Ottawa Foodies

This is too bad - they started off with a bang, but subsequent visits I had featured lackluster/apathetic service which deterred me from going back on a more regular basis. The food was miles ahead of Dunn's...

I can confirm: we walked by it on Friday and it was all closed up.

I'm told GCNYD has been shuttered.

Visited the Grand Central Deli this weekend. It was approx. 3pm on a Sunday for a late lunch/early dinner, so things were pretty dead.

Space: The restaurant was clean, the interior much more spacious than expected! Decor was a nice touch -- I really liked the wood floors and the layout of the booths. My husband remarked that you could imagine the space in actual New York, if you ignored the Food Basics outside the window.

Service: Our waitress acknowledged us immediately, asked if we wanted a booth and saw us to our table. She asked us if we wanted drinks right away and we were served promptly. Service was adequate for the entire experience -- she did not have many other tables, and our dishes arrived and departed quickly. My drink was refilled without prompting.

Menu: The menu was larger than I had expected, as well. There were appetizers and the obvious smoked meat, as well as other dining choices like burgers and dogs. The draught list on the back of the menu was a nice addition, my husband didn't notice when he strained to see the taps but the waitress was quick to rhyme off the list.

Food: We started with an order of deep fried pickles with the buttermilk dressing. They were really very nice - crisp coating and the pickles had a good, dilly crunch. They appeared to have been hand-made, at that. The dressing was nice but fairly non-descript. I would order again, even though they were a bit expensive.

I had the Junior Empire (5oz meat) and my husband braved the Trump Tower (a full pound). We both had the fries. Our food came quickly and the fries were warm. I found the fries to be a really neat, puffy texture. My husband suspects that they may have steamed them, but I found them to be nice and golden. The malt and white vinegars were a nice option. I didn't eat the pickle or coleslaw but mine were polished off on my behalf, so they must have been tasty. ;)

The smoked meat sandwiches themselves were good -- a little drier than expected, but nothing that some brown mustard didn't fix. The bread was fresh and a good thickness for the sandwich. My husband said he likes his smoked meat a bit "fattier" but I was very happy with the meat. The Junior Empire was a good size, the Trump Tower was clearly too big (next time, he'll get the Reuben).

There was absolutely no room for dessert, sadly!

Overall: Service was prompt and courteous, the food came quickly and was to our liking. We'll definitely go again, and I will be getting that cheesecake.

Guess it depends on the day... we went for breakfast/brunch (well... we went for lunch, but brunch is what they were serving) aroun 1:30 on 13 September. I had the reuben, man-o-mine had the club, and our three year old had mini pancakes. Everything was hot and fresh (fries were MOLTEN). Hubby liked the club, junior adored the pancakes (though they weren't mini... they were normal-sized). My only quibble is hot the smoked meat. It's the third time I've tried it... and I just prefer Montreal-style. Not Grand Central's fault... I just like the wetter Montreal style over the drier NY style.

We went in there for a quick dinner....well the service was lousy. My food arrived cold....I hate cold french fries. My partner needed cutlery and we ended up getting it ourselves. Vinegar was coming....we had to ask another waitress for it....our waiter disappeared a couple of times....AND to top it all off the place was not even BUSY!!!! Lots of staff but no service. We waited 15 minutes for the bill and our server never came back to get money....this is another 10 minutes....so we left correct money on the table and no tip

I seem to be in a rut, hitting the same places over and over again. But at 11:30 on Saturday AM, on Merivale Rd, with a 3yr old and infant in tow, I just couldn't find any other alternative (I don't even consider East Side Mario's, Boston Pizza, or Mexicali's).

Anyhow. Finally had the brunch. Smoked Meat Hash with 2 soft poached eggs and rye toast. The portion was large, and the hash was quite tasty. The combination of dry salty smoked meat and moist sweet onions was really good. Combined with broken eggs and a little Hebrew National brown mustard and it is a real taste/texture experience.

My daughter had the cinnamon hallah french toast (with raisins). It was excellent. It was from the adult menu, but was easily enough to feed 3. (the kids brunch menu really sucks).

My only beef is they now serve only from the brunch menu on the weekends before 2pm. The brunch menu is a decent size (and you can get smoked meat sandwiches), but when you are up at 5 am, sometimes you want more lunch than breakfast at noon... especially on a Saturday. This led to a minor meltdown when my 3 year old was told they were not serving her favourite hotdog in the city. Chocolate milk solved this quickly.

Update! They have a new sandwitch The Trump Tower. A full pound of smoked meat. No sharing. I almost didn't finish it. No cheese cake this time.

We finally made it here to see what the fuss is about. Service was excellent -- informal but friendly and attentive. They cleared off a booth (unasked) rather than make us sit at one of the central tables and our server (Tania) even offered to bring more strawberry sauce for our cheesecake when she saw we were running low. The atmosphere is airy and casual with just enough class.

I tried the Kreplach Soup, which is clear chicken soup with a wonton-style meat-filled pastry in it. I thought it might be more interesting than a matzo ball but the ground meat was a little to ground-meaty for my taste. The chicken broth was very strong and quite salty, but that didn't stop me from thoroughly enjoying it. Good comfort food but next time I'll opt for the matzo ball version!

Had my first sandwitch here Friday. It was great. A bit different than the traditional Montreal smoked meat but just as good. Server was fantastic. Small mix up in the kitchen and we got two orders of deep fried pickles. They were also great. I recomment The Empire sandwitch with 8 0z of meat.The fries were good as well not those bagged ones with the batter on them that are just processed and bad. I left here stuffed. I noticed later in the evening an unquenchable thirst must have been alot of sodium in that meal.

Very tasty. Restaurant is nicely laid out too.
My husband and I are big fans of Montreal's Schwartz's deli but we don't want to have to drive all the way to Montreal for it. We are from Toronto so we've looked everywhere between Montreal and Toronto for good smoked meat and came up with nothing. We weren't even impressed by the place that is known to have "Toronto's best smoked meat".

Anyway, we love our smoked meat! And we started to look for alternatives.
GCNYD is definitely a great alternative! The meat is very also very tasty, and smells delish. My husband also enjoyed the pickle (he is a big Schwartz's pickle fan) at GCNYD.
My sister is coming up in a few wks so I'm going to bring her here. We're definitely coming back for more!
Our only complaint is that the prices are quite expensive! At Schwartz's, u can get a sandwich for 5-6 bucks. At GCNY, I had the 5oz sandwich only and it was 8.99!

Of course I had the Empire Sandwich platter, which was fairly priced for dinner at $12.95. They give you a big load of smoked meat, with the usual tiny slabs of rye, a little pile of fries, a quarter pickle, and a bowl of homemade coleslaw.

The coleslaw was very nice. Maybe just a little sweet for my taste but it hit a good balance of creaminess and tangy-ness.

The pickle was the best I've had in my admittedly limited deli experience. Certainly better than others I've had at Ottawa's smoked meat outlets.

The fries were not to my taste at all. Quite dark and very greasy, I found they irritated my mouth (as potatoes sometimes do to me). Kudos for serving both white and malt vinegar with the fries though!

This was my first experience with New York style smoked meat and I was eager to give it a try. It was sliced very thin, piled very high, and had a dryer texture and meatier flavour than the Montreal style smoked meat. You can choose between Hebrew National mustard and bright yellow French's -- something that becomes necessary to moisten the dryish combination of meat and rye bread. Montreal smoked meat sandwiches are moist enough that the slices of rye are needed to keep your fingers dry; the flipside is that the bread absorbs some juices and becomes quite tasty. The bread in my sandwich at Grand Central seemed very dry and quite bland. I don't see the point of dry bland bread with dry smoked meat so I'd suggest just leaving the bread behind (or asking for it without). Squirt some Hebrew National on the smoked meat and dig in with knife and fork for a nice little feast!

My wife preferred this to the Montreal style smoked meat but I continue to favour Montreal's more moist and seasoned product. To each his own!

Three hours after the fact, I'm gulping water like crazy. As Ken V hinted, you may want to avoid this place if you're on a low sodium diet.

Please do Mousse - the cheesecake had a noticeable vanilla extract taste to it, from what I remember (from GCNY Deli, not the Green Valley).

This looks exactly like the kind of cheesecake we used to make at the Green Valley. I can post the recipe in the wiki if anyone is interested.

I had one of those to go last week. Me and my girl friend fed for two days off it!!

haha, looks great!

WOW. That is one seriously huge piece of cheesecake.

That other picture doesn't do justice to the size of the cheesecake slice so I'm including this one for scale. Apologies for my psycho grin -- that's a lot of cheese for one photo!

We asked our server for dessert recommendations and the cheesecake was one of her two suggestions. At $8.95 this looks like an expensive piece of cake -- until you see the size of it! We shared it and practically had to roll ourselves out of the restaurant.

I have to say that this is certainly the best restaurant cheesecake I've encountered. It's the only one that comes close to my all-time favourite recipe (wiki.ottawafoodies.com). One interesting thing is that it has a crust of actual pie pastry. If you like good cheesecake, you could come here and have a slice with a cup of coffee and call it a meal. ;-)

My wife had the Coney Island Chili Dog platter, which was well priced at $8.99. She thought it was okay but we both agreed that all-beef wieners -- even very juicy ones like this -- are not our favourite. As others have said here, the chili does have a unique flavour to it. Wifey liked the scant chili more than the wiener.

Went back today for lunch with a friend and the place was not to busy seeing as it was a Sunday it surprised us as we had prepared ourselves for a wait.
Seated promptly and placed our drinks order, then ordered our Matzo Ball soup as starters, it arrived with the drinks Very quickly. This time the soup and matzo ball had more taste but they have a very heavy hand with the salt which hit us later whilst out shopping as we got terribly thirsty.
Friend ordered the Cajun burger with salad and asked for extra spicy ( is from India and can take her heat) not very impressed with the burger at all and never finished her meal. She found the spice mild and the Cajun mayo ( cajun seasong added to mayo) very gloopy and also lacking in flavour.
My order of the Jack Daniels beef burger was over cooked on the outside to the point of being burnt and still quit pink on the inside. again the sauce was just dolloped on top and tasted like any bottled sauce you can buy in the grocery store.
The bill for 2 soups ( 4.95 each) 2 teas and the 2 burgers( 10.95 each came to $ 43.00 and some change.
I have tried it twice now and wont be back as I can get better else where.

Went for a quick lunch Saturday. The place was packed so sat at the bar. Friendly barlady and service was quick.

Orderd the Matzoball soup. Arrived piping hot and smelling of chicken so my expectations were high. The Matzoball was a good size but lacked flavour something was missing and only later did i realize it lacked the cooked in chicken soup taste that i grew up knowing. The matzoball was a little on the tough side but still edible. I was so hungry I ate it all.
Then decided to order the app. portion of the chopped liver, this was really good, only gripe not enough rye bread to finish it with and also the rye bread was not fresh.
Will go back and try the other dishes on the menu.