CapitalDining.ca

I've had good luck at 51 rue St-Jacques, though I'm not sure it's been a lucky address for the restaurants that have occupied it.

Bistro St-Jacques is the newest occupier of number 51. It took over the space from the first-rate Moroccan restaurant Safran, which mysteriously left the street a few months after a glowing report in this space last April. Safran had, in turn, taken over from a gem of an Italian restaurant called L'Ulivo. Again, I lavished praise, and the place shut down shortly thereafter.

My concern is that both Safran and L'Ulivo were unprepared for the sudden sweep of popularity a positive newspaper review can sometimes generate. Or maybe they just got tired of cooking.

I think Bistro St-Jacques will fare better. For one, there appears to be more staff. For another, there is a computer. (Safran meticulously hand-wrote each bill.) And a proper wine list (Safran recited its stock from memory, bringing over little gift samples, all at a delightfully unhurried pace).

Indeed, gracious, affable service (some might say, dawdling) has always been a drawing card at this address. This latest tenant is no slouch in that department either. Service at Bistro St-Jacques is excellent - attentive without being invasive, charming without being fawning, and awfully keen to keep you hydrated.

The food shows great promise. Chef, Lucas Hornblower (wonderful name!) hails from Stella (under Derek Benitz) and worked for a time with Benitz at Benitz Bistro gaining experience in a smaller operation.

There are things he's doing right in his own small operation. For one, he's hired good guys to run the front of the house. For another, he's kept his menu short and straightforward, with prices in line. The evening menu lists five starters, six main dishes (mostly low twenties) and four desserts, plus cheese. At lunch, all sandwiches are $12. They come with excellent fries and a nice little salad. (None of that troublesome either-or stuff.)

It would also appear that the ingredients are carefully sourced. The raw materials on a February menu include local bison and lamb, Mariposa duck, homemade sausages, sustainable fish, Ottawa Valley honey, Quebec cheeses.

The vegetarian dish one evening was a simple, effective plate of fresh tagliatelle pasta threaded with cloves of roasted garlic, slow roasted flavour-packed tomatoes, fresh thyme and mushrooms (shiitake, oyster and Portobello) topped with Mamirole cheese, from the Fromageries Eco-Delices. Nicely seasoned, a bit of stock and a bit of truffle oil, and a terrific $15 dinner.

One lunch, a thick, homey root vegetable soup sweetened with roasted garlic, and then a nice, juicy burger with bacon and old cheddar, on a fresh, firm bun with a dandy little tomato jam. Sharing the plate, those great fries, salted just right, AND a little salad. Woo hoo!

Also at lunch, rainbow trout, with a nice crust, the flesh cooked perhaps a tad too long, topped with a tomato, bacon and shallot concoction and served on top of a perfectly cubed 'hash' of sweet potato, squash and celery root perfumed with fresh thyme.

One evening we are told the fish is a wild halibut. Shortly after it is brought to our table, our server informs us he made a mistake. He is so very sorry. It is line caught cod. He will not charge us. I was floored; such grace is almost unheard of these days.

There have been some iffy bits - the sundried tomato bread one night seems to have been sliced too far in advance leaving it stiff. A warm mushroom salad with arugula, lardons, croutons and overnight tomatoes is a bit so-whatish, in need of a stronger dressing, and certainly smaller croutons (these guys are tooth cracking). Crab cakes are dense and fresh tasting, but need a bit more oomph in the flavour department. The root vegetable salad is a bit cloying, and though the duck confit is fine, the breast is overcooked.

Desserts are beautiful. Candy caramel cages and other spun sugar pretties adorn the plates. A proper crème brulée is flavoured with orange and garnished with a honey comb. A chocolate hazelnut cake is dark and decadent and comes with an equally d and d chocolate sorbet, and though the walnut cake is dreadfully dry, the ginger gelato and coconut panna cotta are wonderful. Two out of three ain't bad.

Dinner for two at Bistro St-Jacques, with a couple of glasses of wine, would come to about $80. Which seems about right. Do call ahead. We want these guys ready.

Cuisine: Canadian
Cost: $$$: Starters, $7 to $14; main dishes, $15 to $26

Hours: Open for lunch, Monday to Friday; dinner Monday to Saturday

Features: Patio dining.
Accessibility: Steps to entrance, washrooms downstairs.

51 rue St-Jacques, Hull, Quebec
819-771-6662
website

Blue Nile

My son is a dishwasher at an area restaurant. He complains about the volume of cutlery he is required to hand polish. He finds the chore tedious and baffling. I find it brilliant. The leaders of the future should have to do tedious and baffling chores for minimum wage.

As I was tearing off pieces of malty injera and scooping alicha wot the other day at the new-to-me Blue Nile restaurant, it did occur to me that cutlery polishing would be a snap here.

Ethiopian cuisine is served family-style, on one big sharing platter, with stews arranged on an edible base - the slate-grey, spongy, wonderfully tangy, giant crepe-like flatbread called injera. You will not find its like anywhere else. Uniquely Ethiopian, made from an iron-rich grain called t'ef, it replaces utensils. You tear off a piece from the edge, or from the extra rolls you are given, and you use it to scoop or pinch bites of the various curry-style purées, minces and stews arranged on its surface.

These are called wot. (Wot you ask? Heh heh.) A wot is a stew. Ethiopia's national dish is called doro wot, a dark and menacing dish of bone-in meat - a thigh or drumstick - in a thick and fragrant spiced-up butter sauce, served with a hard cooked egg for company. (What you eat first, the chicken or the egg, is always up for debate.)

The cuisine's fundamental condiments - berbere, mitmita and niter kibe - lend the unique flavour to the food at the Blue Nile, and though the menu here is much like the menu at every other Ethiopian restaurant in this city, these foundation pieces will vary, restaurant to restaurant, according to the cook's own recipes.

There are vegetarian wots - yemisir wot (puréed, spicy red lentils) shuro wot (chick peas) atakilt wot (cabbage, carrots, potatoes) and there are meat wots - alicha and doro - beef and chicken. Ye-beg tibs is lamb, and rosemary flavours the Blue Nile's rich stew of lamb, onion, tomato, and green pepper.

If you're up for it, insist on kitffo. Ethiopia's steak tartar, freshly minced, mixed with butter, herbs and mitmita. You may have to convince your server that you really do mean it, and she will take pains to inform you it is in fact raw meat you are ordering (and wouldn't you prefer it cooked, or at least lightly cooked? - these are options.) We've also had kitffo lightly cooked with kale and ayib (Ethiopian cottage cheese.)

Beneath all these stews - the mild and the fiery, the yellow, the red, the green and the near-black - the injera 'plate' turns scarlet from the juices that have seeped out and soaked into its spongy holes. This may be the best part of the feast.

This is filling fare. Pace yourself with the injera. You might want to limit your starters and fortunately there is a limited number of them on offer. I've had both. Samosa-like pastries called sambussas - with or without meat - have a dry, papery thin pastry and a savoury, spicy filling.

For dessert, there is ice cream.

Not many Ethiopian restaurants in this city serve the traditional Ethiopian honey wine called tej. Its fragrant, bitter, dry tones work well with the food, I admit, but it remains for me, an acquired taste. I drank my husband's beer instead.

The Blue Nile is a fairly generic looking restaurant. The tourism posters, a flag, wooden giraffes, some tusks, and a traditional costume hanging on a wall are the clues this is an Ethiopian restaurant. Other than these, and the lovely anise-like notes in the air, it is the food that takes you there. Blue Nile 577 Gladstone Ave., 613-321-0774 www.bluenileottawa.com Access: Fully accessible, including washrooms Price: Starters, $2; Main dishes, $7 to $13 Open: Monday, 4 pm to 10 pm; Tuesday to Sunday, 11 am to 10 pm

Cuisine: Ethiopian
Cost: $: Starters, $2; main dishes, $7 to $13

Hours: Open Monday, 4 pm to 10 pm; Tuesday to Sunday, 11 am to 10 pm

Features: Vegetarian options.
Accessibility: Fully accessible.

577 Gladstone Ave., Ottawa, ON
613-321-0774
website