Reviews for Sidedoor in Ottawa, ON
To be completely fair I will rate atmosphere, service and food separately.. Atmosphere was 5/5, very interesting layout with... beautiful decoration, high ceilings, stone walls, great lighting - all in all great. Service 4/5, it was good, nocomplaints. Food 1/5, unfortunately the food was extremely oily, to the point where it was not editable. A lot of potential asthe quality is great and dishes are unique. I would recommend it for the experience, it is located within the lovely BywardMarket which makes for a great evening out. Read more
Really nice little spot nestled in a back alley in the market. Our server was excellent and I would say the service was akin to... what you would expect at a 5 star establishment. The food is quite tasty and the chef clearly takes some creative libertieswhich we all enjoyed. From a value standpoint however and looking at competing venues , the price is 1.5-2x higher than what onewould expect. All in all still enjoyed and likely wouldn't dissuade us from returning. Read more
A good location for casual fine dining. The menu items felt like they were supposed to be shared amongst the table, especially... with the "Sides" menu (which we didn't partake in). The appetizers that we had were amazing and the drinks we had paired wellwith the items we ordered. The black cod entrée was disappointing but the coconut curry was good. The wait staff needssignificant improvements at this price point (more staff would likely resolve this). The donuts were okay but could use a fewtweaks. Order: Eggplant Bao Bun ($15.00 for 2 pieces) x1 - Soft and squishy bao bun - Tasty filling with a slight spice/heat toit - More filling in the bao bun would be nice Soft Shell Crab ($21.00 each) x1 - Amazingly succulent pork belly - Deliciousand tender soft shell crab - The cashew puree mixed well with the fatty porky belly and refreshing mango/apple salad CoconutFritter ($26.00 each) x1 - Above average Thai curry base - This felt like it needed a side of rice - At this price point, Iwould have expected the rice to come with the dish - The fritters could have used more salt Black Cod ($39.00 each) x1 -Disappointing entrée, especially at this price point - Extremely mild and under seasoned dashi - The cod was cooked perfectlyand fell apart - The glaze on the cod did not come through, leaving the white fish to be quite bland - A lot of bok choy in thedashi which was slightly bitter - The mushrooms in the dashi were nice but didn't give enough umami to the dish White Chocolate& Cranberry (2) and Dark Chocolate (1) Donuts ($9.00 for the 3 donuts) x1 - The cranberry was only on one side of the donut,leading to half the donut being extremely tart and the other half being just white chocolate - The dark chocolate donut wasoverpowered by the dark chocolate sauce (which felt like a 80-90% dark chocolate), leading to only bitterness - The darkchocolate donut should be tweaked to add something to cut the bitterness, such as a citrus or caramel Respect Your Elders Read more
I threw my sister a surprise baby sprinkle at Sidedoor and it was a great experience. Kimberly was awesome to work with and very... helpful in getting things organized. The private room was spacious and made us feel like we were the only ones there. EverythingI tasted that day was delicious, the beef was so tender and the donuts were little bites of heaven! Would definitely recommendholding an event here! Read more
Thank you very much for excellent service and delicious food. We ordered an assortment of food for appetizers, mains and... deserts. Everything was excellent presentation, very detailed and delicious. Steph was a very positive, engaged and detailedserver. She was very personable, kind and accommodating for my many allergies. Thank you for asking for a gluten-free/dairy freedessert from the eighteen kitchen. Overall amazing experience and we love bringing our to Sidedoor! Read more
Interesting modern, asian fusion menu. Food came out quickly after ordering but follow-up could have been better. Entrance is... hidden from the main street. Never knew it existed even though I'm in the market all the time. Read more
It had been nearly 10 years since we'd been here, and this was the first time with the two kids. We had a great time. Food was... delicious; we mainly went with small plates to share and everything was excellent. Wings are deservedly popular, the eggplantbao was also a nice veg option. Coconut ice cream + chocolate donuts was excellent as a dessert. Still one of the best optionsin the market. Read more
Sadly, was terribly disappointed. We came from a 7 hour drive for a trip to Quebec and stopped in to check out this place. From... the menu and website I was fairly excited to try the food. Beautiful place, such a great ambiance. Cocktails pretty good aswell. Food- we had bajan fish tacos. Very bland, fish didn?t really taste like anything. Spicy beef tacos - extremely drybeef, literally like eating jerky, again no flavour, not much meat at all, sent these back and they came out with less meat andstill dry and inedible. Shrimp dumplings - looked great, was underdone and sent back, came out again underdone. The dough waschewy and sticky, either underdone as In not steamed enough, or dough was overworked, either way it wasn?t pleasant. Wementioned this to the server, and was polite about it, we get mistakes happen, but we were pretty disappointed. He disappearedpretty quickly and we had another server come and take care of us. Overall, really really wanted to like this place as I made areservation about 2-3 weeks out planning this trip. Unfortunate, and I?m sure it?s not always like that, but will not bereturning Read more