ottawa foodies

Roast 'n Brew has been a perennial favourite of mine since its opening ten years ago or so. It is convenienly located near the Queen Street entrance of my office building! When the weather is nice I often pop in and get lunch to go then sit in a park to eat.

Lunch combinations include small or large sized salads, sandwich and salad combinations, and quiche and salad combinations. Sandwiches available include chicken and bacon, chicken and vegetable, ham and swiss, monte cristo (assorted cold cuts I believe), and caprese (spinach, tomato, and bocconcini). Today's salads included potato, broccoli/cauliflower, lentil/rice, tortellini, macaroni, and fattoush. I like the salad and sandwich combination. Today I decided to veer away from my usual caprese sandwich and ordered a chicken and bacon sandwich. The sandwich comes with two salads so I picked a tortellini salad and rice and lentil salad. The sandwich and salad combination came to $7.99. The portions were just perfect for me and everything was very tasty.

The current owners are Lebanese so you will often see some Lebanese dishes on the menu. I noticed they had some small containers of tabouleh available and sometimes they have baggies of pita chips coated in za'atar for purchase.

Roast 'n Brew is a franchise operation with a second location on Bank Street in the Glebe. I'm not sure if their menu items are the same.

The salads are what I come here for. For $3 you can get a decent sized salad, what they call "side" but most restaurants would call "small". Their small, for $5 is much larger. You can mix the different types, usually there is a green salad, a vegetable salad, and a couple of grain/starch based ones. The guy makes a serious fattoush.