Ottawa Foodies

This place has serious hygiene issues. I stopped visiting, even for smoked meat, because on two occasions I experienced the following:

* Employee wearing plastic gloves makes my sandwich
* Same employee takes my money and operates cash without removing gloves
* Employee takes a squirt of antibacterial cleanser and rubs it into the gloves
* Moves on to the next customer's sandwich

Gross, huh? I mean, sure, they're using the antibacterial stuff but is it really meant to be applied to gloves? Either way, your sandwich is either covered in alcohol, disease, or both.

So I've stopped going for lunch. A coworker convinced me to go for breakfast. This time the employee took my money, gave me change then turned around and buttered my toast (bread held in one hand, knife in the other). No gloves and no antibacterial cleanser whatsoever. Hands were dirty from handling money.

I'm sure this happens in many restaurant kitchens, but the fact is it's gross to see and it seems to happen all the time at this place.

The more we eat here (it's 2 minutes from where I work), the more we all agree that the only smart thing to do is GET THE SMOKE MEAT SANDWICH! :-)

I ordered their "Fresh Pasta" the other day. The choice was Marinara sauce or Alfredo sauce. I asked if I could get a 50/50 combination of the two. "They're already made -- it's one or the other." was the reply. I chose the Marinara.

They pulled a vacuum-sealed plastic bag out of the fridge and placed it in the steam bath thing they use for heating up briskets for a few minutes. Cut it open with scissors and dumped it onto my plate. The flavour wasn't terrible but the penne were overcooked and the basil kind of overwhelmed the sauce.

I remember reading over the many definitions of the word "fresh" when choosing my name for this site. When Nate's advertised "Fresh Pasta" I didn't expect something from a plastic bag, but the following definitions show their advertising to be sound:

4. (3) fresh, new, novel -- (of a kind not seen before)
6. fresh -- (not containing or composed of salt water) [yeah, it needed salt]
11. fresh -- (not artificial; "fresh cut flowers") [the pasta *was* real]
12. fresh, unused -- (not yet used or soiled; "a fresh shirt") [nobody before me ate my portion]
13. fresh, impertinent, impudent, overbold, smart, saucy, sassy -- (improperly forward or bold) [Exactly!]

hehe.. so save yourself some heartache and just get the smoke meat sandwich!

This is the standard Smoke Meat on Rye at Nate's Express. It's a yummy treat -- moist and warm smoke meat on a tiny bit of rye bread with a pickle for $5.95. It aint cheap but it's worth it once in a while.

It's an open-faced sandwich here -- one slice of rye topped with a mountain of smoked meat, a thick layer of dryish sauerkraut, a thin slice of cheese, and a generous dusting of paprika. They gave me a little container of French dressing with it, which is totally wrong and probably a mistake.

I tried it because the employees rave about it but I'll go back to the plain old smoked meat next visit!

I've had this a few times and I can't really recommend it. The only reason I've repeated my experience is that it's the only thing on the menu that would qualify as a good deal! For five or six bucks, you get a rather large poutine topped with delicious smoked meat. The smoked meat is great and the fries are okay. There's very little cheese (excusable because the smoked meat is so rich) and the gravy leaves a powdery feeling on your teeth. Still.. it's really filling. :-)