Apparently, there is but one Ikea in a one ore two city radius of Ottawa, so it is often packed to the gills with customers, eager for bargain home furnishings. Me, I'm not a fan of Ikea furniture, save for some of the tables. However, I am a fan of some of the inexpensive kitchen wear.

I am also a fan of its little cafeteria and I am not alone. I've read tweets, blog entries, and even submissions to Yelp and the like about the virtues of the "complete Ikea experience": a meandering trip on the directed path through each of the store's departments and hunkering down to a plate of Swedish meatballs with fries, lingonberry jam, and a fountain drink.

The Ikea Experience

Ikea Cafeteria

Swedish Meatball
The price can't be beat:

Meatball Dinner
10 meatballs with gravy, lingonberry sauce, potatoes or fries, and a soft drink.
$6.49

Source: Restaurant section for Ikea Ottawa

Is this gourmet food? No, but I'll bet a lot of fine foodies would be tempted. Even with its salty and floury sauce, fried from frozen fries (though fried up crisp and not greasy), and more than likely deep fried from frozen meat balls, the plate pairs a balance of flavors. It demonstrates that savory goes very well with deeply tart and sweet flavours. Ketchup has been all but replaced in my house. One of its replacements: lingonberry jam!

Of late, my better half and I have been making it a pseudo-tradition that we split a plate of Ikea meatballs slightly before lunch on days when dinner will be a multi-course banquet. It is all we eat. This tradition started the day we first went to Ottawa's Atelier and continued recently with another 15 courser. Here are pics from my then dying (now dead) digital camera:

Pre-Multi-Course Brunch
The white/yellow mass was supposed to be mac 'n cheese. My advice: stick with the meatballs. :)

No, I haven't forgotten the 50 cent hot dogs, but, if you are going to visit a multi-national purveyor of affordable furniture that originated in Sweden, why not try the store's take on its indigenous food? Heck the Ikea website even has a page or two dedicated to its cafeteria food.

Founded in August of 2001, by Charlie Todd, Improv Everywhere is a troupe of geographically dispersed volunteer actors, singers, and dancers who cause spontaneous "scenes of chaos and joy" in public places. By spontaneous scenes, Improv Everywhere does not play pranks. Imrpov Everywhere aims to impress and entertain. The organization is based in New York City.

Their latest mission involved creating a "spontaneous musical" (sitcom style) out of nowhere.

It involved 16 "agents", professional dance choreography, and, most impressively, original music. According to Impov Everywhere's blog entry, the musical score, was composed and arranged by the writers of the off-broadway show, GutenBerg! The Musical!.

Unlike other productions, Improv Everywhere actually sought permission from the location to better integrate agents and improve the experience for food court patrons. The mall involved, the Baldwin Hills Mall (Los Angeles, CA), worked with vendors to supply uniforms and provided access to much of the physical premises. They even allowed the troupe to rehearse the night before.

Here's a video of the production:


Here's a partial credit list from Improv Everywhere's website:
Agents: Campbell, Cowan, Brister, Caldwell, Sutton, Ahn, Park, Nwaeze, Jervier, Thorn, Fair, Costelo, Grimm, Perube, LaBarr, Appel, Todd
Digital Video: Agent Carbone
Choreography: Agent Tallaksen

Kudos to Improv Everywhere. This was a stunning production!

Click here for Improv Everywhere's YouTube channel.

University students are renowned for being frugal. Due to various factors, including the cost of living, tuition, student fees, and book prices, this is more necessity than lifestyle choice. As such, the eateries around a university's campus need meet certain requirements. This is because cash-strapped students hit them between classes for a quick bite or to fuel up after classes before heading back to the dorms, labs, or libraries. These eateries need to be reasonable price-wise and have fast service. To meet these needs, they tend to serve diner-like or pub-like fare. It's fast to prepare. It requires simple ingredients and it produces large portions at low cost. In the morning, a lot of these eateries will offer a cheap breakfast. We're talking the one or two egg combos for a couple bucks.

I ate a lot of these combos when I was a student. At the local campus joint, my "regular" consisted of two over easy eggs, two rashers of bacon, two breakfast sausages, home fries, four triangles of lightly buttered toast, and a coffee. As frosh (freshman if you're American), the combo cost $3. When I graduated, it cost $5.

It's been a couple years. The grease doesn't get along with me as well as it used to, but I still treat myself to a cheap breakfast combo every once in a while. The one at Le Deli in the food court at Place Du Centre demonstrates that breakfast combos can have regional variations, but are based on the same premise: fast to prepare, simple ingredients, large portions, and low cost. In this case, the regional variation is based on French Canadian culture.

At Le Deli the breakfast combo consists of two eggs, two breakfast sausages, potatoes, four triangles of buttered toast, baked beans (fève au lard) and coffee, all for $5.25. The eggs are made to order and in any style. Mine usually end up over easy. Here's a tip: How well the person at the grill makes over easy eggs is an indication of his/her skills and experience. Le Deli's grill man has mad skills. My yolks always end up runny, but they aren't broken when they get to my plate. They are not greasy either. The breakfast sausages are fresh, thin skinned, and juicy. They are a far cry from the dry breakfast sausages from other breakfast joints that taste of nothing but filler and whose skins are 3 mm thick from sitting too long under the heat lamps.

What is distinctive about the combo at Le Deli are the baked beans and the potatoes. While you can order traditional home fries, I strongly recommend you try the vegetable potatoes. They look almost scalloped. They are cooked with tomatoes, onions, and green peppers and seasoned with what looks like dried parsley and paprika. Its spiciness is brightened by the vegetables. It work beautifully with the starchiness of the potatoes. The baked beans have a sweetness that reminds me of molasses. You will be hard pressed to find baked beans on the Ottawa side with a typical breakfast combo.

Every so often, you crave a cheap breakfast combo. For me, I usually satiate my cravings on Friday mornings and end up in line with a tray at Le Deli. BTW, the line up at Le Deli gets long. Go early.

Like the many people in this world who are stricken with a peanut allergy, there are several ethnic cuisines that I need to be very careful with. Among them are Malaysian, Vietnamese, Indonesian, and, of course, Thai. Thai cuisine with its fresh herb-based curries and coconut imbued sauces is unfortunately one of my preferred South Asian styles of cooking. Even more unfortunate is my experience with some Ottawa Thai restaurants who are less than straight-forward about whether their dishes contain or are cooked with peanuts. This is why I have to travel with both a bottle of anti-histamine and an epi-pin when I try anything Thai.

ThaiExpress, a fast Thai-oriented food outlet, on the other hand, goes so far as to place chopped peanuts outside of the kitchen. You can garnish your food with peanuts after it is served. Otherwise, the dishes come peanut free. ThaiExpress' cooks don't actually cook with them. This is why my first Pad Thai came from a ThaiExpress franchisee at the Rideau Centre food court in Downtown Ottawa.

Authentic Pad Thai is a rice noodle dish with beaten eggs, tofu, bean sprouts, and chicken or shrimp. It is flavoured with fish sauce, tamarind, rice wine vinegar, red chili pepper, scallions, and cilantro. It is typically garnished with chopped roasted peanuts. I've seen preparations of Pad Thai that employ both thick or thin rice noodles. I've also seen a vegetarian version. According to Wikipeida and the dailygluttony blog, there are two styles of pad thai: the traditional Thai street food and the western innovation with red oil. Accordingly, the former is dry, light, and very spicy. It has a stronger tamarind flavor and usually comes with a piece of banana flower. The latter comes covered in a red oil. It is dominant in Western countries. It also happens to be the version served at the ThaiExpress.

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More after the jump...

Recently, I attended a week long course that was given in one of the conference facilities at the RA Center in Ottawa South. Because the RA Center happens to be situated next door to the Billings Bridge Plaza, a local shopping mall, I lunched at an eatery in its food court called Stuart's Place. What attracted me there were the meat columns from which shavings were cut to make shawarma sandwiches. For $6.95, I ordered a large chicken shawarma with some of the "usual" fixings: garlic sauce, tomato, lettuce, pickled turnip, pickled cucumber, onions, and hot peppers.

What impressed me about this particular shawarma sandwich were the onions. They were fresh and seasoned with sumac. Sumac is a middle-eastern spice that is made from a dried berry. It is sometimes used as a lemon substitute and is often used in salads. Unfortunately, compared to the chicken shawarma sandwiches that I have had in other places like Les Grillades (in the Wellington Village) and La Joie (in Gatineau), my sandwich was sub-par. Though the sandwich itself was extremely neatly made, the chicken was overcooked. It was was dry and relatively flavorless. This is most likely because the operators of Stuart's Place pre-cut a bowlful of chicken from the meat column and store it under a heat lamp so they can maintain fast sandwich production during the lunch time rush. Fortunately, the pita bread and vegetables were fresh.

By the time noon came around, business was brisk at Stuart's place. Given that every other eatery in the food court represented large western chains like McDonald's and Subway, there was little choice if you wanted anything ethnic. As for me, Stuart's Place had me longing for the shawarma platters from my favourite Lebanese fast food restaurant, Shawarma Palace.

To the operators of Stuart's Place, perhaps you should start pre-cutting less meat and visit the meat columns more often. This way, the meat will spend less time under the heat lamp and you still keep your sandwich-making brisk.

Particulars:
Stuart's Place
2323 Riverside Drive
(613) 733-2833