Week One in Ottawa & Food Notes February 15, 2019

Hello food blog world! It's been some time that I've had the chance to do some blogging. With that being said, I am truly hoping to be able to jump right back in with recipe creating & testing, macaron making, cookbook reviews all while exploring the city of Ottawa! Yup, that's right. I moved across the country and right back into my home province of Ontario (I grew up in Toronto) to be with my husband (Dan)! If you follow along with me on other social media, you will know that one of the reasons I decided to take a one year leave of absence from work is of course to be with Dan, and also to rest mentally & physically. I love being a Speech-Language Pathologist and that won't change. I also plan on going back to work at the end of this year off. In the meantime, we are framing this year off to be like a sabbatical! Taking the time to get better mentally, physically, and while doing so dabble further in my hobbies.

I can't believe how fast the time has gone and that I have already been in Ottawa for one week! Here are some of the places we checked out this week:

• Tapas Bar at 222 Lyon on the night I arrived. We ordered most of the veggie dishes as well as today's mussels in a white wine sauce ($16) that I ended up drinking like soup, while Dan sopped up the sauce with the house bread.
  
• Skating on the Rideau Canal!
  
  
• Latte at Dan's favourite coffee shop in Ottawa - Equator Coffee Roasters (which says a lot as he can't have too much caffeine). I do love how smooth their lattes are. The one we went to is inside the National Arts Center.
  
• Visited La Bottega Nicastro in Byward Market and picked up a few goodies for the fridge and pantry!
  
• After skating and checking out Winterlude, we went to Shanghai Wonton Noodle (178 Rideau Street) as I was craving a bowl of hot noodles! Tricky at first to find if you aren't looking for it as their signage is on the window. Order the Beef Noodle Soup ($7.95) and "Pan Fried Pork Mushroom Big Wonton"($8.95). These are not pan fried though, but deep fried! Still really good.
  
• Korean House (785 Somerset St W) for their hot bowls of dol sot bibimbap after church. Dan also loves that all their soups arrive at the table bubbling and hot! $12.95 for the galbi dol sot bibimbap with an egg.
  
• Coffee break at The Ministry of Coffee. Great place to work, blog, or just read
  
• Lunch bowls at Mad Radish. Love how health & environmental conscious they are. On this particular occasion I ordered a rice bowl topped with curry cauliflower, greens and papadum ($11.95). They used to have this delish soba noodle bowl, but sadly I don't see on the menu any more. All bowls are good choices here!
  
• I went and explored Little Italy myself Thursday. So many cute shops here: Free Wheeling Craft for all your gift ideas, Shop Vincent and more! In terms of food places I'm interested in returning to dine at La Roma Restaurant and EVOO Greek Kitchen.
  
• Then last night after skating a whole 12 km of the Rideau Canal (which frankly gets a bit scary skating in the dark!), we went down the Rabbit Hole! They are a recent new opening to Spark Street (208 Sparks Street - corner of Bank & Spark). They specialize in cocktail and oysters as well as other dishes. We ordered a dozen oysters ($40) and an order of fries on the side ($5).
  
• Last but not least, I should mention the cannelés from Adam Bakes. He makes the cannelés and you can order them for dessert at the Rabbit Hole. We ended up ordering all 3 flavours for dessert - chocolate rose, strawberry cream & cinnamon sugar - as Dan is obsessed over these and continues to strive at making them himself. All cannelés had their characteristic crunchy dark caramelized exterior and a chewy custard inside.
  

Other Food News in Ottawa:

• In the summer when I was visiting Dan, we went to Flying Piggy's. Sadly, we heard recently that they have now closed. 
• Moo Shu Ice Cream (we used to live around the corner from them last year!) is now open again after their January break and serving their delicious ice creams as well as lunch options (until mid April).  Definitely go during their $5 Wednesday deals (one scoop + bubble waffle for $5!). 

We also did do some home cooking ourselves which you may have seen if you follow me on instagram or twitter (steak 3 different times, baked chicken, cookies, waffles).

Well, that's all for now in my adventures of Ottawa this week! I'll update with more as the weeks go by! Leaving you all with a gorgeous picture from the top floor of the Rabbit Hole.