Thursday 3 April 2014

The Flying Banzini - A Review

 The hubs and I have entered the very adult world of starting the process for buying out first home.  We have been casually looking for a little while but its been in the last couple of weeks that we really amped up to actively looking. 
That means that we try and schedule a few viewings each weekend.  Last Sunday we had 5 houses to see, 2 open houses and 3 set up though our Realtor.  All of that house viewing can take a lot out of you, so we thought it best to load up on yummy carbs before we started our day. 
The Flying Banzini opened a little bit ago and I have been curious to try it ever since.  Located at: 1242 Wellington St W Ottawa, their website describes their food as:

 "Our chefs prepare lofty roast meats carved onto our own soft buns, pressed and grilled as paninis, or as the feature topping on artisan pizzas. And, despite our love for lofty roast meats, you can choose from a unique variety of remarkable vegetarian selections."

That just sounds yumm to me.  So I spend the week getting more and more excited about going for lunch there.  Sunday finally arrives the hubs and I check out the menu and see if I have gotten more excited for the idea of the resturant or if it is going to fulful my excitement:
Many choices it was a little difficult to choose
The basket of fresh baked warm buns for the soft sandwiches
The hubs settled on one of their soft bun sandwiches with pulled beef, chipotle mayo and provolone cheese, and I picked the Leave Your Hat on paninis with: crispy pork belly, spicy onion jam (I switched it our for Dijon mustard) cucumbers, tomato, spinach red peppers and cheddar cheese. I made it a combo with the house salad with lemon, honey, thyme dressing on the side.  We also ordered the bacon and orange cheesecake to try as a starter.
The hub's pulled beef soft bun sandwich with tomato relish/salsa on the side

My pork belly paninis with garden salad, lemon honey thyme dressing and tomato salsa/relish
My first reaction when seeing all this food was WOAH.  Than it was Oh Yes, Yum.  The food was amazing.  It tasted better than it looked.  The food is all prepared onsite (they were cutting a big piece of roasted meat at one point) and you can tell the difference.  
It was a little pricy (about $30 for all the food) but I would say a great place to go to once a month maybe once every few weeks.  
The resutrant was a little busy and we didn't actually get our bacon cheesecake before the meal (which I was a little upset about just because I was really hungry).  However the cashier ended up coming over and apologizing, refunding out cheesecake money and giving use 2 tokens for free cheesecake.
These babies = free dessert
Well that just blew my mind.  That was possibly the BEST customer service I have ever had.  That made paying $30 for our lunch completely worth it.  I love to contribute to personal business where the owners are invested in their clientele. 
So with our free cheesecakes waiting the hubs and I ordered 2.  He got New York Chocolate and I got New York Black Cherry. 


The selection that was available when we were there.  So many yummies to choose from
The cheesecakes were very yummy, rich and true to the flavours posted.  However they are very small (think 2 bite brownie size) so keep that in mind when ordering.  They were out of a chocolate coffee flavour I really wanted to try hopefully they will have it next time.

All in all I would say this is a great resutrant.  I would classify it as a date, or get together place rather than a quick bite drop in.  But the customer service is amazing and the food is great.  

If you are in the Ottawa area stop by and let me know what you got and how your experience was. 

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