ottawa foodies

I've been to this place on a number of occasions. I love the mezza towers (offhand, I remember with fondness the cauliflower with tahini, falafel, and humus) with the endless supply of pita. They've been great about making me a special dish on request because none of the entrees on the menu were vegan. It's a great place to relax with with friends, a glass of wine and a mezza tower.

I have only been here once a few years back and want to try it again. Our meal was excellent the first time and I love the glowing blue lights that give the atmosphere a surreal type quality.

Since it's been so long, I won't give it a thumbs up until I try it again but look forward to reading the thoughts of others.

Not sure I'll give this place a second chance. I went for years, as it was a Sunday morning brunch staple for me in the summer. I'm not sure if a disappointment is more acute when you really like a place... but the incident occured in Summer 2006. My parents were visiting town, and my father is die-hard meat and potatoes sort of guy. He likes his Swiss Chalet! I took them here for brunch and it was a disaster. We had to wait 15 minutes before we could order... not that big of a deal, and then ordered appetizers (Mozzah Tower) and brunch off the brunch menu. The appetizers arrived in decent time (maybe 10 minutes) but we were left to knaw on them for upwards of 45 minutes. The appetizer was so-so, but because it was 'different', my father wasn't eating very much so we had not finished the appetizer. I had to flag down the waitress to ask where our main course brunch was, and she patiently explained that she had not ordered from the kitchen yet because we hadn't finished our appetizer yet. I suggested that 1 hour since ordering was too long to recieve a brunch main course, and the waitress tried to explain to me how it was my fault that I didn't have my food. Then the manager came over and explained that the kitchen was slow, because most people were ordering the buffet special. Twenty minutes later we had our salads, and grilled Tuna. The tuna was so dry, and crusty it was almost indistinguishable, and I could not finish it. I complained, and was offered a discount on my meal. I was pretty angry at this point, angry at the poor service, angry at the poor food, angry that I was embarrassed that I brought my family, and angry because the manager did not understand my dilema. I don't care about the money, and I don't care about his excuses. He and his restaraunt stole 2 hours of my life, and made is miserable, and he made no attempt to rectify that. I would have paid double, if he could have helped salvage our ruined day. I'm not sure how much he could have done, but certainly more than he did. After his excuse that the buffet was taking up all the cooks time, he should have offered for us to go and start off on the buffet while we were waiting for our orders.. or something like that. I really hate it when the manager thinks they can buy-off your dissatisfaction, instead of trying to fix it. I don't blame a place for having problems, I blame them for not fixing them. Thumbs down for this place.

I really really enjoyed this place. I was there for lunch and had a chicken wrap and the soup of the day - cream of broccoli. It was great but unfortunately my vegetarian friend could not have it because it contained chicken broth. It's always wise to ask what's in everything - even if it sounds veggie friendly. I went back for dinner last week and had the 3 course meal with wine. Everything about it was lovely although the waitress didn't know a whole lot about the wine.