Old people and diners

My threshold for deciding whether a restaurant is worth frequenting, especially if it's a diner? If it has a large elderly clientele.

Louis' Restaurant and Pizza
181 MacArthur Avenue, Ottawa

A and I were sans my sister last week, since she was in Yellowknife for work. My will to make healthy, homemade food quickly went right the heck out the window. We were starving, and didn't want to go very far from our place to get something to eat. I had been told by a colleague that Louis' made the best pizza, so on that recommendation, we decided to order from there.

I had already decided on pizza, and ordered the small pepperoni with banana peppers. A was going to order pizza as well, until he saw his weakness on the menu, chicken parmesan. It came with spaghetti as well, so he was sold.

I went to go pick it up myself, and was surprised to walk into a completely packed restaurant. As noted above, you know a restaurant serves good solid food and has good prices when it has a large elderly clientele, and this place fit the bill. It was nice though, with the old people and the neighbourhood folk, it felt downright homey. It also helped that my server referred to me as "Hun" and "Sweetie" no less than five times in the two minutes I was there.

I opened the pizza box... and thought to myself - YES. I loved that they were not cheap with the banana peppers, as most of you may know, I love me some spicy food. The pizza itself was great, the cheese was warm and gooey, and the crust was pretty good, maybe a little thin in the centre, but they made up for it at the edges.

I will let A talk about his chicken parm.

Howdy! So as some of you know, K and I are from the Soo (Sault Ste. Marie FYI, sometimes A forgets not everyone knows what we're talking about -K). The problem with being from the Soo, is that Italian food anywhere else just isn't the same. I am incredibly picky about my chicken parm. It is my second favourite Italian dish, after a nice, big, deep fried Panzerotti! I do however have to hand it to the folks at Louis'. This is the best chicken parm I have had outside of the Soo. The portion size was HUGE. The chicken itself was incredibly crunchy, while still being moist and tender, even though we got takeout. The pasta was perfectly cooked and there was a lot of cheese on the chicken. My only complaint is that the sauce was much different then I am used too. The sauce back home is, well, sweet. I have never found another sauce like it, no matter where I order Italian from. All this considered, I will surely order from Louis' again, and more than likely, I will have chicken parm.

So all in all, good takeout with decent prices. We will definitely order from there again.
-K