ottawa foodies

I am aware of buyer beware and all that. I also know that some things are still safe to eat after the expiration date. My point is while it may be legal to put price tags over expired product, thereby hiding said date, I do not think it is ethical. If only one or two packages has their dates covered up, I might give them the benefit of the doubt. But all of them?

Best before dates simply mean best before.

They are not expiration dates.

There are no laws mandating how best before dates are obtained, often they are at the manufacturers discretion or a marketing boards policy.

Also they can be changed after the fact ie. re-labelled.

The only food stuffs in Canada that require an expiry date - ie. Do Not Eat after this date are baby formulas, certain pablum style baby foods and meal replacement drinks (ie. for those who can't chew).

Everything else is up to the manufacturer/producer.

caveat emptor

Carlingwood location,

I recently purchased a cheese spread here. I went in today to see if they had any more and they did not, although they had a Mexican cheese spread that looked interesting. As it was listed at 30 % off the regular $6.49 price I turned it over to check the best before date. It was covered up by the price sticker. I checked the rest of the containers and there wasnt one where the price sticker did not cover up the best before date. So I peeled the price tag off a couple of them and the best before date was revealed to be June 8, well over a month ago. I pointed this out to them and told them I was not impressed. The person behind the counter said she would fix them so the best before date would show. I think this is sharp practice as it seems strange to me that ALL of the best before dates were covered up. What do you think? I should also mention that I was there about a month that ago and they had a sale bin at the front of the store. All the items I checked had expired dates.

I travel to Geneva quite often for work, and this is a great place to go when I'm missing Swiss chocolate. They have a decent selection of Swiss and other European chocolate (not just the usual Lindt bars that you can find in grocery stores).

I haven't sampled many of the pastries, but I do enjoy the muffins. On the other hand, I bought a loaf of six-grain bread here this morning and was disappointed. First, it was overpriced. $4.99! Seriously, come on. Even in shockingly expensive Switzerland you can buy a loaf of bread for much less, but I'm getting carried away... Anyway, at that price, I was expecting to have my socks knocked off, but it was dry and bland. I don't know how they get away with charging that much for what tasted like a stale supermarket loaf, but now I know to stick to the chocolate and pastries!

I have to be honest. The service here (Westboro location) is less than friendly, even when they are over staffed. I've never waited less than two minutes to be acknowledged, even when there is no line. A lot of the time, it feels a bit like the customers are a second priority.

That said, they are right close by and when I walk in at 8, I know the pastries are fresh. The coffee is solid, and they're the only place I know of in the area selling Diet Dr. Pepper. Also, the pretzels are highly addictive. Consider yourself warned.

This place was originally a pastry/bakery/dessert shop, and has multiple locations in the Ottawa area. They do dessert catering for all sorts of companies and can also do special events things like wedding cakes. However, their newest location in Westboro (across from the Superstore) is also a cafe, and has a small outdoor patio.

lady who brunches: You just admitted it yourself, the 16oz is 25 cents more! And my review was from a year ago, it's possible that any one of those places have changed their pricing since then. Actually I know for a fact that Starbucks did increase prices, and I'm about 80% sure Bridgehead did as well.

The Lavazza coffee at the Westboro location is incredibly, and has become my regular coffee place these days.

Not too sure what Candice means about prices: It's about the same or less than what you would pay at Bridgehead or Starbucks. 16oz (Grande at Starbucks) is $2.25 with tax. Well worth the extra quarter!!!

They have good Lavazza coffee here (Westboro location)! And they serve decent espresso. Not as good as we had in France, but still very good. Nice crema and not too bitter.

However, their coffee is a bit more expensive than at similar places down the road (Bridgehead, for example).

Spotted some at Swiss Pastries in Billings Bridge Plaza.

I ate two of their chocolate mousse cakes in a month - one for my birthday and one for the Halloween party.

Lots of rich chocolate! Yum Yum!! However, I do find the cake too sweet for my teeth.

Mmmm. Pretzels. One of my favourite foods. Stopped by Swiss Pastries at Westboro this morning for a pretzel to take to work. Made an interesting lunch of pretzel, soup and hard boiled egg.

Figured I would save the best until last with the pretzel (mmmm), until I opened the bag, ripped it apart, and it was stale.

Sorry, Swiss Pastries, but how is it you only sell these once a week and yet they are stale? I'm disappointed. This might resulted in my making my own from now on.

Only available on Thursdays, the soft pretzels are pretty good, perfectly salted and relatively chewy (although, as Pete in Ottawa mentioned, they don't have the shiny, crispy sheen to them). I usually bring home a few to serve with dinner (sliced meat, cheese, salad).

I tried their Smoked Sausages and they were the very good, dense kind. Best grilled or simmered, sliced with a sharp knife, and enjoyed with sauerkraut and potatoes. They also had Garlic Smoked Sausages and Farmer's Sausage that looked promising but I didn't try them.

Just grilled some of these up on the BBQ. One day I'll work up the nerve to simmer them in stock the Bayern way...

Anyway, these were excellent Weißwürst. A little longer than the ones in zymurgist's photo. They didn't have green bits, which is fine with me. I believe Swiss Pastries also carry the chived (parsleyed?) ones but they were out of them when I dropped by. This was the Carlingwood location.

One thing I did notice when we were in the Westboro location of Swiss Pastries: they have a variety of little marzipan characters available to purchase fairly inexpensively (around $4 or so). I am sure they would make a cute addition to a birthday or other special occasion cake. :D

We tried their panini today at the Westboro location; delicious but a bit overpriced. I tried a vegetarian roasted vegetable one and mendel tried a Tuscan chicken one. Each was on a different sort of bread (mine was a rosemary bread) and had nice fresh toppings. But at 6+ dollars each, they were a tad expensive.