"Hello from
Ottawa - The Mardi Gras experience at Fat Tuesdays"
by Susanne Pacher
February 10, 2006
Hello from Ottawa - Ottawa's ByWard Market and the Mardi
Gras Experience at Fat Tuesdays
After our arrival in Ottawa this afternoon and a very brief
rest at our hotel, we went out in search of a satisfying dinner.
The Lord Elgin Hotel is just about 15 minutes walk away from
the Historic ByWard Market area, which is one of Ottawa's main
entertainment areas.
Winterlude is a great time because during this winter festival,
many of Ottawa's restaurants offer entertainment and special
events. Our destination was Fat Tuesday's, a New Orleans-style
restaurant that is known for its Cajun Creole cuisine and its
contemporary dishes.
After we refreshed ourselves and got organized, we headed
off at about 6:45 and started our walk toward the ByWard Market,
Ottawa’s prime entertainment area. We crossed the Laurier
Bridge, which is the setting of quite a few of my husband’s
anecdotes about Ottawa’s winter cold which he got to experience
in full force during his time at the University of Ottawa in
the early 1980s.
We too noticed that there was a stiff fresh breeze coming
off the Rideau Canal and by pure coincidence we did a smart thing:
we headed into the Rideau Centre, Ottawa’s largest shopping
centre. For about 15 minutes we got to walk inside past all the
retail stores, totally sheltered from the biting wintery wind.
Well, it didn’t take us long at all to get to the heart
of the ByWard Market, and a friendly guy at a Beavertail sales
booth (Beavertails are Ottawa’s famous trademark pastry)
gave us directions to Fat Tuesday’s, home of Ottawa’s
Mardi Gras experience.
Once inside this stylish yet cozy bar/restaurant we had a
chance to get a lay of the land from Manny Garcia who’s
the general manager and one of the co-owners. He told us that
Fat Tuesday’s was created about 4 years ago and is an independently
owned restaurant (not part of any restaurant chain). Fat Tuesday's
combines an upscale Cajun/Creole kitchen with live entertainment
and great friendly service, and it’s a place where people
of all ages congregate.
When we were there the place was packed and the waitresses
were dressed up in bustiers and some were wearing face masks
in keeping with the Mardi Gras theme. The staff seemed to have
a lot of fun and they enjoyed interacting with the customers.
Our appetite had been building up appropriately and for me,
the escargots in a garlic-white wine sauce were just the thing
to warm up the palate. After this tasty appetizer I followed
up with a Mediterranean salad of baby greens with goat cheese
and a citrus vinaigrette. Manny came over and persuaded us to
try the Pacific rim seared tuna with a pepper crust in a sweet
teriyaki sauce, accompanied by shaved ginger and a wasabi mayonnaise.
A delicate and tasty treat.
We even had a chance to meet the chef himself. Executive chef
Neil Baker told us about himself and we found out that we had
a true cosmopolitan world traveler in front of us.
As the child of diplomatic parents, Neil was born in Singapore
and has also lived in Barbados, Kenya and Thailand. He’s
run restaurants in Toronto, Vancouver, Los Angeles, New York
City and now Ottawa. Needless to say, Neil is going to be my
next contact for an interview about this international lifestyle.
Neil also made a couple of interesting comments about global
cuisine. He mentioned that the same culinary themes reappear
across the globe. Chinese fried rice is essentially the same
as Jambalaya which is essentially the same as Biryani, with a
slightly different mix of spices thrown in. And the world's most
popular cuisines are those based on the dishes of poor people.
Neil insisted that we have dessert and we had Bananas Foster,
which is a mouthwatering concoction of flambéed bananas
with caramelized sugar and rum and some vanilla icecream thrown
in with a twist of cinnamon on top. I was going to stay away
from dessert, but Bananas Foster totally corrupted me. I wasn't
going to worry about the extra calories since we are going to
go skating on the Rideau Canal tomorrow anyways.
At 10:30 every Friday and Saturday night Fat Tuesdays serves
up the dueling pianos, a live show where the audience can request
their favourite songs from two piano players. Today unfortunately
the second piano player was significantly delayed, and given
our packed schedule for Saturday, we were unable to stick around
for the second piano player to show up. But virtuoso no. 1 played
his heart out and really got the crowd going. The place was packed
and everybody was in a great mood.
So, it’s just past midnight now and I am looking forward
to another action-packed day tomorrow: some skating on the Rideau
Canal (to work off that delicious banana dessert), watching the
famous Bedzzz Races on Dow’s Lake and then the Fire and
Ice Culinary demonstrations at Confederation Park right across
from our hotel.
It is definitely time to get some rest for a big day and hit
the hay……
Susanne Pacher is the publisher of a website called Travel
and Transitions (http://www.travelandtransitions.com). Here you
will find unconventional travel information and money-saving
advice, cross-cultural experiences, live travel stories, interviews
with travellers and other inspiring people. Submit your own travel
stories and win an exciting Amazon River cruise! "Life is
a Journey - Explore New Horizons"
Susanne Pacher may be contacted at http://www.travelandtransitions.com or sq@travelandtransitions.com
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