles for it? No. But that's not the idea. If you live here, for about the same price as a large popcorn and soda at the Cineplex next door, you can feast on a Pho Thi maki roll or the house lemongrass chicken and be lots happier for it.

The food is not really "fusion." No one plate delivers culinary crossovers. Rather, Pho Thi's menu parades the popular proteins (chicken, beef, shrimp, seafood or combinations thereof) through a listing of the more popular Asian dishes. From the Thai section, tom yum, green curry, pad Thai; from the Chinese, black bean sauced dishes, chow mein, Chinese noodles; the Vietnamese, pho, vermicelli dishes; from Japan, sushi and sashimi.

Which is where we begin.

There is some drama in the sushi presentation. Gimmicky, perhaps, but so what. Garnishes come perched dramatically on the base of an upside down martini glass. Underneath the bowl are two luscious pieces of butterfish. Order a "fusion" roll and you will find the shrimp tempura still warm, cuddled up to unagi, with avocado and masago and something called a fusion sauce. Don't know what it is, but it's tasty stuff and the combination of textures and temperature is appealing.

You will need to probe deeply into the edible bowl that holds your Thai-style shrimp salad, to reach the sour-sweet-salty dressing, but once found, the combination of ingredients works well, the interplay of flavours is fresh, the textures appealing. If you want your Thai salad authentically spicy, do ask. The default here is mild.

The black bean sauced dishes are excellent, the texture gritty, the seasoning bang on. The lemongrass has been lavishly strewn in the lemongrass chicken dish, as has pepper, ginger and garlic - all tastefully. The quantity of meat is not excessive (some might find it skimpy) but it is tender and the presentation attractive, with shredded marinated carrots and scallions, pickled red onion and matchstick radishes garnishing the mound of food. A pretty painting of curried oil and reduced soy sauce ornaments the edges of the oversized plates.

In true Vietnamese fashion, there isn't much here for the vegetarian, until you reach the back of the menu and find a vegetarian hot and sour soup. And, there are the cucumber and avocado sushi snacks, but otherwise carnivores and pho lovers are well served with dishes like the fully loaded beef noodle soup ($8) with "rare, well done, flank, brisket, tripe, meatballs and tendon" in a broth of big flavour and gentle restorative powers. Crush and disgorge the seeds of the fresh red chilli provided if you want more power.

Dessert? A banana spring roll of course, quite tasty, though they might bump up the quality of the mango ice cream that shares the pretty plate.

Cuisine: Asian Eclectic
Cost: $$: Starters, $5 to $11; main dishes, $8 to $16

Hours: Daily for lunch and dinner

Accessibility: Fully accessible.

129 Riocan Avenue, Ottawa, ON
613-825-3325