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.
Last time I was down around Toronto I stopped into the Art Gallery of Ontario to see their new exhibition, Brian Jungen Friendship Centre (June 20 – August 25, 2019). Jungen is a Dane-Zaa / Swiss artist based in British Columbia. Although a lot of his artwork is related to his Indigenous heritage he also looks at issues of environmentalism and consumerism. Jungen is probably best know for his mask sculptures that use Nike Air Jordan sneakers to create Indigenous style masks. The new exhibition at the AGO is the largest exhibition of his work and is meant to be an in-depth exploration of his artwork.
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.
A little while has past since I saw the Anthropocene exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario – AGO in Toronto, and it’s given me some time to reflect. Since then I’ve even gone back to the National Gallery of Canada to see their iteration of the exhibition again, read my review here! It’s hard not to compare and contrast the two approaches to the exhibition and its design since I studied curating in university so now going to exhibitions I find it really hard not to critic everything from wall colour, text panels and lighting to the overarching curatorial idea and artworks themselves. But it’s also rare that you get to see essentially the same exhibit done in two different ways.
I have to admit that before Moo Shu Ice Cream I wasn’t really into ice cream but since they opened in summer 2016 on Bank Street I’ve become obsessed! Moo Shu’s ice cream flavours are so unique and unlike anything I’ve ever tasted. They use fresh and local ingredients and strive to be dietary friendly for people with those gluten or vegan concerns. This food post is less of a review and more of a rave about this little ice cream spot.
On my last trip to Montreal we dined at Le Vin Papillon, the sister restaurants of Joe Beef and Liverpool House. All these restaurants are known for being very hard to get into with reservations being booked up months in advance. But Le Vin Papillon is a wine bar and doesn’t take reservations, so we got there at 3pm when they opened and made ourselves comfortable.
Anthropocene is a new exhibition at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa. It includes work by renowned Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky and Emmy award-winning documentary filmmakers Jennifer Baichwal and Nicholas de Pencier. The exhibition “explore the impact of human activity on Earth through photography, film installations and interactive technologies.” The exhibition runs until February 24th, 2019. Its companion exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto runs until January 6th, 2019, which will be part 2 of my review that you can read here!
There are so many restaurants in Ottawa that I’ve been wanting to try for a long time and North & Navy (226 Nepean St.) has always been near to top of that list. On Saturday night we made a last minute reservation for seats at the bar to finally try this modern Northern Italian restaurant. Spoiler alert, it was amazing! Also please note that I have no skill for taking food photos in a dark restaurant, so sorry about that!
Rachel Neilson 