ottawa foodies

This bountiful board of delightful decadence is the Fish Tacos ($15 + $1.50 for half-half fries and salad). What what!!

In the ByWard Market, it's hard to beat The Brig for value and deliciousness. The standard fries and salad are both really good, so it always makes sense to splash out the extra buck fifty for both.

The only bad thing I can say about this lunch is that the tacos are kind of hard to eat with all those amazingly juicy fillings of dressed cabbage and pico de gallo.

The Falafel and Avocado Wrap ($14) was very good. I can never choose between salad and fries (why should anyone have to?) so I opted to pay the extra $1.50 to get half of each. It was more like ¾ of each though so the extra cost was well worth it!

The fries here are excellent and the salad is of reliable quality, albeit a little on the sweet side. The wrap was good too, with lots of veggies and sauce to keep everything lubricated. However, I'm not generally a big wrap person and I ended up disembowelling the second half of my wrap and leaving the shell squashed on my plate like some rejected entomological exoskeleton. I want my calorie-dense foods to taste amazing.

Wrap pickiness aside, I'd totally get this again!

We stopped by for lunch and loved it! The steak was very tender and perfectly cooked to medium rare. The fried cauliflower dish got rave reviews by everyone who tried it. Lots of reasons to love this place and eat the cauliflower.

The Brig continues to delight! The Crispy Chicken Sandwich ($15) was excellent. Perhaps a little on the sweet side for my personal taste but the flavours were good and the textures were fantastic. It's a big hunk of chicken so I was happy to have opted for salad instead of fries as the side. Would totally recommend!

The Crispy Fish Sandwich ($15) looks quite different from the one I had last October. That one featured a generous slab of Art-Is-In baguette. Since then, they experimented with a softer baguette and then moved to this even less interesting (but also less carby) bun. The appeal of this dish now comes from the fish, cabbage slaw, aïoli dressing, jalapeño relish, and of course the excellent fries!

The food here is always pretty great but I should give a shout out to Chelsey, whose super cheerful welcomes and consistently genial service are a big part of the draw for my coworkers and me.

I enjoyed the lunch menu Kimchi B.L.T. Sandwich ($13) accompanied by a heap of their great fries. The kimchi was quite generous and gave the sandwich some heat and a welcome veggie-like crunch.

A side note: one of my lunching companions ordered the Crispy Fish Sandwich I was raving about on my previous visit. It was still very good, but the bread was a more standard bun like the one pictured here rather than the superlative Art-Is-In baguette I experienced last time.

Wow! The Crispy Fish Sandwich ($15) was an excellent lunch indeed. Two hunks of panko breaded cod on a generous slab of the iconic Art-Is-In Dynamite White baguette dressed with a really nice coleslaw, house made aïoli dressing, and jalapeño relish. Choice of fries or salad, and the fries were some of the best I've had in a pub.

The Amsterdam Downtown Brown Ale went well with my meal, although it was a little steep at $6.64 for a 16 oz "sleeve” (why can't we get proper 20 oz pints of beer anymore).

Two thumbs up and I'll definitely be back for lunch!

I had Caesars on the patio out back today. Great service, nice and spicy, always love a good spicy bean in my Caesar as an alternative to celery. Will defiantly try the food next time.

So the Brig is back in full steam. They have a slightly updated menu with a quite a few gems! The beer selection is so- so, but they do have St. Amboise, so I am happy.

I had the Grouper with Scallop(s) over a potato pancake and vegetables. The sea food was fantastic, but the menu was misleading as I only got one singular scallop. Since it was a celebration night, I didn’t throw a stink. The food was really good though and the atmosphere is sweet. Over all a great night with some good friends.

Sorry for the crappy blackberry photos.

Mixed Game burger with caramelized apples(?). I tried the apples which were good. My buddy thought the burger was fantastic.

You're burying the lead here, there's no blue cheese in the Brig's Cobb? ಠ_ಠ

The Chicken Cobb Salad ($15) was nutritious and satisfying with a variety of flavours and textures. The chicken had a great grilled flavour, making it a nice flashback to summer sensations and the crispy bacon and parmesan cheese added the dash of sin that makes a healthy life worth living.

Even though I love the fries here I would totally have the cobb salad again!

The Duck Confit Poutine ($14) was exactly as it should be: excellent fries, lots of tender duck leg, generous gooey cheese curds, and a nice meaty gravy. It was easily enough for my lunch although our server mentioned that she didn't remember it being so big. Highly recommended!