Big Rig Brew

A new micro-brew pub opened up recently in the west end by current Ottawa Senator Chris Phillips.  This peeked our interest as this fills a big gap in the west end for a micro-brew type location.  We went on a Sunday around 6 and it was still a 30 min wait.  To pass the time, we took a seat at the bar to have a drink and try out some of their brews.  It was $7.50 for a sampler of 4 types of beers, which I thought was very reasonable.  At the time, they were serving 5 types of beer:  the red, the gold, the brown, the stout, and a seasonal weiss beer.  None were disappointing but one of the beers came out ahead easily as the #1 consensus, which was the brown.  There was even a giant board reporting on what beers are available, and what beers are being conditioned and coming up soon.  Very nice added touch.

Me enjoying my Philly Grilled Cheese and the Brown Beer.  YUM!  (Thanks to C. For the photo)

The food was very delicious and tasty.  We decided to start with the Big Rig Pulled Chicken Nachos.  The nachos were tasty but a little disappointing.  The chicken looked like diced chicken, not pulled chicken and was nothing special.  The Canadian Tortiere had lots of very good spices and flavour.  Good’a Chicken & Avocado was an excellent combination of flavours and Philly’s Grilled Cheese & Beef was plentiful and also an excellent choice. For it, it was true, I did need to eat the meal with a knife and fork.  The later two came with fresh cut fries that were seasoned just right and crispy, just the way I liked it.  The tortiere came with some mixed veggies that left a little more to be desired.  The deserts sounded delicious, but the food was good portioned that we had no room left for sweets.  The table next to us was celebrating a birthday and they brought out a giant fresh baked cookie for them.  It smelt wonderful and was a really nice added touch.  It did come out on a tin pie plate, and I know I am being picky, just doesn't seem to fit the rest of the atmosphere in the restaurant. 

When it came to the service, it seemed like the staff was overwhelmed.  It took 20 mins at the bar to settle up so we could take our seat at the table.  When ordering, the server forgot the addition of a side upgrade and did not get the right information from the kitchen on what the side veggies were.  There was also no ketchup offered for the fries.  Albeit they have only been open for just over 2 weeks, I would expect the staff to become more experienced over time and these small kinks work themselves out.

The restaurant itself looks very clean, spacious and modern looking.  There was plenty of TV's on showing the different sport channels.  It was noticed that one TV was on a good 2 second delay compared to one beside it showing the same channel.  This may not be good if you plan on going here to watch a live sports event. 

I very much enjoyed this place.  The food was tasty, the beer was very good and the prices were comparable to what I would expect coming to a micro-brew.  Great job so far CP12!

Review (out of 5):
Food: * * * * 1/2
Value: * * * * 1/2
Atmosphere: * * * * *
Service: * * * 1/2
Price Range (dinner): $15 - $35
Website: http://bigrigbrew.com/