Food and Drink News

Weekly update for Wednesday April 17

•  Little Victories’ new location at Queen St. has opened, and it’s a pink dream of a café (we’re talking calm rose, as opposed as Barbie fuchsia - not that there’s anything wrong with fuchsia).
•  Merrickville has Canada’s only brewery and glassworks, and if you want to know more, Gather Brewery and Glassworks is doing Happy Hour on Fridays from 4:30 pm to 7:00 pm. 635 St. Lawrence St. Merrickville.
•  Farmgate Cider has launched Not a Still-Life Session Cider, a new tipple full of tart cranberry and sweet apple flavours (3.4% abv). Also, while we don’t like to judge a cider by the look of its can, we will say that the label design is gorgeous. $20 for a four pack.
•  Inflation is putting a cramp in many a vacationer's longer distance travel plans, and our region’s culinary tourism businesses are all the happier for it. Read about seven food-focused staycation ideas in the Ottawa Business Journal in places like Smiths Falls, Kingston, the Ontario Highlands, and Kawartha, which has its own – brace yourself – Butter Tart Tour.
•  Jojo Coco chocolate pairings are both educational and delicious. Chocolate With…Tea might be the one of a kind Mother’s Day gift you’ve been searching for. If tea isn’t your thing, try Chocolate With… Cheese.
•  PSA: Spark Beer & Pizza will be opening for lunch on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays starting April 26.
•  We’ve never heard of Vancouver breakfast chain Yolks, but they have opened their first Ottawa location in the Glebe. Of note, parent company Happy Belly also owns a cereal company called Holy Crap.
•  Tim Horton’s is testing new plastic free, fibre hot beverage lids in Ottawa and Gatineau for the next six weeks. A previous test of a different type of lid failed in Prince Edward Island after patrons complained that they could taste the lid.
•  Have too much invasive garlic in your garden? Just eat it. ‘Mustard garlic is poisonous to smaller animals such as rabbits and goats. However, it is harmless to humans, who can eat the entire plant from roots to leaves’ says the CBC and not us and we’re not accepting any liabilty if you get sick eating your weeds.
•  Ottawa ByLaw believes there are 13 illegal hookah bars operating in the city. Banned because of no-smoking rules, the operators say it is part of their cultural identity.
•  In its Q&A with Stuntman Stu, Ottawa Business Journal discovers that the broadcaster’s favourite restaurant is Golden Palace.
•  Ameya Charnalia at Eat the Strip tests out the takeout-only Sushi 29 in Blackburn Hamlet. He found that the $48 40-piece tray was not only enough for two people, but enough for a meal the next day.
•  Apartment 613’s Best Bites columnists Amanda Armstrong and Kiersten Vuorimaki ate at Blue Nile (‘bursting with a symphony of flavours’), Edinburger (‘It was delicious and messy, like a very good burger should be’) and Siam Bistro (‘The serving size was generous, especially with the added jasmine rice, and there were leftovers for the perfect lunch the next day’).
•  Peter Hum at the Ottawa Citizen thinks that the fare at Turkish Anatolian Restaurant will have the ‘more deluxe restaurants looking over their shoulder’.