On Feb. 21, people in Ottawa will be slurping up noodles at the city’s second annual noodle fest, Sip n’ Slurp. The event hosted by Privé will take place at the Shaw Centre, the newly renamed downtown convention centre.
Ottawa chefs will be go up against each other to impress the crowd with unique twists on popular noodle dishes such as Thai, the Japanese favourite ramen and Italy’s linguine.
Organizer Roy Abourgeili says people love noodles and thought it would be interesting to organize a festival where local chefs can demonstrate their talent. The event sold out last year.
Now in it’s second year, Sip n’ Slurp will feature delicious offerings from 20 restaurants and caterers. Abourgeili explains that it also gives local venues the chance to boost their popularity.
Among them will be Centretown’s Angry Dragonz, an Asian food truck located at the corner of Gloucester and Lyon streets. Kin Tran, owner and chef, says he’s “really excited” to be a part of the festival for the first time.
Bonnie Wong, Tran’s wife and co-owner of their food truck, says the event will be good for their small business because they can try new recipes.
She also says this will be their first event of the year since they’ve been forced to close their food truck in the winter. This allows them to get back out there.
Tran’s new recipes will include two dishes, a Chinese one and a Thai one. Tran has a Vietnamese background but he lived in China for a few years before coming to Canada. He says his cooking, especially the Chinese platter, will integrate all three cultures.
“It’s going to be a slow-cooked beef with Chinese lettuce and it’s going to have a spicy kick to it and it will be like a fusion,” he says.
There is also a cultural significance behind Tran’s Chinese noodles and the festival in general that will fall on the same week as the Chinese New Year.
“In Chinese culture, noodles symbolize longevity, so a healthy and long life. The longer the noodle the better,” says his wife.
Tran’s other meal will be a vegetarian version of tom yum soup – a traditional sour and spicy Thai soup that normally includes meat and chopped vegetables.
The Vietnamese chef says with a laugh that he can understand why noodles are so popular since it’s something you don’t get tired of easily.
He says he loves the dish and that he eats it up to three times a week.
During the cook-off, patrons get to vote for whose cooking they liked best and the winner will be revealed later that night.
Don Chan, a resident foodie and author of Ottawa Food: A Hungry Capital, attended last year’s noodle fest and said the concept is great but it wasn’t how he liked to enjoy his noodles.
“I think noodles, especially noodle soup, should be a personal experience, not something involving small paper cups of noodles with barely a slurp served in them,” he says.
However, he encourages others to attend and get a taste of what Ottawa has to offer.
“I greatly support this event because it’s about tasting what Ottawa’s chefs can do when it comes to noodles, which is a cool thing. Just not for me,” says Chan.
Privé is selling tickets in advance for Sip n’ Slurp for $10. Each dish will cost between $1 and $5.