Ottawa Foodies

I'm ashamed to say that tonight was the first time I've been to this place even though it's right around the corner. On a whim after work I asked the wife if she wanted to round up the kids and go.

I had a beef and noodle soup which was extremely yummy though there was not quite enough stuff in it to fill me up. Fortunately my youngest son had some BBQ beef sticks on vermicelli noodles and bean sprouts, and that was way too much vermicelli and sprouts for him so I loaded a bunch of it into my soup and almost 2 hours later I'm still thoroughly stuffed.

My oldest son had the wrapped, deep fried shrimp and shrimp chips from the appetizers menu. He counted 10 shrimp and they were a fair size - nonetheless he cleaned his plate off. The youngest guy quickly ate all the BBQ beef from his plate but is not a big fan of noodles so only ate a bit of that.

My wife had a dish with the same beef as my youngest son, but served on top of a different type of salad. She thought it was delish!

With the exception of not quite enough stuff in my otherwise massive bowl of soup, the quantities were extremely generous for the price.

We'll be back. Especially since the soup is basically just another take on Pho. Most likely we'll order in before too long.

We had a very enjoyable dinner here. Casual atmosphere, fair prices, and mostly tasty food. The BBQ Beef Sticks with Lemongrass and Salad side appetizer was awesome! Super generous and refreshing spicy salad, with cucumber, carrots, peanut, lettuce, hot chilis, lime, bean sprouts.

Some other items were okay but not thrilling (see separate reviews below).

The Mi Ga La was awesome!

Just a minor correction on LiveToEat's comment. It's on Wellington though if you drive east about a km it turns into Somerset. And technically it's not Mechanicsville til you hit the other side of Armstrong but I'd sooner be called Mechanicsville than Westboro :-)

There are two of these, one in Mechanicsville (noodle house) and the other in Kanata...big difference...different owners as well....,

But I have been to the one downtown many times....Somerset in Mechanicsville. It was pretty good. I have never had Cambodian food before and the owners are chui chow chinese, but the dishes are quite different from the viets. I would say I found their stuff interesting, but don't go back regularly.

Very limited menu though.... family run, sisters and mother in the kitchen type of place.

I had warned them of the confusion when I was more regular, but they just shrugged...

Our favourite dish was item 212, Cambodian Mi Ga La. This consisted of deliciously stirfried noodles with a slightly smoky taste, mixed with a combination of sliced peppers, cucumbers, and carrots, with chilis (but not super hot), peanuts, ground shrimp, sliced fish cake, fish sauce, and topped with boiled egg. For $9.50, it's a one-dish tasty and satisfying meal. This is a top-notch takeout menu candidate, as it would be just as good half an hour old and at room temperature! Highly recommended.

The fresh spring rolls (shrimp) were certainly freshly made (which isn't the case at many other restaurants) but they had more bean sprouts than I like -- half bean sprouts and half vermicelli.

Unfortunately, the menu says they come with peanut sauce or fish sauce but we didn't notice and the server didn't ask so we ended up with fish sauce. Didn't notice the peanut sauce option until reading the take-out menu just now. Too bad, because they would have been much better with peanut sauce!

We had the soup with vegetables and pork (no noodles). The broth was enjoyable but not as tasty as a good pho broth. Still, it's neat to see a soup so chock full of veggies -- loads of broccoli, carrot slices, onion pieces, snow peas, and bean sprouts.

Vegetarians will shake their head at the following item marked as "Vegetarian": Pork Soup with Vegetables Only. LOL! Even better, on the takeout menu the "Vegetarian" marker is on a different soup: Pork Soup with Vegetables & Seafood.