Ottawa Foodies

I suspect that the increase in rent, food cost and minimum wage is likely the main reasons for them to close the restaurant. So sad!

Another sad Ottawan here!

3

Nooooo! This is really sad! That whole strip has seen hard times lately, it seems. I'll miss their fried bananas, among other things.

1

Serious sad face here!! :-(

Bad news: just drove by there, as we were hoping to dine at Restaurant Joy tonight, but they're closed, effective April 15.

I was suspecting something was up when I had problems trying to get through to make a reservation all this week, but the signs in the window say they're closed for good.

Really too bad, this place was a favourite.

www.ottawamagazine.com

Legit review of the Joy! I concur!

4

Just returned from a work outing at Restaurant Joy on Sommerset and I must say, I am very impressed. Joy has been on my list to try for quite some time, and I am wondering why it has taken me so long.

I’ll keep this short and sweet. Joy offers Korean/Japanese/Asian dishes and a very decent cost/value/taste ratio. The servic (at least in my experience) is great. Our server was friendly, attentive and earned her tips. A+

And now the food… It was really good. The fair price made it taste even better. This afternoon, I ordered the Beef Bibimbap bento box. It included a decent pile of bbq beef/vegies (kind of like a stir fry, but the beef was very tender), rice, 2 beef dumplings, salad (which had an awesome bitter/mango dressing), kimchi, and three pieces of California roll. We were served miso soup to start. Common, for $11:50? They could have easily charged much more. Heck people are stupid enough to buy similar items at Kinki for double the price. This can’t be beat. I was damn full after polishing this meal off, yet there was so much variety that the meal was not only tasty but entertaining.

I colleague of mine who is a sushi aficionado ordered a giant plate of sushi in addition to tempura vegetables/shrimp, and they both received fantastic reviews.

I work with cosmopolitan-non-picky-types, so it was really refreshing to eat out with a group of 20, wherein nobody asked for ketchup, cobb salad or a koors light. All the meals across the table looked amazing.

There were no major complaints from our party, and I will certainly be back for more. Highly recommended!!

I've been wanting to try this place for a while, so I took my Mum and a friend there the other night.
I had the pajeon to start. Unfortunately, it came with shrimp in it and I took a bite before I realised this, so the meal was a bit ruined for me after this point. To be honest, I thought I had ordered it sans-shrimp but I might have forgotten, so I can't really fault the restaurant entirely for this one. As soon as I mentioned it they brought me a vegetarian version right away and apologised profusely.
I also had the veggie sushi platter which was very yummy. The menu read 18 pieces but it came with 24 - needless to say, I had a sizeable doggy bag. It came with an avocado, fried tofu and sweet potato roll. I especially liked the big, creamy pieces of avocado they used. My friend had a regular sushi platter and also enjoyed it, and Mum had the Galbi but unfortunately found it to be rather fatty and didn't finish it.
Service was excellent, and food was good, but I found I couldn't properly enjoy it after the accidental shrimp ingestion. Next time I will be sure to communicate my preferences very clearly. I would give it a second try.

What a fantastic, lovable place to go for some satisfying sushi!

The rolls here are immaculate, the soups and side dishes are classic, and the dishes are sumptuous. It's a great place to go on a date!

These folks seriously know their eats. I've never been disappointed!

Went there tonight for dinner. Food was amazing no complaints!!

The Husband always orders the Pork Bulgogi because it's the spiciest one. Then he asks for it "a little extra spicy" and they try to kill him with it.

He always loves it.

We opted for the beef bulgogi and enjoyed the tasty morsels of tender beef combined with an unusually generous amount of onions and broccoli, all on a sizzling plate. It doesn't quite have the charm of cook-at-your-table bulgogi, but it still tastes great! We each got a nice big bowl of rice to go with it but we had to share the little dish of kimchi.

I decided to try the vegetarian sushi combo. I think it's a recent addition to the menu but I could be wrong. It's chef's choice as far as the varieties. I got 3 kinds;

-avocado (front)
-cucumber and fried tofu (I think - back)
-green onion, carrot and daikon (again, I think - right)

I had already eaten a plate of edamame so I saved the fried tofu ones for lunch the next day (still awesome) to save room for fried bananas. I still exploded.

This was the generous sushi/sashimi platter that came with our meal deal. Good sushi, with nice trimmings. We were not disappointed!

Notice that, in addition to what the menu promised, there is an extra piece of nigiri sushi, a fried tofu potsticker thing, and a little pile of seaweed. It's the little things that make a difference!

The photo doesn't quite do this platter justice. It's part of the "Joy Family Dinner" for two and is quite huge! Four shrimp and a whole host of veggies, arranged in an impressive pyramid structure and served piping hot. The shrimp, onion ring, and zucchini were particularly amazing. Not all of the veggies came in pairs so we had to fight over a few of them. ;-)

We told the waitress that this was the best tempura we've had (and we've had plenty). She nodded and said she's tried other ones in the city and she agrees. Then she went on to tell us that there are restaurants in Japan that serve nothing but tempura, and they take incredible to another level!

Usually, when a meal deal comes with soup you get a tiny little bowl. Not so at Joy! They brought a nice big bowl of steaming tofu and veggie soup, from which we were served individual bowls. There was enough tasty soup that we were able to refill our bowls a few times. I love generous soup! :-)

We've had the bimimbap at Alirang on Nelson St and found it to be really good. Comes with Barley tea, miso soup, kimchi and two other condimennts...

I had Dolsot Bibimbap for the first time today and it was delightful! Thanks fellow Ottawa Foodies for recommending this dish.
I can't compare Joy's to any other restaurant's, obviously. But I can tell you it was $13 and came with Miso soup, salad and kimchi. I found this to be a great deal, since I couldn't even finish it all. Mmmm ... sesame oil + clay pot = crispy bits of rice. I loved it.
If anyone has any other recommendations of where to get good Bibimbap, please let me know. I think Bibimbap is going to replace my pho addiction.
Plus, it's fun to say. Bibimbap. Bibimbap.

I could probably eat 5 orders of edamame from Joy. They arrive at just the right temperature and they sprinkle the perfect amount of salt on them. I can never get enough.

They offer fried bananas with or without ice cream (green tea, red bean, ginger, vanilla, etc). They are hot, crunchy, and delicious!

Our friends both ordered the teriyaki. Dan (pictured) ordered shrimp and Susan (not pictured because it looks the same and she was too far from me) ordered chicken.

They both seemed to enjoy it