CapitalDining.ca

"Buon giorno," he bellows into the phone and my ear. I'm trying, for the fourth time, to snag a table at his restaurant. Once more, I'm told, 9:30 p.m. or else not tonight. Perhaps the bar? He's sorry, no, even the bar is reserved.

The guy on the phone, the one they call "pocopazzo," is Sicilian-born chef Emanuele Leonforte. The word means, literally, "a little crazy," which, according to his restaurant's website and his staff, fits chef Emanuele just fine. He owns the restaurant with his Ottawa-born wife Angela. At lunch Angela's dad waits on tables. It's a family affair.

Other than the passionate phone greeting, and the few times he's come out of the kitchen to offer some advice on a veal dish (sound advice, thank you) or to assure me his salmon was fresh (indeed, and nicely cooked too), I have little evidence the name fits. The guy seems enthusiastic, but otherwise quite sane.

He's certainly quite sane about his pricing. No dish is over $20, including veal or fish. Which may well explain why you might go pocopazzo trying to get a table here.

First impressions don't impress too much. The bread basket tastes of supermarket focaccia and comes with whipped butter packages. Surely not Sicilian, this?

We ordered the Pocopazzo sharing platter one visit and found a display of fried brown food - greasy calamari, so-what zucchini sticks with bottled dressings, and boring bruschetta with a paucity of basil. Mussels were fishy and oversteamed one night. The tortellini in the tortellini soup were tough and tasteless.

But one lunch was thoroughly satisfying - a hearty chicken soup, followed by orechiette (little ears) with rapini, a nice cannoli filled with sweetened ricotta and chocolate chips, then a fine espresso. A second lunch was disappointing - a spinach salad that featured tough strips of grey beef coated in a gorgonzola sauce. With the lunch special (manicotti) came a side salad drenched in what tasted like bottled dressing.

The only distinctive starter was the stuffed melanzane - roasted eggplant that boasted a solid tomato sauce, sharp cheese, herbs and toasted pine nuts for crunch. For $8, this was a steal of a light meal.

Main dishes generally stand up well. Pocopazzo's tomato sauce is a robust one. It graces the properly al dente pasta dishes - dishes like the well-flavoured gemelli with sausages and roasted peppers, the linguine with a generous amount of seafood, the house lasagna.

Ignoring the jarring garlic that ruins the spinach beneath the salmon, the fish itself is delicious - handsomely cross-hatched, the outside crusty, the flesh moist and with a ruby centre.

Veal has been tender, sauces appropriately rich and the selection of side vegetables, including some lovely herby roast potatoes, has been just fine.

Pocopazzo is a pleasant place to spend some time, with a young, hard-working staff anxious to please.

There aren't many good, locally owned restaurants in Kanata or Stittsville, and Pocopazzo is trying hard to be one of the few. I won't cross town for dinner here, but this little place is doing enough right to keep the local diners happy, including pricing itself attractively for the suburban market in which it seems to thrive. Book well in advance.

Cuisine: Italian
Cost: $$: Starters, $6 to $9; main dishes, $14 to $19

Hours: Open: Lunch, Monday to Friday; dinner daily

Accessibility: Fully accessible.

6081 Hazeldean Rd., Stittsville, ON
613-836-7100
website

I received a dear letter about this place a few months ago, which I filed and forgot about.

But two weeks ago, while shopping for school/college supplies with the boys, I was detoured around a disabled tractor-trailer and found myself in front of an orange sign with a name that sounded familiar. "Ishina, fast food," it said.

It was 1:30 in the afternoon and we were lunchless. So we went in, we ate, and now we're regulars, prepared to write dear letters about the place.

It helps to know it's here, but once you know, you're in luck. Why? Because the north Indian food is very good, the meal is fast, the price is right and the service is gracious.

Though it's no looker. Ishina is a clean, bright, utilitarian room in an industrial park behind Richmond Road in Bells Corners. The ceiling is warehouse rafters and beams, the floor is black and white linoleum. Long wispy curtains let in some light and manage to block the bleak view. The dozen or so tables are covered with red and yellow tablecloths and a jaunty canopy covers the buffet table.

But as soon as you enter Ishina, you smell all those great C's - cumin, cardamom, cinnamon, coriander, chilies. And you are greeted instantly by other great C's, the family Chhatwal - chef Manpreet (Baby) and Parminder (Nippi) and daughters Ishleen and Gina (hence, "Ishina").

They know the regulars by name and the regulars know them. "How's your mother doing?" "Do you want the usual to drink?"

The regulars tend to walk over in groups - guys, mostly, clad in casual gear who talk about things like RAM speed.

The daily lunch buffet is set out in steam table trays, handsomely garnished and oft replenished. We start with soup (daal one day, tomato and coriander another, both complex, both with some heat) and a soothing kachumber salad of tomatoes, cucumber, onion and coriander.

Steaming tandoori naan arrives to our table while we're working our way through the line of stews. Beef korma, butter chicken, tandoori chicken, Jeera rice.

There are always two meatless dishes - usually a curry of mixed vegetables inspired by whatever fresh produce is available - beans, zucchini, cauliflower, cabbage - and always a spread based on paneer (fresh cheese). Homemade pickles are more sour than searing and yogurt raita with mint is all soothing.

This is Indian food that takes no shortcuts and it eats accordingly. It is all very good, the meats tender, the chicken juicy, the sauces full flavoured, shot with ginger, garlic, onion and all those delicious spices that murmur through.

If you want them to shout, you will notice the basket of fresh green chilies beside the bowl of raita.

Desserts include a platter of fresh fruit, and the über-sweet gulab jamun - fried balls of dough paddling in a rosewater-scented sugar syrup. And sometimes there is chocolate mousse, which looks suspiciously icky, but is in fact quite delicious.

It took us 23 minutes to lunch at Ishina. The gents beside me clocked in at seven. Back to their computers.

The price: The daily lunch buffet is $9.99, plus tax and tip.

Ishina may be short on style, but it's long on flavour and thoughtfulness. That computes.

Cuisine: Indian
Cost: $: Lunch buffet only, $9.99

Hours: Open Monday to Friday from 11:30 AM to 2 PMhours

Features: Vegetarian options.
Accessibility: One step at front door; washrooms accessible..

14 Bexley Place, Unit 100-101
613-291-4866
website

Once upon a time this place was the home of Absinthe Café, which is now found on Wellington Street. Before that, it was an auto shop. Canvas is about two years old now, and at my first visit in late 2007 I found it pretty uneven. Some bits worked well, some didn't, and prices seemed high for a restaurant still finding its groove.

And I guess I still find it a bit that way, except that now more works than doesn't. And this time the dishes that missed weren't sending up red flags (for reasons of dubious raw materials, say).

The dishes missed because Canvas takes interesting risks and sometimes risks don't eat perfectly well. But you can commend the restaurant for taking them. In fact, I find Canvas, with new-to-me chef Mike Moskal in the tiny kitchen, a plucky little place.

Pluck is on display in a number of Canvas's choices. At one visit, on its short menu of five main dishes, mackerel was the featured dish. It may be a fashionably sustainable choice and possess life-giving oils, but it is not a million-selling menu item. Nor is it, I discovered, a fish any self-respecting Cape Bretonner would ever pay 25 bucks for in a fancy restaurant. (She, who used to bait her father's hooks with mackerel, is still laughing at me: "Tell me again what they charged you for a plate of cod bait?")

Canvas has also been targeted by the foie gras protesters, fresh from their bullying of some select ByWard Market restaurants. (Taking aim at a small private enterprise that offers a carefully sourced menu of artisanal products rather than picketing the fast food chains, which force-feed millions of us empty, fatty calories and support factory farming on a global level, strikes me as absurd.)

But never mind; Canvas politely pulled its curtains and foie gras remains on its menu.

Surely there is no opposition anywhere to the well-chosen bread and the irresistible caramelized butter spread that comes with it. And full marks for the house soups, an apple and parsnip, in particular. In fact, at each of my three Canvas meals it was the starters that impressed most.

Lamb carpaccio was delightful, fanned out on a long plate ornamented with bits and pieces of flavour - a green olive tapenade, a pile of feta cheese, slices of orange, and a tzatziki sauce featuring preserved lemon. Three meaty, snappy shrimp arrived wrapped in shredded phyllo, crisp and brown and slightly spicy, served with couscous and some dried fruit. Chewy-good duck prosciutto, luscious foie gras with a sprinkling of crunchy salt, a dollop of grainy mustard, gherkins and good crackers comprised the Canvas charcuterie plate. Puy lentils and golden beets were the escorts for three spotless scallops.

Sweetbreads have been crunchy treats. A lobster salad was fresh and fine.

The cut of cow for the steak frites changes daily and is priced per cut, but at all three of my visits it happened to be filet mignon priced at $31. Though the frites were great, the steak was pretty dull and under-seasoned.

An elk dish (from Nunavut, we were told) was a flop, the meat inedibly tough. (It was substituted and the complaint handled with grace.) And though the mackerel was clearly very fresh (because it didn't taste like mackerel), the beurre blanc wasn't assertive enough for the fish.

The dish I enjoyed twice, and one of the better vegetarian entrées I've had in a long time, was the gnocchi - the potato dumplings light, greened with fiddleheads, moistened with an arugula-lemon pesto and browned butter. Meaty mushrooms, heirloom tomatoes, crunchy pine nuts and shards of parmesan added to the pleasure.

Desserts included a lovely pecan pie, and a delicious lemon and strawberry cheesecake.

Canvas's wine list is well written and fairly priced, with a decent selection by the glass and half-litre, and comes with a staff trained to navigate food matches.

Cuisine: Canadian
Cost: $$$: Starters, $9 to $15; main dishes, $18 to $31 description

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

Accessibility: Easy access from street, but washrooms are small.

65 Holland Ave., Ottawa, ON
613-729-1991
website