Ottawa Foodies

I went for dinner on Friday with a group of friends. The table d'hote is a great deal for $34, and they allow you to substitute anything off the regular menu, with some items having an additional surcharge, which they do tell you up front. I started with a carmelized onion soup with maple and allspice, which was very tasty although I felt it should have been a bit thicker, and lacked maple flavour. Next I had a seafood mousse, which was quite good. My main course was a trio of lamb, including a filet, tongue and what was described to me as reproductive organs (testicles?) served with couscous. The couscous were a bit dry, but the meat all had a nice contrast in textures and flavour. Fro dessert I had a brandies fruit platter, with blueberries, raspberries and cranberries. It was fairly small in portion, and tasted VERy strongly of alcohol.

All in all, a great meal for the $34 price tag.

My husband and I had a great dinner here in August of 2006. Lovely meal, all around.

I was a bit hesitant to try out this restaurant for our group event as I’ve read mixed reviews here. But my friend asked around and sent me few positive feedbacks from the company's internal newsgroup (I’ve included their feedback at the end for your reference.) Besides, this restaurant is recognized as one of the top 100 places to dine in Canada. Anne Desbrisay (Ottawa Citizen’s food critic) also gave a shining review on this restaurant recently.

But my friend’s Québécois colleague (from Montreal) said the opposite and he said he wasn’t impressed with this restaurant at all when he made his visit to this restaurant 2 years ago. (According to our friend, her Québécois colleague is a very good amateur cook and is well known by most of the famous chefs in Ottawa. He is also a member of Les Mamitons cooking club and my friend valued his comment very much. If you wanted to find out how most of Ottawa’s famous chefs look like, check this site out: www.lesmarmitons.org)

Well, I thought that was 2 years ago and things may have changed. I disregarded any negative comments and made the executive decision to select this restaurant for our group’s dinner. Let me tell you that I felt very bad to have picked this restaurant for our group.

We all ordered from their 4-course meal menu. With coffee/tea included, $34 was indeed a very good price. However, if the food was not good, even the price tag of $34 will not do any justice.

My friends taught me that I should talk about the good things first.

Location and Ambiance
The restaurant is located in the forest of the beautiful Gatineau Park in Chelsea, Quebec (one minute away from le Nordik). It is converted from a farmhouse. We got a very good group photo outside of the restaurant (see the photo – I did some work to remove my girl friend from the photo.) The interior was cozy and warm. In the reception area, many framed awards were hung on the wall and they displayed a photo showing that Japan's 87th Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi was here for dinner. This led us to think that this restaurant must be good.

Service
We were seated and immediately presented with menus. Service was excellent. Our server was polite and attentive.

Bread
The bread was excellent, exactly the same as what AmberPT described – arriving at our table hot, soft inside and crispy outside. We were so hungry after the spa at le Nordik and the hot bread was very much appreciated by all of us. So, this was a good start.

Wine
Our designated friend ordered a bottle of Spanish red, Puerta Palma 2005. Great wine. (They charged about $40 per bottle. So, I think it is less than $15 per bottle for the cost and it is likely that they charged 2.5 times of the cost.)

Soup/Appetizer/Main Course/Desserts
See below for more details (I have created food category for each of them).

...to be continued

...continued (split due to length restriction)

Final notes
The worst thing at the end was that one of our friends felt very bad in her stomach and had to puke in the washroom. (Actually, my stomach was not feeling well after the tea, but I managed to hold it.)

The bill was $420 (15% tip was automatically added to the bill already). The price was reasonable. But the food was not. Will I come back to this place? I have to tell you that I will hesitate to try this place again. But another couple said they will return for lunch to give them another chance. But when we looked around, people had confit duck and they can finish it. People had the pasta and they can finish it. Do we have different taste buds, or is it purely personal taste only? Maybe. But could it be all 6 of us tasted the same saltiness? One couple travelled a lot and eat a lot at different countries. One couple dined out a lot and took their business clients out to eat a lot. I am sure they know what good food tastes like.

Anyway, I am sure this is a dining experience that we will talk about in our next group dinner (they are talking about le Jardin for next group dinner). I had my camera, but I didn’t take too many food photos since the dining room was quite dim and taking pictures with flash was quite disturbing to other customers. So, I gave up after a few photos.

Finally, I would like to include other people’s experience here for reference (my friend forwarded me the good review she got from her internal newsgroup and asked me to include their good reviews here to be fair since we may not be good enough to taste the goodness of the confit duck):

Review #1: We have gone many times and I have taken large groups (business meetings) there several times and it has always been excellent. It is not inexpensive but the food is always great. It can get busy during special nights (valentines, etc) but if you make a reservation you will have no problem. Just ask for a quiet table in a corner. It is very nice in the winter when it snows. It is a "cottage in the woods" - much nicer than going to a chain restaurant in the city!

Review #2: Have been a few times always busy (on weekends), and we have always had a great meal.

Went with the in-laws for a dinner recently and I was pretty impressed with the bread...it was still hot, soft (on the inside) and crispy (on the outside) when they arrived at the table! The food that we all ordered were tasty, fresh and nicely done. Make an early reservation and take your time to enjoy the food...it is worth it!

Hmmm.. thanks for sharing your lunch, Telly. It sounds like some serious errors were made. I've never seen a glass spilled on a patron's head - that would be hilarious to watch!

In defence of L'Orée du Bois service, on one birthday visit my partner fell ill as we were finishing our appetizers (she almost fainted in the cloakroom). Our server put our mains on the top of the kitchen's list so they were completed and boxed by the time we had our coats on. The chef provided a handwritten note on the best warming techniques for the sauces. Some complimentary truffles were boxed separately, a cork was found for our wine bottle and all of it was expertly wrapped up for travel with gentle murmurs of sympathy. After putting the poor girl to bed, I stood in my kitchen looking at the most mouth-watering food I'll ever find in my own frying pan - I think it was duck. What could have been a ruined birthday meal turned out to be a joy, due in no small part to the restaurant's response to our situation.

I also recall those mushrooms in puff pastry being one of the best mushroom dishes I've ever had.

Sounds like you got an off day. Perhaps the pastry chef had a cold? I've often found my most memorable meal experiences are those that are totally unanticipated. The more I look forward to a meal, the more splendid it has to actually be to impress. I'll bet next year's staff lunch will blow you away!

Sooooo, just got back from lunch at L'Oree Du Bois and I am sad to report it was disappointing. This will be a long report so get ready.

This is the third year in a row we have gone for lunch at xmas so I don't have alot of experience there but I'm sure glad this wasn't my first time. I'm going to start by giving them that it was extremely busy, with every seat in the place taken. Still, I would think they should have planned for this and been more ready.
Our starters came promptly and were alright:
Pork cretons with Asian flavors ( a bit dry but very flavorful)
Vegetable and pasta salad (I passed on this as it looked quite regular)
Mixed salad greens with Tarragon dressing (again I passed as it looked like ceasar salad to me)
Mushrooms in puff pastry with roasted garlic and herbs (by far my favorite year after year, rich and creamy)
Gherkins and kalamata olives (gherkins weren't sweet but dilly, weird)

Next our main courses came. As I do every year I had the fish stew. To my disappointment this year it was not good. The shrimps and scallops were so over cooked that you couldn't cut them with a spoon. They did it in a red curry and lemongrass style which was different from past years and that was quite nice. Loads of cilantro which is good by me. Couldn't get past the over cooked seafood though.
My co-workers around me also had the fish stew but one had the beef striploin pave. It came rare as ordered but the sides looked very dissappointing to me. Regular mashed potatos and some over cooked vegetable concoction. Didn't see the other dishes.

For dessert we had:
Maple tartlet with carmelized hazelnuts (I guess if you want to call a chocolate cup filled with a touch of syrup and mostly redi-can whip cream a carmelized tartlet....)
Chocolate and ginger mousse (again in a tart shell but with so much ginger in it, that it over powered the taste, almost spicy hot and not pleasant in an expected sweet dessert)
Mango bavarois (light and slightly mango flavored, by far the nicest)
To speak to how disappointing the desserts were, one co-worker doesn't eat dessert and no one else wanted his.

Now for the service!! It was awful! I was a server for many years to put myself through school and so I can be critical of servers, but this was ridiculous! First off, my boss frequents this restaurant so the owner came up to him immediately and took care of how the bill should go, etc. I would have thought this would have afforded him(us) better service through our meal. Our water was only refilled once at the end of the dessert and I had to pour more wine for everyone, from the ice bucket apart from the table, twice! No waiter ever offered to do this. The busboy was being rather ambitious when clearing plates, taking far more than was comfortable or safe and hitting one of my co-workers in the head with the plates and dumping a wine glass of water(glass and all) on the HEAD of another person. Then a waiter came and very loudly asked our whole table how to divide the bill, after the owner had already arranged this. I guess not a big deal but unprofessional none the less.

Phew, that was long. Sorry for all the details but I am so....you guessed it, disappointed! I waited all year for this :(

Next week my boyfriend is taking me to Le Saint-O. I have high expectations again so I hope it lives up to it!

I have been lucky enough to have my boss take all of us to L'Oree du Bois each Christmas. It is amazing and something I always look forward to!

What a joy! My first visit my expectations were zero and I was completely blown away. A perfect dining experience: attentive and warm service, a relaxed pace and environs, sumptuous food carefully prepared.

Don't eat lunch beforehand.. the cream will fill you up!

Top-notch Quebec-influenced regional fine dining. Check out this photo of a fantastic smoked salmon appetizer!

The soup was okay. One half of our group ordered Red lentil, curry and mint soup and one half ordered Tomato & Lavage cold soup since one of our friends recommended to try the cold tomato (she told us that she tried cold tomato soup during their cruise vacation and was very refreshing). My hot soup was not bad although I found it a bit salty. Our friend told me that the cold tomato soup at Royal Caribbean was way better, but the tomato soup here was still good.

P.S. The photo didn't turn out great since I didn't use the flash.

Most of the ladies ordered Mushrooms in a puff pastry with garden herbs and the men ordered Crab flan with their garden herb sauce. The mushrooms I had was tasty (it would be perfect if the chef can reduce the salt amount a bit). My friend also said the same thing. For the crab flan, the men said the favour was not good enough, but still ok. However, the presentation was excellent.

The main course was supposed to be the highlight of our meal. But it turned out to be very disappointing.

Anne Desbrisay wrote, “Of the main dishes, duck impressed most, a bronzed confit, crispy-skinned and moist-fleshed, served in a creamy peppercorn sauce.” So, 6 of us went for confit duck without hesitation. But the menu indicates that the duck confit was served with oyster mushrooms, port and endives sauce (not peppercorn sauce). So, I don’t know if the chef had changed or twisted the duck menu. Anyway, two others ordered quail, confit with miniature mushrooms and savoury sauce.

Well, the duck leg confit had no crispy skin. The duck legs were certainly marinated with lot of salt (we all said the same thing) – very salty meat! The worst part was the sauce, so salty that I can only manage to eat few bites. 6 of us can’t continue to eat their ducks and had to STOP. We told our server that the ducks were too salty for us to eat. Actually, I didn’t like the aroma from the duck (whatever herbs they used or was it the aroma from the endives?).

When we told our server about our ducks, he immediately went to inform the kitchen and came back to tell us to order something else. This was very much appreciated. So, to make it easier for the kitchen, 6 of us ordered their pasta mixed with shrimps, and chicken with olive oil, dried tomato, garlic flower and basil. Unfortunately, the pasta we had was also salty. However, the pasta was better than the duck in terms of saltiness. But the chicken was overly dry. So, I ended up just picking up the shrimps and ate few bites of the pasta. At this point, we all lost our appetite to eat already. The other 5 also can't finish the pasta!

What about the quail our two friends ordered? They said the quails were okay, but a bit overdone and still edible.

P.S. My friend later talked to her Québécois colleague when she went back to office on Monday. I quoted what my friend wrote, “my colleague told me that Duck confit (duck legs slowly simmered and preserved in duck fat) is supposed to be salty (but not overly salty) – it is a classic French way of cooking and preserving duck legs. The process involves curing the duck legs in salt for several hours before scraping off any loose salt and gently cooking them in duck fat (could be slow cooking in an oven) for couple hours. Once the duck legs are cooked, leave them to cool in the fat. At this stage the duck legs can be sealed in the jar to be stored in a cool, dark place (such as a cellar or fridge for up to 6 months) before eating. If the duck legs are too salty, the sauce should not be cooked too salty.” Bingo! The problem was that both the confit duck and the sauce were all salty. I am sure shredded confit duck will make a good salad with fresh green mix. The saltiness will be balanced out well.

My strawberry and blueberries tulip with tarragon wasn’t impressive. My husband’s mango and dark chocolate cake was okay, nothing to blow me away though after I tried one bite. The crème brulee was excellent according to two gentlemen (actually it did look very good).

I didn’t order coffee since I already had my coffee at le Nordik in the afternoon. So, I wanted to order something soothing. I followed my friend and ordered lemongrass tea. My hubby followed me. Another friend ordered Camomile tea.

Well. I have to tell you that I don’t like this kind of “lemongrass tea” (definitely not the one you had in Thai restaurant). There was a fresh mint(?) leaf in the pot. I only took one sip and stopped. It just reminded me of the smell from industrial soap. But I didn’t say it out. I looked at my husband. He also stopped after couple sips. I asked him how his tea was. He said the tea smelted like industrial soap. I was laughing and my friend was also laughing.