Fresco Bistro Italiano

354 Elgin Street, 613-235-7541

Frescobistro.ca It's nice they give free refills of my iced tea. Yes, I agree, with my 15-year-old. That is nice.

We're quiet for a while. He picks at his dish, I pick at mine. He's a nice boy, this boy of mine. Slow to find fault. His dad's genes dominate.

"Do you like your chicken?" I ask. "It's OK. A bit dry, I guess," he says.

Do you like your pasta, he asks me, in turn. Naw.

He takes another sip of his second iced tea, and I take one of my wine, and we both agree we really like the feel of the place. Fresco Bistro Italiano (once called Frescocielo, and it's still called that on the restaurant's awning) has a relaxed ambience. We like the old brick walls, precision-hung with framed black and whites of ordinary Ottawa scenes. We like the quirky wine cork display nailed to the pillar at the copper-topped bar, and how the lighting balances the retro with the modern, flattering the complexion of both the middle-aged and mottled. We like the bistro feel of brown paper covers over white linen, the long black leather bench and the little candles on every table. One of us likes the TV over the bar tuned into the Senators game, albeit going badly.

And so it went at my fourth and final visit to Fresco Bistro Italiano on Elgin Street. Looks, 10. Food, three.

The Ottawa restaurant scene is many scenes, of course, and this restaurant belongs to a "scene" that has a remarkable and puzzling endurance. I refer to Italian-ish restaurants. They arrived in the 1980s and their bill of fare really hasn't changed much in decades. They almost always have Sambucca shrimp, for instance, and bruschetta, regardless of season, deep-fried, battered calamari and a goat cheese and grilled vegetable salad. They do dishes they call risotto (which in this case turns out to be mushy rice) and gnocchi (which taste like they come from a bag) and you can always, for a price, add grilled chicken or tiger shrimp to any pasta dish.

You can now request gluten-free pasta (add $2) or multigrain spaghettini. The other bit of modernity is the sharing platter that favours compilation over cooking. Fresco has two of these. I've only tasted the seafood one.

The Antipasti di mare was $17 of defrosted rings of rubbery squid, three grilled shrimp, which tasted mostly of salt, a few mushy smoked mussels that tasted of their tin, two rolls of smoked salmon (fine enough), a lemon wedge, a few capers and a pile of olives and pickled vegetables from any supermarket. In other words, an assembly of what ate like inferior ingredients, many of which seemed resentful of being thrown together, priced heftily.

The fried calamari ($12) tasted only of oil and batter. Beneath the crisp brown wrappers, one could be eating anything.

The soup of the day - chickpea, roasted red pepper and pancetta - had good flavour, but the peas were undercooked. The grilled vegetables in the goat cheese salad were dull and very cold. The citrus beet salad with toasted pine nuts, feta and orange was a better bet and the carpaccio, though not stellar, was good enough.

The pastas on offer go like this: you choose your noodle, you choose your treatment. The pastas on offer taste like this: pasta cooked earlier, reheated with sauce on top. I have yet to eat anything al dente, or any sauce that sings, or any pasta that binds with any sauce. They use comical amounts of garlic.

The gnocchi is trumpeted at every dinner. I ask if it's made in-house. They admit not. But the sauce, they tell me, is to die for. True, put enough cream, bacon and mushrooms on something and it masks all kinds of fundamental problems. Gnocchi should taste of potatoes. These were stodgy, flavourless bullets. We were told the ravioli was homemade, but the pasta wrappers were too thick and the filling (portobello mushrooms and cheese) was glue that took some serious tongue work to dislodge from the roof of my mouth. And please, please, if you aren't willing (or unable) to go the distance to turn firm kernels of rice into creamy, al dente magic, then don't put risotto on your menu. This risotto was mushy, oversalted cafeteria fare.

I thought the vegetables were nicely done with the main dishes, but most of the entrées I tried were flawed. The duck ($28) was tough and overcooked, the chicken was a bit dry, and the veal, which should be an Italian restaurant's crowning moment, was grey and sinewy and far too thick for scallopine. I thought the pickerel pretty good - it tasted fresh, was encrusted with cornmeal, and served with a beet relish - but that turgid side of white wine and parmesan risotto brought it down.

Servers are pleasant enough, but they all use cheat sheets. Every time. At every hour. Please memorize the day's soup and the day's two specials; if you can't, you shouldn't be a server in a restaurant with main dishes upward of $25.

We liked the tiramisu and the carrot cake, moist and carroty with a pleasant roof of cream-cheese frosting. The lemon tart, however, managed to be puckering yet only dimly lemoned, its pastry a bit soggy.

The bill we were given at each visit made me grumpy. For the same price, I can point you in all sorts of delicious directions. So why is this place so busy? A puzzle that.

My son is grumpy too, but mostly because the Sens lost. Though, lucky him, he doesn't have to write about it.

Cuisine: Italian
Cost: $$$: Starters, $10-$16; pizza/pasta, $14-$22; mains, $23-$35 description

Hours: Open: Lunch, Wednesday to Friday; dinner daily

Features: Late dining.
Accessibility: Easy access into restaurant, but washrooms are dow.

354 Elgin St., Ottawa, ON
613-235-7541
website

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

In addition to being truthful, I figure it's also in my best interest to speak highly of this place. In giving Kiko a thumbs-up, as I'm about to do, I have hope it will start to bustle.

A bustling sushi restaurant is what you want. Bustle means busy, and busy means turnover, and when the chief product is fresh fish, turnover is a desirable thing.

My three outings to Kiko have been largely lonely. Just my table, plus a few scattered others, never more than a dozen diners at any of my visits, echoing over a large, modern and smartly understated space.

You will find Kiko in the new Preston Square Building on the re-constructed main drag of Little Italy. Open for about two months, its owners -- a family of brothers, sisters and in-laws -- come from Vancouver.

Kiko's menu is too long. Eight pages, more than 200 items, plus combos and specials make for exhausting reading. The menu is divided, as you might expect, into soup and salad and appetizers, plus tataki, sushi and sashimi, a page of the house special rolls, then vegetable rolls, Maki, Temaki, Tempura, Teriyaki, Donburi, Noodles, Desserts, plus combos of various things.

Makes you want to plop yourself at the sushi bar and order omakase (chef's choice). Which I've done, at one solo lunch, and which proved rewarding, but at other visits, I've attempted to mine the menu for good eating.

Of the non-sushi/sashimi offerings, the inevitable miso soup is gentle and balanced. It's available with fresh clams, which makes it more generously salted, but even better. I like the wakame seaweed salad, with its delicate sesame flavour, chewy chomp and garland of beet ribbon. The ebi gyoza, dumplings of whole shrimp and ground pork, are meaty, crunchy treats.

The shrimp and vegetable tempura is a pretty display of delicious things. The shrimp are particularly good, big and juicy, encased in a thin, crisp batter, and the assorted vegetables -- zucchini, green bean, eggplant, sweet potato -- are perfectly cooked, the coating wispy and just greasy enough to add flavour, while allowing the vegetables to speak clearly on their own. The tempura dipping sauce is weightless and well balanced.

A chef's selection of sashimi, presented on a snowy base of shredded daikon, features fresh-tasting fish, nicely sized and precision-cut across the grain, such that the flesh has a full, smooth feel in the mouth, before dissolving like butter.

Kiko's "special rolls" have typically gimmicky names like Mango Tango and Rapture Roll, but the ones I've tried have been a toothsome balance of textures and colours, a pleasing contrast of salty and sweet, soft and crunch, the rice lightly packed and nicely seasoned. Some assemblies have added zip from a not-cloying spicy mayonnaise, some are served with a swath of sauce (mustard, lemon, green onion and wasabi). A tasty veneer of beef tataki (just seared, the flesh left raw) over daikon hillocks, arrives surrounding a pond of spicy, gingery ponzu sauce.

I've been less taken with some of the hot dishes. The scallop motoyaki came recommended by our server, but I found the assembly of chopped scallop and mushrooms (menu says oyster, these were button) baked in a mayonnaise sauce, cloying, sweet and fishy-tasting. A noodle hot pot is crowned with shrimp tempura but the seafood served with the thick, slippery rice noodles is dull and overdone, while the broth is too sweet for my liking.

There are teriyakis (chicken, beef, salmon, tuna, scallop and combinations of these, which I haven't tried) and donburi dishes (various things on rice) and we've liked the beef don best, though again, I find the sugar level high. In fact, I brought the rest home for my sweet sons -- who devoured the leftover beef (tender) and onions (caramelized) on rice, and declared it fabulous -- while I ordered another round of 'Cherry Blossom' (salmon and avocado wrapped with Red tuna, topped with tobiko, on a bed of seaweed) and 'Crunch and Munch' (shrimp tempura, cucumber, unagi, avocado and tobiko with a dash of wasabi and green onion sauce. Yum.)

So here you go: thumbs up to a new sushi restaurant. Kiko strikes me as a cut above, with eager service provided by the young owners, and in need of more raw fish fans keen on enjoying a fresh product that swims regularly in and out of Little Italy.

Cuisine: Japanese - Sushi
Cost: $$: Starters, $4 to $12; sushi/sashimi (2-3 pieces) description

Hours: Open: Monday to Saturday for lunch, daily for dinner

Features: Vegetarian options.
Accessibility: Fully accessible.

349B Preston St., Ottawa, ON
613-695-3143
website

The year is young, so it's somewhat brazen to declare the Heirloom Café the best meal of 2010. But it was good enough to guarantee our late-evening encounter with a Queensway-parking-lot of fan cars inching out of a Sens game did nothing to disturb the high spirits of well-fed women.

The Heirloom Café is owned by the husband-and-wife team of Richard Kletnieks and Brandy Nieto, both graduates of Le Cordon Bleu in Sandy Hill. The duo furthered their education at the catering company, A Culinary Conspiracy, and, briefly, at Savana Café. But when Nick Diak and Brent Pattee, chef-owners since 2001 of Fitzgerald's Restaurant in Almonte, announced they were moving on, Kletnieks and Nieto jumped at the restaurant space housed in the splendid Victoria Woolen Mill by the falls of the Mississippi River. They renovated a bit and reopened in October 2009 as the Heirloom Café.

So they are rookies at this restaurant ownership business and new to this Valley town, but they're starting in a sensible way with a short, seasonal menu of likable dishes at levelheaded prices.

The house-made gravlax is worth the trip all on its own. Scented with cumin and dill and set on greens, the spices build and reveal themselves as you munch. A slaw of green apples and radish cuts the richness of the oily fish, and gives the dish a bright crunch.

There are scallops to start, and they come with beets and bacon, as well they should. The sweetness of the beet, the milky softness of the scallop and the chew of the bacon make for endearing eating. A smooth chicken paté roofed with peppercorns is the highlight of the Heirloom charcuterie plate (built for two).

Foie gras comes with cranberry relish and gingersnaps. Sweetness with liver is always welcome, so long as it's kept in check, and the choice of these spicy cookies, especially such delicate, wafery ones, is inspired.

The most seductive main dish turns out to be steak. The meat (from Kerr Farms, the menu reports) has a crisp crust, a supple texture and fine beefy flavour. It comes with soft shallots, sweet and pink from their slow roast in wine, and a dark jus sharpened with mustard.

Preserved lemon gives a fine zing to a butter-baked pickerel, while surrounding vegetables are all perfectly correct. Rabbit has less appeal. The dark meat is tender enough, paddling in a cream sauce with oyster mushrooms, but without much flavour beyond the cream. The long saddle is wrapped in proscuitto, sliced and served with a pesto of walnut and arugula. While the meat is moist, it isn't dreamy.

Desserts, created by pastry chef Brandy, are uniformly good, none better than the spiced orange and sour cherry cheesecake with a snappy ginger crust. Though the pecan tart is wicked too.

If I had an itsy-bitsy criticism, it would be that the red wine is served either too warm or too cold.

Service is cheery. And so are we.

Cuisine: Canadian
Cost: $$$: Starters, $6 to $12; main dishes, $19 to $29

Hours: Open for lunch, Tuesday to Friday, and Sunday brunch; dinner, Tuesday to Sunday

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

7 Mill Street, Almonte, ON
613-256-9653
website

First, a bit of background: Last June, the restaurant we knew since 2001 as "Signatures" (professionally staffed) and the lunch room we knew as "Bistro Cordon Bleu" (run by students of the culinary school) shut down to reorganize. In November, it reopened as a joint venture, staffed by both students and certified chefs, with Yannick Anton remaining as its executive chef.

So let's start with a before-and-after comparison.

Gone from the dinner experience are the little cushioned stools for ladies' handbags, the silver domes over monogrammed plates, the many pages of à la carte, high-priced, luxurious French food and the four table d'hôtes that accompanied.

What remains are the stately building, the elegant dining room and the very civilized service.

You can still dine in complete comfort here, but Signatures (sorry, Le Cordon Bleu Bistro @ Signatures) now feeds you more simply, with less fanfare, and at a price several affordable rungs below what it used to be. (The most costly dish on the new winter menu is $27. That dish used to be $47.)

They still greet you at the door, remove your coat, hold out your chair, and fill your water glass instantly and often. The staff continues to dispense dependable wine advice with considerable charm. And no one ever asks you to keep your fork.

The dinner menu is now a concise one-pager. On a January menu, there were six starters and seven mains, a seasonal roll call of Frenchy things I want to eat -- oysters, beef tartare, onion soup, snails in garlic butter, roasted lamb shank, duck with green beans, gnocchi with mushrooms and bacon.

For the most part, it was the starters that caught our fancy. That onion soup boasted a much reduced duck consommé, rich and only slightly too salty, capped with Gruyèred toast. The salad of mixed lettuces, with radish and carrot, was unfussy, dressed as only the French can dress greens. A green spiral of parsley oil and a long loose line of black olive tapenade were the adornments for an assertively garlicky brandade of salt cod, a mashed-potato-looking purée of fish, cream and oil.

They make a fine steak tartare here. The raw, maroon-coloured mound of hand-chopped beef, mixed with shallots, capers, parsley and pepper, and sandwiched with wafers of gaufrette potatoes, rested next to a soft-boiled quail egg, wrapped in crumbs and deep-fried. Moved on top of the mound, it spilled its golden yolk over all. The dish was finished with piquant polkadots of mustard sauce sweetened with apple. This was a lovely plate.

The one starter that failed to impress was the snails in pesto, served in a hollow bun. The escargots were lukewarm and the bread basket felt gimmicky.

There were problems with some of the main dishes. A duck breast was terribly tough. I took three 50-chew bites and left the rest. The artichoke and green olive ravioli that accompanied the scallops arrived curling up, the pouches dried at the edges and chewy, as though they'd been languishing beneath the heat lamps too long, while the smoked tomato sauce overpowered the scallops.

Better was the gnocchi of spinach and ricotta, scattered with meaty King Eryngii mushrooms, thin slices of braised fennel, and thick chunks of prosciutto. And best of all was the lamb shank, the meat perfectly tumbling-off the bone, arranged as a raft on a gritty sea of Puy lentils with pearls of roasted garlic and one lean, well-flavoured lamb sausage.

With what else to end a French bistro meal but profiteroles au chocolat? Three school-made ice creams in very fresh choux puffs, slathered with a divine chocolate sauce.

Dinner here was not without some disappointment. The absolute confidence I had in this restaurant has been slightly rattled by my last two meals here. But still, I am dining in fine comfort in an educational facility where culinary students are part of my plate, where the price point is very reasonable, and in a dining room in which I feel utterly cared for. And these are rare and precious things.

Cuisine: French
Cost: $$$: Starters, $7 to $14; main dishes, $19 to $27 description

Hours: Open for lunch, Tuesday to Friday; dinner, Thursday to Saturday

Features: Wine list worth noting.
Accessibility: Steps to front door, though a ramp is available. C.

453 Laurier Ave. E., Ottawa, ON
613-236-2499
website

Sitting as it is at the corner of Bank and Catherine streets, with MacEwen gas across the street and the Queensway overpass looming overhead, we are not expecting much in the looks department from this new Thai restaurant.

But Talay Thai, now six months old, is actually quite pretty. Its comely look has much to do with colour -- mango-orange walls and vibrant paintings -- and with the fact that things match -- the smart leather-covered chairs, the dozen dark wood tables set with funky cutlery, flowers, bamboo mats. And though your jaw doesn't exactly drop as you enter, the feel of the place pleasantly surprises.

Our server -- whom I recognize from a number of Thai restaurants around town (Anna, Sweet Basil, Bangkok Noodle House) -- tells us that Pookie's (another good Thai restaurant in another tricky location) and Talay share the same decorator. If you know Pookie, this restaurant will feel familiar.

And, like Pookie, the food is a cut above.

While Talay is hardly taking Ottawa's brand of Thai restaurant in any fabulous new direction -- we're still waiting on that to happen -- its execution of the what-you'd-expects (the classic soups, dough-wrapped starters, salads, curries, stir-fries and pad dishes) -- is very sound.

What's more, they're fairly priced, generously portioned, beautifully presented and kindly served.

My first taste of Talay was a quick, late lunch -- $13.95 bought me the daily special: a small cup of clear soup (no rousing flavour but a gentle, clean beginning) and four small dishes, served with rice. A curry, a stir-fry, a deep fried won ton thing (stuffed with chicken and drizzled with a sweet chili sauce) and a refreshingly tart mango salad with wonderful spicy-sour, crunchy-soft balance.

This was no dumbed-down version of yum.

Our order of saté and four skewers of chicken arrives and though the meat is a bit salty, a bit squeaky, it is moist enough and comes with a deliciously gritty peanut sauce. That same good peanut sauce appears in a shrimp dish we enjoy.

If you like noodles, there is a small selection of pad dishes, and if you tire of the ubiquitous pad thai, particularly good is the spicier pad kee mao, more savoury than sweet, anchored with slippery noodles and with a mix of shrimp, sprouts, ground peanuts, egg, green onion and tofu. The pepper level is pronounced, but not outrageous. If you're a chilihead and want outrageous, ask for the heat to be turned up. Or order what's called the "jungle curry."

We don't. But can suggest other curries -- the green, the red. Not brow-moppers, but deeply flavourful.

Stir-fries tend to be on the sweet side, but vegetables are bright and crisp, meats are tender and sauces are fragrant. Fish dishes feature frozen tilapia, so we took a miss. (Talay, we are told, means ocean. Perhaps it could work on strengthening its seafood dishes.)

Desserts arrive dressed with pretty puddles of patterned sauce. The mango ice cream is made in-house, and there's a pleasant crème brûlée made with coconut cream.

Talay has a decent wine list, though only the Chilean house comes by the glass. The beer list checks all the usual popular Asian bottles -- Singha, Tsingtao, Tiger, Asahi.

All in all, a nice night out in a pretty little restaurant by the Queensway.

Cuisine: Thai
Cost: $$: Starters, $5 to $8; main dishes, $11 to $15 description

Hours: Open for lunch, Monday to Friday; dinner daily.

Accessibility: Two steps to front door.

511 Bank St., Ottawa, ON
613-238-2529
website

Things are changing in Little Italy at a remarkable rate.

The opening of a Korean restaurant where Angelina's used to be is one of the more obvious signs. You might say that the shifting gastronomy of Preston Street is one of the more exciting transformations of the '00s. But curious too is the rise in number of Korean restaurants dotting the city.

Seems to me 10 years ago we had two. We now can boast - by my rough calculation - 13, if you include those that serve a mix of Japanese and Korean dishes.

More homesick South Koreans in Ottawa? More interest from the general public in the strong flavours of Korean food? Tasty, affordable dining now competing with Vietnamese noodle houses?

Don't know. Plan to find out, but for now, I will say, with as much authority as I can muster, that the one-year-old Le Kim Chi is a delight.

The food is fresh and flavourful, the service is charming and the ambience - if you can struggle through the mall music - is perfectly pleasant.

It's run by the Jang family - sisters Kelly and Jennifer, and chef brother Young Koh - and they are a lovely bunch, very keen and very kind.

Le Kim Chi is not the type of place where you cook the food yourself, a style of tabletop grilling, featured at other Korean restaurants. (Stay tuned for that.)

You might start with a Korean Hite beer. Or with Bek Se Ju, a traditional Korean rice wine. Translated it means "100-year wine" because it's said to have those live-forever properties such as ginseng, ginger and cinnamon. I prefer the beer. Or the roasted barley tea. But you can give it a go.

Other things to give a go include mandoo gook - a soup, rich and fragrant, the brown broth filled in with crunchy scallions and soft pork and chive dumplings. You may have those excellent dumplings as pot stickers too (goon mandoo) fried and served with a citrus soy sauce.

I love the pancakes, studded with chunky bits of seafood and scallion, or just with vegetables. Jap chae is a sticky jumble of glass noodles (yam) with onion, carrot, zucchini, spinach and peppers in a garlic-sesame-soy dressing that's balanced and nicely ungreasy.

There are pot dishes to recommend. A stone pot is heated to sizzling, a layer of cooked rice (bap) is added, then meat and an array of colourful vegetables are placed on top in a petal formation, with a single raw egg yolk at its head.

Once delivered to the table, our server Kelly demolishes the pretty symmetry by squashing the egg and vigorously mixing the mounds together into a tasty mess called bibimbap. It's a simple peasant dish wherein the rice becomes somewhat crunchy from its encounter with the sizzling pot and the soft meat, sweetly grilled vegetables, and the gochujang (red chili pepper paste served on the side) add the layers of flavour.

Korean dishes come with many small sides, called panchan. With our main dishes we receive sweet potato chunks, fiery chili paste, a bowl of seaweed and, of course, the central panchan - kimchi, or fermented Napa cabbage layered with red chili paste.

Jjim is a sweetly soupy dish of braised beef shank and vegetables.

There's bulgogi (grilled marinated sirloin), which is tender and deliciously unctuous, and there's kalbi (grilled short ribs). For something spicier, try the silky tofu dishes, or a pork stir-fry called dulucheegee. For adventurous palates, there's eel "nicely and well broiled" served with vegetables and ginger, and pork belly with soybean paste.

For vegetarians - for whom Korean food is traditionally tricky - there are veg-versions of silky tofu stews (most tofu dishes come with meat or fish) and vegetable bibimbaps.

Sesame pinwheel cookies are made in-house and are delicious.

Prices are more Preston Street than Somerset, with main dishes creeping up to $20, though most plates fall into the teens.

If you aren't conversant with Korean food, Le Kim Chi is a tasty introduction.

Cuisine: Korean
Cost: $$: Starters, $3.45 to $13; main dishes, $13 to $21

Hours: Open Monday to Saturday for lunch, daily for dinner.

Accessibility: Steps to entrance; washrooms downstairs.

420 Preston St., Ottawa, ON
613-233-2433
website