In this feature, Apt613 asks blog contributors and local food lovers about their recent Ottawa area restaurant highlights to help you find new tasty treats to discover or revisit when someone inevitably asks, “Where do you want to eat?” We want to hear about something that you ate and loved! Leave comments below, and if you’d like to contribute to a future edition of Best Bites, email <[email protected]>.
Best Bites this week:
We talk a lot about tacos on this blog, but for good reason: they’re delicious! With so many spots it can be hard to choose, but I always recommend a trip to La Bonita for anyone looking for fresh and flavourful Mexican food, elaborate cocktails, excellent service, and fun decor. If you’ve been for a stroll in Hintonburg, you might recognize them from the brightly coloured palm trees out front. The queso fundido ($18.50) is a great appetizer: a cast iron skillet with melted cheese and your choice of chorizo or nopales (cactus). You can pick from nine different taco fillings, but my favourite is the quesabirria ($29.50 for an order of three with sides): a folded taco full of delicious meat and cheese that’s grilled to crispy perfection and served with a flavourful broth for dipping.
There’s an incredible number of cocktail options that we’re slowly working our way through — you really can’t go wrong. Service has always been exceptional, whether we’re there for a date night or with a large group. I’ve only ever been to the Hintonburg location but they have another location in the East End.
-Hannah Manning
It seems like everyone is talking about Schoolhouse Pizza, and since they only opened in September, I figured that it had to be worth checking out. So we headed over for lunch one afternoon to see what all the hype was about. The location on Springfield is bright and open, with large tables for groups to sit together after you order your pizza at the counter. They offer at least three kinds of slices for $5, including the Made in Brooklyn, with pepperoni, whipped ricotta, romano cheese, hot honey, and basil. The pizza is thin, New York style crust, with perfect chewiness and minimal sauce. The little splotches of ricotta were a lovely contrast to the spiciness of the hot honey. They have 10 different pies on the menu, including two white pizzas, all of which sound fantastic. One slice was a good serving size for lunch, especially since the full pizzas are pretty large, and we didn’t think that two people were enough to eat a whole pizza. The pizzas range from $25-$30 and are definitely bigger than the other delicious thin crust pizzas we can get around town, so order accordingly!
We were told that they plan on serving alcohol in the near future, so that will be an interesting addition to the space. We got delicious coffees to finish the meal, which was a nice touch, especially at lunch time. I would go back in a heart beat, with a big gang, to try a couple different pizzas next time.
Corner Peach has recently opened up their hours to include Tuesday evenings, where they are doing what they call “Hot and Fresh” Tuesdays when the menu is entirely small plates for sharing. They are already known for having a constantly shifting menu with new additions and experiments all the time, so this is a great way to be sure we could try as many things as possible in one try. We managed to full our table with plates more than once, and found some really delightful new favourites. The corn cacio e pepe was a delightfully creamy, cheesy, and sweet dish with a very generous serving of sweet corn giving the pasta dish some texture and lightness that made me miss those last few weeks of summer when corn is in season. It was a good sized portion for $15, and paired nicely with our other choices.
The beef tartare was another standout, which came with a fantastic garlicky aioli and a serving of perfectly crispy, salty fries. The tartare was probably one of the best I’ve had, with a great balance of savoury and salty, a nice firm texture and perfectly sized cubes of beef. If you are new to tartare, this is a perfect introduction to the dish, and it was a steal for $13. The carrots on toast with nduja and whipped cheese stood out for my bestie, and the roast squash with nuoc cham was really fun take on a fall staple.
Despite being a Tuesday, we definitely needed a reservation for a table for two, although we could have sat at the cool bar as well. The cocktail and wine list is impressive, and the selection of desserts were limited and quirky.
We want to hear about something that you ate and loved! Leave comments below, and if you’d like to contribute to a future edition of Best Bites, email <[email protected]>.