ottawa foodies

I had curiousity get the better of me today, and popped in to get the rumela(sp?) arepas which was pulled pork, cheddar cheese and their custom sauce. Oh man, it was amazing. Also, cheap and close enough to the office to go back again.

prompted by Inkling`s post, I had a breakfast arepa today.... eggs, black beans, feta, avocado.

Made to order, quick, VERY tasty. I'm a complete sucker for corn meal anything, egg was egg, black beans tasted home made, av and feta filled out the flavors nicely.

Decent size... I was starving and likely could have eaten two because yum.

The coffee was ok.

The rest of the Gooney's salad n sandwich menu is still up, looks about the same.

I can only assume this place has changed ownership as the existing reviews are all pretty old and there is no mention of the 'arepa' which is one of the signature menu items here. The arepa for the uninitiated is a Latin American (particularly Venezuela and Colombia according to Wikipedia) sandwich made with a corn meal pocket stuffed with various fillings. I had never had one before so I can't compare it to anywhere else but I'm enjoying them as an inexpensive lunch option downtown. I've had both the chorizo with feta, and roasted pork and both have been very good. They also sell tres leches cake and alfajores. They still offer standard sandwiches and salads, but I've only ordered the arepas so can't comment on anything else on the menu.

You can also get breakfast arepas here too in the morning which i definitely plan to try at some point.

Just got my first wrap from here.

There was way too much in the wrap, it fell apart as soon as I unwrapped. While I appreciate the extra stuff for the price alas...

I asked for no cheese and instead asked for extra avocado, which I did not see at all at first.

The tomatoes are not cut small enough and it needs a bit more sauce to hold it together or spread the avocado over the wrap a bit more since it was also in chunks.

Edit: I now unwrapped the second half of the wrap and ALL the sauce was on that side of the sandwich. However it still fell apart. Ah well, it's tasty!

It was very fresh and tasty, but I was basically eating a salad with more dressing required :)

Definitely a good price for what you get.

Not to derail the discussion too far from Gooneys gone, but between Tossibilities and now Gooneys2, that's two 'higher end' salad/sandwich places gone this summer. Elsewhere I saw mention that Lunch is seeing challenges. I wonder if there's a trend turning against the '$15 healthy lunch' place in downtown O-town...

This baffles my mind. Gooney's is (was) busy every single day at lunch. I sometimes avoided it just because the line was so long that my clothes ended up smelling like a sandwich all day.

Lots of people in my office will not be happy about this. I know at least 12 girls who live off of gooney's salad. lol

I'm sure they had a good reason to downsize. Too bad though.

I personally think it might be more complicated then revenue alone. But this is just a guess.

I hope something awesome takes its place. Anything but Subway or Starbucks. Yarg!

I would have thought so too, but maybe it's because 1) the rent would be cheaper and 2) they get more government lunchtime traffic.

I asked the lady at the counter if the other location was permanently closed and she said yes, but she made it pretty clear she didn't want to say anything else.

REALLY????

Wow, if anything i would have expected the other way around. Kent St is like 1/3 the size.

The location at Laurier and O'Connor has closed down. All of the regular staff has moved to the Kent location.

Anyone know what happened? It was always jumping when I went to the Laurier location...

I LOVE their pickles here. They have this large jar of homemade pickles on the counter. They are only 99 cents and are huge, juicy and delicious! I get one every time! Yum!