Tuck-In Thursday

On Thursday, I had planned on visiting Old Ottawa South again. The venue House of Targ had a concert that promised some weird synth-pop. But in the morning I looked at the poster and realized despite being a 3-band show, doors was at 8 pm. A decade ago, comedy band Blimp Rock opined that "I see there's more than 2 bands on the bill, so I don't think I'm gonna go. Cause I wished it started at 7" (Let's All Stay In Tonight). They took the words right out of my mouth.

I then remembered that at the corner of Hemlock and St. Laurent, where there was an Algerian restaurant (Idriss) and an Indian diner (Mia's), there was also a new business with the odd name of Explosion persian style. It opened about a year ago in the old location for Golden Crust Pizza. A Persian-flavoured pizza sounded interesting but I wasn't sure I could finish one.

So I settled on the cheaper Bandari sub ($14.90), an Iranian street-food,  and a can of Coke ($2). In a nutshell, Explosion was the rare Ottawa spot that hit the trifecta of taste, portion, and price (sort-of). It was a large, crunchy sub stuffed with flavourful pickles, fried onion, potato cubes, and very messy sauce. I was thoroughly full and satisfied. 

But there were two caveats with my meal. One, there wasn't much sausage. The few slices I had was tasty, even though it mostly reminded me of bologna. Two, most of the wonderful flavour came from cheap ingredients like pickles and fried potatoes. Similar to my experience with the tacos at Vegena (and they had in-house vegan chorizo as the wow factor), I would have preferred a few bucks off. I'd gladly return if the Bandari sub was closer to $10. And given the other ones were $20 or more, Explosion would not be a regular dining spot for me. I might come back once to check out that Persian pizza.