East Ottawa Star
Published: Friday, May 15, 2009 

Announcing Orléans foodie flavs ...

Yes it is that time, the moment you have been waiting for with baited breath, to reveal the 2009 Orly (as in Orléans) awards honouring the best in local comfort food.  

For the past six weeks, loyal East Ottawa Star readers have been submitting suggestions across a variety of categories and your less-than-humble scribe has sacrificed his waistline and arteries in an effort to sample the best of the four ‘F’ food groups. Just to recap these are fried, fermented, fingered and fun.

In the best burger category, The Works wins based on number of votes cast and for overall choice and taste. Yes, a trip to The Works is more than other burger joints, but in this case, price is a reflective measure of value.

As for best breakfast, well Cora’s finished in third place and technically Broadway on Portobello received the most votes. But my friends at Broadway are going to win an honorary Third-World, ballot stuffing Orly for the fact that the couple dozen e-mails that came in were all in the same courier font, exact same spacing and exact same number of lines from the e-mail header to the first word.

Next year we may have to call in United Nations elections observers to oversee this process if these voting hijinks continue.

So the winner for best local breakfast goes to Lexus on St. Joseph Boulevard. Hot eats, family-run and your coffee cup will never run empty. As a consolation to both Broadways in our ‘hood, they still have the best home fries but a little more quality control on busy weekend mornings is in order to ensure they are always – not sometimes – served hot and saucy.

Moving on to best pizza, the winner for overall consistency, taste and freshness is Gabriel’s. Although the esteemed jury (me, myself and I) on this one is a bit biased and trying every pizza place suggested was just not on with my cardiologist.

Turning to best poutine, the Orly goes to Fritomania on St. Joseph, a veritable local institution. As for the runner-up and surprise contender, think New York Fries. Fresh salty fries, dark gravy and squeaky cheese curds. As a public health deed, poutine is best consumed only after your annual physical.

The Orly for best fish and chips goes to the Barley Mow on Tenth Line. If there is a thicker and fresher piece of succulently deep-fired white fish this side of Bank Street, I haven’t found it.

Now if you want just French fries, then you can’t go wrong with the Blackburn Arms pub on old Innes Road. For overall seafood, try Lapointe’s on Trim.

As for best bar atmosphere, we are fortunate to have great local establishments but this year’s Orly goes to the Tartan Pub on Innes. Chris Bishop runs a great place, where yes, everybody does know your name. 

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Comments can be sent to Walter Robinson at orleansouttakes@transcontinental.ca.