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Singha Thai sure has its fans. I've received a dozen letters and e-mails about this Merivale Road restaurant. Have you tried Singha Thai? It's quite wonderful, they say, these notes. Why don't you do an assessment of the place?

So I do, because any news of good dining on Merivale Road is welcome. I bring my Thai-food-fan family first, and I come again with a friend, then a final time for a solo lunch, and what I find -- I report with a moving sigh -- is extreme mediocrity, with one notable exception.

But first I'll say this. Singha Thai has filled a void and if it improves (please do), it will be a welcome addition as the first, as far as I know, Thai restaurant on the Merivale Road strip. It's not unpleasant once you're inside -- a long, dark room, with mirrors and large, presumably Thai art on pretty red walls, nicely lit and with bamboo mats below glass and above double cloaked tables -- and the service is shy and full of goodwill. And while the menu holds no novel surprises, it isn't long, which we sure do like.

If you have read Thai menus before, you have read this one. Here are the usual appetizers -- satay (generous serving, chicken very moist, peanut sauce very dull) spring rolls, the crackling casings packed with the usual nameless vegetable mass, fresh rice paper wraps (better) and fish cakes (rubbery) with too sweet tamarind sauce.

There are soups, of course, with or without coconut milk clouding, and there are salads. We order the lapp salad, which features tough strips of chili peppered meat and too much lime in the only slightly rousing dressing, and don't much enjoy it.

There are curries, of course, of varying colours and intensities. The panaeng -- a red curry of chicken is only OK, the meat overcooked, the fired-up coconut milk broth hardly memorable.

If the always-popular pad Thai is done badly, I figure it's not at all a good sign. This version is wildly sweet, and sadly dull -- just noodles and bean sprouts and three sad shrimp reddened with what might well be ketchup. Even my boys, who know their pad Thai, and who generally eat without reflection, recognized it as inferior.

And they didn't much like the fibrous, crunchy rings of lemongrass that litter the strips of very tough beef in the stir fry dish marked No. 27. I wouldn't have minded the lemongrass so much (flavour trumps texture) were the meat at least chewable.

So here's the notable exception. Pla lad prik is fish (tilapia) in a spicy sweet and sour sauce and it's very good. The fish firm and moist, the sauce beautifully balanced and quite rousing.

There is, of course, Singha beer here -- always good, assertively hoppy -- and that's what we chose to help this food.

Cuisine: Thai
Cost: $$: Starters, $7 to $8; main dishes, $11 to $14 description

Hours: Open daily for lunch and dinner

Accessibility: Fully accessible.

1514 Merivale Rd., Ottawa, ON
613-226-8490
website

Used to be we'd lace up skates here. Now we can eat and drink here - sometimes very well, and sometimes not so well.

But on balance, and given that this newish place on the main floor of the Dow's Lake Pavilion is attempting to carve out a Canadian-cuisine identity in a tourist hub - for Ottawa, a new formula - we applaud the arrival of Lago Bar/Grill/View. Not unreservedly, perhaps, but we applaud nonetheless, with the hope that the bits that don't work get fixed.

What doesn't need fixing is the view. It's Ottawa. In the spring there are the tulips, in the summer, the Dow's lago (Italian for lake). In the fall, the harvest moon. And, in the winter, the world's once-longest rink and all the celebrations of our iciness that get fired up at Dow's Lake. Until recently, all this was

only viewable by those willing to endure a chain restaurant experience, or for those lacing up skates.

I had a first solo Lago lunch early in the spring, with middling results. I shelved my research for a time, planning a revisit on a warm summer night, which meant waiting until early August. That night, from my perch on the Lago deck, surrounded by boats and boat people and with a spectacular view of a rising moon and not a single annoying thing either buzzing in the air or floundering on the plate, I had a truly lovely evening.

Returning for a confirmation meal, I tasted a series of disappointments and was left with no clear picture of what Lago had to offer. So back I went for a fourth meal and can now report on a mix of fine and less fine.

Here's what was awfully nice: The calamari was tender squid, jauntily spiced. I tasted cumin, cinnamon and a good hit of chili heat, with a black bean aioli as a fine complement. There was a refreshingly limey gazpacho of yellow tomatoes, with a garnish of avocado, tomatillo and cilantro. And the pork medallions with their prosciutto blanket and fresh sage sheets were the highlight of the main dishes, the meaty tenderloin paired with roasted fingerling potatoes.

I was also impressed with the silky fazzoletti, the handkerchief sheets of pasta wrapping a full-flavoured purée of butternut squash with goat cheese set in a brown butter sauce fragrant with fresh sage and dotted pleasantly with toasted pine nuts.

Here's what was nice enough: The "rare ahi tuna" starter was more seared than I would like, with a thicker band of grey around a heart of pink, and the fish could have used some seasoning beyond a drizzle of syrupy balsamic, but it came with a ratatouille of sorts that gave it pizzazz. The "Rideau slammers" are a fun idea. Their $2.74 burger price tag (though odd) is kind, but the buns are essentially a meat delivery system and the ratio of bread to meat is unbalanced.

Here's what needs work: fish. The halibut had a mushy texture. The "Pier 39 fish stew" was mostly overdone fish - mussels, shrimp, tuna, salmon, calamari, with fennel and peppers - in a sauce that tasted of tinned tomato soup minus the salt. A starter shrimp cocktail was three cooked, unseasoned shrimp (dull, dull, dull) and the "cilantro key lime sauce" was surely nothing more than icky-sweet jarred cocktail sauce with a squirt of lime. This, for $15, smarted.

To accompany the food, there's a fine wine list with strong Canadian content.

So Lago is uneven. But still, there is enough to like and enough to support.

I've long thought this spot deserved better than chain eateries, and Dow's Lake Pavilion seemed a natural place for strong Canadian content. Lago may well be the answer - once it has found its stride.

Cuisine: Canadian
Cost: $$: Starters, $2.74 to $15; main dishes, $18 to $31 description

Hours: Open Tuesday to Friday for lunch and dinner, Saturday dinner

Features: Late dining, Fireplace dining, Patio dining.
Accessibility: Fully accessible.

Dow's Lake Pavilion, 1001 Queen Elizabeth Dr., Ottawa, ON
613-235-5246
website

It is a grand improvement over what preceded it. Oregano's, for something like 25 years, was a pasta factory of the dreariest sort. A change of eatery at this plum ByWard Market address was desperately welcome news.

The brick building, which dates to 1882 when The Grand was the name of a hotel, is now a smart new restaurant owned by the same group that brought us Empire Grill and Métropolitain. The former is a steakhouse, the latter fancies itself a Parisian-style brasserie, and this new baby claims to serve authentic Neapolitan-style pizza, which means it must conform with the exacting and protective standards of Italy's Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana.

A server tells us The Grand hopes one day to receive full papal-like blessing from the associazione, and to do so it must use imported ingredients, traditional methods and the properly wood-fired oven set to the proper Hadean temperature. (I don't know if the associazione dictates how long it must take for a diner to receive her perfect pizza -- something that might be of some concern to hungry you and me -- but more on that a bit later.)

First, let me say I've never had an authentic Napoletana pizza because I've never been to Naples. In fact, I've never been to Italy except once, by mistake, while driving through the fog in what I thought was Switzerland. And while I'm confessing, I've never really understood the fascination with pizza. It would be way down my list of last supper options. Give me a great sandwich any day over a slice of variations on toasted dough.

But for those for whom it is a weekly craving, this is the place to have it. This pizza is far from the muck my boys like. (If you like the muck my boys like, you might wonder where the inch of gooey cheese has gone or the slick of salty oil, or why you can't order it extra large with extra pineapple.) But if you're looking for something more raffinato, closer to what they serve in Napoli, you will find this pizza very good.

You can eat it outside, if you can find a lovely day, on one of two enormous patios that seat something like 170, or choose one of 150 seats inside, on two levels in a space that's bright, smart and comfortable. The rooms can be noisy, the place crowded, and the staff can be overwhelmed at times. Sometimes, that very good pizza can take upward of an hour to arrive. On my first visit, it took 73 minutes. So while you wait, order the delicious calamari starter -- char-grilled, spicy tender tubes, served on a bed of arugula. You can also begin with meatballs -- big, moist and well seasoned. The beet salad with fresh mozzarella and toasted pine nuts is another way to pass the time. And if you chop up those wonderful Sicilian anchovies that crown the Nizzarda (think Niçoise) and spread them around the dull potatoes, beans, tuna, etc., you will discover the flavour and salt the salad seemed to lackI've had mixed luck with pasta at The Grand. The Pappardelle a Casa certainly reads well (\"porcini mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, prosciutto di Parma, garlic, al olio\"), but the dish is surprisingly dull. The linguine di mare is too soupy, with scallops like tough little bullets. And for a restaurant that prides itself on authentic ingredients, the disposable plastic bottle with the built-in grater for a block of questionable Parmesan cheese seems mighty odd.

But the main event is very good. These are thin-crust pizzas -- though not too thin, about a foot in diameter -- with a soft, pliable texture and a lovely char-aroma that remind me of really good naan bread. The tomato sauce is vibrant and the toppings are blessedly uncomplicated -- tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, herbs, anchovies, arugula, mushrooms, Italian cold cuts and cheeses. Other than the ridiculous paucity of basil (I counted one large leaf, torn in four) on the Margherita pizza, and the decision to shred the bufala mozzarella rather than leaving it in soft, gooey mounds (what does the associazione say about that?), I've enjoyed every pizza I've tried. If these were the pies on offer just before my dawn firing squad, I might bump pizza up the list.

I'm particularly partial to the tomato-less funghi pizza, which has the off-putting description \"cream of mushroom\" but has good woodsy flavour, beginning with a bottom layer of thyme-scented duxelle, a top layer of whole milk mozzarella and a middle layer of mixed mushrooms, boosted only slightly (thank you) with truffle oil. If you've started with squid or meatballs, I'd say these pizzas are shareable, but for most people, treat them like personal pizzas, with maybe a slice saved for a snack. There is a solid wine list with ample choice, mostly Italian. If you've ordered the Brunello and don't want to drink it out of tumblers, ask for a proper glass. They do have some of those.

Mostly, The Grand is a jolly place with great pizza, a gathering place for young and old, inside and outside, and that makes it a fine addition to the Ottawa restaurant community. It is also a seven-day-a-week operation, open early, closed late, serving many, and it has all the inherent problems of all of that. Sometimes service is terrific, sometimes it isn't. Sometimes the kitchen and the pizzaiolo are taxed and you wait, and sometimes everything flies out in a timely fashion.

I've been four times and I've experienced the busy ebb and flow. But I'll be back -- when one of those (now maybe once-a-month) cravings for pizza hits me hard.

Cuisine: Italian
Cost: $$: Starters, $4 to $12; pizza/pasta, $13 to $18

Hours: Open daily, all day, until late

Features: Late dining, Patio dining.
Accessibility: Fully accessible.

74 George St., Ottawa, ON
613-244-9995
website