ottawa foodies

The Lees Ave. food scene is really bad. In my second year of uni, I lived at 169 lees and I remember having to choose between old samosas from cosmo mart, really suspect pizza from Lees pizza or shawarma from the infested former “Best Pies and Shawarma” (I say this because I saw the proprietor trying to squish a whole bunch of silverfish under his shoe one time I was there – I can assure you I didn’t eat there ever again).

I’ve got a house on Main St. now, so I’m kind of back in the area, especially when I use the transit way. Best Pies and Shawarma is now a part of the Shawarma Prince chain (of which the Merivale location is one of the best shawarmas in town; although the Lees location has been renovated and cleaned, it isn’t anything special). The owners of the Cosmomart have since expanded and added a restaurant and a coffee shop to the front end of the store. The restaurant is called Prime Chicken and it is a fast food place selling primarily KFC style fried chicken. They also offer burgers, burritos, curry, and generally all the standard fast food items such as poutine.

The prices are modest, comparable to say Wendy’s or MacDonald’s, perhaps cheaper. The Cosmo proprietors (oh the memories of second year), can sometimes be a little rude or unfriendly, but it is what it is. Cultural thing maybe?

On may way home on Saturday I stopped in to pick up some dinner. I’m not a big fan of fried chicken nor did I want what I assumed would be a from-frozen burger patty, so I went for the chicken curry. All in, it is 10 bucks flat. The dish consists of a bowl of - rather viscous albeit tasty - chicken curry, served along side basmati rice (with delicious fried bits of something put on top – dried shrimp or onion or shallot?) and the standard Indian iceburg lettuce salad topped with Thousand Island dressing. Not incredibly memorable, but damn, it’ll do in a pinch. You get a nice dose of chicken, potatoes, rice, salad and spice for a tenner. Works for me!

It’s also almost impossible to spend under 10 dollars at the Green Door (that is if you want something heavy like curry or to be full), so this curry is far better value. The portion size is enough for 2 meals and this place is close to home. The vibe I get from Prime Chicken is like the vibe I get from eating fast food in another country. All the menu items are familiar, but they are all presented in a way that may be different from what we would find at a run of the mill take away joint (spelling and grammar mistakes included :-). The addition of the curries and burritos alone make it a worth while canteen.

Not amazing, but tasty, decent value and close to home, everything I want in a take-away joint. The curry does the trick for me and thus Prime Chicken represents the only redeeming restaurant on the 'Lees food scene'.