Ottawa Foodies

Went out to the Kanata Moxie's on Tuesday with about 6 or 7 colleagues for an end of summer bash. As a summer student, it was my swan song, and so my lovely manager bought dinner (hurray! the poor starving student actually ate a meal!)

I went off my sobriety (which I'm doing for weight loss) and had the ginger guava margarita. It came in a tall glass, which is great, because I cannot, cannot drink from large margarita glasses, or from martnii glasses for that matter. It was cold, refreshing, slushy, delicious and gone in about 30 seconds. Oh well.

One of my coworkers used to work in the kitchen, so he knows what's good, and what to avoid at all costs. Unfortunately he did not advise on portion sizes until after I ordered.

We split their Mosaic dip, which is mushroom, tomato, something spicy, and goat cheese with naan bread. It was really really good, but there was not enough naan to share. We asked for more, which they brought us, but only after we started our meal.

Everyone seemed to be very happy with their meal, except our director who ordered the Mahi Salad. She found it much too dense as a salad.

I had the cranberry, feta, side salad, which was good, but why Moxie's are you serving it with bottled sundried tomato dressing? Ugh.

My second appetizer was a sushi-style tuna served on top of what the menu called "tortillas". I figured it would be some modern take on rice paper wraps, but clearly I was wrong. It was a sort of hard, but not crispy, noodle cracker thing. The tuna was served on top of mushrooms, which made it harder to eat (too hard to stap with a fork, too messy to eat with your hands in front of your boss, and too wobbly for chopsticks, even for me). It was good, but there were also only six of them, and they were wee little things. This is what I meant when I said earlier that my coworker didn't inform me of the portion size.

All in all, I think I enjoyed the company and that helped the food along. Our waitress made a grave error with the bills, processing the same bill on a credit card after my manager gave her cash. She then reversed it rather quickly...but a bit too quickly (she was gone for about 10 minutes with our cards). Needless to say, I wasn't wow'd, but I don't feel that it was the most terrible experience, either.

A friend told me that Moxie's has a new location in Kanata Centrum and his work group always like to go there for Friday lunch. He thinks this has to do with the waitress' dress code there.

So, I told my another friend about young waitress wearing sexy dress there. Her hubby said that they have to go eat there to see the waitress for an eye-opening experience.

The following is what our friend wrote in her email report about Moxie's:

"We tried out Moxie in Kanata Centrum yesterday (Saturday). Décor – very good and contemporary, but not really fine-dining. The lady’s washroom is very fancy. The food was OK. Mon thru Wed, drink from $3.99. Thurs thru Sun, drink price ranges from $5.99 and up. The price is reasonable. Even though the dining room and bar are separated, the music from the bar was too loud last night.

The waitresses and other girls did not wear low cut. Our sever was an old and skinny guy. Hubby was disappointed."

My friend's email did make me laugh out.

Really good bellini. If you go on Bellini day (Wednesday I think) they are $5!