tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80644928183418265922024-03-05T15:04:22.207-08:00Ottawa 34Originating from our neighbourhood noodle house and our too often ordered menu item -- #34 -- comes this blog and our quest to find other #34s in Ottawa cuisine.Alice Huttonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04470193323611199010noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8064492818341826592.post-9499564380079907742007-04-01T12:02:00.000-07:002007-04-01T13:02:51.595-07:00Ceylonta - The low down on dhal<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-size:100%;">I am a relative newcomer to Sri Lankan food.<span style=""> </span>I was drawn to Sir Lankan food after returning from <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">India</st1:country-region></st1:place> and searching for my favourite southern Indian meal – the Masala Dosa.<span style=""> </span>This crepe-like concoction should be stuffed with a potato-based curry and come with a lovely yellow flavourful curry soup (sambar) and a light green coconut chutney. As most Indian restaurants in <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">Canada</st1:country-region></st1:place> tend to serve more mid- to northern-Indian fare, I never was able to find an authentic Masala Dosa on the menu.<span style=""> </span>However, when I tried stepping away from the restaurants of the sub-continent and ventured into a Sri Lankan restaurant, I found that I almost always could find the elusive Masala Dosa done in an authentic manner.<span style=""> </span>The reason for this is that southern <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">India</st1:country-region></st1:place> often shares more of its cusine and culture with its tear</span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-size:100%;">-drop shaped neighbour to the south than with the tandoori and kormas of the north.<span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span></span> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-size:100%;"><o:p></o:p>Ceylonta on <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Somerset</st1:city></st1:place> is no exception and does the Masala Dosa well.<span style=""> </span>The Masala Dosa, however, is best suited as a one-person, one-dish meal and was not the sought after #34 on the menu.<span style=""> </span>Instead #34 proved to be Idly, a steamed dumpling-like dish made from ground urid dhal.<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-size:100%;">Dhal loosely translates into lentils, but as a word and an idea is so much more.<span style=""> </span>To say that dhal equals lentils and to leave it at that is the same as saying that Wonder Bread is wheat.<span style=""> </span>There are so many different varieties of dhal and it is prepared in vast array of different styles.<span style=""> </span>Dhal is also a core staple as well as comfort food in south-east asian <span style=""> </span>cuisine.<span style=""> </span>I have been part of conversations where someone lamented that they really knew they had hit rock bottom when their kitchen was empty of dhal, while another person described all the different dhals and dhal dishes that she was forced to eat when she was sick as a child:<span style=""> </span>one dhal dish for malaria, one dhal dish for colds. Maybe dhal can be loosely translated into not just lentils, but also “chicken soup for south-east asian soul”<span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-size:100%;" lang="EN-CA" ><!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shapetype id="_x0000_t75" coordsize="21600,21600" spt="75" preferrelative="t" path="m@4@5l@4@11@9@11@9@5xe" filled="f" stroked="f"> <v:stroke joinstyle="miter"> <v:formulas> <v:f eqn="if lineDrawn pixelLineWidth 0"> <v:f eqn="sum @0 1 0"> <v:f eqn="sum 0 0 @1"> <v:f eqn="prod @2 1 2"> <v:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelWidth"> <v:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelHeight"> <v:f eqn="sum @0 0 1"> <v:f eqn="prod @6 1 2"> <v:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelWidth"> <v:f eqn="sum @8 21600 0"> <v:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelHeight"> <v:f eqn="sum @10 21600 0"> </v:formulas> <v:path extrusionok="f" gradientshapeok="t" connecttype="rect"> <o:lock ext="edit" aspectratio="t"> </v:shapetype><v:shape id="_x0000_i1025" type="#_x0000_t75" style="'width:97.5pt;"> <v:imagedata src="file:///C:\DOCUME~1\SCOTTG~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\msohtml1\01\clip_image001.png" title=""> </v:shape><![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]--></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPR_PH_ISHeUmQx4ep6h2DpyBCPvzA0fC43WWWMSppHn1Gto4Ol1uND3YlfzT0udST4oCPDs0rN8q2aBd6Fa2OBwF_UYZzWKlZXJOrZcfxl9pipXq0YdSusWtCoxKRCcX-I2s_cX7p1pOr/s1600-h/Idly.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPR_PH_ISHeUmQx4ep6h2DpyBCPvzA0fC43WWWMSppHn1Gto4Ol1uND3YlfzT0udST4oCPDs0rN8q2aBd6Fa2OBwF_UYZzWKlZXJOrZcfxl9pipXq0YdSusWtCoxKRCcX-I2s_cX7p1pOr/s200/Idly.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5048540355914082914" border="0" /></a></span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-size:100%;">But I digress. At Ceylonta the Idly is made of fermented urid dhal.<span style=""> </span>It is white, steamed and frankly rather boring.<span style=""> </span>Not unpleasant, but a good uninteresting base upon which to build a spicy flavourful Sri Lankan meal.<span style=""> </span>To accompany #34 we had an eggplant curry and chicken palandi.<span style=""> </span>The curry was very flavourful with spices that were not too hot, but which augmented the natural flavour of the eggplant.<span style=""> </span>And the eggplant was cooked to a wonderful mush that only eggplant lovers could enjoy.<span style=""> </span>The chicken was crisp and spicy.<span style=""> </span>Unlike your typical roasted chicken, it appeared that this chicken had been smashed instead of chopped into pieces and you had to be careful to fish out the shards of bone while you ate it.<span style=""> </span>The sauce over the chicken was quite spicy and, as with the curry, a little on the heavy side with the grease quota.<span style=""> </span>The Idly also came with a sauce and chutney.<span style=""> </span>These were the ubiquitous masala dosa sauce and chutney: nice light green coconut chutney and a light yellow vegetable curry soup/sauce (sambar).<span style=""> </span>These, as always, were wonderful.<span style=""> </span>The meal was nicely rounded off with a mango lassi that was not too sweet, although was made from canned or bottled mango pulp instead of fresh mangos.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p></o:p>Overall, this was not my best meal at Ceylonta.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><span style="font-size:100%;">It tends to be a place where it can either be a real hit or miss.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><span style="font-size:100%;">Sometimes the food is wonderful and we seem to have ordered the right combination of spicy, oily and fresh dishes with the assistance of a very helpful staff that provides attention that is usually found in only much higher-end restaurants, or we order a mishmash of dishes that do not go well together, everything seems too heavy and the staff seem to be generally annoyed that they have to serve us.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><span style="font-size:100%;">I guess it depends on the day.</span><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span></span></p>Alice Huttonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04470193323611199010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8064492818341826592.post-34933675214539493822007-02-04T15:20:00.000-08:002007-02-18T13:13:12.913-08:00Pork Soup at a Halal Friendly Restaurant???<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA">Rising for the ashes of Anatolian, the old Turkish lunch spot at Bank and <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Somerset</st1:city></st1:place>, comes Pho Bó Ga Trúc, a Vietnamese Noodle House for the downtown lunch crowd.<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA">Bringing a slightly up-scale approach to the traditional Ottawa Pho house, Pho Bó Ga Trúc has an appealing décor with rather large stone tables being the prominent element of the dining area.<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA">With a nod to its mid-eastern predecessor, this Pho diner offers an original take on the noodle house experience and promotes Canadian multicultural ideals by offering Halal Pho and other Halal menu items.<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA">I found this Muslim take on the Vietnamese noodle house quite surprising as when I looked down the menu and came to #34<span style=""> </span>I found myself confronted with a very non-muslim choice, Hú Tiéu Thap Cam or BBQ Pork Rice Noodle Soup.<span style=""> </span>Hmmm ….. Pork in a restaurant offering Halal options? … something seemed a little incongruous.<span style=""> </span>Maybe they have two separate kitchens?<span style=""> </span>I just know that if I had strongly held beliefs about pigs being the dirt of the earth, I would not be too comfortable eating in a restaurant that had pork on its menu.<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA">However, being neither Muslim nor vegetarian this # 34 seemed like a great option.<span style=""> </span>The soup broth had good flavour and the BBQ pork was a pleasant variation to the beef Pho soups.<span style=""> </span>Hu Tieu soups, however, did not come with the side plate of fresh herbs and bean sprouts and the pork soup seemed more of a traditional Canadian winter soup augmented with cabbage. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA">Eating this #34 over a lunch hour and with a friend, I was surprised with how busy the restaurant was.<span style=""> </span>At one point all the tables were full and we found ourselves sitting at the end of a group of tables that could accommodate eight.<span style=""> </span>The wait staff were keen to promote the Asian tradition of sitting small groups of people together at one table, which the clientele seemed resistant to. Several times groups would move to other less communal tables, tossing the wait staff into chaos trying to figure out who ordered what and where it should go.<span style=""> </span>I guess the <st1:city st="on">Ottawa</st1:city> lunch crowd is still not ready for the <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Toronto</st1:place></st1:city> experience of noodle houses like King Noodle or still have “Memories of Andy Scott” and overheard political conversations.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Pho Bo Ga Truc</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-weight: bold;">275 Bank St.</span><br /><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span></span></p>Alice Huttonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04470193323611199010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8064492818341826592.post-18506387726173214682007-01-10T12:45:00.000-08:002007-02-18T13:13:42.321-08:00The Original #34<span style="font-weight: bold;"></span> <h1 style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-weight: normal;font-size:12;" > <o:p></o:p></span><span lang="EN-CA"><o:p></o:p></span> </h1><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA">Evaluating a restaurant can be overwhelming. Where to start? Service? Atmosphere? Texture of the softsoap in the bathroom? Start with the food, you say? That can be even more fraught with potential problems. I mean, I enjoy eating out and I like to think that I can tell the difference between a great meal and a mediocre one, but the kind of specifics that are required for a good restaurant review, well they are largely beyond me. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA"><o:p></o:p>And I’ve found that it’s particularly difficult at Asian restaurants. For one thing, I’m largely self-taught. I am a child of the seventies, growing up in <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Canada</st1:place></st1:country-region> at a time when “Asian” equalled “Chinese” and “Chinese” equalled egg rolls and chicken balls. My love of Chinese Dim Sum, Thai, Vietnamese and Indian food developed largely through trial and error and rarely with an expert to guide me (more often my fellow explorers were as ignorant – and hungry – as I was.). Asian restaurants also often confound me with menus that have ridiculous numbers of dishes. Depending on the establishment they can run into the hundreds. Who knows where to start, let alone whether you’re hitting the kitchen’s high notes.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA"><o:p></o:p>Never being one to let ignorance hold me back, I am trying my hand at restaurant reviewing anyway – specialized knowledge be damned! But if a learned background in the culinary arts and a comfort with foodie language is not going to form the basis of my reviews, what will set my writing apart? I need a gimmick, oops, I mean a starting point, a frame of reference for my experience.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA"><o:p></o:p>Where better, then, to start than the Asian restaurant we frequent most often and, more importantly, the dish we always order. There is nothing that really sets Pho Thang Long apart from the myriad of other Vietnamese restaurants in town. Located in a strip mall by Lincoln Fields in the city’s west end, it offers the usual range of pho and other rice and noodle-based dishes. It has a unique décor, a “modern sparse” look that pairs hip lighting with framed prints of flowers from Wal-Mart. It’s clean (although, it must be noted that the bathrooms – the male one at least – doubles as storage area with everything from brooms and shovels to extra cleaning supplies piled beside the toilet) and the service runs the range from indifferent to polite depending on the night and the number of customers.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA"><o:p></o:p>It is the place, however, that we first tried bun. It was our second, maybe third visit (five years ago, when the restaurant was under different management) and it was listed as a special (we came to learn that the specials on the board never changed and stayed the same visit after visit until they finally ditched the special board in the last round of renovations). In our ignorance (see above) we thought it was some sort of actual bun. I mean, we’d had Asian buns at dim sum stuffed with red bean paste and pork <span style=""> </span>Our waitresses English wasn’t very good nor was our Vietnamese, so we went ahead and ordered it anyway. We soon learned, of course, that bun is a dish of vermicelli noodles with fresh vegetables (lettuce, sprouts, carrots) and a choice of grilled meats and spring rolls all brought together with <i style="">nuoc cham</i>, a sweet fish-based sauce that gets poured over the whole dish.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA"><o:p></o:p>It was a great discovery, to say the least. There was enough good stuff to lessen the guilt normally associates with too much fried and deep fried foods. The cold portion balanced nicely with the warm portion. The saltiness of the fish sauce, the tang of the lime juice and the sugar’s sweetness in the <i style="">nuoc cham </i>added some energy to otherwise bland noodles. The price (7.50 or so depending on how many toppings you order) and the generous portion only helped make it an even better choice on busy nights when we wanted someone else to cook. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA"><o:p></o:p>So, you’re thinking, we decided to run around town and try buns at the city many, many Vietnamese restaurants. While that would be fun, it feels too limiting somehow. We like variety in both our food and our restaurants. But how to pay homage to our beloved bun, but yet still get to broaden our horizons? At Pho Thang Long, bun is number thirty four on the menu. Thus, we have set it as our goal to eat our way though as many thirty-fours as possible at as many different restaurants as possible. If a restaurant chooses to number it’s menu, we’ll find it and report back.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Pho Thang Long</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-weight: bold;">1315 Richmond Rd.<br /></span></span></p>Alice Huttonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04470193323611199010noreply@blogger.com0