Mill Street Brew Pub

So I  FINALLY got to the Mill Street Brew Pub with my good friend Marlene the other night.  I've been dying to go here since I heard they opened at the beginning of this year.  I'm familiar with Mill Street beer from Toronto ... but now, here in Ottawa we too can enjoy the fruits of this brewery and with a pub attached too!  How can you beat that?  Everyone knows how much I LUV LUV LUV pubs!  The restaurant is located in the former grist mill (and also former home to The Mill Restaurant). It is beautiful.  Funky and warm; of course there is a gorgeous sun room over looking the Ottawa River.  It was busy but we arrived early enough that we did not have to wait for a table, as some guests who arrived a short time after us did.  Unfortunately we didn't get a table in the sun room but we had a nice central table close to the fire place where we could see and be seen!

We shared a small 'flight' sampler of four beers.  We had the ginger tea, organic lager, coffee porter and Belgian wit.  We both sampled all four; the ginger tea (special seasonal brew) was Marlene's favourite and mine was the Organic lager, followed closely by second place finisher the Belgian Wit.  I do love wheat beer (... those of you who knew me back in the old Al Frisco's days can attest to that ...!).  And we both agreed, Coffee Porter is probably a great way to end your meal (or start your day).  Mmmmm coffee beer.  It really did have a strong coffee taste.  Here is Marlene bogarting all the mini samplers.  But she's so damn cute, how could I resist that smile? 

At least she left me one (its just for the photo ... she didn't actually let me drink it! LOL!)

It was wing night when we were there so we agreed to start with sharing 10 hot wings.  Pretty much everyone in our vicinty was having wings and I noticed some tables nearby ordered several additional plates of different flavours while we were there ... a very good sign.  We were both thrilled when the plate arrived; and even happier when we tasted the wings.  These are some of the best wings I've had in a long time (and you know how often I order wings ... pretty much every pub I'm at!).  They were perfectly crispy and well cooked (a pet peeve of mine is undercooked wings and I often order them "well done").  They were spicy and tasty but not too hot to be enjoyable.  Very very good ... and they went perfectly with pints of Organic lager that we ordered after our samples.

Marlene decided to go with the fish & chips for her main.  I had heard from another friend that they are really good and when they arrived at our table, I was pretty sure this would be a good meal.

I might have snuck a french fry or two, and I can definitely confirm they are yummy.  Hand cut and crispy.  The fish looked amazing.  The beer batter was dark and I could tell it would be crispy.  Marlene said the fish was very tasty.  And she loved modelling for her foodie photos!  :-)

I easily could have stuck with wings and eaten several more, but I wanted to try something new. After reading about the 'Piggy Delight' flatbread in the Ottawa Citizen food review, I knew I really wanted to check it out.

Piggy Delight Flatbread Extreme Close Up:

And what's better than one kind of piggy meat? Three kinds of course!  This is a crispy (very crispy) flatbread with pulled pork, smoked pork belly and chorizo sausage, mozzarella cheese and bar-b-que sauce. It is remarkable, but you could actually get three distinct tastes of the pork. The pulled pork was excellent and the smoked pork belly was like the most crispy smoky bacon you can imagine. However, I wasn't thrilled with the chorizo. Chorizo that I have had before is a dried, smoky and spicy sausage ... I found this chorizo like salty balogna. I picked it off the flatbread, but not to worry ... I still imensely enjoyed my two little piggies! Here, I can't wait to dig in!

We were both stuffed and had a great meal.  The atmosphere of Mill Street is fun and vibrant.  At no point did I ever see more than one empty table, and it was quickly cleared and wiped and new customers seated.  Its very loud, so if you are thinking about having an intimate conversation this is not the place for it.  We did find it a bit odd that there were lots of OLD (I mean OLD) folks which, for a Tuesday night in Ottawa is strange in itself.  But that they were at this hip, funky pub was even more weird to us.  We came up with a theory:  the oldsters got confused by the name of the new restaurant:  Mill Street Brew Pub and actually thought it is the old Mill Restaurant re-opened!  Old, young ... or old under cover ... check out the Mill Street Brew Pub.  A fun night out and outstanding pub food.