Ottawa Foodies

I work just around the corner from Bread & Sons and often stop in to pick up lunch. Their avocado spelt sandwich is truly inspired - it is loaded with delicious ingredients like sunflower seeds, alfafa sprouts, fresh cilantro and red onions. Their pizza is also great: it has a nice thin crust and not too much cheese (which I prefer). I also can't say enough good things about the chocolate hazelnut cookies. I also had a chance to sample their decadent chocolate cake at a friend's birthday and it was probably the best chocolate cake I have ever had. It was dense and rich but not too sweet. And hey, even their coffee is good! The prices might be a bit higher than other nearby bakeries but when it comes to taste and quality, Bread & Sons is miles above their competitors.

On Friday after work I stopped in and picked up some Challah bread that was wonderful! It was pricy for a loaf of bread ($4.50) but delicious. I used the leftovers Saturday morning to make French toast.

Okay, this was a let-down.

Late Tuesday afternoon, they had neither pizza nor falafel. Okay, maybe I shouldn't send somebody to a bakery so late in the day, but...

A cinnamon bun was inedibly stale.

A baguette was barely edible not all that many hours after it was brought home.

A slice of broccoli and green onion quiche was fairly good, but very much on the thin side.

I remain curious, but with two baked goods being so stale, this is not my new bakery. Really, the bun was akin to something I bought at a grocery store and forgot about for a few days.

Review: www.ottawaxpress.ca

This is very good pizza. The crust is whole wheat with a cornmeal spread on the bottom. It's crunchy without being like a cracker and not overly doughy. The cheese tastes like good cheese rather than the tasteless glop you get at fast food places. The toppings are all fresh and flavourful.

The best pizzas I've ever have was in Italy and the Cote d'Azure, but since I can't go there everyday this is the next best thing.

Excellent pizza here -- seems more like home-made than most. Tasty sauce and toppings, with the right amount of both, on top of a moist crust. Vegetarian only: last time I was there, the choices were among olive, mushroom, and vegan pizzas, $2.75 a slice.

Do yourselves a favour. If you, like me, scorn all of the shwarma places for offering what they like to call "falafel" which is in fact some kind of fried &%(# made at 9am, with congeraled garlic $*%& on it and so on....

Go to Bread & Sons. They are doing real falafel sandwiches every Tuesday. They make the pita bread. They make the falafel mix from scratch. They fry them to order. And the sandwich comes with lots of little nugget sized balls instead of two dry and mealy footballs.

It was such a good falafel I'm now floating on a cloud of happiness.

Bread and Sons' broccoli-green-onion quiche. On the thin side. Nice crust.

I just visited their stall at the Lansdowne market. They had a small but nice variety of baked goods. I was pleasantly surprised to see that they had feta bourekkas! They were soo delicious on their own but I would have loved it even more if spinach were inside it. 5 stars for having bourrekkas and making them the right way. 4 stars for the croissant, while made with butter it was a little bready on the inside, maybe just due to the warm weather.