“Taking it easy,” his sister tells us. She is the mother of Naji, and Naji is the chef here. His wife and parents serve. So, while it’s not Kamals returned to his old Glebe stomping grounds, it is his nephew and family.

The Naji walls are the colour of sand. The ceiling is the original press tin. Bands of old brick have been left exposed. But other than the chrome cedar tree at the back and some potted cactus on a wall, there’s not much here that sets the cultural context.

Just over a year old, Naji’s opened and was pretty much immediately a victim of the Bank Street construction. Now it’s been uncovered, it only needs clients. What it offers is a steep step up from the prosaic Shawarma places you find in malls around the city. And how nice to see Lebanese food elevated once again from its fast food subsistence. It’s been so long since Lebanese dining was fine dining (remember Fairouz?) with its herbaceous pleasures, its understated spicing, the acid of lemon, the pungency of garlic, the balm of good fruity oil, the tartness of yogurt, the earthiness of bulgur, all subtly blended.

It may now be as close to Lebanese fine dining as you’ll find in this city, but it could go further.  What Naji’s does it does well.  I love the dips – the richly flavoured hummus bi tahini with its puddle of green oil, its olives and beet-stained turnip sticks (clearly made in house); the thoom (a garlic dip thick with puréed potato) the tangy yogurt dip. These are simple, comfort foods, served with warm pita. Take the mezze platter on offer for a spin – a generous serving of dips and bread, tabbouleh salad and freshly fried falafel, with that satisfying crunch, the inner guts soft and well spiced, on a platform of tomato, served with tahini.

Don’t expect to find bulgur in the tabbouleh. This is a very green mound, all chopped parsley, tomato, garlic, lemon and oil. We don’t much miss the grain (some would be nice, to give it that mix of texture, that earthy crunch) though we do miss the mint. Still, it’s got zip and zing, is perfectly seasoned, and it reeks of good health. The fattoush salad with its crisp pita croutons, lemon dressing and sprinkling of sumac is generously served.

There are pita sandwiches and they are tasty – served with coleslaw and homefries. Chicken is handled with respect in the shish tawouk, the meat juicy, well seasoned – and the beef is rare, as requested, and chewy-good on its skewer with red peppers and onion. The skewered shrimp are more ho hum.

The brick of kebbeh besanieh (sic) never grades high in the looks department, but once the scored square of meat is  pierced, the mix of seasoned ground beef (I was hoping for lamb) with cracked wheat tumbles away to reveal the layer of sweet onions and bronzed pine nuts. It needs the thick yogurt with which it is served, to moisten it up a bit.

If I had a complaint it would be with the timidity of the menu. Where are the lamb dishes, where’s the fresh fish, the great vegetable stews? I ask. These aren’t as popular I’m told. Pity. This kitchen has what it takes to bring us more than the usual suspects. Maybe as Naji gets noticed, and busier, and we start insisting, ‘bring us some lamb!’ we’ll be heard.

Delicious baklava to close, with a bit of mint tea.

Lots here to like, and service is kind, charming, welcoming.

Published in Ottawa Magazine, May 7, 2012

I don’t know Cuban food very well. Have never been to Cuba (it’s on The List) and Havana Café is the first Cuban restaurant in Ottawa, at least of which I am aware. So I scanned the other five tables and all – including one of students from Hopewell Public School (being treated like the little princes that they no doubt were by the clucky server) – were chomping down on Havana Café’s $5 sandwiches. And though they looked good, I have sworn off eating bread on Thursdays. Sadly, this was Thursday.

I needed another idea. So I asked for help and was immediately steered toward Ropa Vieja. It means Old Clothes, she told me. I thought that sounded pretty good. Bring it on, I said, and braced myself for the stereotypically grim buffet experience of the Cuban monster resort.

It didn’t look promising. When your traditional diet is mostly pork, rice, beans and shades of brown starch, the plate isn’t going to be pretty. Earthy, to be sure, but not what you’d call tropically tinted. But here we had thin strips of slow cooked steak, mingled with green olives, onions and peppers. I braced myself for boot leather, but it was not. Not at all. It was, in fact, remarkably tender and flavourful in an acerbic sauce piquant with vinegar. The Ropa Vieja came with Congris rice (white rice stained purple with black beans ) sweet, fried plantain (nothing greasy about them) and steamed starchy yucca logs. It was a noontime bargain, this piled plate and much of it came home with me.

Cost: Ropa Vieja with rice and veg, $10

Havana Café, 1200 Bank Street, 613-733-1200

I support A Taste for Life, the brilliant initiative now 14 years old, to raise funds for Bruce House and the Snowy Owl Aids Foundation. It works like this: Eat, Drink, Pay as per usual, and the participating restaurant does the good for you. It donates 25% of your bill (food and wine, before tip and taxes) to those two worthy charities. I tend to book and go for my own pleasure, leaving pen at home. This year I decided to go to Town after I received a charming invitation from Bruce House Program Director Jennifer Bruce to join her there.

I had the flattened chicken (sous-brick) with a rich, earthy jus made tangy with fermented (blackened) garlic. It was brilliant. On a bed of gossamer potatoes dolloped (why ever not?) with mascarpone, and strewn with sweet leaves of bitter Brussels sprouts, cubes of butternut squash, finished with a lawn of snipped chives and jewels of pomegranate seeds. Really REALLY good.

Ottawa's Marc Lepine on top of the podium at the 2012 CCC

It’s official Ottawa! The competing chefs at this year’s Gold Medal Plates culinary competition on November 5th at the National Arts Centre will be:

Norm Aitken, Juniper Kitchen & Wine

Michael Blackie, National Arts Centre

Chris Deraiche, The Wellington Gastropub

Jason Duffy, ARC Dining and Lounge

Michael Hay, The Courtyard Restaurant

Jonathan Korecki, Sidedoor

Jamie Stunt, OZ Café

John Taylor, Domus Café / Taylor’s Genuine Food &Wine Bar

As is the practice, Chef Marc Lepine, of Atelier, last year’s Ottawa champion, and Winner of It All at the Canadian Culinary Championships this past February, will sit on the judging panel at the 2012 competition, helping crown a new winner, and be providing a bit of food for the VIP reception.

You will notice two things right off the bat. The numbers are down to eight competitors. Math is the reason. The Ottawa event peaks at 450 guests (Toronto and Edmonton, the largest of the gala fundraisers with something like 650, get ten chefs) and Gold Medal Plates, mindful of its mandate to raise money for Paralympic and Olympic athletes,  has had to refine its policy with respect to number of chefs invited vis a vis number of tickets sold. We need over 500 guests in order to get our ten competitors of past years.

You will further note that, for the first time since 2008, there is no Gatineau chef this year. Jean-Claude Chartrand of L’Orée du Bois was invited, but said non merci for this year.

So there you have it. Whittling it down to eight was tricky. But I think it’s an impressive list. Balanced between the long serving, Granddaddy chefs (Blackie, Taylor) a couple of new-to-GMP chefs from well established, top notch restaurants (Deraiche, Duffy, Aitken, Hay) and some youngster newcomers with enormous talent and prospect (Korecki and Stunt). We try, every year, to achieve this balance, to give those who have competed in the past, a year to sit out, to permit some fresh faces to step up. There should be some very fine plates this year.

Let the games begin!

The dining room of the Museum of Civilization has moved and been rechristened. It used to be called Café du Musée and it used to be housed in a separate, administrative building overlooking the River. Now the restaurant is in the museum proper, where the gift shop used to be. It has a less thrilling outlook, over rue Laurier, but it is inarguably more accessible, and likely makes a lot more sense in terms of attracting both museum visitors and hungry pedestrians sauntering down the Avenue.

In the open kitchen of the new Bistro Boréal is Chef Georges Laurier, whose career on the Gatineau side includes – among other stops – the iconic Café Henry Burger and the lamented Laurier sur Montcalm.  My first taste of Bistro Boréal was lunch. And it was an impressive one.

If I came back, I’d order the fish cake with shrimp and the crème brulée trio and not bother with a main dish. The cake was substantial enough on its own. The presentation was pretty: the fat, well-seasoned and dill-flecked cake featured smoked salmon in its mix of fish, sat on a simple rémoulade of celeriac – that lovely gnarly root vegetable that’s so much more interesting than its upright cousin – and came topped with three nicely undercooked shrimp, a toupé of micro greens, a chive spear. A warm, thick pot of beurre blanc (God love the French) was a splendid complement. Next course was a duck confit with spinach and quinoa, the flesh moist, the skin crisp, the whole rich, the flavour clear. The quinoa was neither here nor there, and the spinach a bit stringy, though we liked the cider-caramelized onions and the cider-sweetened demi glace dotted with a perfect brunoise of apple.

I’ve been a on a lucky ride with crème brulée lately. Suddenly everyone seems to have eschewed the short cuts. This presentation of a trio was generous (perfect for sharing) and textbook delicious.

Cost: fish cake $9; duck $19

Open: daily for lunch, Thursday to Saturday for dinner

Bistro Boréal, Canadian Museum of Civilization, 100 Laurier Street, Gatineau, 819-776-7009 www.civilization.ca

Navarra's chimichurri mushrooms

I’ve reviewed Navarra twice over its five years, though I’ve known chef-owner Rodriguez’ cooking for many more before he settled down on Murray Street. Navarra is unique in Ottawa, a signature restaurant for the city, and one of the places that makes this Byward Market street so tasty. That opinion hasn’t changed. The food remains a draw. These are rich, broody dishes, full of layered flavours.  Thoughtful attention has been paid to texture and the eating is deeply pleasurable.

So long as you ignore the prices when you consider this is now a tapas restaurant.

Navarra has tossed out the usual progression of starter-main-sweetie in favour of the ever-popular small plates style of dining. The trouble is the prices remain mostly at main dish level, so when the menu recommends two plates per person, and our server suggests three might be better, you don’t need to be a math whiz to figure out this will be an expensive night.

People understand what an appetizer looks like, and they understand what a main dish looks like. They get nervous about small plates. How small is small? Will I still be hungry? How many do I need to order to feel satisfied?

The least expensive small plate/tapas at Navarra is $9 (marinated olives) while the majority of the dishes are in the $20s, climbing as high as $29 (for the bigger portion of Navarra’s signature beef tartare). One dish is called ‘Rioja Potatoes’ and sure, the fine print tells us there’s chorizo and a saffron aioli involved, but when a small plates dish that’s titled ‘potatoes’ costs $22, you tend to fret. Same with a ‘tapas’ called “Macaroni Carbonara,” which costs $24.

So it’s a menu that requires a guide. Fortunately, the guides at Navarra are delightful.

Beet salad with vanilla salt, grapefruit and quince

Ours suggested a few dishes, starting with the beet salad. Every restaurant must have a beet salad. (It’s the New Law, replacing the Must Have Caesar.) I order it as much for the promised pear, quince jelly, and grapefruit, as well as for the suggestion there would be vanilla salt. And isn’t it pretty? This was a carefully constructed plate that ate very well. And for $17 for beets, it better work well.

The Oaxacan lamb shank mole ($27) – a 1920 family recipe, apparently – was utterly delicious. Dark, wildly rich, intensely flavoured, smoky, sweet, bitter and fiery. The mole grew in intensity as you worked your way through it. Its topping of shaved radish was a welcome component. On to a mound of mushrooms, brightened with a chimichurri sauce (usually reserved for meat in Argentina, this is pesto-like, of herbs and chilies, vinegar and oil) mixed with fried potato and finished with a grating of pecorino cheese, cilantro and fennel fronds. Very good indeed, but very spicy. Too much so for my Other Mouth, who wished she’d been warned…

And then a deep bowl for a slight serving of scallops ceviche, with lychees, the meat ‘cooked’ in a sparkling citrus-oil marinade kicked with jalapenos, brightened with mint and served with tostadas. It was delightful, but at $18, seemed a bit dear, amounted to maybe one scallop, possibly two, and was really too small to share

Lamb shank mole

comfortably.

The duck was disappointing. The meat was tough, and the rich cocoa crumble it sat on (all nubbly, designed to look like a pile of earth) diverted too much attention.

Some dishes were easier to share than others. Some seemed fairly priced for the portion delivered; and others not so much.

Much to like here though. The food is really very good. But the menu needs clarity. Chef Rodriguez calls it a return to Grandma’s kitchen kind of cooking. All fine and fair. But when a menu makes me nervous – and I’m no menu rookie – imagine what it’d do to gran.

If I were feeling peckish and fond of the Rolling Stones, I might seek out the band’s former chef and see what’s cookin’. I’d have to go to Orléans to find him, to a strip mall on St Joseph Boulevard next to a Jumbo Video, where a bright yellow sign announces ‘Gourmet Meals to Go.’

Ordinarily, trolling Orléans for good eating can be a disheartening exercise. But Marc Miron and his wife, chef Chantal Gagné, have had cooking careers that have taken them to hotels and restaurants all over the world, (and, for a time, says Miron’s CV, to the kitchen of Mick, Keif, Ron, and whoever the other guy is). But they’ve now settled down in Orléans where they feed we commoners, grub that’s inarguably the best in these suburbs. They do this at their gourmet shop and cooking school “Cuisine & Passion.”

Among the shelves of fancy pastas and oils, cookbooks and cutting boards, cases of frozen prepared food, baskets of bread and fridges of cheese, there are a few comfy couches and high top tables.  (There’s Lunch To Go service as well as an eat in option.) You can have the daily special – quiche, say, with a salad, or a the morning’s sandwich – but I had my eye on the chicken in the display case, wrapped in pandan leaves. I ordered it rewarmed, along with a small container each of roasted squash with onion, roasted cauliflower with a toasted crumb and parsley topping, and a cold chickpea salad. These I brought to a picnic bench by the Ottawa River and tucked in.

You remove the pandan leaf – it’s not edible – but its exotic aroma had infused the ultra moist chicken with a bright flavour. What it and a good rub had done for boring old boneless chicken breast was commendable.  The vegetables were perfectly cooked and seasoned, while the chickpeas were elevated with grilled onion and peppers, and with long threads of house-smoked salmon.  If I had a complaint, the legumes were too al dente for my taste.  But that’s minor stuff.  I still got satisfaction.

Cost: my sampling cost $16 and gave me leftovers for another meal.

Open: Monday to Friday, 10am to 6pm; Saturday, 10am to 5pm

Cuisine & Passion, 2297 St. Joseph Blvd., Orléans, 613-845-1090

In the queue in front of me they know exactly what they want and the line moves in obedient fashion at a good clip. The woman directly ahead of me, with whom I had been chatting, orders her weekly indulgence, a Falscher Hase (slabs cut from a loaf of pork and beef bound with eggs, tucked in a bun). She tells me it’s a chomp down memory lane for her, harkening back to her days as a Munich grad student, forever hungry, forever broke.

The Sausage Kitchen server working the lunch line overhears my questions about this Munich meatloaf and before I can say Menschenskind I have a fat forkful of the thing suspended in front of my nose. “Here, try it!” It’s probably three bites worth, but I manage to pop the entire generous hunk of it and am accordingly chewingly mute by the time it’s my turn at the counter. All I can do is nod as she points to the items that go in The Sampler Plate. Sauerkraut? (Yes). Fried potatoes… regular ones? (I shake no) or Hungarian ones with paprika, onion and spicy sausage? (To these, I nod).

The Sausage Kitchen's sampler plate

Next come pierogies (cheddar and potato, three of them) and finally, the sausage. By now I can talk. She goes over the options after I ask for details – from the very spicy Cajun sausage to the mild garlic, to the Italian, the bratwurst, knackwurst, weisswurst… The line behind me shuffles and sighs. I go for a Bratwurst, say yes to Dijon mustard, nod to sour cream. I am invited to choose my own drink from the fridge and I move to the window ledge to wolf it all down.

This is the Sausage Kitchen’s Sampler Plate. It’s quite brown, a bit messy, very tasty and there’s enough of it to fill me for a week.

At the cash are donuts, brought in from Montreal I am told, sugar glazed and shiny, filled with a boozy prune goo. I tuck one of those away for later. Surely I’ll be hungry later. I’m still waiting.

Cost: The Sampler costs $7.89 and includes a drink.

The Sausage Kitchen is found at 5 Byward Market Square and is open daily.

Once again, the good people at A Taste for Life are staging their annual Dining Out in support of Bruce House and The Snowy Owl Aids Foundation. Participating restaurants are donating 25% of proceeds. Mark the date: April 25th and book a table why don’tcha? Kudos to the restaurants involved.