The Complete Works of William Shakespeare could be just one of many diversions if you were dining alone at The Manx. It looked like a nice, clean, unread copy. Fretting about slopping my burger over some soliloquy, I chose not to pull it off the back shelf for company at my solo Manx meal last week.

Besides, the burger required my full concentration. Was it the chipotle aioli that gave it such a sultry smokiness? Or was there something else?

After she caught me in the act of pulling the thing apart for closer inspection, my server poked her head out the bar pass (I was deep in the corner booth) to report that it was the cheddar that was smoked.

"We smoke it here. We smoke everything ourselves. In fact, we make everything from scratch."

When I last wrote about this long-running underground pub, it had no competition. If you were on Elgin Street and wanted a tasty meal for a reasonable price in convivial surroundings, The Manx was it. Today, there are good-bet choices on what seems to me an increasingly tastier street. Among those good bets, the funky Oz Kafe and the new Town Gastropub. So given what you might call neighbourly competition, I wondered if The Manx queues were quite as long as I remembered them.

Well they are.

I also wanted to check out the renovation job I had been told about. The room is essentially the same, I'm happy to report, but it is now rimmed with a padded red bench, and the floors seem to have been redone since my last visit. They've added more copper-topped tables, some high, some low, and perhaps that copy of The Bard's best stuff is also new? But The Manx remains a loud, happy place with a gnarled-around-the-edges English alehouse feel, and here you may eat and drink well and fully and for not too much. Benches may have budged about in the four years since I last darkened The Manx doors, but not the prices.

Of the starters, the lentil soup with roasted corn and cumin warmth was lovely. Very good as well, the black bean quesadillas with smoked onion and a distinctive tomatillo salsa. Butter beans and roasted vegetables gave depth and body to a garlicky hummus, served with warm naan.

From the sandwiches section, the club with roasted chicken breast and peameal bacon was well done, but it was the daily burger with its pile of Le Coprin mushrooms, bronzed onions, chipotle mayo and smoked cheddar that I loved. The meat was juicy, herbed and perfectly seasoned, the portion of vegetables in balance with the thin patty, and the bun was fresh and yielding.

There are four main dishes on offer. The blackboard lists the day's additions. Unfixed to any wall, it roams the room. From that board I encountered the first mild disappointment in the form of a flat iron steak, a bit overcooked and a bit tough, on a layer of avocado and a bed of rice. Better the fish, I thought, miso-glazed trout, gently cooked, with gorgeous fingerling spuds, roasted and lightly doused with sesame, soy and ginger.

The house tomato sauce is delicious, and it makes the naan pizza worth ordering, this one covered lightly with cheese and zucchini.

Warm brownies for dessert with ice cream. Great choice of beer on tap, strong local content on the list, plus an impressive selection of wines and whiskies. The long-running Manx charmingly runs on.

Cuisine: Pub
Cost: $$: Starters, $6 to $12; sandwiches/mains, $13 to $16

Hours: Open daily for lunch and dinner. Open until 1 a.m. (2 a.m. weekends)

Features: Late dining, Vegetarian options.
Accessibility: Stairs down to entrance.

370 Elgin Street, Ottawa, ON
613-231-2070

Every so often a restaurant surfaces that, right from the get-go, seems exactly in the swing of its time and place. Such is Town.

Just a few weeks old, it runs as though it's had a year to find its stride. Part of the smooth functioning begins with a menu of manageable length. This one focuses on small plates of Italian comfort food, plus a smattering of main dishes priced in the $20s.

Town also has pulled together a staff -- men and women in black Town T-shirts -- who can speak with intelligence about the food and drink.

They also appear to enjoy their jobs and each other, which makes this crew a significant source of the good feeling that pervades the new Town.

You enter a narrow space. The garage doors are open to the life on Elgin Street. On the left is a chalkboard wall on which is written the menu. Beyond that, a stainless-steel bar with half a dozen stools. On the right, above a long, brown bench and running the length of a white wall is a glass shelf. Spread along it are votive candles and glass vases of different shapes and heights, each holding a flower, a stem, some lemons. Modish brown tiles cover the floor and two precision rows of reproduction light bulbs hang from the ceiling.

In the open kitchen are co-owner and pastry chef Marc Doiron, formerly at the Rideau Club, along with chef Steve Wall, most recently at the Rideau Club (where he worked with Marc) and, before that, chef at The Whalesbone Oyster House, which is where I knew his food. Marc's wife, Lori Wojcik, who manages Wall Space Gallery in Westboro, is the woman about Town. Her knack for what should go on walls is plain.

The food is very good. If I had a quibble, it would be with its weightiness, particularly at the noon hour when the menu seems designed exclusively by-and-for hungry young men with fully functioning gallbladders.

I found myself on a hot summer day, staring down a short lunch menu of rich, heavy food, longing for lightness, for summer freshness. A cold soup, perhaps a bright salad. But here we have gnudi (delicious) with pesto, cod fritters (fantastic) and a big starter of toasted bread, oiled, topped with chicken liver parfait, rhubarb jam, and a jumble of bacon. It was utterly delicious in a killing sort of way.

Second course -- all sandwiches, on big, yummy buns -- old-fashioned chicken salad with lots of mayonnaise, sweetened with cranberries, a matchstick of green apples, loaded with arugula, and topped with strips of bacon. Fantastic bacon.

Another sandwich, tuna -- again with ample mayonnaise, and with preserved lemon that made a statement.

Sandwiches come with a side salad perked with a zippy vinaigrette, laced with chives. Much was brought home to hungry young men.

More rich, brown food on the dinner menu. Order meatballs as starter (also available as a main) and you get two big ones, fashioned of veal and pork and ricotta cheese, enveloped in a ripe tomato sauce, plopped on soft polenta and topped with chives. Altogether very satisfying.

Gnudi is like gnocchi, but with cheese in place of potato. Some describe it as ricotta ravioli without the pasta wrapper. In any event, these are soft cheese balls that boast an air-dried "crust." They paddle about in brown butter, drenched with a nubbly basil pesto and crowned with freshly grated parmigiano, like white snowflakes on green grass.

Cod fritters are browned and crackling, soft and milky, on a stew of smoked pork, drizzled with a sharp sauce that tastes lusciously like a hot lemon sorbet.

The steak (flat iron) arrives in thick, juicy slabs, the flesh rare as requested beneath its brown-striped crust. The meat is delicious, well seasoned and served with exactly what you want steak to come with. Roast potatoes (fingerling), onions (caramelized cipollini), tomatoes (oven dried, and of deep flavour), mushrooms (grilled king eryngii), and greens (a tangy salsa verde that flavours everything you want it to).

Simple and very good food, fairly priced ($24) and portioned. There is pasta, thick strands mingled with soft nuggets of duck, the two in a rich, buttery broth that is vigorously seasoned, filled in with herbs and vegetables. And there is flattened, brick-roasted chicken, served in parts, the skin crisp, the meat cooked through but still moist, fragrant with lemon.

Chef Wall's pickerel has a fantastic crusty skin, yet the fish flesh is pale and soft, its subtle flavour intact. It arrives on a bed of Italian butter beans, topped with pink grapefruit, surrounded by small, sweet mussels and chunks of sharp chorizo. Circling fish and fruit and legumes is a light fish broth enriched with parmesan. This is a splendid dish.

Spoon-desserts arrive in mason jars. A chocolate budino (Italian pudding) tastes of quality cocoa. Rice pudding is scented with cinnamon and cardamom and topped with a pistachio brittle and sun-dried cherries, while the buttermilk panna cotta with its pink glaze of strawberry wine is a luscious summer dessert.

Kichesippi, Beau's and St. Ambroise are the brews on tap. The wine list isn't long, but there's a fair selection available by the glass, and the reds I've sampled have been served at the correct temperature. The blackboard lists a daily $8 cocktail.

Town was buzzing at each of my visits. With good reason

Cuisine: Gastropub
Cost: $$$: Small plates, $5 to $15; main dishes, $20 to $28

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

Features: Late dining, Wine list worth noting.
Accessibility: Easy access, washrooms on main level.

296 Elgin St., Ottawa, ON
613-695-8696
website

WHERE DID YOU GO?

To Mariposa Farms.

WHY?

Well, it’s been on my list of places to visit with fork and pen for eight years. I have tried. But clearly not hard enough. I’ve learned that calling a day before won’t cut it. They open only for Sunday lunch, and it’s well-liked.

WHERE IS MARIPOSA?

The farm’s in Plantagenet, about 45 minutes east of downtown Ottawa, spread over hills and dips of some very pretty countryside.

AREN’T THEY THE DUCK PEOPLE?

Yup. Mariposa’s best known for their free range Barbarie ducks, but they also raise geese and pigs, grow vegetables for Ottawa chefs, and sell fresh and frozen treats – foie gras, whole ducks, magrets, sausages, confit, rillettes, patés, cheeses, jellies, pickles and more.

SO YOU WENT OUT THERE TO BUY SAUSAGES?

No, I went out there to have lunch. Mariposa converted a barn into a restaurant about ten years ago, and they serve Sunday lunches in a room wrapped in window.

JUST SUNDAYS?

Well, they’ll also open for a variety of private functions, but the public is invited to dine only on Sundays.

IS THIS AN ALL YOU CAN EAT BUFFET STYLE LUNCH?

No, let me tell you how it works. Once you’ve manoeuvred your way past the stately, greying Bouviers lounging on a well lounged-on Persian carpet on the front porch, you travel through what I would call (enviously) the mud room to the dining room and a second greeting from the owners of the dogs.

WHO ARE THEY?

Mariposa Farms owners Ian Walker and Suzanne Lavoie – he at the door in a plaid shirt with an armful of plates, she in chef whites in the open kitchen, behind a display of dishes – and that’s when I’m told how the whole Sunday lunch business at Mariposa works.

HOW’S THAT?

There is no menu, there is no buffet. You examine the edible models displayed and make a choice, then you sit and it comes to you. There are nine such model plates. Suzanne briefs you. On this Sunday, you may start with a turnip soup, a foie gras sandwich or a plate of house made charcuterie. Then there are three main dishes – based on duck, goose and venison. And finally, there’s a choice of a cheese plate, a raspberry panna cotta or a fantastic looking apple tart.

HOW DO YOU CHOSE?

There seem to be no rules.  You can have one, or two, or three, or nine dishes, I suppose, or you can create a table d’hote from door A, B and C. That’s the $35 option I opt for.

WHAT DID YOU EAT?

Well, I started with foie gras. Not sure I’ve ever had foie gras before noon, but it worked for me. The foie gras is luscious and fantastically rich, and the pickled onions cut the fat. The bread is baked in the wood fired oven, and has a great crust and a gentle fennel flavour.  Next course, slices of pink duck with a thin layer of lovely fat and a bronzed skin, fanned over a white bean purée, served with braised carrots that taste like carrots.  Very good. And finally, I had the cheese plate – a chevre, a Mamirolle, and a gentle blue, all local, served with homemade strawberry preserves.  I washed it down with water and coffee, aching for a glass of wine.

SO WHAT STOPPED YOU?

Me. I stopped me by not doing my research. This is a BYOB establishment – licensed to pour, not to serve. Everyone around me was much cleverer. They all had brought wine and beer from home. Next time, I’ll come prepared.

WILL THERE BE A NEXT TIME?

Absolutely. The food is hearty and real, the atmosphere rustic and charming. This is a working farm, and the food is prepared and served by the owners with help from house chef Nick Johnston. It’s a rare treat for a city girl to mingle with those who raised the animals on which she sups.

WHAT IF YOU’RE NOT INTO MEAT?

I wouldn’t suggest this a great place for vegans, although I should think the vegetables that will soon be ready to harvest could be fashioned into something suitable. Best call.

WHAT ELSE DID YOU DO?

I read old Harrowsmith magazines (did you know llamas all give birth between 9 and noon in the morning?) chatted with chef Nick about a tenth anniversary celebration being planned for the fall, and had the pleasure of an Ian Walker guided tour of the barn.

WHAT’S IN THE BARN?

Hissing geese, ducks in various phases of life, baby pigs and their mums. Eggs. Some beneath ducks, some buried in hay, some just waiting to be walked on. The incubator. The greenhouse. The buckets of kitchen waste ready for slopping pigs.

WHAT DID YOU LEARN?

To look non-plussed and cool walking past hip level hissing geese, and not to step on their precious eggs. Also, that ‘wild’ boar are a pain. That it’s never easy to bid adieu to an old sow you’re fond of. That Whalesbone’s new chef Charlotte Langley just picked up two baby pigs. That allium chef Arup Jana is – according to Ian Walker – ‘the new John Taylor’ (of Domus Café.)

ANYTHING ELSE

That Ian Walker bought this land when he was 19 years old. That he did all the carpentry himself. That he likes to spend holidays working on farms in Spain through WWOOF (Willing Workers on Organic Farms) and that Mariposa Farms takes on WWs too.

NICE TO HAVE A WILLING WORKER.

Indeed. And nice for the willing worker to be on a farm with chefs in residence.

DID YOU LEARN ANYTHING ELSE?

Well yes, actually. I saw first hand the symbiotic relationship Mariposa Farms has with some of our finest local restaurants.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN?

There was a crew of chefs from Beckta Dining and Wine getting down and dirty, creating a garden in the back forty on land ‘lent’ to them from Mariposa. They grow vegetables for the restaurant, they buy beasts from Mariposa. There was also a table of chefs having lunch – Steve Wall and Chris Lord, most recently of Whalesbone Oyster House, Arup Jana of allium and others – all of whom use Mariposa products on their menus.

SO WHERE EXACTLY IS MARIPOSA?

The mailing address is 6488 County Rd. 17. Plantagenet. Once you’re past Rockland, Clarence and Wendover, you cross the Nation River on a green bridge and 2 kms after the bridge, look hard to the left for the sign welcoming you to Mariposa Farms. As they say on their web site, if you come to the village of Plantagenet, turn around.

Reservations can be made by calling 613-673-5881. Lunch is served from 11am to 1pm. The store is accessible from 9 am to 4 pm on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. You can find all this information on their web site www.mariposa-duck.on.ca

The visual drama of this restaurant takes place entirely outside, and La Terrasse is open only on nights when being outside is pleasurable. Which is why it's taken me many tries to get here. On 35-above evenings I want air-conditioning. If threatening skies, I want a roof.

But this particular July night was as splendid as you could possibly want and I sat on La Terrasse at a table closest to the canal below, just pinching myself.

For here was a rowing eight-shell blistering along the Ottawa River. Here were bagpipes somewhere in the distance (played by someone who knew his instrument). We arrived to a sun lowering over the Gatineau Hills and left at dusk, after a stunning light show.

All these fine things, along with the forest of trees that flanks the east block of Parliament Hill, were in our sights. We were in the heart of the city, but also in its lee, perched on padded chairs in near-complete privacy, on the hidden patio of the Fairmont Château Laurier.

Yet on this night of nights, wonder of wonders, La Terrasse is near empty.

On most of this city's patios-with-a-view-of-water the food is forgettable. Not so here. I bring you the experience of just one meal, mind, as at my second planned visit La Terrasse was closed for a wedding, and my third attempt was on a night with a downpour. But I can tell you about two starters, two main dishes and two desserts -- all pretty satisfying.

First up, a very good gazpacho, ripe with summer flavours, well balanced in terms of tang and spice, and with a refreshing lemon-basil yogurt squiggled on its thick, red surface.

A little wooden bench equipped with three paper cones containing seafood treats was our second starter. In the bottom of each cone we discover a bit of sushi rice and a little seaweed salad, and on top, a big sparkling shrimp, or a tasty lobster and dill salad, or, in the third cone, albacore tuna, thin slices of the pink fish, flash-seared tataki style. Very fresh, very nice.

We are told O'Brien Farms (from Winchester) supplies the beef for the "Capital Burger" and whether it's the quality of the beast or of the thick smoky bacon, the old Balderson cheddar or the mustard mayo, this is a superior hamburger in every way.

I would have enjoyed the seafood fettuccine more if the price hadn't seemed out of whack. It was a tasty dish, the pasta and fish properly cooked, well sauced, the charred tomatoes a nice touch, but at $32 I would hope for more than two shrimp and a smattering of lobster pebbles.

You may eat more simply (and more affordably) than we did here.

The menu tries to please a variety of tastes and needs, so on it you also find chicken wings and nachos, plus things like clubhouse and pulled pork sandwiches ($16). You also find steak and lamb and fresh fish.

Desserts are designed to make a kid happy, with a couple of tossed-in adult treats. Here are banana split boats, ice cream sundaes, and brownie bombs, plus chocolate panna cotta (delicious) and lemon meringue pie (lovely, served with a raspberry sauce and a crème anglaise that tastes of eggs, cream and vanilla).

La Terrasse offers a condensed drinks list (all wines, brief as the offerings are, available by the glass) and a children's menu. Kiddies under five eat "on the house" on this secret patio.

Cuisine: Canadian
Cost: $$$: Starters, $9 to $16; main dishes, $14 to $32

Hours: Open daily from 4:30pm to 10pm, June to September, weather permitting.

Features: Patio dining.
Accessibility: Fully accessible.

1 Rideau St., Ottawa ON
613-241-1414
website

Gy is not Oy, as first I read the sign, and I'm sure that's a very good thing. It was a Monday when I walked by, misreading the stylized two-letter word on the sidewalk sign "Oy Resto" which indicated the place was closed.

I first knew this second-floor restaurant space as the crêperie L'Argöat, then as Le Café d'en Haut. In fact, I thought it still was Le Café d'en Haut when I stumbled upon the Oy poster. Excited, I Googled it: "Oy Restaurant, Gatineau." Rien.

It was at lunch the next day I learned it was in fact Gy, short for Gyno. Which is a much finer name than Oyno. Gyno Lefrançois, together with his wife Nathalie, is chef-proprietor of this now one-year-old restaurant.

(Before I was set straight, it occurred to me I could have used the Yiddish exclamation "Oy vey" somewhere in the review if it had proved a dud. That would have been kinda fun. But as Gy turned out to be a nice little place, it's just as well.)

Gatineau needs more nice French restaurants and this one, while not yet perfect, is absolutely on the right track.

Gyno Lefrançois hails from Gaspésie. He comes to his own place in Gatineau via the wonderful Auberge Hatley, which was devastated by fire in 2006 and sent him to Arôme and Le Baccara at the Casino du Lac Leamy.

Gy is a prettier restaurant than it was in L'Argöat's days. They've smartened it up a bit with red accents, taupe walls and wainscotting. Red pads the black chairs, white linen the tables and young birch trunks decorate the corners. Daisies float in water baths and pepper mills grace every table. As in most restaurants, there are better tables than others. If you can snag one by the windows that look over the street, there's light pouring in and good people watching to be had.

A large blackboard announces the featured dishes, which complement a one-page daily menu.

A lunch special struck me as a crackerjack deal. Green soup (a spinach purée, perfumed with lime leaves and piqued with paprika oil) or a cucumber salad, followed with impeccably fresh pickerel, the pan-fried fillet resting on a buttery bed of spiced orzo, crowned with a delicious mound of caramelized leeks and served with a nice little salad. This, for $11.95

Dinner began admirably well with a trio of raw things. A tartare of steak, salmon and scallops was lovely, the beast and fish hand-chopped, lightly seasoned, and polished with good green oil.

Shallots, Sambuca and cream elevate a big-hearted serving of fresh shrimp, and if you like shrimp in Sambuca and cream you will like this.

I have three things to say about the third starter (foie gras, seared, crusted, the flesh soft, pink, served with sautéed strawberries): It was far too generous a serving, it was something of a steal at $15, and we gobbled up all of it, grinning throughout.

Of the main dishes, the tuna, crusted, rare, served with a salad of oranges and capers was better than the duck, which was too lean, the fat removed, the meat a bit overcooked and dry. We liked better the stuff that surrounded it -- a well-peppered polenta cake that boasted a gooey heart, a celery root purée, roasted carrots and asparagus, and a polished sauce sweetened with figs.

Chèvre cheesecake was light and creamy, served with fresh raspberries, and crème brûlée with strawberries suffered only from being brûléed a tad too long. But once the burnt bits of sugar were flicked off, the custard was luscious.

The wine list is short, with limited choice by the glass, and there would be room for improvement.

Chef Gy tours his dining room at dinner, introducing himself. His wife seems much more shy, almost uncomfortable with her guests. She appears to defer to her staff for table service and, fortunately, both servers who have cared for us have been delightful.

Cuisine: French
Cost: $$$: Starters, $5 to $10; main dishes, $16.50 to $28

Hours: Open: Lunch, Tuesday to Friday; dinner Tuesday to Saturday

Features: Patio dining.
Accessibility: Second floor restaurant. No wheelchair access..

39 rue Laval, Gatineau, QC
819-776-0867

I would not have said "no" to one more slice of duck. Four thin slabs didn't seem quite enough. Especially when the bird is so good. This was duck (from Mariposa Farm) on a lunch salad at Absinthe. It came with other good things - crisp spears of asparagus in a lemon-thyme vinaigrette, soft marbles of superior goat cheese, heirloom tomatoes of wait-all-year-for-it flavour, a hillock of dressed up baby arugula. It was a deeply satisfying plate of good things. My itch for more of those slices came from pure greed, and from knowing that duck is rarely done so well - the skin crisp and well seasoned, the fat rendered to a thin layer for flavour and textural balance, and the flesh itself rosy pink and succulent. I longed for more.

Absinthe chef Patrick Garland is the man behind the duck. His restaurant is now in its fourth year, feet firmly planted in its "new" location on Wellington Street, still offering a bistro formula of ever-changing market cuisine.

I had reviewed this place when the paint was still fresh, the Absinthe-green wall behind the bar barely dry. That was in 2007. This July, a driving rain forced me inside one afternoon around lunchtime, and duck seemed about right for a soggy day.

I returned for a very good dinner. It began well with an amuse-bouche shot of gazpacho, perfumed with basil, further chilled with a wee ball of cucumber sorbet, zinged with balsamic and sweetened with honey. A delightful gift on a hot summer night. And then a couple of prettily presented "trios" wherein the only missteps of the evening were sighted. The first was asparagus three ways - a little grilled goat cheese and asparagus sandwich (fine), a cold asparagus soup (very fine) and then a ho-hum asparagus salad in a somewhat soggy cheddar cheese "bowl." In the seafood sampler, a bass "pogo" was tasty but far too greasy. Better was the crab cake served with a chipotle relish and plopped on a refreshing mango salsa. Best of all, the albacore tuna taco, which was fresh, light and full of flavour.

With the three-course table d'hôte came a middle course of soup or salad. But not just any tossed-off soup or salad course. Here was a delightful chilled soup of carrot and fresh pea, heady with five-spice powder, and the romaine salad (a Caesar of sorts) was first-rate - bouncy leaves in a commanding lemon garlic dressing, the good house bread fashioned into crisps, and on top of the mound, excellent pancetta bacon.

On a daily menu, the steak frites appears to be the one constant. A hanger (or skirt) steak, marinated in something that darkens and tenderizes it, then grilled to medium rare, arrived in thick ruby slabs that delivered crunch and juice and chew in pleasing balance. The steak came with excellent fries, a horseradish mayonnaise and summer-fresh snap peas. It takes a bit of courage to offer a still little-known cut of meat as your house steak, and insist it be ordered no more cooked than medium rare, but Absinthe shows us how it's done, and it's little wonder this is a signature dish.

Micro greens were more than a pretty topping on the ravioli stuffed with ricotta and goat cheese. They added peppery, bitter notes - a pleasing, contrasting chomp to the tender pasta pockets with their soft, mild filling and the sweet vegetable ragout beneath.

In keeping with the trio theme, we ordered a sample of the house-made ice creams. They were all good, the dark chocolate divine. Kudos too for the lemon tart with lemon and raspberry sorbets, and the classic crème brûlée.

Service has been a lovely balance of friendliness and professionalism.

Absinthe is maturing very well.

Cuisine: Canadian
Cost: $$$: Starters $9 to $14; main dishes, $20 to $32; 3-course table d'hote, $36 to

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

Accessibility: Fully accessible.

1208 Wellington St. W., Ottawa ON
613-761-1138
website

I had the pleasure of judging final examination dishes of culinary students at Le Cordon Bleu (Ottawa campus) last month. Had the crème brulée from The Swan at Carp been submitted for appraisal that day it would have earned top marks. The custard was wickedly smooth, yet still slightly wobbly, perfumed with vanilla bean and with a vague suggestion of maple syrup. Its sugar cap was thin and crackling. Two spoons dueled for last licks.

Good grades too would have been given for The Swan's chocolate hazelnut crunch cake, the maple pecan pie and the chocolate mousse cake with its glistening ganache glaze.

Responsible for the sweets at the Swan is Cordon Bleu trained pastry chef Sunna Na. For another round of her treats, I'd make the trek to Carp. Were I a beer fan, I'd return for the remarkable list of brews. Thirteen on tap, and eight blackboards-full of other offerings. Maybe 70 in total, maybe more. I lost count and our server just rolled her eyes and laughed when asked for a number. "We have a LOT!" Indeed they do.

They also have a lot on the dinner menu. And I'm gloomy to report I wouldn't rush back for much of what I sampled from it. I'm sad, and a bit baffled, for I so enjoyed this place in 2005.

I had reviewed the Swan at Carp five years ago, hearing good things about this young couple, Sunna and her husband chef Joseph Thompson, who had bought an old brick parsonage set on a hill in Carp with the intent of putting their own stamp on the existing pub. They wisely kept some of the pubby favourites (chicken pot pie, roast beef dip, pulled pork sandwich) updated some others (the burger is now fashioned with 'mixed game' and topped with gruyere, the fish and chips are panko-sesame crusted tilapia with a wasabi tartar sauce) and added some Asian dishes (Korean BBQ pork, spicy Asian soup). They now have a crepe menu (both savoury and sweet), a kid's menu, as well as a number of French dishes (duck rillettes, venison tenderloin with mousse de foie gras, bacon wrapped quail, braised rabbit.) They do take-away business, and they have cakes and truffles for sale in a refrigerated case. On one of our nights they had a beer tasting group arriving as we were leaving.

My 2010 Carp excursions were meant to be 'all's-still-well' sort of pleasure trips, a check-up on a possible valley restaurant to feature in the Canada Day 'Ode to Ale' issue. But this kitchen seems taxed, trying to be too many things, its menu too ambitious, and the result - with the exception of the sweet endings - didn't eat very well. Though there were two starters we did enjoy. The duck rillettes with apples, grainy mustard and fresh baguette was a generous, tasty plate. And the lobster bisque was perfectly passable. Not bad as well, the elk schnitzel, the meat tender beneath a crisp panko crust, though both the elk and its coat could have used some seasoning. The cafeteria scoop of dismally dry mashed potatoes had the dusty taste of a seasoning mix, while the vegetables - peppers, tops-on carrots, snap peas, steamed parsnips - were trying to be fine, but none was cooked right, and the lot seemed an after-thought, unseasoned and unloved.

The artichoke dip was icy cold and wretchedly bland, served with a silly mountain of grilled pita wedges that at first were warm and fresh-tasting, but became rock hard within minutes. Vegetarian spring rolls featured a mushy, tasteless filling within tough, greasy wrappers, their presentation lacking. A butternut squash soup was thin tasting, with a lingering chemical after-bite.

The quail was dry, the chicken in the pot pie also dry, and while the rabbit leg was moist enough, it was missing flavour. The roasted garlic cloves that hung about the sauce were near-raw.

The steak and asparagus crepe wasn't memorable. Help for this dish would include a better béarnaise sauce, cooking the onions (these were warm, but raw) leaving the asparagus whole rather than chopped up bits, and thinner pieces of rarer steak (these were fat strips of grey meat). The Caesar side salad tasted of bottled dressing. Even the Korean pork dish, one I so enjoyed at my last visit, featured tough meat and an acrid, wildly spicy sauce.

So come for chocolate and crème brulée and a beer. (The wine list is no great draw, and some bottles are unfairly marked up.)

The Swan is capable of much better. A shorter menu would be my first suggestion.

Cuisine: Pub
Cost: $$$: Starters, $8 to $14; mains, $13 to $22

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

Features: Patio dining.
Accessibility: Steps to entrance..

108 Falldown Lane, Carp, ON
613-839-7926
website

It has taken me a few visits, but I believe I've figured out the way this new ByWard Market steakhouse works best.

You want to order steak. Be not distracted by other items on the large menu.

The meat is good - nicely marbled, well seasoned, properly grilled and if it's the commercially popular cuts of red meat you like (sirloin, rib eye, fillet) you will like it here.

There are other things to like about STeaK Modern Steakhouse. The comely service, say - handsome boys in black and young women with long flippy hair and short cocktail dresses that fit them well. The room is long and leggy, as much lounge as restaurant, decked out in black and red with wonderful walls. One's done up in leather, another is a rippled white, a third a lovely liquid-scarlet. The bar is busy, the lighting is eclectic, moody and fun, and seating at STeaK is plush. I've been here on balmy summer evenings, and with the garage doors open to Clarence Street and the sidewalk patio jammed, this is a spirited place.

Opened this winter by York Entertainment (owners of The Cornerstone across the street, Fat Tuesdays, Bar 101, among other restaurants, bars and lounges in the city) STeaK is their first foray into high-end dining.

They've called this place a "Modern Steakhouse" and I suppose if you figure in the look, the music and the vibe, they've got that about right. But as the formula for most steakhouses is to stick with the meat and eschew pretty much everything else, the "modern" moniker is a bit misleading.

Starters range from not quite up to the mark to really quite bad.

Among the former, slot the wild mushrooms on homemade flatbread. These are tame mushrooms on thin rounds of something white and tasteless.

There are shrimp covered in slivered almonds and deep-fried with a spicy sugary sauce - more an interesting failure than a complete flop.

The Caesar is prettily splayed on a long white plate, its parmesan bits deep-fried in trendy fashion, but Caesars these days all end up tasting cloyingly of commercial mayonnaise to me, and this one didn't surprise me in that regard.

Lemon gnocchi are absolute bullets.

The steak sushi is so bad I spit it out - one of those rare moments I wished for paper napkins.

You don't want to get too fancy with the starch options with your steak. Choose fries over the wasabi-mashed or the double-baked.

As for sauces, I'm still laughing at what arrived when I asked for a side of Béarnaise. The peppercorn demi-glace tastes of dark, treacly salt. You're going to want to push aside the homemade ketchup that comes with these steaks. It is icky-sweet pinkish goo.

Fish tastes pre-frozen, pre-portioned and juiceless. I sent my first salmon back. The second one arrived only slightly less dry. I've tried the linguini, which may be "hand-rolled" but is horribly gummy, and the rosé sauce tastes of tomato paste with vodka, cream and an uncomfortable amount of Tabasco.

The burger, however, is surprisingly good. I say surprising because the menu tells me it's made with sirloin, my server tells me it's ground in house, but when I ask for it cooked to medium, I was told it had to be cooked to the internal temperature of Hades or the food police would come calling.

But I ordered it anyway and though it arrived grey through and through and a bit sweet for my liking (the menu tells us there's coffee and brown sugar in this burger, which seems to me a secret best kept secret) still (still!) it was a fat, juicy, tasty thing tucked into a very fresh bun.

Bailey's crème brûlée is one of my sonars for a restaurant that isn't serious about food. So I thought I'd be disappointed with the cheesecake too, but it was just fine, with a nut crust, served with a swell strawberry sauce.

Carrot cake is two Easy-Bake Oven-size cakes that are fresh and moist but taste mostly of cinnamon and with an odd bridal train of cream cheese sauce.

If you're a beer lover, you will notice the list speaks of devotion to Molson's. You won't find anything on tap, or anything local.

But the wine list may be, in fact, the one modern thing about Modern Steakhouse. It's pretty predictable (best of Vintages Essentials, essentially) but it offers bottles of various price points, including some big reds for the big reds people, at extremely fair prices, and some bottles - and here's the modern bit - at less than double their retail price.

So order wine and order steak and do not test the limits.

Cuisine: Grill - New American
Cost: $$$: Starters, $8 to $15; main dishes, $15 to $36 description

Hours: Ope daily for lunch and dinner

Features: Late dining, Patio dining.
Accessibility: Steps to entrance..

87 Clarence St., Ottawa ON
613-695-8787
website

We lost two eminent French restaurants in Gatineau when Café Henry Burger and Le Sans Pareil closed and the Hull region hasn't yet recovered. With the exception of the splendid Le Baccara (which, to enjoy, one must run the Casino gauntlet) there isn't another great French restaurant in the area. Sure, there are some decent ones in the downtown core, but none that really scratches you in all the right places.

Though I'm not averse to hunting for one. A note from a reader reminded me that my last report on Le Pied de Cochon was seven years old, that it hadn't been particularly flattering and that his favourite restaurant was surely due for another look. Seemed fair to me. And though it is a few decades shy of Henry Burger's longevity, I was astonished to learn that Le Pied de Cochon was in its 35th year of service. Thirty-four years under the same chef-owner, in the same location, and -- barring some modification of windows and patio -- with essentially the same look.

Pigs of various deportment bunch on shelves and bar. Walls are green and burgundy, floors are carpeted. Tables are well-linened and properly set, over lit with tiffany-style lamps etched with Le Pied de Cochon pigs. (We wish they'd turn down the lights. We wish they'd light our candle.) About the most interesting part of an otherwise dated duo of brightly lit dining rooms is the wonderful folksy oils of old Hull and of this restaurant in its early days.

Le Pied de Cochon worked best for me at lunch. Service was provided by a memorably coiffed woman who seemed on kissing terms with two-thirds of the tables. She's been running the lunch show -- entirely on her own at my visits -- for some 17 years, striding in stilettos from kitchen to tables to bar to Rancilio, taking orders on a notepad, delivering food, opening wine, drawing espressos, clearing plates, setting covers, manoeuvring the dessert trolley, and hand-writing each bill. No computer here, she explains. We do things the old-fashioned way.

Indeed they do. The menu du jour, handwritten exclusively in French, harkens to another era, when "bistro" really meant something. On the page are lobster bisque, vichychoisse, omelette aux champignons avec frites, steak tartare, kidneys in mustard sauce, veal liver sweetened with raspberries, entrecôte grillée in a tarragon sauce.

The gazpacho is cool and flavourful, its presentation unfussy, its tomato flavour strong, missing perhaps a pique more vinegar, but otherwise a simple, refreshing bowl. The terrine of rabbit is rimmed with creamy white fat, touched with spice and a little gamey -- served with salad and with strong mustard. A mousse of pickerel and lobster is gently likable.

The saffron mayonnaise has some fire to it, and gives the fish some oomph. Again, a well-dressed little salad on the side. If you like liver, you will like this liver, well prepared, well cooked, its offal flavour sweetened with honey and raspberry. Over-salted creamed spinach is the regrettable bed for a generous serving of beautifully cooked pickerel. It comes with puff pastry top and bottom, fresh and flaky, and with a butter sauce that is just a sauce, nothing more, tasting of very little, its texture a little over-thickened.

Dinner starters arrive with alarming speed. Coquilles St-Jacques are ho-hum. The vichyssoise with asparagus has wan potato flavour, with crunchy bits of asparagus paddling about in the cold, creamy bowl. The rounds of beets in a salad with feta could use some seasoning, but this is otherwise a best-of starter. Salmon is well done, moist and juicy, with fragrant basmati rice and steamed vegetables, all fine.

Other than the silly moat of sauce that drowns the duck, veg and all, the magret itself is tender, crisp skinned and with a layer of essential fat.

The one big letdown at dinner is the steak tartare, the raw meat on its bed of Boston lettuce tasting strongly of something musty, like too much white pepper.

Desserts from the trolley include a lovely bowl of strawberries with a light strawberry mousse, raspberries served with a forgettable crème anglaise, a cup of chocolate-bar-thick chocolate mousse with a poached pear bottom, and a crème brulée that would be fine but for the top half inch of curdled custard.

My sense is that Le Pied de Cochon remains busy with diners who came to this bistro early and have stayed tuned in for life. I suppose I've come a bit later to the show, and though I can understand its appeal, I find its performance a bit uneven, its ambience a bit wanting.

Cuisine: French
Cost: $$$: Lunch table d'hote, from $17 to $27cost description

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

Features: Patio dining.
Accessibility: Steps into restaurant.

248 rue Montcalm, Gatineau, QC
819-777-5808
website

They were meatballs. Yes, that's right, meatballs. But my God, they were good.

Fashioned out of duck -- and if meatballs can be light, these were splendidly that. Seasoned just right, paired with soft strips of smoked pork hock and späetzle piqued with mustard. Also, wilted spinach, roasted shallots, roasted corn, gently oven-roasted tomatoes, shards of Grana Padano cheese. A full-bodied veal jus finished the dish. Paired with a Beau's beer, and my husband declared it the best dinner he'd had in years.

It's been four years since I did a proper review of The Wellington Gastropub. I wrote a happy discovery piece about it in 2006, when it was pretty new and terribly good, and when the general hue and cry from Ottawa diners was 'a what pub?'

I mentioned it again in my end-of-the-decade muse. Not a review, just a mention. But I suggested The Wellington Gastropub -- along with Atelier restaurant and the new ZenKitchen -- was one of the region's pivotal restaurants of the double-naught decade.

My prediction of Dec. 31, 2009 was that this city would start to see more of these sorts of places, so popular in London and New York. These come-as-ye-be neighbourhood drinking establishments (that would be the pub part) where the quality of the food is paramount, and complements the booze proffered (that's where 'gastro' from 'gastronomy' enters the name). I suggested that the example of the now four-year-old, packed-every-night Wellington Gastropub would become irresistible.

And, by golly, by the time you read this Ottawa's second gastropub, Town, will be open. (Do stay tuned.)

So this is the Canada Day Ode to Ale issue. My assignment is to find the best pub in the city and this one, for now, is it. Yes, you'll pay restauranty prices for dishes at this 'pub,' but for the pleasure they give the value is sound.

Chef Chris Deraiche and his open kitchen brigade offer a short, daily list of sturdy, exuberant dishes that speak clearly of the quality of the provisioning. Steak tartare is the best in the city. Tuna tataki (seared, flesh raw) is fantastic, the cool fish littered with crunchy bits of spicy tempura, a restrained sprinkle of sea salt, served with rounds of pickled radish and fat little bok choy lightly doused in sesame oil.

A parfait of goat cheese whipped with honey served in cool, luscious slices is paired with the season's first spears of asparagus, drizzled with a lemon-truffle oil vinaigrette and served with house-pickled ramps. Mushroom dumplings are devourable.

Scallops are deeply bronzed and still trembling. One night they arrive bedded on a silken purée of celery root and pear and scattered with Nagano bacon, crunchy shallots and crowns of roasted cauliflower, the plate edged with an emerald green river of arugula pesto.

Nagano pork medallions are cider brined and fantastically moist. A rough mash of rutabaga sweetened with maple syrup is their bed and lardons of crisp pork belly, roasted carrots and beets their mates. A grainy mustard jus piques them up.

A chocolate terrine with peanut butter sauce is worth whatever dietary agony it might cost. Ice creams are made in-house and arrive in a trio sandwiched with shortbread cookies, which keep the flavours from fighting too much. Espresso is thick and dark and very good.

The beer and wine list is obviously put together by somebody who likes to drink well.

Be warned, it can be very loud. And the noise level is what turns some friends of mine away. Don't know what's to be done about it -- the kitchen is open, the neighbourhood brings their kids, the food is so good that the mood tends to be pretty jolly and the place fills up every night.

But it is the Wellington's only issue. For food this tasty in an atmosphere as convivial, I'm prepared to have to shout a bit.

Cuisine: Canadian
Cost: $$$: Starters $7 to $13; main dishes, $18 to $29 description

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

Features: Wine list worth noting.
Accessibility: Flight of stairs, restaurant on second floor.

1325 Wellington St. W., Ottawa, ON
613-729-1315
website