Quote:
Originally Posted by kool maudit
ottawa has some great restaurants, and i only lived there for a few months in early 2012. maybe my experiences were anomalous, maybe they were the places i went, maybe the time of year... i don't know. i did notice a difference from montreal, but it's good to hear there are exceptions.
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I think that your assessment of the Ottawa food scene is pretty good. There are some really good dining options in Ottawa these days and things continue to improve as the city grows.
As you say, it's still a place where people dine out early (even downtown). They even generally dine out earlier in Ottawa than they do in Gatineau!
I think this is not so much an "Ottawa" thing as it is a Montreal vs. the rest of North America thing. With a few exceptions in most of North America people dine out earlier than they do in Montreal and in most of Quebec even.
There are decent-sized areas of a number of cities (Toronto being one of them) where you can find crowds of people dining late, but even in most of these metros the majority of people eat at 5 or 6. Maybe 5 at home and 6 if they go out.
Of course, Montreal and Quebec aren't like Spain or Argentina where people only start trickling in at 9 pm, but diners are sparse at 5 pm in most restaurants in Quebec. Unless it's like Subway or something.
Dining out in most of Quebec is more like 6:30 or 7-7:30.