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The charms of El Meson
Old-fashioned Portuguese-Spanish restaurant is deliciously personal
 Anne Desbrisay, The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Sunday, June 24, 2007
Don't come to El Meson expecting some trendy Spanish-style tapas bar or to wade through expensive little disappointments until you're stuffed and broke. This is an old-fashioned neighbourhood restaurant, gracious, comfortably kitschy, owner operated and largely unchanged in all the years I've known it.
The guy in charge at El Meson is much of the pleasure of the place. Jose Alves is a man of great charm and strong opinions. He will direct you toward certain dishes and away from others; he has views about the quantity of food he firmly believes you cannot manage (just watch me) and about the wine he is certain will match beautifully with the pork you've ordered. His wine list is well stocked with Portuguese, Spanish and Italian bottles and there is more tucked away in some dark corner of this old Victorian house than is on the generic list you are handed. You need only express an interest and he will be at your service.
While El Meson is not a tapas restaurant, there is nothing stopping you from grazing through the starters. If you were to order a tableful you might start with hot crunchy camarones, shrimp in a bubbling sauce of oil and garlic, peppers and parsley, or with grilled squid, chewy-tender, served on dark leafy greens. Mussels -- mejillones -- come pil pil fashion (in a spicy reddened sauce) or marineros (wine, garlic, butter.) On the table d'hote on this steamy June evening is a well-chilled bowl of gazpacho, the red vegetable soup sour, oiled, garlicked and spiced, with chopped vegetables to offset the smoothness and sour cream to balance the acid.
El Meson does fish and meat very well. Pork follows gazpacho on the table d'hote and the meat is remarkably tender, likely from a thorough beating and a long soak in oil and wine before hitting the pan. Scented with sage leaves and moistened with a roasted tomato sauce of deep tomato flavour, it comes with vegetables in pristine condition and a downy potato croquette. Veal is equally fine, bedded on a sherry sauce, and blanketed with mushrooms.
There is paella of course -- the classic Valenciana with chicken, seafood, sausage, and a straight-up-seafood paella. There is even a vegetarian version. The ingredients of good paella speak of the region, and when the region is Ottawa not Catalonia, paella may not be what its original chefs intended. But I had a perfectly delicious paella de Mariscos at this house, the rice base aromatic of saffron and garlic, wine and stock, with polka dots of peas, and the stuff riding atop -- shrimp, lobster, scallops, squid, clams -- in good condition save for a few tough, overcooked shrimp.
There is tower of meringue in a cinnamoned custard for dessert, which is the way to go, and a stiff but well flavoured raspberry cheesecake, if that's your thing.
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