Ahora

Ahora has been popular with locals for many years. Located down some stairs along Dalhousie Street, this small Mexican restaurant serves items like tostadas, tacos, enchiladas, horchata and churros.




After we ordered and payed, we visited the salsa bar and brought some condiments to our table.


On this warm sunny day, I went with two tacos ($9.25) and had the chicken and steak, My friend, MB, was really hungry so she had a burrito grande ($9.25).

The double corn tortillas were filling. It didn't look like much at all. The tacos were alright. I preferred the chicken over the steak because the steak was overdone. I think the flavour of corn tortillas are not my favourite. Maybe I haven't had the right ones, or maybe I'm just not used to them, but they remind me of something being stale. I prefer the less authentic flour tortillas. I'll try their burrito next time.

~
Ahora
307 Dalhousie Street
Ottawa, ON
613-562-2081

Sandwiches, Sliders, Fajitas and Subs

Sometime last week, I went to T&T and stocked up on some groceries. While walking up and down the aisles, I had one dish in mind. I wanted to recreate the ham and cheese french toast sandwich, which I had in Taiwan.

The main ingredient that I needed was the sweet milk bread. The loaves were all sliced a bit too thick to my liking. Oh well. While we didn't have any processed sliced cheese. I just used what we had in the fridge.

Richard gave the bread a taste test with a smear of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter.

I didn’t feel like dipping the sandwich in some egg, but damn, it was lookin’ good! The pan was too hot so the cheese didn’t really soften much.

Each bite invited waves of flavour. First it was salty from the margarine then ham and cheese. The sweetness of the soft bread showed up before yielding to the tangy mayo. The ham and cheese once again rounded out the flavour.

To add another Taiwanese flare, the sandwich was chased down with sips of Mr. Brown’s instant coffee.

Not bad. Not bad at all.

Later that afternoon, Andrew made a few dinner roll sliders for his after school snack. Using the base of black forest ham and spring salad mix, he made a few different combinations:

• Smoked salmon cream cheese + cheddar
• Caesar dressing + cow cheese (wedges)
• Caesar dressing + parmesan cheese
• Salsa + cow cheese

The sliders, which had salsa, were his favourite, “because salsa is salsa. It would’ve been better if there was less cow cheese.”

Andrew enjoyed the smoked salmon cream cheese ones the least.

He’s still learning his way around the kitchen, but he always seems to surprise me with the stuff he comes up with. Andrew made a mac and cheese with roasted lemon juice and red onions. I was hesitant as well, but it was freaking amazing! It was the best dish he has made – hands down!

Sandwiches are always fun to make, especially when your kitchen is stocked up.

Exhibit A:

Sometime last year, we had some veggies that were close to expiring and so we made fajitas. We took out some chicken and beef from the freezer, defrosted them, marinated them, and then cooked them on the barbeque.





Lucy and I felt like experimenting with the rice and tried to infuse some flavour with cumin, broth, and tomato sauce. The rice turned out soggy and bland. Fail.





Everyone had their own plate and put their own fajitas together.

Surprisingly, there were still leftover beef, chicken and some of the condiments the next day. But what happens when you run out of tortillas? Make subs of course! I'm not sure what kind of bread this was, but it was probably the frozen stuff we bought at Costco. Anyway, the bread was toasted and then filled with pâté, chicken, beef, cheese, red onions, dijon mustard, cheese, cilantro, red peppers, and a squeeze of lime juice. Cold cuts were added when the chicken and beef from the fajitas ran low.





These subs were more than filling. What an easy lunch in the sweltering summer weather.

Lunches with Lucy: Empanadas, Dolmades, Sushi – May 13, 20 & 22, 2009

* I’m going to start a new series for the summer: Lunches with Lucy. This will chronicle my lunch adventures while at work. I’ve set up a new tag called “Lunches with Lucy” for easier searching. Unless noted otherwise, all of the places will be in Ottawa’s downtown core. *

I have worked in the heart of downtown Ottawa for the past few summers. Now I can’t imagine working anywhere else. The bus ride isn’t too bad, and the collective pulse of the city is quite unique. Though Ottawa isn’t fully bilingual, you’re just as likely to hear a French conversation as an English one when you’re downtown. Ottawa is a government town, through and through.

Unfortunately, this means most of the food offerings downtown are purposely generic, in the hopes of appealing to the masses. A successful downtown (I’m referring to high-rise downtown, and not the Byward Market) eatery won’t be focused on authenticity or quality; it just wants to make quick, cheap food so they can serve more customers.

The lunch crowds are pretty crappy, too. Everyone takes their lunch at the same time, it seems. The lineups are the worst from 11:45 to 12:15. By 12:30, mostly everyone has been served, and you can see the lines start to shrink.

A small place I frequent is Café Deluxe at Metcalfe and Albert. A co-worker introduced it to me a few years ago, and it’s my standby lunch place when I don’t feel like eating the same old stuff. They have this great vegetarian panini that contains heavily herbed roasted vegetables. It’s so flavourful and substantial that you don’t miss the meat.

Their offerings change daily, so it’s like a roll of the dice each time I eat there.



This time, I ordered their chicken empanadas. It was served on top of Mexican rice, had a salad on the side (I chose sundried tomato dressing), and included three glops of guacamole, sour cream, and fresh salsa.

It was okay. I honestly can’t remember much, except for the creamy, unctuous guacamole and the perkiness of the salsa. The Mexican rice was appropriately salty, though not spiced, so it`s probably not authentic. The salad was totally overdressed, but it wasn’t soggy. Luckily, the salad was dressed just as the guy assembled the takeout container.

I think I ate each bite with all three sauces/condiments/whatever. I know this is gross, but I definitely finished off the rice by throwing a spoonful of sauce(s) and tossing it around in rice, making for substantial mouthfuls of saucy goodness. That part was fantastic.

The meal was a little pricey, coming in around $12, but it offers a nice change in pace. Eating lunch downtown can get you in a rut really quickly, so places that offer a variety of specials each day do very well.

~ * ~

One Ottawa favourite lunchtime haunt is the food court at the World Exchange Centre. Part mall, part office building, the World Exchange is always packed at lunch. Most of the time, I wander around until I get hit with a craving for something. This is where I end up getting my lunch 75% of the time.

This week, I didn’t want generic white food, so I narrowed it down to two places: Tasha’s Fine Foods which serves Middle Eastern-influenced food, and Kebob Kebob which specializes in, you guessed it, kebobs. Not much a selection here, but it was better than getting a burger or a sandwich from Subway.

I settled on Tasha’s Fine Foods because I felt like having my first shawarma this summer. Once I got in line, I had second thoughts. I had a few meetings that afternoon, and I didn’t want to be the idiot stinking up the room with my garlic and onion breath. I saw some dolmades and settled on that platter instead.



When I got back to my desk to eat, I suddenly realized there would be garlic in the hummus. I felt pretty stupid until I actually tasted the stuff. The garlic was so weak, I wondered if the hummus contained any at all. I guess the folks at Tasha’s Fine Foods were thinking of us office workers when they toned down the hummus. I think I was more disappointed that the hummus tasted more of lemon than of garlic and tahini.

The dolmades themselves were okay. I can’t remember the last time I had any, but I’m sure it has also been toned down to appeal to the lunch crowd. They seemed to lack that unique flavour from the grape leaves that I love so much. I ended up smothering them in hummus. I’m sure that’s NOT how you’re supposed to eat them, but they were just so blah. Not bland, because they had flavour, but it just tasted one dimensional.

This platter also came with pickled turnips. The hot pink pickled turnips are probably one of my favourite pickled things to eat by themselves. I crunched on these happily.

Oh, and there was also a fluffy, samosa-looking pastry included in the container. I ate that first, curious about its filling, so there are no pictures. It was a soft, bread-like wrapper encasing a spinach filling (I think). It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great. Mostly, I just liked the carbs. I dipped it in hummus, too.

In the top right-hand corner, you’ll see that there was some tabbouleh. I’m not normally a big fan of tabbouleh, but this time, it was tangy and refreshing. Instead of tasting like I imagine Astroturf to taste, it was bright and lemony.

It wasn’t what I expected, but it’s something I would order again if I had a craving for “something different.”

~ * ~

About a week later, I got another craving for “something different,” so I headed toward Sparks Street instead. For non-Ottawa-peeps, Sparks Street is a pedestrian mall with a line of shops, restaurants, take-out food places, and souvenir shops. It also happens to be another one of the go-to places to eat if you’re working downtown.

I went to Sushi Shop last year, so I knew what to expect. Part of what I include in my evaluation of a place’s authenticity is who actually prepares my food. A line of white males, who were bilingual to their credit, assembling makis doesn’t exactly ring “Japanese” to me. Of course, authenticity doesn’t guarantee deliciousness, so I kept an open mind.

Instead of getting a premade sushi box filled with the usual California rolls and futomaki, I found one that also included inari-sushi. I have always wanted to try it, but didn’t have the chance or didn’t feel like trying something new.



I bought the vegetarian combo which comes with an avocado roll, vegetarian futomaki, some sort of tofu roll, and two pieces of inari-sushi. This cost $8.95 before tax.



The avocado was very fresh and ripe, oozing buttery goodness with each bite. I never thought such a plain roll could be so delicious!

The futomaki, renamed Sumomaki at Sushi Shop, contained yellowish pickled daikon, red pepper, shredded carrot and cucumber, avocado, and a few squirts of spicy mayo (Japanese mayonnaise and Sriracha sauce). It was also better than I expected it to taste.

I also enjoyed the tofu maki (front and centre) more than I expected to. This maki had ginger tofu (I couldn’t taste the ginger), shiitake mushrooms, shredded carrot, green onion (I didn’t taste it), lettuce, and ginger and coriander sauce. There were a couple elements I couldn’t taste, but the roll had a fresh, bright flavour. It wasn’t until I looked at their menu that all of it made sense.

The star of the meal, however, was the inari-sushi, pictured in the bottom left-hand corner. A fried tofu pouch marinated in sweet soy stuffed with rice, green onion, slices of shiitake mushrooms, and sesame seeds. The flavours sang out to me in perfect harmony! It was the perfect combination of nuttiness from the sesame, sweetness from the mushrooms, and savoury from the tofu pouch itself. The sharp green onions cut the heaviness of it beautifully. It’s something I’ve been craving since I had it.

I would get this again for sure.

~ * ~

Buying lunch downtown can be really tricky sometimes. You have to navigate through the crowds, wait in long lines, and pay some extravagant prices, but even all this doesn’t guarantee a good meal. The only way to be sure you get what you want for lunch is to pack it yourself.

Alas, if only I had the time….

~ * ~

Café Deluxe
77 Metcalfe Street
(Albert and Metcalfe, facing the bus shelters)
Ottawa, ON
(613) 231-2226

Tasha’s Fine Foods
45 O’Connor Street, 100 Queen Street, and 111 Albert Street
(World Exchange Plaza food court)
Ottawa, ON
(613) 238-2524

Sushi Shop
140-A Sparks Street
Ottawa, ON
(613) 235-8686

A Visit to Kingston - November 16th - 18th

It snowed two nights ago, and it's snowing again today. I thought I'd post this picture for those who, like myself, love snow and winter. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone celebrating it today.

This past weekend I went to visit Lucy and some friends in Kingston. Here's some of the things I did...

November 16th:

I left for Ottawa to Kingston in time for dinner. We went to a nice Vietnamese restaurant, called Little Saigon, for dinner. This restaurant isn't a pho restaurant though. It's just a small Vietnamese place. The last time I ate there was a couple of years ago -- before I became a pho addict. I remembered how godly their spring rolls were. I also remembered how much I enjoyed their pho. Over a couple of years, I've eaten a lot of pho and I've become quite the pho snob.

When Lucy, Jimmy, and I arrived at the restaurant for dinner, there were probably two tables being occupied. We ordered two plates of spring rolls to share, I had my small bowl of pho with no bean sprouts (they don't have medium bowls, they only have small, large, or extra large), while Jimmy had the bun bo hue, and Lucy had the vermicelli noodle salad with pork (bun). I didn't take any pictures because I figured you're all getting sick of my pho posts. In its place, here is my bowl of pho that I ate sometime in October with some friends. Just as our food arrived, the small restaurant was packed and a line started to form.

The spring rolls were the same as I remembered. They were juicy inside, crunchy outside, and very hot. Their spring rolls are kind of like the ones they serve at the Vietnamese Noodle House and at Pho Thu Do. Instead of using spring roll wrappers, they use rice paper -- the authentic Vietnamese way. Here's a picture of the spring rolls from the Vietnamese Noodle House.
I tasted the pho and was disappointed that the soup wasn't as flavourful as I remembered it to be. I know this place isn't a pho joint, but I just thought the soup could've been more flavourful. The flavour of the soup was quite weak and needed to be simmered for another few hours. As for the rice noodles, they were a bit overdone to my liking. I like them al dente.

Dinner wasn't bad. The spring rolls made up for my sad bowl of pho. I wish we had ordered more spring rolls.

November 17th:
Lucy wanted to make a pancake breakfast, so she did. By the time we started making it though, the clock read twelve o'clock. So our pancake breakfast turned into our pancake lunch. Oh well.

A little of this and a little of that and poof, we had a pancake batter. Lucy made the pancakes by eyeballing it and doing it by feel. Call it intuition. Here's the bowl with some eggs, butter and sugar.

Flour, milk, vanilla extract, baking soda, baking powder, and some salt were added. Then the batter was allowed to rest for a few minutes.

Then on medium-high heat, a bit of butter was added to a pan, and then some batter was poured into the melted butter. Here's a tip: wait until the tops are looking like this before you touch the pancake. Check the bottom. The sides should be a bit golden. Once it's the colour you prefer, flip the pancake over and let it finish cooking.

I like mine practically deep-fried in butter. I love the crunchy and buttery crust and the golden brown colour to my pancakes, rather than a fluffy non-fried pancake. When you pour the pancake batter onto butter or oil (whichever you prefer to use) on a hot pan, the pancakes should form a deliciously buttered crust.

Lucy’s Comment:
I made these pancakes from scratch once I was old enough to mix the batter. Here’s a recipe that I sort-of follow:

1 cup all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
1 tbsp sugar
¼ tsp salt
1 egg
1 cup milk
2 tbsp melted butter
½ tsp vanilla extract

Before dinner, we watched the Santa parade from Jimmy's apartment. Unfortunately, we had a tree in our way so none of the pictures we took turned out. To her delight, Santa did look up and wave at Lucy.

After the parade, we walked to Lone Star to watch hockey and have some dinner. The Leafs were playing the Sens. We arrived there a bit late and so the restaurant and sports bar (upstairs) was full. As we watched the game while snacking on the salsa and chips, we waited for our table of three. Hmm.. yes.. this does resemble the last time I went to Lone Star. Like I did last time, I ate too much chips and salsa. But this time, I was more nervous than hungry. The Sens weren't playing that well and the Leafs were leading the game. Our table was ready by the second period. Seated near the corner of the restaurant, we had a booth that had a partial view of the television.

Back to food... Jimmy had the steak with his side of fried 'shrooms.

Lucy had the chicken enchiladas.
I had the chicken fajitas. For some reason, my tortillas were quite thick. Do you see that fat one sticking out? Sure I was pretty full with the chips and salsa, but I was going at least make and eat two wraps. I struggled real hard to finish the second one. I could've left it alone, but there were only two bites left. Then one bite left. I stared at the last chunk for probably about five minutes until I convinced myself that I would finish it.
The Sens struggled in the game, just as I struggled to finish my last bite of fajita. The Leafs dominated the Sens 3-0 in an uncharacteristic game for both teams. It seemed as though the teams switched jerseys or something. But a loss is a loss. Kudos goes out to the Leafs that played that night. Let's see them keep it up for the rest of the season. Bwhahaa! That's never going to happen.

November 18th:
We all stayed up late the previous night. We all slept in pretty late and wasted most of the day. Actually, I can't remember what happend that day except dinner. With Jimmy doing his assignment, Lucy made sushi for dinner. I helped a bit, mostly with emotional support, because everyone knows how much support you need to uhh.. make sushi. Riiiight. We didn't have everything to make the classic smoked salmon sushi rolls, so we improvised. I give myself too much credit, so let me rephrase that. Lucy improvised the ingredients. On the table for the stuffing, we had fish floss (it's basically pork floss, but with fish), leftover scrambled eggs and bacon, rice, a mixture of mayo, sriracha sauce and a bit of sugar and some chicken Lucy made by marinating it in soy sauce, red soybean paste and black pepper.
After mixing it all in a bowl, we added the sliced chicken. We left it to marinate for around five minutes. In a hot pan, we cooked the chicken and then drained off the grease. The chicken turned out to be super salty. After tasting a piece of chicken, I swear I started to mummify.
Here's one roll with everything on it; the mayo concoction, the really salty chicken, the scrambled eggs and the fish floss.

We ran out of the seaweed wrappers after, but still had some chicken and rice, so I told Lucy to make some rice balls stuffed with the chicken. For some more flavour, she rolled the outside with the fish floss. Yum. Sadly, the pictures are a bit blurry. I thought they were fine when I reviewed them on my camera. Oh well, my apologies. I think I was shaking from all the salt in my system... ahem...
We also had some miso soup to go with the army of sushi.

Instant soup mix is the way to go when everything is last minute. Yom-meh!

After dinner, I met up with my long-time friend, Carolina, at Starbucks. We had some drinks, cookies and some time to catch up. Long story short: they adopted two cute penguins from the store, only to behead them later. Poor penguins. Why would you hurt such an innocent looking thing? They look so happy to be posing for our blog.

Then tragedy struck. One was decapitated, while the other was amputated. For those who have a weak stomach, here is your warning: turn back now!

Lone Star - November 3rd

I apologise ahead of time for this post. I just came back from visiting Lucy and some friends in Kingston, and my whole sleeping system is messed up. I'm struggling to keep my eyes open right now, but I'm going to finish at least 2 entries before I go to sleep.

VN, her sister, KN, KN's bf, and myself all went to Lone Star for dinner. That night, the Sens were playing the Bruins. The place was packed. We waited around an hour for our table of four. We consumed 2 trays of chips and salsa while waiting. Once we got to our table, they gave us another tray. It looked like chips and salsa would be our dinner until our server finally brought the menus.

I ordered the chicken fajitas, VN ordered the chicken fajita club wrap, while KM and her boyfriend had burgers.

Here's my chicken fajita plate. The warm tortillas are in the red container thing in the background. Oh, and the condiments aren't shown.

Here is VN's chicken wrap. KN's burger and salad is in the background.

Here's one of the burgers they ordered.

After eating all the chips and salsa, I managed to make and eat two fajitas. (I should've slowed down on the chips and salsa). Well, the leftovers turned out to be my dinner the next night, so it all worked out in the end.

Once we finished with dinner, we sat at the bar and watched the rest of the game. The Sens won that night 3-2 against the Bruins.

~*~*~

Address:

Lone Star

780 Baseline Road

Ottawa, ON

(613) 224-4044

Steak, Fajitas, and Margaritas! September 7, 2007

Note: I just want to get this post up before I forget, so I'll be inserting the pictures later.

I have no kitchen in my new apartment, so I have to cook at Jimmy’s place if I want to eat something other than instant noodles made with my kettle. Jimmy and I have been trying to plan our meals for the week, but so far, we’ve only been successful in following one day. Today, we decided to forgo our planned dinner, and go out to Lone Star for some steak instead.

As usual, we were served some tortilla chips and fresh salsa as soon as we were seated. The salsa was spicier than we’ve had in the past, which was unexpected but nice. It was zesty and full of cilantro and lime juice. I loooooooooove cilantro! It’s such a bright flavour!

Although I planned to order steak, I changed my mind, and ordered some chicken fajitas instead. It’s always exciting to see a sizzling platter of yummy-smelling food exit the kitchen. When our server placed those hissing fajitas in front of me, my mouth started watering. “Oh my god, this smells… yum… wow… it’s like… *sigh*… mmmmmm… love….” My brain stumbled all over itself, trying to find the right combination of adjectives. What I ended up saying was something close to: “Yummmmmmmmmmmm.”

The chicken itself was fantastic! It was surprisingly juicy and flavourful. I normally loathe ordering chicken breast because it often comes dry and tastes like sawdust. The rest of the food was great, with the exception of the rice (more on that later). I thought I was going to get a small cup of refried beans (aka the love of my life), but instead, the fajitas came with baked beans. They were okay, but I really wanted the pasty wonderfulness of refried beans. I adore how it spreads in your mouth and then melts away like butter. Mmmm… butter. Lone Star’s refried beans are like the butter of beans. Yummy.

Now, let’s move on to the rice. I have hated the “Mexican rice.” In first-year university when we were forced to get a meal plan, the cafeteria used to serve up a combination of dry rice, beans, and salsa. Imagine eating leftovers that have been sitting in a stinky fridge, slowly absorbing stinky smells, for a month. Sound gross? Did I mention that although it reeked like garbage, it was actually bland? It must be some sort of black magic. Seriously, how is that even possible??!?! Lone Star’s rice tastes like that crap from the cafeteria. That said, I don’t know what real Mexican food is supposed to taste like, but I'm sure the rice served at Lone Star is NOT AUTHENTIC.

Jimmy went for a 10 oz. New York strip loin, with sautéed vegetables and a skillet of mushrooms on the side. He started with a Caesar salad, which is normally quite good, but complained that the salad tasted “old.” The sautéed vegetables were the same. Disappointing. However, he said the steak was delicious. Yay! We always order the mushroom skillet with steak, which I highly recommend, but it’s been hit or miss lately. This time, the flavour of the pepper and onions fully penetrated the mushrooms. They normally use smaller mushrooms than you see in the picture, but that certainly didn’t diminish the taste.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that I ordered a frozen lime margarita! It had soooo much lime and tequila!!! Sour, sweet AND salty! I was a happy girl. Unfortunately, I was too busy stuffing my face with fajitas that I forgot to drink it. It turned into lime-y tequila-y water in the end. Still enjoyable, but not as great as it was when it was frozen.

Overall, I enjoyed the meal. It wasn’t the best that we’ve ever had at Lone Star, but it’s far from the worst. The bill came close to $70.00 (including tip) for the both of us. It was quite the splurge, seeing as we’re both starving university students on a tight budget. We don’t do this often, so it was a nice treat. AND there were two embarrassing birthday songs, which made it a dinner and a show. That’s justifiable, right?


Fin.

~ * ~

Address:

Lone Star Texas Grill
251 Ontario Street
Kingston, Ontario
(613) 548-8888