The Wood on Wellington

Last night, I convinced Erin G. that I wanted to try out a new restaurant in Hintonburg. It is called "The Wood on Wellington". I am sure the kids will have some fun with this name, but since I am very mature, I wont go down that road.

This place used to be the Urban Bistro, but I guess they closed it down for renovations a few weeks (or months) ago, and just re-opened on Monday. The place looks incredible inside, with a massive bar that goes almost all the way down the restaurant. My favourite part was the dozen or so plasma tv's that they have hanging from the walls, they also were showing the Sens first pre-season game against Pittsburgh, which was also nice.

The food was pretty pricey, but good. The drinks were pretty affordable though, so I can see myself ponying up to the bar and having a few Keiths ($4) whilst watching a Sens game in the near future. I am glad that we finally have a decent sports bar in Hintonburg, I was getting sick of going to the Royal Oak all the time.

And, In BvT fashion, here are some pictures from the weekend...

Gastro-Credible!

Hello Blog Fans, I am going to attempt a restaurant review here....

Erin G. and I decided to check out the newest hot spot in town on Friday - The Wellington GastroPub. We did not have reservations, so we were a bit worried when we strolled up the incredibly decorated stairs at 7pm on Friday night. Luckily, there was a table opening up in 20 minutes, so we had a seat at the bar.

I drank a nice glass of Benziger Family Pinot Noir from California, and Erin G. tried out the Carmenera Reserve from Chile. Both wines were fantastic!

We sat down and ordered 2 appetizers to start. Before the apps showed up, the waiter brought over some bread to start with. It had some oil and vinegar to dip in, as well as some sea salt. I have never dipped any bread into salt before, but I think I am hooked now. Salt is a food that should be enjoyed with everything.

For the apps, we decided on some type of tomato platter, and P.E.I. mussels. The tomatoes were very tasty. Before dining at the Gastropub, I was under the impression that only 2 colours of tomatoes existed - red, which is what I usually eat, and green, because of the fantastic movie starring Jessica Tandy. Well, now I know that tomatoes come in yellow and orange as well.

The mussels were served with house bacon, and were also quite good. I am not sure what house bacon is, but I will be looking for it at Loblaws next time I am in there.

For the main course, I ordered a steak and Erin G. ordered the butternut squash risotto. The steak was served with a special sauce which I just couldn't identify...since it did not match the two sauces I am familiar with - ketchup or mustard. The risotto was very rich, this may or may not be the goal of risotto. Erin G recommends ordering this menu item for dessert, and not dinner.

Except for the minor kitchen fire, and resulting smoke problem , it was a great night out at the Gastropub. I would definitely recommend this joint for all you Mechanicsvillians and Hintonburgians out there.

Hilarious!

Check out Norm Macdonald on the Jon Stewart show, it was pretty funny.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15PdiON0Iqc

Labour Day

Hello Mechanicsville!

It has been a pretty wild week. Last weekend, Erin G. arrived in town for her week long Microsoft Access course. She got up around 1pm on Saturday, and we headed up to the cottage for a night of fine foods and stimulating conversation with T-Bone, Wes, Andrew and Grimey. After about 3 minutes of stimulating conversation, we started drinking.

We hit the lake pretty hard with some frogs and lures, but there wasnt much action until Wes got the largest pike of Lac Champagne on. He could not land the monster, so the pike won the battle...but not the war.



I will now do my restaurant summary of the week, as Erin G. and I checked out a lot of establishments in the Ottawa area.

Monday: "Royal Thai" in the market. I give this place 4 feeding tubes out of 5. We ordered the dinner for 2, since we had no idea what any of the dishes were, it was very good.

Tuesday: "Springroll House" in Hintonburg. This place was quite good. I am always nervous when checking out restaurants in the Hintonburg area, but this one surprised me. I will go back for sure.

Wednesday: I cannot remember...maybe I didnt eat dinner that night.

Thursday: "Medetheo" in the market. The food at this joint is incredible, but the service is a bit questionnable. It took them abuot 20 minutes to bring us our wine, which should be there asap!
I would recommend this place for the food, but not if you expect excellent service with it.

On friday, Medium Farva and O'Neill (Mike Kottages, soon to star in his own HGTV series "Kottages on Cottages") rolled into town. We were all heading up to the cottage for the weekend to do some fishing, drinking, and to remove the T.T.T. (Texas Tea Tank) that was on the side of the cottage.

The fish were biting hard on friday night, with the fellas yanking 3 big smallies out of the water. It seems the best fishing in the lake is right off the beach, which is quite handy. Farva carved up the bass that night, and we had an excellent meal of fish for lunch on Saturday.



On Saturday afternoon, we took out the ol' oil burner and tank. If anyone wants about 23 liters of oil stove oil, let me know...I can hook you up.


Andrew and I each caught one more good sized bass on Saturday evening, but we let those fellas go back into the lake. Hopefully they dont tell their friends to not eat dinner by the lilly pads in front of the cottage.

The weather was terrible on Sunday, so Erin G. and I decided to come back into the city. We went to the carlingwood mall to get my shoes replaced, and then went to watch "The Illusionist".

Well, that is enough writing for me.

If you want to see more pictures of the massive bass, click HERE.