CapitalDining.ca

Unless it was your nursery food, German cooking may hold little appeal beyond being ample, comforting and working well with a pitcher of Bavarian beer.

If there is a nouveau, lighter style of German cuisine, I have not encountered it. And you won't find such a thing at Lindenhof. For 30-some years, from a variety of Ottawa locations, this German restaurant has dished up the plates it has always served.

Lindenhof's menu has survived its latest move intact. (It is now settled in the middle of the smorgasbord of cuisines that lately flavours Little Italy.) So have the prices, I'm happy to report - a rarity when a restaurant relocates and has all those relocation bills to pay.

Here still are the schnitzels, schweinshaxe, and sauerbraten, still served with spaetzles, sauerkraut and tart red cabbage. Here are the slow-cooked, steadfast dishes based on meat and starch that we have come to associate with central Europe.

Lindenhof's last home on Forest Road in Ottawa West, was a tired, dreary-looking space, with a surplus of fake vines and dusty bunches of grapes. I don't miss it.

This Preston Street location is smaller, brighter, busier, though also more generic-looking. The same space has been home to

Italian restaurant Gusti and, more recently, to Four Cuisines Bistro. Lindenhof's pale walls are outfitted with a few gnarly planks of reclaimed wood, and adorned with Bavarian beer memorabilia, Deutsch porcelain and assorted München bric-a-brac. There is music, of course, to provide mood (and lights on full blast to take some of it away).

There are appetizers, but you won't need them. Main dishes come with soup (reliably good) or salad (fine). Pork edges out the other meaty mains - the schnitzel is pounded flat tenderloin, breaded and fried and served with spaetzles, or with bacon and onion home fries and red cabbage. It is tender, tasty and fine enough. And there are the wursts, garlic sausages, served with sauerkraut, mashed potatoes and a daub of strapping mustard. Is that riesling in the mushroom cream sauce that naps the pork tenderloin? It's good.

But I prefer the braised dishes - the schweinshaxe (pork hock), the meat falling from the bone as it should, and the sauerbraten of roast beef, soused for days in a sour cocktail with juniper berries and cloves, resulting in slabs of very tender, very juicy beef. This comes with a solid dumpling and shredded vegetables, colourful on an otherwise shades-of-brown plate, and served al dente.

In a cheeky mood one night, I order the vegetarian platter. Not Lindenhof's finest dish, more a hasty collection of the few non-meat bits on the menu - zwiebelkuchen (an onion tart, much like a quiche, of cream and egg and nutmeg, with soft onion on pastry, that tasted overheated, a bit dry) plus apple-red cabbage, the house sauerkraut, a mountain of yummy home fries, plus some salad and vegetables.

There is strudel, of course, but we find it has little apple flavour, and there is Black Forest cake and custard, neither of which, I regret to tell you, I have tried. With bags of leftover schweinshaxe and such, it's always seems absurdly piggy to ask for a round of desserts.

But I have tried the beer. Four are available on tap. The Lindenhof lager goes well with much of this food, or if you favour a darker brew, the Warsteiner Dunkel. My favourite was the Hacker-Pschorr.

Service is darling and efficient, with a dash of the maternal. You are cared for without being fussed over by a charming pro. She loves the food and wants you to love it, too. You don't love it as much as she. But you understand its appeal.

Cuisine: Eastern European
Cost: $$: Starters, $7 to $10; main dishes, $16 to $28 description

Hours: Open daily, for lunch and dinner

Accessibility: Steps to entrance, washrooms in basement.

268 Preston St., Ottawa, ON
613-725-3481
website

GANANOQUE, Ont. - I've been looking for a compelling reason to eat in this town again.

Casa Bella used to draw me off the highway pretty regularly, but since it closed in 2007 (its chef-owners Stev George and Deanna Harrington moved to Kingston, opening an Italian restaurant called Olivea in 2008) Gananoque's gastronomy hasn't really beckoned.

Yes, there's good eating in Kingston and in Prince Edward County, but Gananoque has always appealed for practical reasons. It has the great advantage of being reachable in a matter of minutes. No great detour is required to pop off the fast food 401 and head south for a real meal. Indeed, take exit 645 off the highway and, if the lights are co-operating, you're in Gananoque's city centre in three minutes. Turn right at the water and seconds later, you'll see the Athlone Inn, a Victorian mansion constructed in 1870, operated as an inn since the 1950s.

It sits pretty much across the street from the truly spectacular Victoria Rose Inn, which operates as a bed and breakfast. Though the smaller and less architecturally imposing Athlone Inn pales a bit in comparison, it has the great advantage of a top-notch dining room.

It had been my plan to explore the good eats in the Thousand Islands region this summer, when many restaurants come out of a winter hibernation. But a chance e-mail from an Athlone fan had me veering off the highway on a homeward bound trip from Toronto, seeking sustenance on a 34-below evening.

Miranda McMillan's welcome was warm. She and her husband, Jason, have done a splendid job of refurbishing the old house, highlighting the height and depth of its mature bones, while resisting the all-too-common urge to doily-up the old place or paint it all dusty rose with floral print trim.

The restaurant is spread over two rooms. Elegantly dressed and formally appointed, its tan walls display the address's original architectural drawings, its tables are set with tulips.

Chef Jason McMillan, who trained at the Jasper Park Lodge and in restaurants and inns on Vancouver Island, shows equal restraint with the menu. French in focus, it relies on time-worn classic dishes, quality ingredients and beautiful presentations.

It was a night for French onion soup with a cap of crostini and Gruyère cheese. The onions were soft, but still had some bite, and the beef broth was deep, dark and boozy. A shell of puff pastry, buttery and fresh, supported an abundance of well-garlicked snails, in a stew of lardons, browned pearl onions and woodsy mushrooms. Its sauce had a voluptuous body. The first-rate house bread mopped it up nicely.

Two main dishes to report on - both meaty, both worthy. A filet mignon of rare beef on a bed of mashed potatoes and buttered green beans was escorted with a triumphant sauce bordelaise fragrant with tarragon. You may add a side of woodland mushrooms and I recommend you do that. You will receive a generous variety paddling happily in more of that anise-scented sauce.

A nubbly coating of hazelnuts, grated parmesan, and chopped mint clung to a hunk of lamb with a glue of grainy mustard. It was roasted to a desired medium rare, perched on minted fingerling potatoes and served with vine tomatoes of remarkable tomato flavour.

For dessert, house-made ice cream topping a lovely almond and rhubarb cake overlaid with a strawberry compote did the trick.

In the summer, my sources tell me, there is a patio for al fresco dining. Once the snow's off it, I'd like to be on it.

Cuisine: French
Cost: $$$: Starters, $9 to $14; main dishes, $22 to $30. description

Hours: Open Thursday to Sunday from 5 pm in winter months, Tuesday to Sunday from May to October

Features: Fireplace dining, Patio dining.
Accessibility: Steps to front door.

250 King St. W., Gananoque, ON
613-382-3822 /
website

There's something about the old Hull district of Gatineau I seem incapable of navigating with any sort of dignity.

My style of locating a new restaurant there typically involves stumbling around in the dark searching for a street sign, a number, then piloting a maze of one-way streets on the hunt for a van-length landing strip. Parking found, I then try to recall, "Where was that restaurant again?"

Throw a snow squall into the muddle and I'm further in the dark.

The upside of this sort of hapless maneuvering is that it builds an appetite. Which is essential for L'Aubergine.

It's not so much that plates are heaped. It's more that they are wildly busy. Each one supports a great number of elements. Some might say a wacky number. Others might say a generous number. She who must scribble pages of notes might say a wearying number. Good thing the bits and pieces on the plates are tasty, even if they don't always seem to dance to the same beat.

They're colourful, too. L'Aubergine chef Olivier Joanicot's plates are an eye-popping display of colour and construct.

Colour reigns in the dining room too. The interior walls of this old brick house have been painted cheerful shades of red, yellow, and blue, though the Crayola feel is thankfully played down with soft lighting. At the earliest possible convenience, I would respectfully suggest getting rid of the rec room panelling and recovering the green and pink seats. At the very least, some cushioning on the monastically-hard floral bench would be appreciated.

The pink and green (and gold) scheme - on chairs, on banquette, in the stained glass front window - you might recall from when this place belonged to L'Oncle Tom. Though the etching in that window now reads L'Aubergine. And it's a much better restaurant.

A shot glass of gazpacho plumped up with Matane shrimp is the opening move. The fact this little freebie has a companion - a Chinese spoon plump with preserves and a flavourful wedge of terrine - should serve as warning. There is a generous spirit in this kitchen, and you might want to pace yourself.

We didn't, ordered the table d'hôte one visit and found ourselves flagging after the first course. It didn't help that the first course was a thick fish soup, perfumed with saffron threads, fennel fronds and crowned with croutons and that we lapped every bit of it.

Or that the next round was duck and pork. On the same plate. An unexpected gift of pig, as it turned out. We had ordered a duck confit of the leg, and a lovely roasted breast, crisp-skinned and moist, and with these, lo and behold, a complimentary side of juicy pink slices of Nagano pork, served with a riot of vegetables, crisps (of taro root, of plantain) and dibs and dobs of oils and sauces.

Order the house special appetizer - foie gras crème brûlée - and alongside the ladle-sized spoon of the liver-custard (delicious, though the crackling sugar crust I had to flick off, its sweetness too much for me) you find a mound of caramelized onion relish and another of cranberry. You also find a delicious baba ganoush fresh with cilantro and spiked with an aubergine crisp, a tower of well-sesamed hummus, more vegetable crisps (parsnip, carrot), bits of fruit (blueberries, ground cherries, a cherry tomato) and artfully placed dots and squiggles of infused oil.

The plate is a thing of great beauty. Or else it's fussy and over the top. Whatever your take on it, be advised that the elements that fill it are each delicious, though you might want to separate the bites with a glug of wine or a bit of bread. Exactly what a foie gras custard and hummus bin tahini have to do with each other is something of a mystery.

It did cross my mind that the plates were filled with various and sundry treats because the restaurant was largely empty, and the chef was in a magnanimous mood with his mis-en-place. But who's to know?

At a second dinner, we are wiser, and the restaurant slightly busier, and we opt for simple. A Caesar - nothing special - and mussels, a basin of the black beauties, fresh tasting, lightly steamed to just-open in a fragrant wine broth, and to close, a crème brûlée perfumed with orange blossom water and with sweet chunks of roasted pear.

Service, when provided by co-owner and chef in his own right, Arsène Delrue, is charming.

Cuisine: French
Cost: $$$: Starters, $10 to $11; main dishes, $ 16 to $28 description

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

Accessibility: Step at entrance, washrooms upstairs.

138 rue Wellington, Gatineau, QC
819-777-3533
website