I always say I don’t eat out much these days, but I guess that’s just compared to the amount that I used to eat out in Montreal when I was doing more food writing (often).
My general rule is that I’ll occasionally spend more on a high-quality meal that I can’t make for myself, rather than buying simpler lunches and dinners more frequently. The point of the rule is to save money and time and to appreciate what I’m eating. I also enjoy cooking, when I have time.
But that’s changed a bit this year, it seems. Judging from the places I’ve eaten lately, I’m maybe less snobbish about my eating-out choices (or maybe just more stingy?), but more likely I’ve been seeking convenient options closer to work and home.
When I do splurge, though, I’m just as snobbish about delicious food, it seems. With that in mind, here’s where I’ve eaten this year around Ottawa, Gatineau and Montreal, and what I recommend.
Affordable in Ottawa:
Authentic Vietnamese Pho House – Definitely recommended
I’ve had this place on my radar for four years, since I read The Legal Nomad’s Gluten Free Guide to Ottawa. She does her research, so if she says something’s safe for GF-ers, I believe her (she also has an amazing and free newsletter of the coolest news and magazine articles she read lately and is completely worth supporting). I don’t east beef, so I had the Chicken Noodle Soup – Hủ Tiếu Gà. It’s similar to the beef pho in terms of it being a noodle soup with the cabbage, herb and bean sprouts sides, but it’s a chicken broth rather than a beef broth, so you’re not going to get the same beef flavour and star anise hit. Still, it had that thickness that comes from slow cooking bones and cartilege, the sweetness from palm sugar and the umami from fish sauce and, likely, MSG (but not enough to give me a headache or make me need a nap).
We also had the shrimp rice wraps with the sweet fish sauce option instead of the peanut sauce that contained gluten. And we had the mango shrimp salad, with underripe (intentionally so) mango and a sweet and fish sauce-y dressing. These were both excellent fillers, and the mango adds a welcome acidic punch to the otherwise pure, sweet comfort of the meal, which I definitely want on occasion.
The best part was that the servers and kitchen understood gluten free, so I wasn’t worried. For less than $20 a person, this was a great meal. I can make chicken pho or hủ tiếu gà at home, but prepping all the sides and making the broth takes times. Plus, I’ll never add as much sugar or salt as it needs. Better to come here, or go to:
Merivale Noodle House – Definitely recommended
The main differences between Merivale Noodle House and Authentic Vietnamese Pho House were that I got hủ tiếu thit (BBQ-ed protein, in my case chicken and shrimp) instead of hủ tiếu gà (boiled chicken) and the chicken broth was a bit saltier and a little less sweet. I think I preferred Authentic Vietnamese Pho House’s version, but still wouldn’t kick this version out of bed for eating crackers, as my mother – and others – would say. The extra flavour makes it easy for me to say that the bun ga nu’o’ng (BBQ chicken on vermicelli rice noodles with shredded veggies and a sweet fish sauce) would also be delicious.
The extra flavour form the BBQ chicken in the pho was nice, with a little smokiness from the grill. But because the meat is already flavoured, I didn’t need to dip it in a small bowl of lime juice, pepper and salt, which, to me, is part of the fun of Vietnamese chicken noodle soup. And I don’t think there’s a menu item for boiled chicken that also comes with shrimp, like the BBQ meat soup options (though you could likely request it). So it’s a toss up whether I’ll order my soup with BBQ or no BBQ next time.
We also got the shrimp rice paper rolls here, which were similar to Authentic Vietnamese Pho House’s above.
Similarly, I felt pretty safe about gluten free here too, overall. Next time, I’d like to do a direct comparison of this and Authentic, because they’re both great on their own and I can’t say which broth I preferred.
Ceylonta – Definitely recommended
I read about this family-run, Sri Lankan restaurant in Peter Hum’s profile in the Ottawa Citizen and took a couple family members there for a quick lunch. We split a mild masala dosa (spiced potato filling, made without ghee upon request), a deviled shrimp dish with rice, and a thali platter with super-sweet and coconut-y butternut squash, lamb/mutton, lentils, spinach, eggplant, chickpeas, papadam and some sweet green beans with coconut milk (pictured above). I’m sure I’m forgetting some of the many dishes included in the platter. I had leftovers for 4 more lunches…It was one of my happiest work weeks.
We’d wanted to try the string hoppers kothu because I was under the impression that hoppers (rice noodles) were made with rice flour, but it turns out they use a blend of rice flour and wheat floor at Ceylonta, so no noodles for us. For some reason I thought hoppers also had coconut milk, but maybe that’s not always in the case. I would have been happy for no coconut milk, but in the end it didn’t make a difference since the hoppers were off limits for GF-ers.
We couldn’t complain, because the shrimp in its tomato-based chilli sauce was plenty tasty with the generous portion of rice, and the thali could have fed us all on its own. I did notice some big differences between other non-Sri Lankan thali platters I’d had before (including the Indian restaurant in Ottawa called Thali, below). The biggest difference was that Ceylonta uses more sugar and more coconut milk. For example, that butternut squash dish and those green beans were dessert-sweet and creamy. As I haven’t had a lot of Sri Lankan food, I’m not sure if that’s typical for Sri Lankan food or it varies according to the chef and the area of the country they’re from or their cooking background. They were very tasty, just surprising.
Anyway, I’d go back, especially when I want more leftovers to cook other vegetables in or portion out into delectable lunches.
Ottawa Cocktail Bar: Tredici – Recommended
Whether you’re into artisanal cocktails or a Sober Summer, I recommend this dark basement where the 40-degree heat can’t find you. Smack in the middle of Byward, it’s an actual hole in the wall (you actually need to go behind the wall to enter, it being a sneaky speakeasy), with a handful of tables in front of a small bar. There’s a food menu, but it leans pasta-, meat, and cheese-heavy, so nothing ended up suiting my dietary requirements. In any case, we came for the drinks. I liked that there was a full non-alcoholic and, I believe, low-alcohol page of the menu here, but also lots of options with high-end ABV. We both went some something fruity and sober, and, admittedly, I was a bit disappointed because it tasted like fruit juice and didn’t have the complexity that alcohol (and distilled non-alcoholic spirits can have). It was refreshing, but not worth my $16 when I could have had an alcoholic version for $17. I did appreciate that the non-alcoholic options were more than just virgin mojitos and daiquiris, though. And I know the drink is worth the $16 in terms of the labour. So there’s likely a market for that page of the menu, and that market will occasionally include me, just not that day. I’ll be back for the alcoholic options when the idea of a basement sounds cozy, aka winter.
Arlo – Definitely recommended for natural wine, other drinks and snacks
I had two contrasting experiences here. First, I came for snacks and drinks and had an amazing time trying a couple of the natural wines by the glass and snacking on blistered and oily shisito peppers with just enough salt. I’m used to awesome natural wine bars in Montreal, where the sommelier is going to be able to find something to suit your tastes, and selling you on their favourite producer or a bottle they love and just happened to open the last bottle that day seems effortless, like you’re the most intelligent consumer the restaurant has ever seen. That’s how I felt here when I came after work with a bunch of friends.
Then I came back for dinner, with a renewed confidence in the kitchen’s ability to cater to my GF needs because the appetizer selection had had so many options for me when I came for snacks. Alas, the appetizers and mains were a little less exciting because they mostly all had to be adapted for my GF, DF needs. The Cavendish and caviar was a crunchy but bland friend potato patty with some sustainable black mullet – salt and starch but no punch for me. The pickled shrimp were… fine. I’d just eaten asaparagus that day and had recently cured my own egg yolk, so that seemed shrug-worthy as well. I couldn’t have the calamansi beurre blanc on the turbot, so it was a pretty plain. I can also cook plain turbot myself, breaking my expensive restaurant rule, because yes Arlo is a very expensive restaurant for Ottawa standards. Mains are all upwards of $40, which is not ridiculous in this economy, but it is when you’re getting plain turbot with some pea shoots.
The best dish, and the most Instagrammed, is the duck brochette, which we hesitated over because it looked small for $46. But it had the most flavour. I won’t guess too much at the spices, but there was maybe some sumac to cut through the richness? The fries were exceptional. And the green garlic aioli was worth the garlic breath for the rest of the night.
Again, the wine was excellent.
We sat on the beautiful back patio, but mosquitos love me a bit too much and inside was too loud and cold. So I’d go back for snacks and drinks in a heartbeat, but maybe not dinner until there’s a big turnover on the menu.
Thali, again – Definitely recommended, but I wouldn’t go more than a few times a year
Thali is consistently excellent. Whether you order a thali for lunch (hands down the best option if you want a meal to yourself) or split a bunch of dishes with a group (they accommodated our group of 6 with three GF-ers and 4 DF-ers with a custom menu of their favourite dishes), you’ll be satisfied. Each individual dish is pretty small, but very rich, so the smaller portions are good if you have multiple dishes to share. The chutneys are fresh and bright, the naan looks beautiful, and the atmosphere is much more upscale than Ceylonta. You go to Ceylonta for a more casual, family-style meal of good food. You come here for a business lunch if you want to impress a little. I’m not saying the two places are similar, but you can order a thali (mixed plates of various spiced vegetarian or meat dishes, both savoury and sweet) at either. What you’ll get in that thali changes depending on the restaurant and the day.
I didn’t leave here with any leftovers this time, but that’s because I inhaled about a whole plate of rice so I didn’t accidentally steal all the chicken or lamb pieces from my dining companions. The wine list is not that exciting to me because it sticks with pretty classic, non-natural options, but no one who ordered wine complained, and everyone loved the experience.
I’ve been to Thali maybe 5 or 6 ties now, though, and the menu doesn’t change, so I’ve tried everything I’m interested in, from the crunchy GF pakoras and snacks to the lobster moilee. The lobster wasn’t the most tender, so I recommend the shrimp instead. Again, no one complained.
Nagi Sushi
This is a Japanese-run sushi restaurant in Orleans. I wasn’t expecting such quality (1) in the suburbs and (2) at such an affordable price, but from the scallop nigiri to the sake list, this is by far my favourite sushi place in the Ottawa area. I got a little more educated about why this place is so good when I subsequently read the Eat the Strip article about it. Turns out the chef used to be at a popular downtown location, and then moved out, bringing the loyal clientele with him (and they’re loyal for good reason).
My only complaint is that they serve imitation crab meat, but I understand that everyone seems to need California rolls, so restaurant need to serve them, and real crab would double the price, so I’m happy that Nagi has the option for real crab at all. I’m also happy that their imitation crab is gluten-free! That’s rare. It’s not free from MSG or a million colorants and preservatives and things I don’t really want to eat when I eat crab, but that’s the way the economic cookie crumbles. So I was just happy that I could eat my complimentary chef’s special marinated vegetable and imitation crab appetizer and woulnd’t get sick.
The best part of this restaurant might be the gluten-free soy sauce and the awareness of GF in general. I contacted the restaurant in advance to ask and they had a menu marked with all the GF options for me upon arrival.
I mentioned sake, and I do recommend it here because the prices are reasonable ($30 range) for private import 300mL junmai daiginjos (small bottles, good for two people or small amounts for 4 if you just want to taste something excellent). There are also exceptional $70-range options for 720mL bottles too, but I like that the list isn’t only crazy expensive options that will only sell to connoisseurs. There’s cheaper stuff too, but it’s not all bottom-shelf, which is the other sushi restaurant tendency (all too expensive or all too cheap).
I also like that there are often extra bottles on the menu, so the list changes enough to want to go back and discover something new. You don’t get stuck with just Dassai 50 (which is lovely, but identifiable) or something you’ve already tried. And they have the Hatichino (Owl’s) Nest rice beers (not GF, but a different option for beer drinkers).
Enough about sake. I would come here just for the chirashi, which includes maguro (red tuna) hamachi (yellowtail amberjack), a sustainable salmon (apparently), hotate (scallop), suzuki (sea bass) and whatever else is fresh. I’ve had good uni here in season, too, which you don’t find a lot of places. The nigiri combo for 8 pieces at $65 is great to see the chef’s nigiri-shaping artistry, but the $45 chirashi is the meal deal. The $120 nigiri and sashimi combo that comes with a maki roll is a labour-intensive delicacy, but I’m a penny-saver, so I will likely stick with my hearty bowl of sliced sashimi on rice.
P.S. The wasabi and ginger are both GF and there’s a bottle of GF tamari that was fine once diluted a bit.
The only other thing I’ve had here are the edamame, because the other dishes are slim pickings for GF-ers. Still, the edamame is a good portion.
Le Petit Alep
I’d been meaning to come here for years, since a private wine importer friend said their list was exceptional and the place was an undercover gem. Turns out lots of smarter people than me know about the diamond quality of the Syrian and Armenian food here, because the place was packed on a sunny afternoon for lunch when I walked by, combining an outdoor terrasse with a spacious open-air interior. It was also full when I came back for dinner and ordered a gorgeous bottle of white wine imported by natural wine importer, Glou.
The server was really trying to sell us on the chef’s tasting menu, a three-course combo of a bunch of salads, dips and mains for as many people are at the table. But we didn’t come for tasty hummus. Instead, we got two of the fish dishes and one shrimp dish, a bowl of deliciously crispy and salted fries (on par with Arlo’s), and it was plenty.
Compared with Arlo’s $40+ mains, though, we could get three of these dishes and still spend less than we would for a meal there.
We loved both fish dishes, but our favourite was the grilled walleye with sweet peppers, onions, walnuts, coriander and fléflé. Both the walleye and the Arctic char had beautifully crispy skin, just enough salt, and were cut into sharable but substantial enough portions. And they came with super rich and creamy (but cream-free) lentil-and-onion rice (moujadara).
The only reason I didn’t like the Arctic char as much as the walleye was because it didn’t have as strong a flavour as I’m used to from char. But I loved it in combination with the accompaniments. The lemon and tahini in the yellow beet purée gave the fish a good punch of needed acidity. And the tahini reduced my sadness for having to skip the butter for cooking the fish. The grilled zucchini salad was also properly seasoned, and all those flavours together made for a very satisfying but not overwhelmingly spiced dish. It felt homestyle with a strong leaning towards fancy.
So often you don’t get any carbs in a meal where you order multiple plates, so I appreciated that both of these fish dishes came with a large moulded scoop of rice and lentils. I also appreciated the ground chicken, allspice, almonds and pine nuts in the rice dish with our four giant grilled shrimp Torbialy. That rice was a big step up from plain or simply spiced and oily rice and was also a very generous amount of protein.
The shrimp themselves came in a garlic-tomato sauce, with flefle (a mildly spiced pepper paste) and lemony sumac and were excellent. That was essentially $6 a shrimp ($24 for the dish), but they were delicious. With the ground chicken rice, they’d be a very filling lunch of their own.
The only fish dish we didn’t try was the grilled sea bass deglazed with arak and a fennel and sweet pepper confit ($34). We’ll come back.
As for that white wine, it was mineral, light (low alcohol but good structure) and salty, and was perfect for siping before and during the meal. Thanks for the rec, Jack!
Bar Vivar
This place on Duluth was on my list because I’ve never been to Barcelona but I love vermut. This is a Spanish vermouth/cider/sherry bar. So I came with a friend, got a snack – the last piece of tortilla for her (heavenly, she said), mixed juicy olives for me and tried 3 vermouth (just a taste of one and two small glasses of the others. They were sweet and herbal, without being bitter, and they certainly got more interesting as they went up in price. I couldn’t tell you what they were, but I can tell you that there are always a bunch of bottles open, so something interesting to try. The chef looked stellar, in that he cared about every plate he put out. We sat at the bar and watched him painstakingly drop garnishes on every tapas that went out. And I loved the owner, who managed the small space with maybe 1 or two other servers, stopping for a chat about what to drink from the big central chilled dais (I have no idea what to call the waist-height thing full of open bottles), plopping down generous servings of olive oil-drenched treats.
I’d go back for more vermouths, and definitely more food.
Pistachio eclair at L’Artisan sans gluten et sans lait
I’ve been to L’Artisan plenty, but this was the best thing I’ve ever eaten there. I’d had a different flavour éclair before and not loved it so much, so I don’t know if it was the day, my tastebuds, or this particular flavour, but oh buddy, this pistachio éclair was just heaven. The pistachio cream was the perfect thickness and didn’t taste soy-y, which is tough when you don’t use dairy (I know after some so-so choux bun adventures). Often I find dairy-free pastry creams and crèmes légères more air and fat than flavour, but the pistachio in this one added body/thickness and real pistachio flavour. Plus, the icing on top wasn’t just icing sugar and dairy-free butter with food colouring, but had more pistachio flavour and just enough more sugar than the cream filling to pair perfectly and make the cream feel sweeter in a way that it needs.
The danishes here are also generally pretty good, but this éclair was another level.
Squamish: Taka Ramen + Sushi
I was on the hunt for GF food in Squamish this summer. I appreciated that Taka Ramen + Sushi had a lot of gluten-free options noted on the menu, so I wouldn’t be stuck with just a couple nigiri. The wasabi and ginger were safe, too. We got a mix of sashimi and nigiri, including seasonal geoduck, which you never get in Montreal. I found the slices of fish were enormous, industrial-style pieces, but the fish was fresh. I didn’t ask my usual million questions about sustainability because this isn’t the kind of place you sit down and while away the hours. It’s a very efficient business that does a lot of takeout and has a lot of servers flying around with platters of fish and rice. That efficiency keeps the price down, which I appreciate for fish flown from Japan. I (probably naively) think that sushi businesses on the west coast are more conscious of sustainability. But I really enjoyed my meal here because we were completely stuffed after a long day of climbing for $60 each.
Baked goods and ice cream in Squamish
As much as I want to support cute local businesses, I really can’t recommend any GF donuts at Fox & Oak or Sunflower Bakery, because they’re always smaller and more like rolled cake than the incredibly fluffy non-GF donuts in adjacent displays, plus there were only ever a couple flavours and generally weren’t as interesting as those non-GF donuts. Like, who wants dense GF vanilla “donuts” with icing and party sprinkles or a simple mint and lime glaze versus non-GF mile-high dragonfruit and hibiscus brioche, Nutella rocher or a fluffy, piped apricot berliner rolled in sugar and filled to the brim with apricot compote? I know it’s hard to make a GF donut as fluffy as a regular one, but the selection just looked sad in comparison. Like a consolation prize that no one wants.
I do recommend the sorbet at the Zephyr at the BAG (the Brackendale Art Gallery), though, with it’s gelato kiosk around the back. It’s a cute location near the north of Squamish, but I’d go back mostly for the atmosphere in the green background with its chairs and picnic table seating. They need a Pacojet or equivalent to make the sorbet crystal-free, but at least other dairy-free/vegan flavours are supposed to be coming in the future.
More updates to come in the Fall!
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