absinthe

good food and atmosphere. went for dinner last night and was pleasantly surprised with the service, food and atmosphere. the menu was very reasonably priced considering the style of food and fresh ingredients and the price point pushed my girlfriend and i to each order the three-course table d'hote.
we started with the korean bbq quail duo. we enjoyed the kimchi and quail combination; however, i felt that the seared quail breast went much better with the rest of the dish than the simple fried quail legs.
our next course was the butternut squash soup and the arugulasaladwith lemon thyme vinaigrette. the soup was fantastic and had tremendous balance to it. thesaladcould have used a little more balance as the vinaigrette was quite acidic and when combined with the arugula was quite bitter on the palate.
for main courses we chose the steak frites and the shrimp/scallop dish. the steak was very nice but a little tough to chew since it was hanger steak. i guess that's expected with that cut of meat. however they did a great job with the marinade on the steak which tasted of some kind of vinegar base. the only thing i would comment about this dish is that the green beans seem to be a very disappointing choice to pair with the rest of the plate.
the shrimp and scallops was a lovely dish that was almost perfect. the shrimps and scallops were cooked beautifully and seasoned very nicely. the rest of the plate was a little bit of a letdown by comparison. the filling in the agnelotti wasn't that great and they didn't really seem to fit the rest of the dish in terms of flavor and texture. overall, a very nice effort for the mains but certain details kept them from being exceptional.
we finished with the apple tart which was excellent and had a big scoop of delicious house made ice cream. very nice way to finish dinner.
the service was very good and certainly added to a pleasant experience. water glasses were never left empty and every server who dropped off food explained each component of the dishes. overall, we really enjoyed our experience there and definitely look forward to going back.

amazing!. absinthe is honestly one of my favorite places in ottawa. the service is warm and attentive, the ambience is relaxed but also classy and the food is outstanding. my last visit was a few nights ago with my family. i had as my app the kimchi bbq quail. the portion was perfect and the flavours were amazing. i especially enjoyed the tangerine reduction that was artistically placed on the plate. for the second course, i chose the arugulasaladwith pepitas and lemon vinaigrette with parmesan. i do not regret my choice since it was light, refreshing and was perfectly balanced. my only comment is that i think it would be delicious with a drizzle of some kind of cranberry compote( just my opinion thought, it was an amazing salad). for my main, i had the stuffed chicken with cheddar over a bed of creamed kale with a leek and potato galette. my favorite component of the dish was the kale since it still had some texture instead of being mushy. i ate everything on my plate exept for the galette but that is only because of personnal taste since i feel too guilty eating too many rich items:) . also, our server manny was pleasant, polite and extremely attentive. what a perfect night!

i like the food at absinthe. i like that they stay open late on weekends so you can get a drink not at a pub. i don't think they advertise that, but there it is. they stay open pretty damn late as long as there are people there (bar service only). all their servers are bilingual, which is awesome. the server we had last week was super friendly. we all had the table d'hote. the first course was excellent. the first courses were all really interesting with multiple elements on each plate, and with different applications. their dehydrated vegetables are really well done, very very thinly sliced which is key i think to make sure they're crunchy and not too chewy. dehydrated eggplant? sounds terrible, but it's awesome. for the mid, i had thesaladand the others had the soup, which was excellent. thesaladwas a bit too acidic and kind of boring. the lime flavor was really good but i think something with a bit of sweetness and color would have balanced it off well. the arugula was excellent