The Black Tomato Ottawa

Location: 11 George Street, Ottawa, ON K1N 8W5, (613) 789-8123

I've been traveling to Ottawa for work for over 5 years now, and this is what I've learned:  Don't trust websites that say this is the best "Japanese food" in Ottawa, or best "Lebanese food" in Ottawa, because it's very likely that there's ONLY one sushi restaurant and ONLY one Lebanese restaurant in Ottawa.    It's sort of like telling your only sibling that they are the best sibling you've got.  That sibling just wins by default!!!    Well in all fairness, this isn't entirely true because we did see 2 sushi restaurants in Ottawa.  In any case, while researching what to eat in Ottawa, sometimes I just came to that consensus.

Throughout the years, I've always came back to my favorite haunt in Ottawa.   That would be The Black Tomato in Byward market.  It is housed in a wonderfully old building and has great atmosphere and music.  It's changed throughout the years, this time, I think it expanded into the lot next to them.  However, they always supported local farmers, their dishes were simple but delicious, and other then sometimes being very busy during dinner time, I've always enjoyed having dinner with a friend or companion whether or not it's at a perfect dimly lite table that made everyone look more attractive, on the patio, or at the bar when I was eating alone.  Best of all, the prices were reasonable, Lunch was between $10 and $17 dollars, dinner was anywhere from $12-$25.  The food always came out piping hot and fresh, the salads were crisp.  They cooked food like they cared.  Here's what we ate:

Fresh knotted buns with sesame seeds (complementary) with whipped herbed butter
The butter didn't taste like anything, but the knotted bread was hot and fresh out of the oven, fluffy and chewy. I always look forward to this starter.

WILD BOAR, BISON AND MUSHROOM STEW $16
Trillium Meadows wild boar and Maison du Gibier bison simmered in Big Dog Porter with roasted potatoes

This was absolutely delicious, while there was more wild boar then bison, this stew was exactly what I needed after a long weekend of very cold days and nights.  The stew was flavorful, the Big Dog porter definitely made the dish thicker and more flavorful, the potatoes were a tad more undercooked that I'm use to, but still delicious.  The slices of toast that came with the stew were amazing, just a little crispy on the outside, moist and fluffy on the inside, it was basically a larger version of the knotted bread starter.  What a steal at $16!  Most restaurants I've been to in Toronto/Montreal/Quebec City charge an "exotic" markup for game meats.  I will definitely get this again.

SMOKED BBQ CHICKEN SANDWICH $14
Lyons Family Farm smoked BBQ chicken served open faced with red onion & Glengary Lankaaster house-smoked gouda

Nick ordered this dish.  This smoked chicken was divine, I had no idea chicken could taste like that, it was lightly smoked and sweeter, even though I think the caramelized red onions and the BBQ sauce did help with the sweetness.  Nick thought the Gouda cheese was too mild for this sandwich, he felt the sandwich overpowered the cheese so he couldn't taste the cheese.  I thought it's a nice pairing as that means the cheese wouldn't over power the wonderful flavors of the chicken and the caramelized onions.  The salad was pretty standard, though I thought they poured too much olive oil on it.  The potatoes were the same slightly underdone that what we are use to (we're not use to crunchy potatoes), but they were still good.

 

Peanut butter Pie $5

This tasted exactly like peanut butter with whipped cream and cream cheese. It was a nice dessert, but it wasn't as mind blowing as I thought peanut butter pies could be.  Frankly I thought putting whipped peanut butter and melted lindt chocolate on to my french toast (recipe HERE)  but this pie was still tasty and a great end to a really nice lunch.

Overall, I would always come to The Black Tomato again.  They don't have an extensive menu, but what they do have they try to do well.  I definitely will go there again.  :-)

Grindhouse Burger Bar Toronto

Location: 365 King Street West Toronto, ON - (416) 977-3010

 

Gourmet burgers seem to be all the rage these days.  It's the ability to up sell your typical $5 burger with lots of different toppings and charge extra for everything.  Nick loves burgers, well, he makes a mean burger and mini burger.  Most burgers served any where else then "Chez Nick's" tend to disappoint and be lacking.  He recently went to M:brgr, known for their $100 burger, and he said that place was overpriced and disappointing.  About a week after his visit, the Globe and Mail newspaper published this terrible review of M:Brgr which just confirms that we will never go to that place again.

However, this review wasn't about M:Brgr, it's about Grindhouse, located at King and Peter st, it's another of many gourmet burger joint that just popped up in the same area as of late.  My good friend Karen and I had tickets to the opera at the Four Seasons Centre.  We needed a quick meal before the show and thought we would try this place out to eat and Nick came with.  The place was decent, it had a small storefront, but the restaurant was quite deep.  We were seated and the atmosphere was relaxed.  We ordered a selection of burgers....

 

Nick ordered a Signature Beef Burger ($7) with Double smoked house bacon ($1.75) and cheddar ($1.75).  The total burger was $10.50.  The bun was just a tad too small for the burger, the bacon was flavorless, and the burger patty was too small for his liking.  He would not get this again.

Karen ordered a Wild Boar burger with mixed greens, grilled onions, mushrooms and goat cheese ($12).  She really enjoyed it.  The bun was toasted on all the burgers, which was a nice touch and added a lot more barbecue flavor to the burger.  The wild boar patty was gamey, but flavorful, and definitely the largest patty from the 3 burgers we ordered.  Which is odd, burgers should all be the same size.  If I were to come ere again, I'd definitely order the wild boar burger. 

I ordered the Kangaroo burger for $14.  It was the most expensive burger on the menu, and came with sliced beats, a slice of tomato, lettuce and a fried sunny side up egg.  The meat was well seasoned, and didn't taste that gamey, I thought the wild boar tasted more gamey.  I really enjoyed the creamy texture of the egg yolk with my very lean kangaroo burger cooked to medium.  I can't really say what kangaroo tastes like, it doesn't taste like beef, or bison, or venison, it is mild red meat.  My only complaint is that because the bun was a tad on the small side, everything kept falling out of the burger and it was a huge mess.  I had to finish this burger with a knife and fork.  So considering the entire point of a burger is to eat it with your hands, this is a slight burger fail.  However, it was so tasty I'd get this again.  Or next time I should fry an egg to put on top of our own homemade burgers.

Lastly, since we were all not too hungry, we only ordered these Onion Rings with Seasoned buttermilk batter ($4), it came with their own homemade aoili.  The dipping sauce was tasteless, it was really just liquid fat.  The onion rings were quite good though, very crispy, well seasoned, the portion was small but I would get these again.

All in all, it's not a bad gourmet burger joint.  I do like the particular game meats, the prices were decent, and as long as you don't get their signature beef burger and try the weirder stuff, I think it's worth a look.