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Tag: FineDiners.ca

Mini Review: Moonroom

Had the whole FineDiners.ca gang out on Saturday night at Moonroom on Preston Street, and the general consensus was that we’re going to have to hang out there more often!

This cool, funky little place is owned by Tracy Turnbull of Trio Bistro in Westboro fame.  The place looks amazing with reclaimed barnboard floors and poured concrete bar, and a straight-out-of-the-70s juke box in the back (although it didn’t seem to be setup for use when we were there).

When we arrived, there wasn’t much more than a 2-top table open for our group of 6, but no matter – the place is setup for casual mingling with all high tables and stools and we just setup between a back table and the bar.  The food lends itself to this casual style as well with a diverse selection of small sharing plates that were tasty and fun.

Some of the big hits:  Sausage Pot (a mason jar of sausages served warm and topped with cheese – yum!), Stuffed Dates (make sure to get a double order!), the Moon Board (a small cheese/meat plate), and the Grown Up Smores (orgasmic according to the ladies in our group).  The food portions are small – but so are the prices – keep in mind that this is not the place to go for a proper dinner.  Late night drinks and bites is what this place is about.

The wine list seemed pretty decent, with most or all available by the glass, and on tap were several microbrews (including Beau’s!).  The service was really friendly and the overall vibe in the place was great.  Will definitely be returning for more!

Fine Diners and New Years Resolutions

I don’t usually make New Years Resolutions, and I’m not about to start now, but the soft launch of this site happens to coincide with the beginning of the new year(ish), so let’s just say that I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to make posting here a new habit in 2009.

So this is the “soft launch” of this site, meaning that I’m going to start quietly posting here and figuring out just what exactly this site is going to be before I start really putting the word out.  I have some ideas of what I’d like to do, but until I get my blogging legs, I’m just not quite ready for prime time attention.

So what do I want this to be?  Well, there’s a group of local Ottawa Foodies that I hang out with – we’re not critics or even very experienced foodies at all – but we enjoy getting together fairly regularly to try out new restaurants in Ottawa’s burgeoning fine dining scene.

We’re doing it anyway, so I figured why not try blogging about the experiences as well as other foodie-related things in the process.  There is talk of a ratings system where we’ll rate the restaurants we visit based on a simple set of criteria, but we’ll see how this goes.

So, welcome to FineDiners.ca!  We hope that you’ll find the information we post here to be useful, and more importantly hope to see you out and about in Ottawa Restaurants.  Bon apetit!