New Year’s Event At Lago Bar Grill

Cynthia Cheng

The Lago Bar-Grill-View, located at Dows Lake Pavillion along Ottawa’s Rideau Canal,  ushered in 2009 by offering a beautiful evening of dinner and dancing on December 31.  The evening included a choice of two sittings – a three course meal at 5:30 pm and a second, more elaborate six course sitting later in the evening. The two sittings actually had two different price points to allow people who preferred to spend less on an evening out to enjoy a similar dinner.

 Lamb with short rib ravioli and spaghetti squash

I had the wonderful opportunity to attend the six course sitting, consisting of a carpaccio of lobster with blood orange vinaigrette, pheasant consummé, a beet salad with arugula greens, sweet onion dressing and duck leg, sherbet of sauvagnon blanc.  For the main course, diners had a choice of roasted lamb loin with short rib ravioli and spaghetti squash, Alberta beef, or crusted sable fish (both served with their own sides).  Dessert was called the Yuccatan, a Mexican chocolate cake layered with vanilla ganauche, white chocolate, cinnamon brille and tequila crème fraiche.  Vegetarian options were available for all courses.  In addition, the timing between each course was slow enough that diners were able to take the time to savour their dish, but did not have to sit around for long before the next course arrived.

The Yuccatan: choclate cake layered with vanilla canauche, white chocolate, cinnamon brill and tequila crème fraiche, served for dessert

While the dinner itself was pretty much perfect, the same could not be said about the after-party.  The venue had two dance floors.  One was upstairs and the other was at the restaurant itself.  In order to get to the second floor, guests had to pass through an unheated room, where bouncers marked everyone’s hand with an “x.”  This was so that we could pass through one floor to the next.  We were excited to go upstairs.  We were told that there were going to be eight DJs, each spinning different types of music.  How wrong we were.  Not only was there just one DJ on the second floor, but the DJ was awful.  Every single song was remixed to a techno beat and to the point that it was barely recognizable.  There were times where I wasn’t sure if it was really the original singer or if it was a cover version.  The music at the restaurant was a little better, but the style wasn’t that different from the upper level.  Many of us were expecting one room to be more of a lounge than a night club.  After all, the event was not cheap, at $100 per person.  Something a little more “grown-up” would have been nice.

People partying it up after the dinner

The execution of the countdown wasn’t that great either.  At around 11:53 pm, someone turned on the television.  They found a New Year’s Eve broadcast all right, but it wasn’t the right one.  The clock on the top right hand corner of the channel they happened to be on said 10:53 pm.  They were on a television station in the Central Time zone.  Luckily, somebody noticed that and we were able to find the right station before the countdown.

All things considered, I think it was still a good evening.  As I mentioned earlier, the meal was absolutely delicious.   This is a place I am happy to return to for dinner in the near future.