Bella's Bistro in Westboro

Went to West-fest this past weekend and decided to try Bella's. Besides being the name of an old girlfriend, I have always heard good things about it.

Because it was last minute they did not have room in the restaurant, but did on their tiny patio. So we opted to partake.

Their Patio Menu is quite limited and I presume different from their white linen-ed interior, but I did not expect quality of food to suffer.

We had BBQ shrimps with rice and veggies and seafood ravioli. I am not a big ravioli fan, expecting something quite extraordinary for the $20 pre-tax/tip price point....outdoors on a plastic chair. Because of lobster, crab and other things named in the menu for the ravioli, my expectations might have been high. It ended up being pretty much something I could have picked up at the Loblaw’s and cooked up myself at home. Couldn’t taste any lobster and the crab came out of a can. I would rate that as awful.... If I can do better at home, it's not the place to be for me.

The shrimps were nice enough, but only three and the veggies was a sprig of rosemary! What would one expect for $10 pre tax… maybe a little bit more veggies would be nice?

We have pics, and we shared!

A table next to ours had a pasta with mussels… and well, it didn’t look very good, but I didn’t ask them what they thought.

To top it, one of the waiters either was just slow or having a bad day; nasty, and even made a mistake on the bill. (Total bill including tax was $60 for two, so not cheap, but not very expensive... we had some wine, but no dessert or appetizers, just one entrée each…small at that. I left hungry.)

With the plethora of Italian places in Ottawa... and I can think of a few that are actually pretty good, how can a place like that survive? Looks like there were a lot of locals out for their Sat night dinner, mostly older... Island Park types....

2007 06 10.