CapitalDining.ca

Ever since my two (delicious) dinners at the new vegan restaurant Zen Kitchen, I've been on a carnivorous bender.

So it was without much ruminating, and with encouragement from Social server "Peter M." ("it's my absolute fave"), that I jumped on the steak-frites last week. It might have been the promised boozy brown-butter sauce that clinched it, or the frosty nip in the night air that made a pot of fries and a bloody steak seem necessary. Whatever. It was simple, well executed, and very fine.

Restaurant E18teen chef Matthew Carmichael has been overseeing the kitchen at Social since Steve Mitton left to open Murray Street in 2008. It's a nifty trick, overseeing two restaurants simultaneously, and I was curious to taste how Social was making out post-Mitton, with an executive chef who must split his attention. Fortunately, the dash between restaurants is short and Carmichael is nimble, for there is no evidence that Social is suffering.

Nor does it seem to suffer the ravages of time. Social is turning 10, and it remains unwaveringly lovely on the surface: elegant, contemporary, stylish. Its assets include limestone walls, big windows with nice views, soaring ceilings, great bolts of timeless colour and sensible lighting.

And Social has also been the beneficiary of a succession of solid chefs. In Carmichael's hand, the menu is a comforting modern-Canadian document - a short list of well-made, simple-with-treats dishes that makes the most of the mission of sourcing locally and buying the best when the best is at its best.

There were some missteps - a dull pasta dish one night (though terrific shrimp atop) and too much cheese on the pork another - but they're far outweighed by starters like local mushrooms in a lusciously rich veal jus, piled on Art-is-in toast, or seared B.C. albacore tuna artfully presented with Niçoise mates. Or by mains like dark-surfaced, ruby-rare venison with a lovely rhubarb compote.

Fun, standby food like calamari has a tasty twist: cumin in the coating, and a mayonnaise dip fashioned with pickled milkweed pods.

Starters are called Small Plates and they can spike a Social bill. You should pay attention to the notion these are not necessarily meant to precede dinner. Or at least that they could be shared before moving on. The mushrooms on toast, for instance, could easily make a meal. Same with the tuna starter.

Despite the old cheddar that's too bossy, the Berkshire pork tenderloin is pink and juicy and full of piggy flavour. It comes with perfect fingerling potatoes and a seedy mustard sauce. Halibut is polished white and melting on wilted arugula, with a gentle smoked tomato vinaigrette.

Vegetables are not afterthoughts. On every plate, we find them perfectly cooked, snapping fresh and fussed over, whether a pile of meaty mushrooms, rapini, beets, fresh beans or peas.

There is crème brulée and it is fine, served with fresh berries, and there is a dark chocolate torte, with quality ice cream and an espresso caramel sauce that seems to me $9 well spent. There are many martinis, champagne cocktails on the drinks menu and a half dozen beer on tap. I have friends who go just for the mojitos.

Social can be loud (especially when filled with mojito drinkers). And in the service department, this seven-day-a-week operation has some strong servers who are as knowledgeable as if they'd done the cooking themselves, and others who are weaker.

But overall, Social remains a restaurant that offers lots of environmental advantages, and with a strong, well-intentioned kitchen helmed by Carmichael, the eating is very satisfying.

Cuisine: Canadian
Cost: $$$: Small plates, $8 to $16; full plates, $20 to $35

Hours: Open daily for lunch and dinner

Features: Late dining, Patio dining, Wine list worth noting.
Accessibility: one step into restaurant, washrooms downstairs.

537 Sussex Dr., Ottawa, ON
613-789-7355
website

Open since late May, this is a second restaurant for Michael Tatsis and family. Their first Aroma Meze, opened in 2006, is found on Nepean Street. I reviewed it then and I liked pretty much everything about it. So what joy to read of a second Aroma Meze, opening in Wellington West in a former hair salon.

Indeed, I visited mid-summer brimming with enthusiasm - which quickly evaporated. I gave it a few more weeks, revisiting a bunch of times in September, but nothing rose above mediocrity. As this Aroma Meze shares a menu with its big sister, I either need to return to Nepean Street to see if the cooking has slipped, or conclude, regrettably, that the kitchen in Wellington West is weaker.

The look has a weakness, too. The picture windows facing both Wellington and Ross streets are blue glass, tinted so you can't see through them. It's not inviting. Indeed, you wonder if the place is even open.

If it weren't for the blue light from the windows and door, and from the bottom lit bar top, the room would be fine enough. But the lighting is cold and unflattering, and the room feels gloomy. Or maybe the blue light just adds to my blue mood as meze after meze after small plates are delivered and I just can't summon enthusiasm for any of them.

There's a lot of choice on this menu and it makes for a lot of reading. There are dips, of course, and they are largely OK, though some could use a flavour boost. The grilled pita seems pretty supermarket ordinary, though it comes nicely warm from the grill. I've liked the olives. And I've liked the spicy lamb sausages, though they're somewhat sodden from their soak in oil, and arrive lukewarm.

If you like your sausage dishes on the sweet side, you will like the sausage with orange and fennel. If you like nutmeg, you will like the moussaka, for nutmeg is the predominant flavour. But much of this food lacks smack.

The seafood dishes - squid, smelts, shrimp - all speak of weak, frozen product. The grilled calamari is tough, the fried calamari is salty, greasy, missing lemon. Ditto the spicy smelts. The organic salmon is dry and overcooked. The shrimp with peppers and onion look pretty enough - the pink, the red, yellow and green - but they're dull, tough and taste of flour. The gnocchi also taste of flour.

Zucchini cakes have overcooked edges and undercooked guts. They are inedible mush inside. The "mini hamburgers" (biftekia) may be stuffed with cheese, but they're not stuffed with flavour.

I can smell the brandade cakes as they approach my table. They are so bad, I send them back - and I rarely send anything back. (They are removed from the bill, and we are offered free dessert.)

Pan-seared red deer is "deglazed with moscat (sic) of Alexandria wine, in a sweet ivory juniper (?) and pink peppercorn sauce, served rare." It may sound fancy, but the venison is tough and juiceless, with a stewed flavour clinging to it. Nineteen dollars buys you four thin, overcooked, under seasoned lamb chops.

So what worked? Service was kind enough, and they have a nice wine list, mostly old world treats, with good choice by the glass (three- and five-ounce pours). Though, gee, I wish they wouldn't serve the wine as though their accountant were perched on a shoulder. I ordered a three-ounce refill of a Greek wine I was enjoying, and the bartender measured it out (in front of me) in a shot glass, one, two, three thimblefuls. Didn't feel very Greek to me.

Cuisine: Mediterranean
Cost: $$$: Meze, $7 to $19

Hours: Daily for lunch/brunch, dinner, and until 2am on weekends

Features: Late dining.
Accessibility: One step to entrance, washrooms in basement.

1335 Wellington St. W., Ottawa, ON
613-722-4508
website

Whalesbone continues to stand out. Of all of Ottawa's expensive, popular restaurants, few are so free of chic and so seemingly content to shamble along in tiny digs, unconcerned about redesign or expansion, or any of those things other wildly popular places in tiny digs tend to think about.

Whalesbone has always marched to its own music (vinyl, in this case), defied strict categorization (yes, it's a seafood restaurant, but not one of those seafood restaurants ...) and despite its popularity, soldiers on in its madcap, out-of-the-way spot on torn-up Bank Street with next to no street presence, and with seats for about 40 cheek-to-jowlers on hard chairs and bar stools.

And yet, you'd be hard pressed to find a more filled or more fun neighbourhood joint with as accomplished a cuisine. If Whalesbone were in my 'hood, it would be my Cheers. With the added perk of pristine oysters as bar snacks.

It seems every year I am coming out of my corner for another round at Whalesbone. This report is my fourth since 2005. But Whalesbone has a new restaurant chef (at least its fourth) so here I am again, keen to check out Charlotte Langley's contribution to this quirky place.

Langley comes to Whalesbone via stints at Moonroom, The Wellington Gastropub, Beckta, and on-air with the TV show Road Grill. She's in biker shorts and flip-flops. We know this because she leaves her galley kitchen every so often to grab a handful of oysters at the bar. We can just make out her ponytails over the hillock of heirloom tomatoes that lines the kitchen ledge. Every few minutes, a hand reaches out and grabs one of those tomatoes for a salad, a garnish, a burst of citrus sweetness for a fish soup.

Her soup is our first taste of what she brings to Whalesbone. And what a soup! Laden with fish, clams, mussels, oysters, with potatoes, leeks, and fresh basil in a lightly creamed, heavenly garlicked tomato broth of grand sea flavour. If a fish restaurant's chowder is a barometer for its overall goodness, Whalesbone nails it every time. But it's interesting to note the price point of its fish soup. In 2006, it was $6. During the year of Vardy (chef Steve Vardy, formerly of Beckta, now of Black Cat, dropped anchor at Whalesbone in 2007) it peaked at an uncomfortable $15. Langley's version is $10, and with a few slices of the delicious brown bread that keeps on coming, might make a meal on its own.

Her scallops are sublimely good. Plump, darkly crusted, beautifully textured, these are lightly seasoned beauties from Qualicum Beach, B.C. They come paired with a risotto ripe with Fifth Town goat cheese (of Prince Edward County), charred corn on the cob, local chanterelle mushrooms and grilled zucchini.

Caramelized garlic, chopped basil, a light balsamic glaze and a dribble of truffle oil bring out the late-summer perfection in a colour-charged salad of backyard heirloom tomatoes.

Of the six main dishes, one is vegetarian and one is chicken and ribs. The latter turns out to be the weakest of the bunch, with a too-sweet barbecue sauce and a side of mac and cheese that arrives too dry.

The fish offerings are a round of hits. Albacore tuna, seared, rare, perfectly seasoned, is supported with a warm Niçoise arrangement of beans, potatoes, tomatoes, and olives, with a perfectly poached egg on a bitter bed of kale, the whole treated with an anchovy vinaigrette. Lovely.

Wild B.C. salmon is laced with bourbon butter and comes with grilled peaches and a corn and white bean succotash, threaded with roasted yellow peppers. Langley's approach to fish seems to be to keep things simple, and her flavours are clean and uncluttered.

Until dessert, that is, when they get deliciously muddled. Can only Whalesbone pull off a sundae bar? On a small form and with a golf pencil, you are invited to choose a sauce (blueberry Limoncello, dark chocolate, boozy strawberry, say) and two toppings (peppermint patties anyone?) for one, two or three scoops of Pascale's vanilla ice cream. (Pascale Berthiaume's ice creams are swooningly good.) Extra toppings will put you back a buck. Order \"fruit\" as one of the toppings and you get blackberries, fresh figs, and peaches. Pair it with boozy strawberry sauce and your cup, literally, runneth over.

Chefs may come and go, but Whalesbone remains a wonderful dash of flavour in this town. If Langley stays put, I won't need to be back for a while. Though, as Mae West reminds me: \"Too much of a good thing can be wonderful.\"

Reservations are essential.

Cuisine: Fish-Seafood
Cost: $$$: Starters, $10 to $17; mains, $25 to $29

Hours: Open: 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. (Sun-Wed) or 11 p.m. (Thu-Sat) though they serve oysters 'until we go home' on weekends

Accessibility: one step from street level; washrooms are downstai.

430 Bank St., Ottawa, ON
613-231-8569
website