Ottawa Dragon Boat Festival 2011

The 18^th annual Tim Hortons Ottawa Dragon Boat Festival officially begins on Saturday! Lucy and I have volunteered for the past three years but have never gotten the chance to fully enjoy the actual dragon boat racing event. I can’t wait until the races begin this year because I’ll be getting the opportunity to ride in the media boat and take photos of the racers. Wahoo!

Since this is a food blog, I scouted out the food and drink vendors that will be at the festival.

This weekend weather forecast calls for a sunny 25 degrees Celsius – and that’s without humidity. No worries. There are plenty of places where you can purchase some cool drinks… like this Lemon Heaven stand.

I like the looks of this stand much better. Ah, I should probably mention that they also serve diabetic lemonade diabetic-friendly lemonade.

(I just went on their website and found out that they do sell mini donuts called “Cin City Donuts” – but not at the festival. Whyyyyyy? Do you remember how awesome the mini donuts at Costco [it was then called Price Club] were? Mmmm…)

There was only one Magnum ice cream stand that I spotted. I’m assuming that there will be more. Speaking of ice cream, I saw a Dippin’ Dots stand. The first one I ever saw was at the First Markham Place. True story.

It should be no surprise that Pizza Pizza is around. They make and bake all the pizzas on site.

Last year, Lucy and I each got a slice of pizza for dinner. The slice had a bit of extra sauce and the pepperoni was baked to a nice curly crunch. I love when the pepperoni gets crunchy. It makes the pizza so much more flavourful. Luck was on our side last year, cause our slices were taken off of a freshly baked pizza. So not only were my components of my slice of pizza spot on, but it was a hot slice of pizza. We washed the tasty slices of pizza down with some ice cold lemonade from Lemon Heaven. That was probably the best slice of pizza Pizza Pizza I've ever had.

The Ottawa Dragon Boat Festival begins at 7am on Saturday. I'm not sure if this waffle stand will be open that early, but it would be a great bite in the morning if it will be. I don’t think they sell chicken and waffles for lunch/dinner, which would be awesome. Can someone bring me some fried chicken when they come visit? Please?

Fridays Organics have been around for quite a few years now. Lucy and I had some of their burgers last year and they weren’t impressive at all.

I remember seeing Stone Soup Foodworks at the Ottawa Race Weekend two weeks ago. I’m not sure if they’ll be serving the same things the whole weekend, but on today’s menu: white gazpacho, green dragon, and strawberry, melon and ginger soup; shredded chicken taco and organic refrito tacos; organic iced tea, local rhubarb ginger cordial, cookies and water.

One stand that was a bit of a head scratcher was the Seafood Macs stall. The only item I remember seeing on their board was shrimp ceviche.

There was a stand serving authentic Indian food. Butter chicken, chickpea curry, samosa, naan bread, basmati rice were on the menu today. They also had some water and Gatorade… I didn’t know Gatorade was Indian… =]

Beside the Indian food stand sits The Piggy Market. I only remembered two things from their menu, sausages and pulled pork sandwiches.

For those who love Thai food, there’s a food stall called Cuisine Thai. It wasn’t open so I don’t know what they’ll be serving this weekend.

I remember seeing this stall during the race weekend as well. They serve smoothies and fruits with chocolate.

The festival’s largest sponsor, Tim Hortons, has a large tent. They’ll be serving coffee, decaf coffee, and iced coffee – all for $1. All of the proceeds will be going back to the Ottawa Dragon Boat Festival. It's too bad they don't have any muffins, donuts, or timbits.

You know what's missing? A bubble tea stand. They don't even need to serve slushies. There's also a lack of Chinese food. I digress.

This stall sells pita wraps, french fries, and poutine. I bought my dinner from here.

I was expecting something flavourful, but the chicken was dry and bland. If it hadn’t been for the sautéed onions, the whole thing would’ve been bland. The tzatziki-like sauce wasn’t very good. I definitely needed the lemonade to wash every bite down. The lemonade tasted a bit weird. I can’t put my finger on the type of sugar they used. It didn’t have that aspertame aftertaste, but it tasted like they used some sort of sugar substitute. Oh… maybe they lady gave me a diabetic-friendly lemonade when I asked for their original lemonade. Bleh.

In terms of food and drink stalls, that’s pretty much it. Oh, I almost forgot to mention the beer tent. So back to the food, the average price is $7. I suggest you either eat before or after you go to the festival. Or better yet, bring food and have a picnic on the giant hill! Something like: Fresh French bread, genoa salami, havarti cheese, grapes, and peaches…

Anyway, come join the festivities! Admission is free and so are the OC Transpo shuttle buses. You should take advantage of the free shuttle buses, too, because there will be no public parking available.

… So come on down!



Wanna see some of the action shots I got? Go to my Flickr page or just skip to the dragon boat festival set that I created.

D'Arcy McGees: Take 2

Back in April, VN and I went to watch the visiting Habs play the Sens in the last home game of the season.

Prior to the game, VN and I had dinner at D’Arcy McGees. To my surprise, the pub was quite dead for a home game. Anyway, I couldn’t decide what I wanted to eat. I knew that I was going to stay away from the Yorkshire pudding appetizers.

I settled on the chicken pie. It came out piping hot and looked really good! Despite our waiter’s warning to me, I dug right in and burned my tongue. The filling was pretty good, though the sauce was a bit pasty. I was quite impressed with the flaky crust. It wasn't overly salty or soggy. The best part of the crust was that it didn't have a metallic taste to it like my mom's version (when she makes it with lard).

For my side dish, I enjoyed a summer salad to counter my heavy main. I wish it had more dressing.

I went through about a quarter of my pie before I realized that I had not found a piece of chicken in my chicken pie. Frig… they must’ve been cheap and skimped on the chicken! I thought to myself.

That’s when I hit the gold mine. Giant chunks of chicken breast pieces came out of hiding. Unlike most places, D’Arcy McGees were definitely not stingy with the chicken.

VN ordered the Guinness® poutine. I had a bite and was disappointed with the Guiness® gravy. It was expecting a rich homemade gravy. I don’t know why.

Dinner was great! I’ll definitely be back for the food. The pub also ran shuttle buses to the arena! Oh, for those who care… the Sens beat the Habs 3-2 in overtime. It was an amazing game. Go Sens!

Long Weekend @ Toronto: Noodle Roll Salad

On the last day of our Toronto visit, my cousin prepared a kind of noodle roll salad. I’m not sure what it’s called, but it was pretty simple to make – it was pretty healthy, too!

You can find these noodle rolls in the refrigerated noodle and tofu section of your local Chinese grocery store. There are plain rice noodle rolls, but my cousin likes the ones with the dried shrimp more. She quickly stir fried the rice noodle rolls and tossed in a few eggs. I don’t think that’s the “proper” way to make it, cause my uncle teased her when he saw the plate.

She also picked up some Vietnamese sausage (the white ones) and the sweet ones (the red ones).

I helped slice them both. Can you tell? I didn’t think I butchered them that bad!

I didn’t know how to eat this, so I guessed and tossed in lettuce, both Vietnamese sausages, a few noodle rolls, and topped it off with some nuoc cham (a fish sauce condiment). It tasted fine, but it was lacking some herbs (like mint or Thai basil).

There was also some lobster chow mein that my uncle had bought the night before.

Brunch was surprisingly filling. I didn't even touch the lobster chow mein!

My uncle, grandma, and I left their house prior to noon and did some last minute groceries before driving back to Ottawa. And just like that, another long weekend flies by.

Long Weekend @ Toronto: Chiuchow Man Chinese Restaurant

The plan was to go back to Ottawa in the afternoon, but we ended up staying for another night.

We spent an unexpected dinner in Missisauga somewhere called the Golden Square Center. We found a place called the Chiuchow Man Chinese Restaurant (most of the website is in Chinese) and tried it out. The small restaurant was packed when we got in. We were lucky and got there just as a small table paid their bill and left.

Unsure of what to order, we decided to be safe and order a noodle dish and something else. The lobster with chow mein caught my uncle’s attention. I’m pretty sure this dish is from Hong Kong… Anyway, my uncle requested extra lobster sauce for the chow mein. It didn’t look like that added that much more sauce. We could smell the smokiness from the dish when it arrived. My stomach rumbled. I tried a small bowl of chow mein and had a small piece of lobster. The gooey sauce was bland. It needed more oyster sauce/salt and ginger. The lobster itself was sweet though.

My uncle ended up ordering a plate of rice noodles with vegetables, since the lobster dish would barely have any vegetables. The disappointingly small plate of rice noodles had lots of bean sprouts, but barely any carrots, celery, and green onions. I knew it was a Chiu Chow rice noodle dish because there was egg in it. My dad said that Chiu Chow people love eggs in rice noodles. *Shrug* Just like the lobster sauce in the chow mein, the rice noodles were quite flavourless. We needed a few shots of soy sauce to brighten things up.

The only thing that was great about the rice noodles was the smokiness of the dish. Love. Love. Love.

It’s weird to say it, but I’d come back even though our dinner was lackluster. I noticed that the restaurant was packed with Chinese people. The restaurant did quite a lot of takeout orders as well, so they must be doing something right.

~*~*~

Address:

Chiuchow Man Chinese Restaurant

1177 Central Parkway W

Mississauga, ON

905-803-8783