ottawa foodies

I love pretty much anything made with ube, that purple yam so prevalent in Filipino sweets. I was hoping my meal here would leave me with enough gastric vacancy to enjoy a slab of the Ube Cake ($4.75/slice). It did, but barely. This dulce de leche (aka yema) filled layer cake was phenomenal! Perfectly moist, very sweet, and eminently purplicious.

The server told me I was extra lucky as the cake had been made earlier that same day. With 12 slices, this cake should disappear quickly. So get out there and help keep the inventory fresh. You're welcome!

After polishing off my platter of food and this giant slab of cake, I found myself slumped over in an insulin-induced stupor of dumb happiness. Will I be back? Ube-tcha!

Tamis Cafe offers a number of main dishes - I had chicken cooked in lemon with rice and grilled veggies. My husband had shredded beef. Both very good.

Started with an empanada - lovely crust and moist, tasty filling.

Dessert offerings were a highlight and change day to day - I had meringue stuffed with purple yam - delicious. Also offered gluten free chocolate/ raspberry cake, casava cake, cookies, many more ( I plan to go back with friends for coffee and desserts so I can try more)

The desserts at the Bierhaus are always excellent. I would even say this is my favourite dessert place in Kanata.

They used to have 6 desserts available but now they're down to just 2 plus their dessert pretzel. The night we were there, the choices were Apple Strudel and what our server described as "white cake with pecan crumble." I opted for the latter because I'm not big on apple desserts.

As you can see, the description did not do it justice. This was a spectacular square of what I can only describe as the lovechild of sour cream coffee cake and sticky toffee pudding with ice cream. Love love love!

We were two so of course we ordered three desserts!

cafe au lait ($11, top left)
chocolate cremeux / coffee / milk / ice cream

japanese cheesecake ($11, top right)
rhubarb / caramelized white choc / strawberry sorbet

strawberry shortcake ($12, bottom left)
strawberry curd / custard / lavender / meringue / biscuit crumble / lemon sorbet

The cafe au lait was nicely balanced, with a delicious coffee ice cream and chocolatey cremeux that were so dense they seemed more like truffles.

The cheesecake was mild and light. This was my favourite of the desserts.

The shortcake was a bit of a disappointment. There didn't seem to be any cake at all (biscuit crumbs don't really count as shortcake) and the strawberry curd tasted more like jolly rancher candy than fresh strawberries. At the end of June in Ottawa, I don't think I'm out of line to expect at least one identifiable piece of fresh delicious strawberry on something called a strawberry shortcake. The lemon sorbet and lavender were wonderful together though, and the meringues were very cute!

How else to end such a wonderful feast but with an espresso?

I love petits fours! mmmm
This is what you get while you pay your bill. What a way to sweeten you up!

Dessert was great if you like mousse and strawberries

The desserts here are so good. Just had a slice of their lemon ginger frozen pie - amazing! Kind of like a key lime pie (but with lemon), with a ginger graham crust... was topped with whipped cream and some candied lemon rind and garnished with mint, very nice touch. Amazing taste!

My friend ordered their Date square with vanilla ice cream and toffee sauce. I tried a bite and told my friend that I like her Queen's date cake more.

This is the Chocolate terrine with raspberry sauce ($6). My hubby enjoyed it very much!

Smoked chocolate cheesecake. The smoke gives a slight bitterness to offset the richness of the dish.

The Chocolate Triple Threat: "Chocolate hazelnut pot du creme, orange chocolate tart and a Bailey's truffle".

We split the truffle first, which was rich and hinted of Baileys.

The tart tasted like a sophisticated Terry's chocolate orange.

The pot du creme tasted like a mousse (is that what pot du creme is?). Either way, it was a decadent and delicious end to the meal.

Hit and miss!

Hit: My Chocolate Terrine was just great! A dense slab of silky milky creamy chocolate terrine studded with pistachios, swimming in a generous puddle of lemon-scented custard. What's not to love! The custard is what made this dish.

Miss: My wife's Lemon Tart was more of an overcooked shortcrust filled with runny lemon pudding. She admitted to having been spoiled recently by excellent lemon tarts at Black Cat Bistro and (less recently) Domus Cafe , but this was really not very good. Our expectation of a lemon tart is that the crust should be tender rather than crunchy, and the filling should hold its shape when cut rather than dribbling out onto the plate.

Get the terrine! :-)

Just 3 days after our first visit we returned to help celebrate my bro-in-law's birthday. Since it was later in the evening and our kids were with us, we made this a dessert venture.

We tried the CAKE sticky maple pudding, the warm butter tart, and the pot de creme. I tasted my daughter's sticky pudding cake (bottom left in pic) and it was absolutely mindblowing--totally addictive stuff. My wife and I swapped our desserts because I loved the sweet, nutty, butter tart and she preferred the chocolatey pot de creme. Apparently, a pâte sucrée is more suited to lemon tarts than butter tarts, but I liked it anyway.

I tried the Beau's FeBREWary "Mission Accomplished" IPA just for fun. Holy hoppyness. Drinking this was a bit like chewing on grapefruit rinds. Some will love it.

One strange note: if you book a large table (we were 13) they will print off a custom menu with the birthday person's name on it, but it is a reduced menu. They don't offer the full restaurant selection (including charcuterie or Scotch egg) to groups. That's just weird.

EDIT: Another "wtf" moment—$5 for Orange Pekoe tea bag tea. Better to get a beer!

Tried the White Chocolate Lava Cake one evening recently. Overall it was excellent, especially when I mashed everything up together on my plate. However, given the name, I was expecting a white chocolate lava cake rather than a brown chocolate lava cake. ;-)

As far as I could tell the only white chocolate could have been in the sumptuous custard drizzle that zigzagged across the other inhabitants of my plate. The ice cream was vanilla and the cake was just standard brownie style with a barely moist center.

I had a lunch at Gezellig with my friends.
Our server was very Pleasant and Professional.
We enjoyed 2 for $20 deal.

I picked pork belly pappardelle
soft egg yolk, peas, grilling onions, baby kale, mint, green peppercorn : it was very delicious. I enjoyed mixing "almost uncooked soft egg yolk" and pasta together. It was very tasty.

cioppino stew
cod, mussels, squid, anchovy, tomato broth, fennel, fingerlings, Italian parsley : my friend from CA said it seems bit odd to see potatoes in cioppino, but over all it was nice stew.

I tried butterfinger : it was very tasty and has silky texture. I found it very sweet. I couldn't finish it so I took it home. I kinda wanted to eat with something that can neutralize my palate. Butter finger was served with soft meringue, but I think dry and crispy meringue with peanut dust would add more texture to the plate. over all, it was very nice dessert.

Ashley, I'm sorry to hear that you found the Butterfinger dessert to be too sweet. Please contact me on your next visit so I can personally help you eat it! :D :D :D

Yes, it is sweet. I don't usually seek out desserts, but when I do I like them to be sweet: baklava, honey soaked fried stuff, caramelized anything. I don't much like fruity desserts.

Sorry it didn't meet your expectations, but I really don't think it's sweeter than any other peanut butter and chocolate confection I've ever encountered. It is certainly less sweet than a Reese Peanut Butter cup or even an actual Butterfinger chocolate bar!

Try the other desserts next time. From what I've seen, they are all excellent here. :-)

Fresh Foodies, when you said "Life is too short not to taste this", I ordered this. Sorry. Too sweet for my teeth. Good that I ordered one to try with my friends. They just said "It is okay".

The butter finger dessert blew my mind. If you like peanut butter and chocolate, this might be the best dessert you ever eat. Life is too short not to taste this. The menu describes it as "peanut butter, white, milk & dark chocolate, graham cookie, chocolate anglaise" but those are just words. Totally addictive. The portion is way too big but you will eat and enjoy every last bite.

The apple-crumble cheesecake was very good and the honey-thyme whipped cream made it cool and unique. Beautiful presentation.

Ottawa has a limited selection of dessert places, so Union: Local 613 fills an important niche with its late night service hours and excellent desserts.

Delizioso, I also had the fluffernutter dessert on my last visit but I was underwhelmed to the point of not even mentioning it in my comments here. It was clever to be sure, but no more pleasurable to my senses than an actual PBJ/fluffer sandwich would have been. Just thought I'd add a counter-opinion to the glowing ones here, for balance. :-)

I absolutely *loved* the cheesecake parfait here. Definitely one of the best desserts I've had anywhere.

FLUFFERNUTTER!! Best thing, I've ever eaten. The food, drinks, and service were great as everyone else has mentioned but the dessert was the high point by far. I would go back and just order this dessert. I cannot say it enough, BEST DESSERT EVER....Maybe even best dish EVER!!!

Cardamom describes it accurately, so I won't repost the description. But it's a must try dish for sure.

Pretzel shaped beignet with lime glaze, dark chocolate sauce, sea salt and chile bits. Suzie Q who?

I heart Union. Right now the plan is to order 3 of these next time around, one as an app, one as a main and one for dessert, naturally ;o)

After previously stating that I'm not overly keen on the desserts here, it looks like I might have to change my tune. A girlfriend and I shared their new fluffernutter dessert last night (peanut butter mousse, marshmallow fluff, brioche french toast sticks and Concord grape jelly) and seriously went speechless after the first bite. It was so perfect. I haven't felt this way about a new dish around town since Art-is-in's fried pickle melt :) It just hits all the right notes and is delicious and inventive without being at all pretentious: salty/sweet, melting softness/crunchy peanut, comfort food goodness/pig-shaped jelly... you know, all the usual stuff you'd expect from a great dessert. Anyways, try this one. I need to go back to try their new peach and buttermilk tart.

Also, thanks FF for the gin old fashioned tip. That was one enjoyable drink. The Earl Grey simple syrup was a subtle twist that really worked. I had another great drink there a couple of weeks ago with ginger syrup and basil, but that one was on the sweeter side.

The carrot cake.

Wow.

It was not my order but I had a taste and it is as good as it looks! Cream cheese filling in layers of moist carrot cake.

There are number of dessert options here. I didn't try them all but I heard they were excellent.

See that list of local suppliers on their wall? Ottawa proud.

The deep fried corn bread (center right in pic) totally blew me away. Definitely something to try if you visit, which you absolutely should do!

I had the mini baked alaska a few weeks back, which apparently was on the menu quite some time ago. Glad they brought it back. It was the best dessert I've had at a restaurant in recent memory. Chocolate base with After 8 gelato and covered in a soft and sticky peppermint meringue.

Their creme brulee is basically their signature dish, though it changes with the seasons. The first two times that I went to Play, it was an earl grey creme brulee, and I scraped the ramekin down each time. I've since tried the lavender one...another one...and a cinnamon creme brulee with poached pears. Each was magnificent.

I had the lavender crème brûlée here a few months ago, and honestly... I still dream about it. I'm not even a huge crème brûlée fan, nor even a lover of lavender, but it was FANTASTIC! The flavours were perfectly paired, the dessert itself was creamy and light. GET IT!!!

My friend's pavlova. I tried some and thought it was excellent!

The cookies I ordered for dessert. They were good, but I prefer crispy-chewy cookies. These were very shortbread-y. As Fresh Foodie always says "my problem, not theirs" :)

From left to right - lemon poppyseed, chocolate chunk, lemon sugar.

I'm a big chocoholic as well so wouldn't have complained if there were more chocolate chunks in the chocolate chunk one ;)

Ashley the dessert in question looks like tarte tatin

openfaced caramelized apple tart

I can't remember the name of this dessert (but you should know what it is from the photo). The server told me that this dessert needed an extra 10 minutes of preparation. I told her that I always had patience for good dessert.

The Crème Brulee that my friend ordered was very good. I tasted a bit and it was so different than all others that I tried. The delicious "egg" taste lingered in my mouth. I will definitely order this on my next visit.

I can't remember what that was. Something like puffy pastry with a variety of ice cream in between. My friend told me that it was delicious as it looked.

Bravo to the pastry chef here!

My husband's chocolate mousse accompanied by green tea (or mint?) ice cream was perfect. He was a happy man after he finished this dessert.

Had a delicious chocolate layer cake here a couple of days ago. Most days, I'd order pie over cake, but this was very moist, dense but still cakey (as opposed to a molten lava style) and uber chocolatey (hmm, that's not a real word, is it?). It was also huge. I shared with a friend and it was more than enough for two. Great for a chocolate fix. Between this and my pulled pork (see sandwiches), I was ready for a nap!

I love the food at The Village Cafe, but their desserts are hit-or-miss. Like many places, they bring in their desserts from a local baker. I've found they are generally either too sweet or too dry (or both!). One specific warning: the icing on the carrot cake we had (June 2006) is really gross, like eating crisco!

This is the Candy cane creme brulee (egg nog + mint ice cream) that was included in my set menu. Delicious!

This is their creme brulee ($8).

This is the Fruit Alignment ($8) - raspberry tiarmisu + jackfruit and ginger gelato + chocolate hazelnut florentine.

This is the mandarin cheese cake ($9) that my husband ordered. Isn't this cute?

This is the double deck ($9) which is passion fruit + milk chocolate + Irish cream + jivara gelato. This is definitely for chocolate lovers.

Who doesn’t have room for dessert? This is the Crème brulee terrine – spice vanilla anglaise with ginger bread crust. My meal was complemented by this delicious treat – mildly sweet, not too rich, melt in my mouth. Honestly, I can eat another one in a row.

You can see that we had so much fun just eating dessert!

Another yummy dessert!

The pastry chef is full of imagination.

How about their in-house ice cream?

We want to try their "Crazy Good" Warm Chocolate Cake originally. However, we were told that this will take about 20 minutes preparation time.

So, we changed our mind and tried their Carrot Cake ($10) instead. Delicious as it looks!

I'm still thinking about this chocolate truffle cake.

Sure. I posted it in the Forum.

Care to share that recipe with us? :)

I remeber being in charge of the desserts the first night I was there, and I must say that the Creme Brulee was hands-down the most popular item. It's almost as good as my Chocolate Banana Strawberry Creme Brulee ;)

Desserts here are made-to-order, as should be expected from a restaurant of this caliber. I ordered the vanilla creme brule, and my husband ordered a cranberry and white chocolate tarte. My creme brule had the perfect amount of 'crust' on top. His tarte had a lovely, flaky crust. Both were wonderful and beautifully presented.

I'll end it with a dessert since I'm not sure if I'm spamming. :)

Cloudberry Pudding

Oh my goodness, I wished I had taken my camera with me! We came here for dessert after a somewhat disappointing dinner elsewhere (Il Piccolino Ristorante ).

They were almost empty when we arrived at 9:20pm and were happy to seat us for dessert (they close at 10pm). Servers here excel at striking the perfect balance of friendliness and efficiency without snobbiness. I've noticed that this approach is the hallmark of all the best restaurants.

They had about six dessert choices. We opted for the Maple Pecan Tart and the Lemon Blueberry Cream Tart (exact names not remembered), a chamomile tea and an espresso. When the desserts arrived, we both said, "Wow!" They were beautifully presented and garnished with really good strawberries and blackberries, the likes of which we haven't had since summer. Other garnishes included a delicious strawberry/raspberry sauce and various semisweet chocolate creations. I declared the Maple Pecan Tart to be the best "pecan pie" I've ever had. Wifey's Lemon Blueberry thing was so delicious too, with just the right balance of tartness and sweetness.

Each of these dessert choices was just $7 -- great value considering the presentation! It's been some time since we had truly excellent food at a restaurant so we were really happy to discover that perfection still exists.

Wifey's Pot de Crème (dark chocolate custard with sweetened crème fraîche) was sensational. Smooth, chocolatey, and satisfying without being sickly.

For my birthday this year, since there's only myself and my husband, I didn't want a whole birthday cake so we stopped at Louise's to take a look. They have beautiful cakes that are made in Montreal, and they come in the regular size for a group, or as individual servings. We each chose a different one (sorry, I can't remember the exact names) - mine was a passion fruit mousse concoction, and my husband's was chocolate cake and mousse. Both were wonderful and less than $4 each!

This was the Strawberry Tiramisu ($7.50) we ordered. Taste was okay. Nothing to blow me away though.

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).

This is the dessert table. Pick as many as you want, but watch out for your calories!

After the disappointing and overpriced spring rolls, and the decent but not spectacular steak, I was thrilled to discover how great the desserts were!

First, some background. We were out for lunch because my parents were visiting and were willing to babysit. My Mom had reminded me just the day before how the sorbets in Switzerland are often served with a shot of schnapps or liqueur. So when I saw the Sherbotka on Café Paradiso's menu, I had no choice but to order it.

This was an extremely generous portion of Pure Gelato lime sherbert. Really top notch and refreshing stuff! The cookie tasted like a macaroon and melted in my mouth. The big shot glass of vodka just made it more exciting. I poured about 2/3 of it onto my sherbert and slurped the last bit straight. Fire and Ice baby!

Highly recommended.

Wifey had the Le Chocolate dessert (quote from menu: "Espresso cream center surrounded by a sweet chocolate mousse, on a shortbread base & covered in bitter-sweet chocolate, served with marinated berries and raspberry gelato").

She absolutely loved it! I tried some and it was awesome. Fairly priced at $8.

My friend recommended me to try their pistachio tart. So I tried it. But the taste was okay. I preferred the chocolate mousse cake that my husband had (can't find the photo).

This was the crepes with banana and chocolate that my friend ordered.

We ended up at the Les Fougeres shop at the weekend and stocked up on various goodies. The highlight was the tart that we picked up. We thought it was a lemon tart which we've bought before and thoroughly enjoyed. Anyway when we got home we saw it was actually a passionfruit tart. I was skeptical at first, but OMG it's amazing.

Beautiful shortcrust pastry and a curd like filling with just the right amount of tartness. This is the last piece of the pie ... won't be around for long.

This was the dessert I shared with my hubby - Mignardises plate with chocolate truffle,
pure fruit jelly, nuts & biscuits ($8.50) according to the menu.

It was my fault that I didn't read the menu carefully. I only read chocolate truffle and thought that it was a chocolate cake with some truffle thing (my imaginary dessert for a fancy restaurant!). I personally never expect a dessert of this sort in a restaurant (especially this highly rated one). When I order dessert, I expect something that I can't easily bake/make. If I know this is what I would get, I would definitely order something else. (The almonds nuts and biscuits were good though.)

From now on, I learn to read menu carefully so that I don't make the same mistake twice.

P.S. The cappuccino I got was only luke warm. I hate drinking non-hot coffee. Another disappointment!

This was the lemon cheesecake with ladyfingers and fruit compote ($9.50) that my friend ordered. Taste was okay. But nothing special though.

I feel bad since I can't remember the name of the ice dessert we had here but, it was almost like a sweet bubblegum flavor poured over ice with chunks of jelly candy in it and nuts (pistachios??). It's quite sweet but went well with our coffee.

The other dessert was the fried plantains which were the best I've had here in Ottawa so far. Nice and moist on the inside and not greasy or too crispily fried! Yum.

This was the Sweet Red Bean Soup with purple rice. A typical dessert in a Chinese restaurant. The chef added purple rice to the sweet red bean soup. We all like it!

Note: Somehow all my Canadian friends do not like this dessert so much.

This was the chocolate ganache torte. Very rich, but not bad at all. The crust was very delicious. If you like dark chocolate and a cookie crumb crust, then you’ll love this.

Apple Crumble ($8) was too sweet for my teeth. I think it was due to the caramel that they added to it.

The cinnamon ice cream was good though.

When we go to an Italiant restaurant, our must-to-do is to order Tiramisu. Their version of Tiramisu was not bad at all. The only complaint we had was that we didn't taste any liquor from the Tiramisu. But we will still order this dessert again when we are here for dinner next time.

Green Tea icecream is always a must, not matter where you eat sushi!
This one was excellent!

Try their fried banana with ice cream (aka FBI). Very yummy dessert. Suggest that you ask for Lichee Ice cream instead of vanilla.