A cautionary tale
Attention, Ottawa restaurant lovers: The Citizen has a new eBook out (for $3.99), called “Ottawa Restaurants.” Nothing wrong with that: Ottawa diners deserve a good e-guide collection of restaurant reviews. What’s wrong, and hence this cautionary note, is for a [read more]
Weekly Lunch Pick: St Martha’s
Tall tin ceiling? Yup. Espresso-tinted wood? Got it. Granite bars, hefty mirrors, bistro lighting? Check, check, check. Big, busy, boisterous, brasserie atmosphere? Not so much. At least not at my solitary lunch. Enter the diminutive St Martha’s Brasserie d’Orléans and you won’t [read more]
Ottawa’s Power Restaurants: Macleans style
For Macleans Magazine, Special Politics Issue; “The Power List,” published on November 29/12, a piece I wrote on where the movers and shakers in this town dine out. For the full version, with references to power eateries of old, check [read more]
True Loaf’s Stollen
“Nothing says holiday cheer like Stollen!” Eh? Eh?? Well that’s my new cry anyway. This was to be a post on plum pudding, but when I got to the True Loaf Bread Company, from whom I had picked up a fantastic pud [read more]
Comme C’est Bon!
Comme c’était bon, actually. This was last spring, as you can see from the fiddlehead photo. We were in the Byward Market, stall number 23, that of Madame Cléroux. She stood on crates, all four feet something of her, selling [read more]
Gezellig: Welkom in de buurt
Beckta has moved into my old bank. I’m not bummed about it. Truth is I’d rather walk to lunch than pay bills at this address. But I must say: I miss the books. Gezellig, Steve Beckta’s third restaurant, is on [read more]
Eat Canada launch!
“Dining In Downtown Canada” was its working title. When my friend John Gilchrist, Calgary’s best known food fellow (restaurant critic, author, columnist, editor, educator) asked if I’d contribute the Ottawa-Gatineau section for a new Canadian restaurant app he was working [read more]
