The contrast between two food stories I've read recently is worth mentioning.
The first was Ottawa Magazine's Top 10 Restaurants list published in their annual food issue. Chris Knight, OM's resident food flogger, chose what he thought were the city's best restaurants. Unfortunately, a few of his picks (e.g., the one for Social) rely on claims about the chefs' potential, rather than the actual goods. They are no doubt all great chefs, but if they aren't delivering (whether that's the restaurant's fault or not), it's just plain weak to include them in a top ten list - especially at the expense of restaurants where the food is undeniably better (e.g., The Black Cat).
Even worse was the fact that the description of one restaurant Knight mentioned - Juniper - included the line "I've never had a bad meal at Juniper. I've never had an oh-my-gawd-that-totally-rocked dinner there either." I couldn't agree more with his assessment, but why include it in the top ten then? Surely there are other Ottawa restaurants that are doing it better. Makes me wonder what is really behind Knight's picks.
Needless to say, by the time I finished reading, I was thoroughly depressed.
Compare that to Toronto Life's 100 Tastes to Try Before You Die in their Food Lover's Guide issue. The story consisted of thirteen pages dripping with original, belly growling foods - all Toronto specialties or produced within or near the GTA. This article was a big-talking, swaggering, horn-blow, in which the author honored the establishment, celebrated the upstart, flirted with embellishment, and otherwise glorified the fancy, foxy, and one-of-a-kind.
It's time to quit extolling the expected and cut the moaning about everything else in Ottawa. And here's your chance to put up.
What foods, dishes, or local favorites should be included on Ottawa's 100 Tastes That Make Us Great list? I want to hear your suggestions - weird, cheap, chi chi, sweet, spicy, traditional, new school, whatever. Just lemme have them. And if you don't want to put up, you know what you can do.
4 comments:
I think this city's vegetarian places are sometimes underrated. You should definitely include things for the vegetarians among us as well.
I couldn't agree more with that. Veggies unite! But no vegans. Thats going too far.
I LOVE YOU! and your new shirt.
The coolest girl around arward goes to you!
Hi bite hard, I love your blog and I read it whenever you update a post. OKay, my top picks for bites in the city are DiRienzo's sandwiches, the tortellini from European Deli on Merivale and the wings from Brewhouse.
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