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HELLO OTTAWA

We’d like to thank you for all the kind emails wishing us good health. Luckily for us, we’re only suffering from the seasonal flu but we appreciate the good thoughts immensely.

As we slowly emerge from being housebound, this first edition of 2024 is wetting our appetite for everything Ottawa. What will we all discover this year?

– Martha and Darren

TODAY’S LINE UP

•  Food + Drink Update
•  Ottawa Stats
•  City Hall Agenda
•  What Ottawa is Talking About
•  Events
•  Deals of the Day

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FOOD + DRINK UPDATE

•  Arnprior’s Cold Bear Brewing turns one on January 27. There are three ticketed time slots for the party but at least one is already at the point of selling out. So, if you want to help the brewery celebrate, best get booking.
•  Soca Kitchen has a trio of deals for a stripped back January: $5 Mimosas at weekend Brunch, an $18 lunch combo (two tacos plus crispy potatoes or salad), and budget friendly dinners from 5:00 pm. 224 Beechwood Ave.
•  If you’ve resolved to eat more oysters in 2024, we’ve got the event for you. Oyster Wednesday at Orléans Brewing Co is a weekly affair from 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm. Of course there will also be fine beer (plus wine and cider).
•  The New York Times’ Canada Newsletter asked readers about ‘restaurants that have become local institutions’. Of the six mentioned, two are from around here. David Maitland in Chelsea recommended Les Fougères, declaring the resto as the definition of an institution. Brian Gold in Ottawa recommended John’s Family Diner on Wellington. ‘You feel like you’re joining your extended family.’
•  Toronto radio station Indie 88 says these are Ottawa’s best restaurants: Riviera, Thali, Supply & Demand, Fraser, Soif Bar à vin, Les Fougères, Arlo, and Alice. No surprises here.
•  Kiersten Vuorimaki’s Best Bites column in Apt 613 has four recommendations: Louis’ Pizza (‘they make a perfect, quintessential Ottawa-style pizza: thick crust, sweet tomato sauce and almost too much cheese on top of huge slices of pepperoni’), Big Rig Kitchen & Brewery (‘my friends and I set ourselves the goal of finding the best nachos in town. After a whole summer of research, we found them’), Ahora (‘the best loaded and smothered burrito in town’), and Moo Shu Ice Cream & Kitchen (‘The Vegan Mango Sticky Rice is a creamy, fruity, rice-y concoction that tastes exactly like the famous southeast Asian dessert’).
•  Peter Hum in the Ottawa Citizen thinks that the new Hong Kong style breakfast menu at Gongfu Bao is even better than the regular baos. The café has stirred things up by making its regular baos available only after 4:00 pm and serving delights like corned beef and egg bolobao, pork chop bun, and HK French toast for breakfast and lunch. 
•  January can be tough for everyone, but it’s even more so for those who are homeless or struggling to get enough food on the table. Find the one closest to you:
  
  Parkdale Food Cupboard
  Ottawa Food Bank
  Centretown Community Food Centre
  Pinecrest-Queensway (Foster Farm Food Bank, Morrison Gardens Food Bank, Pinecrest Terrace Food Bank, Britannia Woods Food Bank)
  Barrhaven Food Cupboard
  Caldwell Family Centre

OTTAWA STATS

Sports

• 🏒 PWHL Ottawa 3 – Montréal 2 last night
• 🏒 NHL Ottawa Senators 3 – Vancouver Canucks 6 last night

CITY HALL AGENDA

What’s going on at City Hall
 

No meetings until January 16.

WHAT OTTAWA IS TALKING ABOUT

🗞️ Le Droit

•  After 100 years in print, Le Droit has gone digital only. The French language newspaper had changed from six days per week to Saturdays only in 2020. The final print edition was December 30.  (CBC)

🏒 The Sens

•  Steve Staios has been appointed as the permanent general manager of the Ottawa Senators. Staios had been in the position as a temporary replacement since November when he took over from former general manager Pierre Dorion. (CBC)

🚊 O Train

•  O Train is back in service after pieces of the ceiling in the tunnel at St-Laurent Station fell onto the track. After an inspection, engineers decided that the tunnel was safe and transit resumed. Carina Duclos, City's acting general manager for infrastructure, says there was a ‘separation of the paste layer at the surface, creating an unbonded layer with the main slab’. ( Andrew Foote and Priscilla Ki Sun Hwang at CBC)

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MORE FROM THE OTTAWAN

• 🍺 Our Ottawa-Gatineau Craft Brewery Map

•  

• 🏆 The Best Of Ottawa Awards 2023

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• 🎧 Best Podcasts from Ottawa

EVENTS

Is there an event we should know about?
Please use our easy event submission form

Today

•  Wednesday is vinyl night in the Cold Bear (Arnprior) taproom.

  
  Gigs

•  Open Mic Night. Glebe Central Pub

•  Open Mic Night. Waterfront Pub (Carleton Place)

•  Open Mic Night. Brass Monkey

•  Prime Rib Big Band. Irene’s Pub Restaurant

•  Pinball Women Ottawa January Tournament. House of TARG

•  Trivia Night. Royal Oak pubs

•  Taproom Trivia. Stray Dog Brewing
   

Tomorrow

•  Get a new perspective about happiness. Learn how to transform the mind in order to gain wellbeing at Happiness From A Different Source: How Meditation Changes Everything. The talk will be led by Gen Kelsang Thekchen, a Kadampa Buddhist monk. Tickets $20 (or $25 at the door). Kailash Mital Theatre, Carleton University 7:30 pm - 9:00 pm.

•  OttawaMusicals is back after a three year absence with Sleeping Beauty: An Annual Panto (tonight through January 7).

  Gigs

•  Blues Sessions with Guest Host Jameson Mackay. Irene’s Pub Restaurant

   

Friday

• OttawaMusicals is back after a three year absence with Sleeping Beauty: An Annual Panto (today at 2:00 pm plus performances on Saturday and Sunday). 
  
  Gigs
  
  Jesse Greene Band with Mista Choops. Irene’s Pub Restaurant

  $2 Bill. Avant Garde Bar

  Barrow Gang. Atomic Rooster

  Rhythm Method. Carleton Tavern
   

Just Announced

•  Want to make yummy drinks without alcohol? Join mixologist Tristan Bragaglia-Murdock for a City Seltzer Zero Proof NA Cocktail Class.

•  Beet Box Farm is hiring a young person (30 years old or younger. as this is a wage subsidy grant opportunity) to work the farm from April 29 to November 2, 40 hours per week.

•  The deadline to apply for the 2024 Ottawa Arts Awards is March 8. Plan to attend information systems in February to have your questions answered.

DEALS OF THE DAY

BUT, ONE MORE THING ...

Will Pavia at the Times of London has become interested in Ottawa’s search for a Night Mayor. It’s kind of a fun article. Sure, it brings up the old Allan Fotheringham quips of ‘the  City that fun forgot’ and ‘Sparta on the tundra’ but it also talks to current residents, including a ‘globe-trotting doctor of emergency medicine and a musician’ who loves that Ottawa is ‘a gateway to Nunavut’ and the artist who says Ottawa ‘is not that far from Toronto but you have a difference in the wind chill’.

RAPID RESPONSE QUALITY CONTROL

THE END

the ottawan is written and edited every work day by Martha and Darren.

Is there something that Ottawa should know about? Email to us at hello@theottawan.com. We read every single comment. 

We’ll see you tomorrow.

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