CapitalDining.ca

It looked like a ball of road tar and it smelled of singed toast. It required some courage to bring spoon to mouth. But the taste of it was cool, rich and unsweet, with a powerful campfire finish. And it made a lasting impression. In fact, I returned for more.

So permit me to begin this report at the end. I was at Ichibei, a long running Japanese restaurant in the downtown core. After all the sushi and sashimi, the tempura, udon and sukiyaki had been successfully chop-sticked up and slurped down - let me tell you about my encounter with this wonderful ice cream.

I rarely bother with dessert in a Japanese restaurant. The pickings are slim. Green tea ice cream. Red bean ice cream. Sometimes a pastry. But when "black sesame" ice cream was mentioned (Sorry, what did you say? Black sesame? Never heard of it…), I gave it a whirl. I was expecting vanilla ice cream with a sprinkling of seeds. What arrived was made with ink-black sesame seed paste. The sooty ice cream is brought in (I asked) from Toronto, and to my mind and mouth, was startlingly good.

Anyway, it was new to me, and I liked it.

There were other things to like. Ichibei's sushi struck me as fresh and carefully made, the rice well seasoned, the fish well cut and draped, the portions on the generous size, the price about right.

Most of this (rather disjointed) menu of packaged pages and colourful inserts is largely familiar. The sushi and sashimi are easily delicious, served with vivid ginger and soy sauce. A favourite of mine is the warm unagi, paired with cucumber, nori and rice, rolled, sliced into disks and sprinkled with sesame seeds. The contrast of the warm and oily eel with the cool and crunchy cucumber makes this a rousing pleasure. If you like your spicy rolls spicy, you will find them so here.

Of the hot food, we like the tempura - hot, crisp and light enough - shrimp, green beans, eggplant, shiitake mushrooms, coated lightly in batter and judiciously fried.

Sukiyaki, served in a black cauldron, is a sweet broth filled with squares of firm tofu, thin strips of beef, mushrooms, Chinese greens and shirataki ("white waterfall") noodles - thin, translucent and jelly-like, made from plant fibre. Next to the hot pot, a bowl of rice and a raw egg - you are invited to crack it, or if that seems like too much work, they'll do it for you. Once cracked and whisked with a fork, you are encouraged to dip the sukiyaki offerings in the raw egg. It adds richness.

There is trout, grilled whole, which is pretty good, and usually a daily fish special. Hamachi, or yellowtail tuna, arrives overcooked one night.

There are some dishes with a vivid gaminess or sliminess that you may find an acquired taste. I am working on developing a fondness for natto, fermented and aged soy beans, all slippery and slimy, with a sort of cobweb-like lacquering. But matched, as they are at Ichibei, with the crunch of grated daikon, chopped scallion and the buttery richness of tuna sashimi, they are almost pleasurable.

Ichibei's physical space is small - seating for about 20, with maybe six more at the sushi bar. Clean and well lit, white and beige, the small dining room is partitioned with slatted screens of pale wood creating private nooks. The only colour in the room is in the navy tablecloths and the bright red globe lantern that hangs above our heads. If you're alone and seek diversion, you might gravitate to the sushi bar where you can watch the sculptors at work.

Sapporo or sake, or both, are the drinks with this food. The wine on offer is negligible.

The dessert isn't.

Cuisine: Japanese - Sushi
Cost: $$: Sushi/sashimi, $4.25 to $15; main dishes, $8 to $26

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

Accessibility: One step at front door, washrooms in basement.

197 Bank St., Ottawa, ON
613-563-2375

The Fraser brothers, Ross and Simon, were doing just fine in their diminutive ex-burger-joint-location on Putman Avenue on the fringes of Ottawa's wealthiest neighbourhood. Neighbours packed the place nightly. (Though the diplomat sedans with their snoozy chauffeurs did look silly parked outside the shack.)

But when the New Edinburgh Fratelli (which, kismetically, means 'brothers' in Italian) was offered for sale, the boys jumped. Here was their chance to triple their workspace and move to a denser part of the 'hood. The new Springfield Avenue Fraser Café opened in early September. The kitchen meets you as you enter. There have been other, more subtle tweaks to the Fratelli space - the signature wall of wine has gone - but the open kitchen is the most striking change, from both a visual and olfactory sense.

Used to be the work of cooking - the frenetic, flaming, tolling, boiling business of getting food on plates - was meant to be tucked away from the serene temple of the dining room. No longer. The reasons for knocking down the walls are many - some chefs crave the oohs and aahs - but my sense of the Fraser chefs is they were seeking an informal, buzzy and sizzle feeling (they've succeeded) and probably just wanted to meet their neighbours face to face.

One benefit of an open kitchen from the public's perspective is that when your meal is running an hour behind schedule, you can at least take comfort from the certain knowledge that those chefs in that kitchen right there are working bloody hard to correct that, and not just out behind the dumpster having a smoke, while you nibble the linen.

That was a first dinner at Fraser: an hour-long wait for our starters, another for our mains. But it's not the lousy pacing I want to emphasize - Fraser Café was only six weeks into its new digs and we'll cut them some slack. Let me tell you instead how it was addressed. Bread was replenished, two glasses of wine were delivered on the house, and when the bill arrived, our appetizers had been comped. They clearly wanted our business back.

They just as clearly want to accommodate. The Frasers have continued their tradition of "surprise" dishes - which I suspect tax this kitchen (and may be the cause of the occasional one-hour wait) - one appetizer, one main dish, every evening a chef's choice (promising that they will be different from each other if both at the table order blindly, and will be tailored around your allergies and, as they put it, "food particulars.") Think of that challenge when a table of four all want surprises, each one different, one a vegetarian, the other with a nut allergy. Surprise!

From a sensibly short menu - always a soup, Whalesbone's oysters, a plate of cheese and charcuterie, there are five starters and five mains, including the "surprise" dishes. When they come, they are deeply pleasurable, though no dish will rock your world. Fraser food is robust, honest and driven by the seasons, designed more for satisfaction than sensation.

They've nailed soup and bread - a good thing to get right this time of year. A silky purée of tomato and eggplant with a welcome belt of chili, one visit. A muscular mushroom soup another, scented gently with tarragon.

Bread is made in house and very good.

The best of the starters has been the beet salad: perfectly cooked golden and ruby beets, teamed with paper-thin slices of radish, toasted pecans, a pile of wild rice, another of flavourful greens, a blob of full fat and herby cottage cheese. A topper of excellent bacon adds smokiness and crunch to the cast of characters.

During one visit, duck was slightly chewier than ideal, on a rough mash of white bean, with roasted corn, bacon, perfect green beans, pickled beets and baby bok choy. Quail was my surprise starter - juicy and crisp skinned, gently seasoned, on a bed of soba noodles threaded with edamame. Scallops were ordered for the promised polenta, but were delivered with the same mash of bean and corn. A grilled Cornish hen was succulent, infused with lemon.

They make a first-class cheeseburger at lunch, served with salad and fries, and some wicked comfort desserts - lemon pound cake with blueberry preserves, chocolate brownies with ice cream, fresh cinnamon doughnuts.

This is a really good place to eat. And don't the locals know it. Booking is essential.

Cuisine: Canadian
Cost: $$$: Starters, $7 to $14; Main dishes, $23 to $26

Hours: Open: Lunch/brunch/dinner, Tuesday to Sunday.

Features: Patio dining.
Accessibility: Two steps at entrance, washrooms down a narrow hal.

7 Springfield Rd., Ottawa, ON
613-749-1444
website

What you hope to find when re-examining a restaurant after a few years have elapsed is that maturity has taken a promising new place to an even higher level.

At the very least you expect the restaurant has remained solidly good, particularly when there have been no changes in its kitchen.

You hope for this because there is nothing drearier than writing about a once-great restaurant that is now on the decline.

So cheerlessly I report that my recent Bocado visits speak of a malaise in both the front of the house and in the scullery.

In 2006, when Bocado was born, I was thrilled with the bold flavours of Tomasz Gurzynski's well-cooked Mediterranean food. I was also impressed with the caring service and the astonishingly fair prices. Bocado means 'mouthful' in Spanish and there were lots of those that made me smile.

But in 2009, those bocados are lacklustre, the service is amateur and the costs are up. After three-plus years, I wouldn't begrudge the price rise (roughly $8-$10 per main dish) but when the quality has dropped, the hike smarts.

As for the food, I'd have another bowl of the roasted vegetable and mushroom soup (thickly satisfying). But that's about it. A butternut squash soup spoke mostly (and uncomfortably) of cream. The grilled calamari arrives lukewarm, its texture rubbery, its flavour wan. Lots of medium rare lamb in the lamb starter, but the presentation is haphazard and the roasted vegetables beside it - zucchini, red pepper, onion - are fridge-cold.

It was unfortunate for Bocado that just the day before (at the Fraser Café) I had sampled a beet salad that made my heart soar. It made this version seem so dull - shredded beets on a bed of shredded romaine, with a few slivers of cold pear and untreated walnuts does not a memory make. None of the elements comes together in any meaningful way.

The meat from a lamb shank should fall sweetly from the bone into a pond of something delicious. Here it is bland, without lamb flavour, without the bone, and with the texture of pot roast. Medallions of lamb arrived well-done, tough, in a far too salty demi glace sauce. Chicken is dreary beneath its breading.

The Bocado lunch menu is the dinner menu, slightly tapered and with smaller price tags. At each visit, lunch and dinner, the special is salmon Provencal. There's nothing special about it. The fish filet sits on an ample bed of inedibly crunchy, lukewarm rice, scattered with soggy zucchini, grape tomatoes and unseasoned carrots. I eat the fish, which is tolerable, and must leave the rest.

All desserts are imported from other shops. The apple tart is fridge-cold, has a soggy crust and comes with fake whipped cream. The chocolate mousse cake in a Mediterranean restaurant doesn't appeal.

At my final visit, during dessert and coffee, I am well aware of an animated discussion unfolding in the kitchen, punctuated with shouting, laughter and a parade of salty language. The doors may be closed, but soundproof they aren't. We may be the only table left in the dining room, but it's 1:30 p.m. and lunch service isn't over, gentlemen. Temper your conversations until the paying public has left the building.

We finish our espresso (which arrives tepid) pay the bill, fetch our own coats and let ourselves out.

Cuisine: Mediterranean
Cost: $$$: Starters, $6 to $13; main dishes, $20 to $31 description

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

Features: Patio dining.
Accessibility: Steps into restaurant, washrooms downstairs.

343 Somerset St. W., Ottawa, ON
613-233-1536
website