Anatomy of Grocery Shopping in Ottawa

I don’t know for you but at home, gro­cery shop­ping is the bar­rel of the Danaids. There is always a key prod­uct missing—it’s like our fridge is swal­low­ing the con­tents when we are not looking.

Celebrating Chinese New Year: 新年快乐!

新年快乐!

Today is Chi­nese New Year, and our mul­ti­cul­tural house is cel­e­brat­ing the begin­ning of spring (not quite there yet in Canada!) and the begin­ning of the year of the Snake.

Foodie Review: Merivale Fish Market

I must have walked/driven by the Merivale Fish Mar­ket thou­sands of times, but I had never tried it. I didn’t even know what kind of food they had exactly—well, fish, obvi­ously, but I wasn’t sure what kind of place it was.
Well, now we’ve been there. Ver­dict? Good fish but I found the restau­rant over­priced and the ser­vice wasn’t great.

Foodie Review: Yummy Sushi

The day after Canada Day, a friend of mine and I headed to Chi­na­town for a sushi lunch. Our first choice was Sushi 88 but it was closed for the day, so we went next door to Yummy Sushi, an all-you-can-eat sushi place I had never tried.

Ten Foods and Food Products I Discovered in Canada

The great part about immi­grat­ing to a new coun­try is that you don’t lose anything—you gain new expe­ri­ences and broaden your hori­zon. Sure, I occa­sion­ally miss French food (although I can quickly get sick of it) but I also dis­cov­ered a lot of new prod­ucts that don’t exist in France, or foods I just wasn’t famil­iar with.

Foodie Review: New Pho Bo Ga La

Ottawa is addicted to Phở, the Viet­namese soup. A few years ago, one phở restau­rant opened, then another one, and another one… and now phở places can be found from Chi­na­town to the far sub­urbs of Kanata. Really, what’s not to like? Phở restau­rants are typ­i­cally cheap if not very fancy, and I guess the soup is quite com­fort­ing dur­ing our long winters.

North American Desserts: The Carrot Cake

I’m not your typ­i­cal cor­don bleu French cook, but I tend to stay away from super­mar­ket bak­eries because the lists of ingre­di­ents they use scare me. So once in a while, I bake. Noth­ing fancy, noth­ing com­pli­cated: I usu­ally fol­low recipes loosely (seri­ously, who has all the ingre­di­ents on hand?) and hope for the best.

Foodie Review: Vittoria Trattoria

I usu­ally avoid eat­ing in the Byward Mar­ket because some of Ottawa’s worse restau­rants oper­ate there, and because food can be pricey and mediocre. I always feel for tourists who end up there and pay big bucks for bad food. But some­times, there are nice surprises.

How I Got Sick of French Food

When I’m in Canada, my French foodie friends and I some­times indulge in food porn fan­tasies, nam­ing the brands of cook­ies we miss the most and the dishes we wish we could recre­ate but can’t because there is always some key ingre­di­ent miss­ing. So when I went to France after a two-year long absence, I had my eyes set on the food.

Is The French Diet Still A Good Diet?

A decade ago, José Bové, the farmer syn­di­cal­ist, was fight­ing against junk food (he famously sacked a McDonald’s fran­chise to make his point) and French would rather have some baguette with stinky cheese than a ham­burger. But the more I walk in Nantes, the more I won­der whether the French diet is still a good diet.