ottawa foodies

Inspired by the thread about restaurants in the market and by my last post in it proclaiming my previous disappointment with Play's food, when I had to pick somewhere to take a client for lunch today I decided to go to Play again. (My previous point for those who didn't read it was that I have always liked the service, the ambience and the wine list, but been underwhelmed by the food.) We had a few dishes - pork belly, gnocchi, linguine with clams, beef laab - and all bar the gnocchi were really good (gnocchi fell into the classic trap of being gluey and dense, common when made in large quantities, and not the end of the world). Pork belly in particular was sensational.

I think my problem is that I'm a little bit sick of the oh-so-fashionable style of "let's create a whole load of completely disparate dishes, put them on the menu and let the diners figure out a cohesive meal for themselves".

This, restaurateurs, is not tapas. Tapas is a very different thing that does not involve ordering lots of dishes at the same time and then eating them as a meal. Please, all of you, stop doing this. Sidedoor suffers from the same problem of having lots of great dishes which combine to become less than the sum of their parts.

If you're going to have small dishes, please at least also offer some traditional servings as well, dishes that have been created by the chef to form a meal in and of themselves. It's like an author writing lots of chapters that when put together form several really good books, but then expecting the reader to figure out which ones go where.

Enough already. I realise that it's profitable, but it's detrimental to a meal. Really good chefs would struggle to create a coherent meal on one plate from three proteins, two starches, two sauces and four different fruits and vegetables. Why are you expecting me to do it, when I haven't even tasted the dishes individually?

"Tapas is a very different thing that does not involve ordering lots of dishes at the same time and then eating them as a meal."

Here are some pictures of Tapas, as enjoyed by me in Barcelona this past summer. It involved ordering lots of dishes at the same time and then eating them as a meal. I didn't find it ideal, for the reasons you describe. But it *is* tapas.

While I agree with the premise of your rant, I think it is a rant against tapas rather than a rant against restaurateurs. If you want a larger portion with all components coming together in a symphony of flavour, then simply stop going to small plates establishments -- that is by definition not what they intend to provide!

Whilst that might be how you've eaten it, it's not how tapas was originally derived and how it's still eaten traditionally. Tapas is a bar food, I worked in Spain for a while and it was usually eaten throughout the evening as we worked our way from bar to bar - a dish here and a dish there, but as continued sustenance rather than as a meal. Yes, some restaurants do serve tapas, but even then ordering tends to be a dish or two at a time rather than expecting you to order four dishes simultaneously.

I hear what you say about not going there if I don't like it, but I want to frequent places like Play and Sidedoor because they're really nice places that do make excellent food complemented with great wine and service, and I'd like to think that they want me to come and eat there. I'd just like them to give me the option of an actual meal - or at the very least, suggest dishes that are designed to complement each other. I've found that asking for recommendations usually elicits a list of the server's favourite plates, but again with a lack of cohesion as an actual meal.

Tapas aren't the only type of small plates, and many other similar cuisines, say mezze, are eaten as a meal (a practice that absolutely is more and more common in Spain). If you don't care for that style of eating, fine, but I really don't understand your annoyance at the existence of these types of restaurants.