Alice is a newly opened vegan restaurant in Ottawa’s Little Italy neighbourhood. This is just one of the most recent new openings in the area that’s making Little Italy the new foodie neighbourhood of Ottawa. Alice does an eight course blind tasting menu that changes seasonally. We visited a few weeks after they opened to try the inaugural menu.
August is probably the best month in Ottawa to buy all your fruits and veg at the Ottawa Farmers’ Market. Literally everything in season and there is so much choice it can be hard to decide what to buy. Sunday mornings from 9am-3pm in Aberdeen Square at Lansdowne Park is where my favourite market in Ottawa takes place.
Ottawa’s newest pizza joint Farinella is an instant favourite and perfect for summer. Occupying an industrial space in Little Italy on Rochester St., Farinella is just one of the many new additions this year making it Ottawa’s up and coming foodie neighbourhood.
El Camino is one of my go-to restaurant in Ottawa and they probably make the best damn tacos in the city. You really can’t go wrong here. Most tacos are a bit pricey but at El Camino I feel like it’s totally worth it since you actually get a lot of food and it’s of course delicious.
Skating on the Rideau Canal is probably the best thing about winter in Ottawa. I mean where else can you skate on a historic UNESCO World Heritage Site canal through the centre of a city? Stretching 7.8km the Rideau Canal is the world’s largest naturally frozen skating rink and my favourite thing about winter here in Ottawa.
The Ottawa Art Gallery‘s current exhibition Karim Rashid: Cultural Shaping presents “the first large-scale presentation of the iconic designer’s work in Canada to date.” It features over 200 of Rashid’s unique designs ranging from tables and chairs to shoes and Pepsi bottles. I was interested to see this exhibition since it’s rare that we see these kinds of design exhibits in Ottawa and I wanted to learn more about this designer who I only vaguely knew. However, after seeing the exhibit I feel like I really didn’t learn anything and instead visited a showroom, not a gallery.
Gongfu Bao is one of my favourite little bites in Ottawa and if you haven’t been you really should. Gongfu Bao started as a food truck but recently opened up a restaurant on Bank St. in downtown Ottawa. I’ve been a few times now and it’s always great. The bao steam buns are delicious with great flavours.
Christmas at Upper Canada Village is one of the best places to see lights during the holiday season. I usually end up going after Christmas to see the Alight at Night festival to extend the Christmas season a bit. I love just walking around seeing all the pretty lights and there are also horse drawn wagon rides.
Touring the Parliament of Canada is one of the things a lot of tourists do when they come to Ottawa. As someone who lives here though you never really think about it much unless you’re on a school field trip. However, when it was announced a while back that Centre Block would be closing for at least 10 years for extensive renovations I knew that I really wanted to see it again since the last time I went on a tour was probably almost 10 years ago. One of the bonuses of waiting so long to go on a tour was that it was all decorated for Christmas making the building even prettier.
Rachel Somewhere… 