Ottawa Foodies

not a bad store. main criticism is that they store the dairy and produce right by their incense and scented products and scents do get absorbed into those foods at times. they are also pretty unresponsive to customer feedback.

Golden Turtle: I would suggest, if it is a staple you're after, try asking first. Failing that, bear in mind that there is a Loeb just down the street from the Wellington location, and it's fairly quiet.

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I quite enjoy shopping here and have gotten to know the staff really quite well. I prefer the selection of the Bank Street location for take away, but the Wellington Street location does the job for about 60-70 percent of my groceries. My only problem seems to be that people in the store often don't know how to line up, or don't care. I've had, on four separate occassions this year, people butt in line and then wonder why I call them on it (including one incident where the gentleman very nearly whapped me in the face with his bag of bread because another cashier was opening his till, and he wanted to be there first, even though we were next).

The two Herb and Spices are indeed entirely separate entities.

I don't mind Herb & Spice but they're always missing something that I consider "essential" when I'm out on a food mission. The Wellington location is better than the Bank street one in most respects (I heard somewhere that they're actually separate entities after an ownership split any truth to this?) it's where I go when I can't make it out to Rainbow Foods in Britannia basically.

Herb & Spice on Wellington has a sorry bulk selection! (only spices and peanut butter)

It felt a little bigger than the Bank Street location though... perhaps less aisles obstructing views.

We stopped in at Herb and Spice last night and bought a few things to bring for lunch today.

We got two baked veggie samosas, two baked chicken samosas and a container of Quinoa salad.

The samosas were light, moist and flavourful and the Quinoa salad had corn, black beans, onions, red peppers, fresh basil and shitake mushrooms mixed in. Very tasty.

I think it cost us approximately $7.00 for this and it was enough for both of us for lunch today.

Delicious and healthy!

On a side note, they have about 6 different homemade soups/stews that looked and smelled awesome and we are going to try one next time.

The Herb and Spice (at least the one on Wellington, I'm not sure about the one downtown) sells croissants from The French Baker. So if you're craving croissants and can't get down to the Market, there's another place to get your fix!

H&S has a huge selection of hummus right when you walk in. i think there were at least 8 or 9 different varieties to choose from including the local contemporary cuisine brand.

Herb and Spice has a nice selection of hummus. I've always enjoyed whichever kind I selected.

Captain Caper If you are still looking for a local source for Better Than Bouillon I discovered that they have some in stock at Herb and Spice on Bank Street. They have chicken, beef, mushroom, and vegetable flavours. It isn't cheap though around $10.29 a container.