On Wednesday June 23, 2010, an earthquake shook Ottawa with a magnitude of 5.0 on the richter scale. It was a significant geological event. According to the The Globe and Mail, the earthquake shook buildings from Sudbury to Quebec City.

My office building is located on the Gatineau side, closer to the epicenter of the earthquake than Ottawa. When it struck, municipal government and police enacted emergency plans, evacuating personnel to safe locations, and locking down buildings. On the Ottawa side, downtown workers spilled into the streets. Some, rather foolishly by elevator. In hindsight, a safer course of action would have been to duck under desks or stand inside door frames.

Considered a "moderate" one, the earthquake shattered windows, cracked masonry, damaged ceiling tiles, and caused some hysteria. But, earthquakes of this magnitude are uncommon in the national capital region. Residents were caught ill-prepared, everyone fearing being trapped in a collapsed building. Shoppers at several large malls even thought it a terrorist attack.

Me, I was dining at Bella's Bistro Italiano (1445 Wellington Street W.) with colleagues when the ground shook. We were celebrating one of our own, earning a promotion, and leaving the team for bigger and brighter things. Bella's is his favourite restaurant.

It, being located in Wellignton West, which is adjacent to Hintonburg, I gave some rather poor directions to our student who insisted we car pool with him. Jenn and I routinely walk past the handsome brick building that is Bella's on a weekly basis. I always thought it a throwback to 80's style, now cliche, Italian restaurants. The generalization was uncalled for, but it would turn out to be partially apt.

Celebrating its 15th anniversary, Bella's exterior betrays a semi-modern dining room: ceramic floors, dark wood, two-seater tables with wooden chairs, and yellow-beige walls. The window treatments and fixtures hail from an earlier era, when servers were career waiters and Italian restaurants still had dessert carts.

Ground Floor Dining Room
The bar, is however much more modern and serves draught Beau's beer.

Bra
Bella's tables sport white linens, textured cutlery, and standard just off-white dishware.

Table Setting

A little history, Bella is the restaurant's chef, Raffaela Milto. According to the restaurant's website, she studied northern Italian cuisine and worked in some of "Ottawa's finer Italian restaurants", without naming any of them. The two story restaurant that seats 50 people is a family venture between she, her two brothers, and her husband.

To mark its 15th anniversary, Bella's circulated discount cards worth $25 throughout the neighbourhood.

Discount Card Front

Discount Card Back
I gave mine to our student.

According to Ottawa Citizen restaurant critic Anne DesBrisay's 2008 edition of the Ottawa Capital Dining Guide

Popular bistro offers comfort of familiar favourites, a knowing staff and a reasonable bill. First-class pasta dishes, veal sausages, carpaccio, chocolate cake.

Source: Ottawa citizen

In her 2004 edition of the Ottawa Capital Dining Guide, DesBrisay refers to Bella's as a "neighbourhood favourite" and a "bistro that offers comfort and consistency." She recommends the freshly made pasta, the mussels, the carpaccio, the sauces, the cake, and the gelato. She ends with a nod to the staff, praising their professional service, likening it to what she would expect from a much more expensive establishment.

More after the jump...

As per last week's relatively wordless Wednesday noon-time post, please find below photos of another of Ottawa's restaurant's patios.

Petit Bill's Bistro

Multi-Seater Table

Particulars:
Petit Bill's Bistro
1293 Wellington Street
(613) 729-2500

Sushi Umi had its grand opening in the Wellington West Village during the Easter weekend of 2009. Eager to try a new restaurant, Don and I happened to be one of its first customers. Although the chef did not have all his supplies at the time, we were still impressed with our dinner. Since then, we have had numerous delicious meals and continue to be impressed by the consistent quality and presentation of each dish.

Just last month, Sushi Umi celebrated its one year anniversary. As we had vowed to return to mark this special occasion, we decided to order a similar meal for dinner from one year ago. However, we could not resist trying some appetizers as well.

Appetizers
For our starters, we ordered the yakitori ($3.95) and a plate of four gyozas ($3.95)

Yakitori
The yakitori dish consists of two skewers of grilled chicken (dark meat) and zucchini drizzled in terriyaki sauce. It was sweet, yet savory.


Gyoza
In-house made and freshly deep-fried, these beef dumplings were delicate. A small dipping bowl of rice wine vinegar made a nice accompaniment for the gyoza, providing brightness.

Mains
In the Sushi & Sashimi section of the menu, Sushi Umi offers seven choices. For his main, Don selected the Umi combo ($15.95).

Umi Combo
The Umi Combo consists of six pieces California rolls (imitation crab and avocado) and six pieces of nigiri. According to the menu, the accompanying nigiri should be tuna, salmon, red snapper ("tai"), shrimp ("ebi"), mackerel ("saba"), and surf clam ("hokki"). Good California rolls in Don's experience are loosely packed, but just hold together. Its sea weed paper should not spiral into the center of the roll and the avocado should be fresh and ripe. He enjoyed his California rolls, popping them into his mouth, cleansing his palate with the pickled ginger before moving onto the nigiri. For nigiri, Don likes the rice beds to be loosely packed, so they fall apart in the mouth. The fish should be judiciously cut, every piece looking like it was cut with an economy of knife strokes. Don remarked the chef must have had a large number of orders, given some of the uneven cuts of fish, but he nonetheless remarked Sushi Umi serves decent sushi. He has had some really poor sushi recently.

As for me, I had the Salmon Terriyaki bento box ($14.95) for dinner.

Miso soup with Salmon Bento order

Salmon Terriyaki Bento
At Sushi Umi, all bento boxes are served with miso soup, salad, rice, two gyoza, and two pieces of California rolls. The salad (iceberg lettuce, shredded carrot, sweet tomato, and several slices of English cucumber) was made fresh to order. A squeeze bottle of ginger dressing was also provided for the salad. As for my large piece of salmon, it was perfectly cooked with the centre slightly pink. It was flavourful, moist, and tender. Unlike many sushi places, Sushi Umi serves Japanese short grain rice for bento box orders. Japanese short grain rice is sticky, with a hint of sweetness.

As a surprise, the chef gifted us a special dish of thinly sliced spice seared tuna.

Chef's surprise

As usual, dinner was a delightful affair at Sushi Umi. The food is always fresh and consistent, making it a favourite among locals here in Hintonburg and Wellington West. Whether you choose to dine in or have take-out, you will not be disappointed. Here's to another successful year to Sushi Umi!

Total: $43.84 (after taxes, before tip)

Particulars:
Sushi Umi
1311 Wellington St. W
(613) 724-2488

More after the jump...

Apparently, the City of Ottawa took issue with the St. Albert Cheese Co-operative, local producer of some of the squeakiest fresh cheese curds to grace a bowl of poutine, and the black and white dairy cow statue that sits above its Cheddar and Et Cetera storefront in Orleans.

The cow statue breaches a ban on "promotional object and banners above a store's roofline." But, after a 1500 signature petition was presented to the municipality, Ottawa's planning and environmental committee reversed its stance, ruling that the cow could remain until the end of 2010. CBC Ottawa reports the reprieve will allow the committee to discuss and reconsider the ban.

Meanwhile, the piece garnered a memorable comment that made me laugh:

Udderly preposterous. The ruling committee shouldn't have a cow over this; rather, they should take the bull by the horns, quit milking the issue, graduate to bovine university and have some common sense. These people need to be put out to pasture – honestly, what's the beef here?

Source: CBC Ottawa (MiguelSanchez from Wakaw, Saskatchewan)

You know what? I've visited that store before and I never looked upwards to see the cow. Then again, it took me a number of years to see the cow's head on the building above Saslove's Meat Market (1333 Wellington Street W.), Agave Grill (1331 Wellington Street W.) and Petit Bill's Bistro (1293 Wellington Street W.). I've lived in the neighbourhood 6 years now.

Look up...Waaaay up!

Flower Munching Cow

Dear City of Ottawa, don't mess with this cow either. Residents of Wellington West probably won't take it well...

Besides, it doesn't promote any udderlying businesses!

Particulars:
Cheddar Et Cetera
900 Watters Road,
Orleans, Ontario
(613)830-8850

St Albert Co-Op Cheese Factory
150 Saint Paul Street
St-Albert, Ontario
(613)987-2872

Here at foodiePrints, we are always on the lookout for Ottawa's best bubble tea house. Thus far, Don and I have been to the two locations of Bubblelicity (Chinatown and ByWard Market), the Nihao Tea House (now defunct on Holland Avenue), and Maple Valley (also in the ByWard Market). Since the summer, we have been eagerly awaiting for Tea Shop 168 to open on Wellington Street W. (1356). In business since 1996, Tea Shop 168 is a Toronto-based chain that has over a dozen locations, mainly in Markham and Scarborough.

After months of renovations, Tea Shop 168 finally opened its doors last Saturday (November 28, 2009). To celebrate, everything on the menu was 50% off the entire weekend. This week, all purchases are discounted 10%. Starting next week, lunch will be offered and the menu will include lots of Taiwanese-style snacks, such as fish balls, won ton dumplings, toast, etc.

Welcome to Tea Shop 168!

With the majority of our errands run, we decided to give the newly opened bubble tea house a try that Saturday evening. Upon walking into the cream and yellow coloured house that was previously a hair salon, we were enthusiastically greeted by a young Mandarin-speaking woman (who happened to be the owner), her staff, and several of her friends. Playing was Japanese pop music from the early 2000s, a greatest hits mix of Ayumi Hamasaki.

Inside, there were two tall glass bistro-style tables able to sit groups of three and tall gray metal stools lining a bar set against a large bay window. On the other side of the room was another long counter with menus, Chinese and Japanese fashion and gossip magazine, and a cute brown miniature shopping cart for tips beside the cash register. Behind the counter was an ice maker, an induction burner, a rice cooker (for cooking the tapioca pearls), two commercial grade blendesr, and rows of jars filled with colourful powders, each a different flavour.

Bistro table with a clock

Gazing outside from the bar counter

A variety of flavours in jars and squeeze bottles

After consulting the menu, I decided to order my usual, a regular size lychee bubble slush with lychee jelly pieces. Don ordered a black tea taro flavoured milk tea with pearls. All drinks, eat-in or take-out, are served in a plastic Tea Shop 168 cup, either sealed with plastic or with a lid.

Checking out the menu

My lychee slush was surprisingly pleasant. It was not overly sweet, nor did it take on a yellowish colour from too much syrup. When bubble slushes take on a colour, it is often too concentrated. I did not find any chunks of ice and there was just the right amount of jelly pieces.

Lychee Bubble Slush with lychee jelly pieces

When ordering tea-based drinks, you can choose to have it served hot or cold. In this case, Don requested his to be cold. However, when the server handed him his drink, I was rather surprised it was just slightly room temperature, warm for bubble tea. The taro milk tea was slightly powdery and the tapioca pearls too soft.

Taro Milk Tea with pearls

Although the drinks were a bit of a hit-and-miss, Tea Shop 168 is certainly worth checking out. The menu offers a variety of teas and slushes. While the staff are still in training and are experiencing a bit of trouble finding the requested powder (suggestion: organize it in alphabetical order!), the preparation of each drink is impressive. Everything is carefully measured and then shaken in a cocktail shaker.

That evening, each drink cost only $2.10 (regular price: $4.19) for a total of $7.11, tax included.

Thus far, foodiePrints' ranking of the top tea houses in Ottawa are as followed:

4. Bubblicity
3. Tea Shop 168
2. Maple Valley (foodiePrint's review)
1. ???

Stay tune as foodiePrints will be revealing its favourite bubble tea shop very soon!

Particulars:
Tea Shop 168
1356 Wellington Street
(613) 695-2686