Skating Through Ottawa

            Last Sunday, Mya and I drove three hours north to Ottawa for a long weekend. We both had MLK day off, and we took Tuesday off as well. The trip was mostly bland, but we did see a police car pulled over, but he was on the left side of the road, which was unusual, my hypothesis was that there was a dead deer, but when we drove by, we saw that it was an owl! (Later this was confirmed on Facebook, and the owl was taken to a bird sanctuary.)

            The other event of note on the drive was the bridge at the Thousand Islands. To most, it probably is nothing special, but I have an intense love for bridges, and I had seen this one before, but never actually driven on it, and I was surprised by its steepness. It was also thin. I was a little uncomfortable when the 18 wheelers going the other direction went past. Once in Canada I also saw a house that made a hockey rink on the ice over the water, which I had heard about but never seen before, so that was cool too.

            Now to the main attraction, the city. The first activity on our docket was ice skating, and then we were going to follow that up with a trip to the Chesire Cat Pub. This ice-skating place was no normal rink, but it was a frozen trail that people ice skate on in the winter. Sadly, Mya looked it up on the way there, and they do not rent out ice skates, so we audibled. We went downtown and ice skated on the canal, “the world’s largest ice-skating rink.” Their rental shop is literally down on top of the ice.

            The whole rink itself is five miles out one way, so it would be ten miles roundtrip to do the whole thing. The skate rentals are for two hours, so with speed, this could probably be done, but we ended up doing about 4.5 miles. At our midway point, we were sidetracked by a beer tent. Of course, I had to go with the stout for this bright sunny winter day, and when I was ordering it, they asked if I wanted something done to it, but I did not hear them, so I said no, I will just take the can. Then when we went and sat down, I saw that they were sticking a fire poker into the stout.

            I had just read an article about this the day before! The heat from the poker caramelizes the sugar and malt, and it gives it a different flavor and a toasted marshmallow smell. Although I did not want a heavy second stout in my belly, I went for it anyway, because when else am I going to have the chance to try this delicacy. It did definitely change the smell. It smelled just like marshmallows, and the foam had more of a marshmallow taste, but the overall beer flavor itself only changed a little. I was also expecting the beer to immediately become warmer, but there was not a big change in temperature either. It was definitely worth the try, but it did not turn the beer into hot chocolate as I had hoped.

            Then Mya got a hot chocolate from a different hut, and we skated back. I absolutely loved it. I guess it makes sense. It is kind of like running, but instead of being on foot, you are on a blade just gliding along easily picking up speed without too much effort. We basically used the whole two hours, and since we switched our ice-skating venue, we had to cancel our reservation, because we would not make it in time.

So instead, we stopped at a local brewery, Lone Dog Brewing, which has an incredible name and logo. When we arrived, no one else was there, and there was a music act playing, which initially was a little awkward, but people started to trickle in after us. I had two beers there, a California Common, which is actually very uncommon, and a peanut butter porter, but I did not love either of these.

            Then we headed to the hotel, which was in downtown. We went up and dropped our stuff off, and then we went into ByWard Market, which is filled with restaurants and shops. What I did not realize is that many of these restaurants are fancy and require a reservation, but we walked into a place called The Grand, and they serve pizza and pasta. Having just had pizza yesterday, we both opted for the pasta, even though the pizza looked and smelled amazing.

            I had the Mafalde Alla Grand. This is comprised of thin long lasagna noodles, mafalde, sausage, mushrooms, truffle oil, and a cream sauce. By itself, it was delicious. The flavors all melded together nicely, the pasta was the perfect consistency, and the cream sauce was not too think. It was like a light alfredo with all the best toppings, but I found a way to make it even better. When our food was brought to the table, the waiter asked if we wanted any cheese or hot sauce. When I walked in, I saw a sign saying that they sell their hot sauce, so I figured it had to be good, so I asked for it. The hot sauce was the perfect addition. It had just the right amount of kick, and it was also creamy. I have never seen hot sauce so creamy! I wish I had bought a jar to go, but it probably would have been gone in a week anyways, it was that good!

            The next day, Mya surprised me, and she found hiking trails at a place called Gatineau Park. It was just a short 20-minute drive from the hotel across a bridge into Quebec. Quebec is interesting, because their official language is French, so now not only were the signs in km/hr, but they were also in French.

            So apparently there are hiking trails that they level so that even in the snow, they can still be walked without snowshoes. The trail started with a bridge, and then it went into a loop. Along the first part of the loop in plastic sheet protectors, there were the wildest pictures of monkey’s faces zoomed in super close with them making creepy faces. So that was off-putting and funny. While walking, I wanted to know how deep the snow was. The snow came up to the seat on the benches, and I knew the snow off the trail was not groomed so I stepped off the trail, and the snow came up past my knee!  

            There was also one decent uphill, and it led to a “rock enclosure”, which was basically a small little cave. It was nothing special, but it was different than the snowy trees we had been seeing, and it had a small frozen pool at the bottom of it that we could investigate and see frozen leaves and other small objects trapped in the ice.

            This trail was a little over a mile and a half, so we went and found another small trail like that, and we did some more snow hiking. This trail was more trafficked, and it brought us up to one of the park’s main roads, but it was closed for the season, because of the snow, which was now being used for cross-country skiing and the like. We did see a snowmobile, and that is how they groom the trails. It had a mat on the back that leveled the snow and gave it uniform ridges.

            After this hike, we went to a brewery, Beyond the Pale. I had their corn lager, 28 Maize Later, and it was delicious! By far the best beer I had on the trip. Easy to drink with some crispness. It did not have a strong flavor, but the little flavor it had gave it a very light sweetness. We did not have lunch on this day, because we both ate huge breakfasts at Zak’s Diner, so instead, we split an order of nachos, which we had deconstructed, because I love all of the fixings on the nachos, and Mya does not, but honestly, it was the perfect way to have them. This prevented the chips from getting soggy, and it was easier to make sure each chip had its fair share of toppings, my favorite of which were the fresh jalapenos, which were so spicy, that they gave me the hiccups at least twice. My second beer was a Northwest Pale Ale, which was more on the bitter side, and it was not nearly as good as my first.

            For dinner, we rebooked reservations for the Cheshire Cat Pub, and this turned out to be the right call. It was very authentic. The location was a little more isolated, and the venue itself was an old stone building with a red telephone booth out front. Their food options were excellent as well, and it made it hard to choose. I was stuck between their Pie of the day, Mashed potatoes, lamb, veggies, and blue cheese or the Yorkshire Pudding. I opted for the Yorkshire Pudding, because I think it is a much harder dish to come by.

So the Hot Beef and Yorkie starts with a bed of mashed potatoes and gravy, then on top of that there was shaved ribeye with a horseradish sauce, and on top of that was the Yorkshire pudding, which is closer to a pastry, and it is made with eggs, flour, and milk. When a bite was taken with all three in one, it was delectable. I am not a huge mashed potatoes person, but theirs mixed with the gravy was incredible. The perfect amount of salty and the potatoes were creamy. I was honestly still full from breakfast, but I ate every single bite anyway. It was that good.

            The next day was more of a whirlwind. We got a later start, but it worked out in our favor. We got out the door a little before eleven, and the whole point of this day was to try some different food before going home. We started with a late breakfast of Suzy Q’s Donuts. These were delicious! I had a strawberry frosted with sprinkles and one covered in chocolate frosting with chocolate powder. Both of the donuts had a thin crisp outer layer with a fluffy inside. Also the frosting was real and would get on your fingers. It was not a hard layer on top of the donut like at Dunkin’.

            Next I ordered take out from Golden Palace. They are famous for their open face egg rolls. Unlike normal egg rolls that fold the ends closed, these leave it open. If you look up a picture, it looks like the ends are burnt. The egg rolls are famous enough that they will ship them to your home for a hefty price. I saw they had a chicken egg roll one online, so I ordered half a dozen chicken rolls. When I opened them, I was surprised. Apparently, I had ordered something completely different. What I got was closer to what sweet and sour chicken looks like before the sauce is put on it, but like four times the size. It contained a big piece of chicken and in that chicken was bacon, and it was all fried in batter. It came with mushroom sauce to dip it in, and that was a great added addition, so although it was not what I wanted, it was still worth it for something new and unique.

            Finally, we stopped at Greek Village Souvlaki. I found this place on an Ottawa food Instagram page. They serve their gyros with fries in them, and they were a new place. The picture made the gyro look massive and tasty. So we went, and I was disappointed because they only had chicken or pork gyro meat. No lamb, which is wild. Also their tzatziki sauce tasted more like sour cream. So this was not my favorite meal of the trip. They did bring us grapes as thanks for coming, and those were plump and juicy. They were probably my favorite part of the whole meal.

            Mya had one food request as well. She wanted to stop at McDonalds before we crossed the border. There they had a Smarties McFlurry. These are not smarties in the way that you and I think of them however, these are essentially m&ms but with a thicker coat around the chocolate. So we got that and then we headed home.

            In Canada, it was a nice sunny day, and even the first part of our drive in New York was fine, but then we got to Tug Hill, and it got wild. I have never driven in snow that bad. The road was covered, which I have driven in before, but the visibility was a different story. I felt like I could not see more than five feet in front of me. My range of visibility was like being trapped in a small snow globe. It felt like we were trapped in this mess forever. At first there was a car in front of me which was nice, because I could just follow the lights, but then they got off, and I was left leading the charge, and that was much more terrifying. Either way after probably 20-30 minutes, we made it to the other side, and it was sunny again for the rest of the ride home. I would definitely go back to Ottawa and explore more and do some more ice skating, but the number one reason I would go back to Canada is to visit Banff National Park, that it close to the top of my bucket list, but that would require more than a quick three-hour drive. (I did have Mya buy me ice skates for my birthday, so we can go back and ice skate on the trail.)