Town

Town has been getting a lot of great reviews since it opened earlier this year. Some restaurants seem to be "Ottawa darlings", at least on the blogging circuit, and Town is one of these places. Naturally, curiousity got the best of me and I had to check it out.
The space is narrow, bright (at lunch time), airy and simple. Tables are situated pretty closely to each other. When tables are practically side-by-side, I feel like I have to avoid looking around in an effort to maintain some sense of intimacy/not intrude on neighbouring tables' limited space.

source
I visited over a month ago with a couple of friends over lunch. A selection of the full menu is available for lunch in small or large plate sizes. There were some menu items I would have liked to try, but they unavailable for lunch (I wanted to try to the meatballs).

Please excuse the photo quality. Unless indicated otherwise, pictures were taken on an iPhone. Menu items look much better in person.

I ordered a small plate of the Ricotta Gnudi:

Check out Happy Mouth Blog, the source of the above picture

I tried to eat slowly, to make the dish last. The gnudi is topped with a walnut pesto. All together a great dish. Here's the recipe for the dish (homemade ricotta too).

Both of my companions ordered a small plate of orecchiette:


We all had room for dessert, so we decided to try one of each of the dessert options:


The desserts were cute -- they're all served in a mason jar (an idea I think I might steal). Bottom left is the buttermilk panna cotta, with a raspberry reduction. Bottom right is the rice pudding with pistachio brittle. At the top is the chocolate budino with whipped cream and homemade granola. After sampling a bit of all three, we agreed that the chocolate dessert was the best. Luckily, it was the dessert I ordered.

I'd say that the service was average. The waitress appeared to be working a lot of tables, so she had little time to do more than the minimum. We all enjoyed our meals, but felt that the price for a lunch was pretty hefty. I just checked my Visa account -- between the gnudi, dessert, and tip (only drank water), my bill came to $24.47. The food is definitely good, but the price would be a deterrent for going back regularly.