ottawa foodies

My first time having strozzapetti and I am glad it was this dish at The Grand. It came with a sausage in tomato sauce. The pasta was al dente which seems to be hard to find around town. The sausage was broken down nicely and came in good quantities. The sauce was on the sweet side while retaining some acidicity. Definitely a good and different option on a pasta menu. Other items looked good too. I will return to try them.

The Linguini di mare was nicely done. We were quite thrilled to find a seafood pasta dish that didn't come with that ubiquitous border of mussels! This one has shrimp, scallops, and squid. The shrimp are large and succulent. The squid and scallops are tender, but the scallops are the little bay scallops (granted, large sea scallops would jack up the price of this dish beyond the restaurant's artificial $20 limit).

The pasta itself is fresh and cooked to a perfect toothy texture. The main taste of this dish comes from the fairly salty oil-based sauce, which seemed to contain white wine, garlic, green onions, and parmesan cheese. Nicely done, but only if you like bold flavours!

The best pasta I've had in Ottawa - tastes just like the real thing I've had in Italy.

I had a standard fettuccine with sun-dried tomatoes and chicken - a nice sized portion with thick and rich sauce. It was so simple, but probably the best fettuccine I've ever had in my entire life! Service was top notch. A definite hit.

The noodles were overcooked, the sauce was thin and the chicken parmigiana tasted oddly like funnel cake (maybe it was the oil?). This place needs to stick with the pizza.

Huge Portions and a great quality too. Had to take some home

Both my friend's husband and my husband ordered the Fettuccine Pescatore. They told me they enjoyed the pasta very much. (Glad that the price remained to be $18).

Two friends ordered their Fettuccine Pescatore ($18), mixed with tiger shrimp, scallops, mussels and red peppers in a garlic and red wine tomato sauce.

It looked good. But I forgot to ask them for their comments.

Two mushrooms pasta with aragula. This was decent but not flavourful enough. I prefer something with tomato too.

We are regulars so we are partial to this restaurant, however, there is a reason. This might be a chain but the quality has been consistent over the years and the prices are decent. The table d'hôte makes things interesting when we're a little more hungry for a couple more bucks. The wine list is primarily Italian which is perfect given the food!

Each regular entrée also comes with a choice of 1 of 2 soups (minestrone or cream of something - depending on the day) or a salad (garden or Caesar). Also, there is the all you can eat self serve "bread bar". It is a bit of a gimmick but the men and the kids seem to love it! Can't go wrong with garlic toast! With the table d'hôte, garlic escargots is an option as appetizer as well.

Pictured is the spaghetti with Bolognese sauce and a big veal meatball. The pasta is a little overdone but I like it very al dente. Flavour wise, it is a balanced, sweet Bolognese sauce. If you don't mind the calories, go for au gratin. It adds a lot!

My better half and I are big fans for Burnt Butter and their pasta in particular. While it's not on the menu, the restaurant always has gluten-free pasta on hand. The "Cayenne Fettuccine" was full of flavour - O'brien farms meatballs stuffed with gorgonzola, in a curried tomato sauce. We were also impressed that the meatballs didn't have bread crumbs in them making the dish an easy gluten-free option!

This is one of my favourite Alfredo dishes I've ever had. I have been ordering it from Pavarazzi's/Salio's for years. The sauce is perfect, not too heavy and tastes fresh and garlicky. When you order you have the choice of noodles, sauce, and toppings. I always get the penne Alfredo, with extra sauce (because I love it)! This is a beautifully flavoured comfort meal.

Had some good pasta there last night. Putanesca. I like that they'll do pretty much any substitution of sauce or pasta.

The Puttanesca Piccolino was quite spicy and very flavourful. BF says he would order it again.

The Affumicata pasta (linguini, smoked salmon, asparagus, tomato, dill, and cream) came with a very generous amount of smoked salmon. The asparagus pieces were nice and tender. Unfortunately, if we happened to take a mouthful without salmon we found that the sauce had no depth of flavour.

The linguini were cooked perfectly -- too bad the sauce was kind of boring.

This is one of my favourite places in town for pasta. I almost always order the Katrina - spinach spaghetti dressed in olive oil and garlic, grilled chicken and cracked peppercorns.

It's fantastic - highly recommended (if you don't mind ungodly garlic breath after ;) )!

always fresh and delicious!

This was the best pasta I've ever had anywhere. You can't choose the shape -- everyone gets the same amazing homemade fettuccine. Sauces are quite heavy but the pasta is relatively light so they get away with it.

The noodles are of slightly different widths, perhaps indicating that they have been hand-cut. They are rolled quite thin and have a perfect balance of al dente "bite" and melt-in-your-mouth tenderness.

Great place for italian. The salmon pasta is to die for! Yummmmmmmmm

I had the Smirnoff dish, too. It was very good: robust without being too rich, as The Fresh Foodie says. I particularly liked the way I could eat the whole thing using a fork. (No need to switch to spoon, knife, back to fork, etc.)

This is the "Pescatore" pasta -- wifey says it was tasty, although it seemed to have extra mussels to make up for the missing clams that were promised on the menu. The scallops are the small kind, and the portion size is quite ridiculously tiny considering the Small is just a few bucks cheaper than the Large. (this photo is a different scale than the one below -- the plate is smaller!)

This is the "Smirnoff" pasta -- a generous amount of smoked salmon in a rosé sauce with linguine. Even though it looks kind of like a big pile of slop it was very tasty and I can highly recommend it. Very filling but not so rich that you regret ordering it. This was a Large of course.

Just picked up some pasta from here on Monday.

My favorites that they carry are:

-black pepper spaghetti SO GOOD!
-spinach and cheese ravioli, I need to ask what cheese they use as it's not the typical ricotta

I've never had bad pasta from this place. Worth the price in my opinion.

I had one of the specials, not on the regular menu. A linguini with bacon, broccoli and cheddar cheese rosé sauce. Everything was cooked perfectly and the taste was very good. The portion looked a little small in the large bowl it came in, but I was much too full for dessert afterward, so that was certainly not an issue.

Last but not least, our meat/seafood east coaster friend got the Linguini alla Pescatore
Tomato or cream sauce with shrimps, scallops, baby clams and mussels. He said it was really, really good but thought they sort of short changed him on the pasta portion, maybe because it was full of seafood? He definitely could have ate more....but still didn't order dessert so he must have been satisfied!

Another main...Manicotti della Casa
Stuffed with ricotta cheese & spinach covered in a tomato & bechamel sauce. I don't think the picture does this one justice....he finished the plate!

My sister had the Fettuccini ai Spinaci al Salmone...Spinach fettuccini with mushrooms, garlic & smoked salmon in a cream sauce. This was going to be my first choice, but I thought I should try something that I don't "normally" get. I HAD to try it and wow, even though mine was really good, I wish I would have ordered this one. The smoked salmon was just nice and tender and the cream sauce was surprisingly light, not too heavy, yet still full of flavor.

Here is my delicious main..Fettuccini ai Spinaci Monte Verde....Spinach fettuccini, tomato sauce, cream, mushrooms, ham and artichokes hearts. But since I'm a vegetarian, I ordered it without ham. Yummmy! They served just the right portions that made you full but not enough that you feel the need to open your top button!

Pasta is prominent on their menu. This was the "Linguine with Prosciutto and Mushroom Cream Sauce". Very tasty, it was loaded with mushrooms and good prosciutto. The top was graced with nice little chunks of shaved parmesan cheese but then they gave us a shaker of dried parmesan powder at our table to cheapen the experience.

The linguine were cooked perfectly al dente. The prosciutto was excellent, the mushrooms were likely cremini, and the cream sauce was a tad oily (but hey it *is* a cream sauce). It all went down very well indeed. :)