let's talk about it, right? the weekend.
i'm half drunk now, i battered myself friday and saturday, so when my african family who is currently living in the house i grew up in decided to throw an impromptu soiree i had drinks again. i haven't had a weekend like this in..well a week, probably. i actually don't get that ridiculously drunk that often... that was so last year..when monday through friday was when i'd party and the weekend was serious time. when i made incredibly great choices with life and women...nawt. i don't regret a lot, i promise, but we can all agree i was not the smartest fellow on templeton street.
last night my roommate (and co host of this podcast) and i crashed at a family owned property near the market. after a night of decimating shots and eyeing ladies to no avail, we went the hell to bed. in the morning we decided to go to Mello's on dalhousie for breakfast.
Mello's has been around literally as long as ottawa has...well as long as i've been around in ottawa. There's so much to it, yet at the same time there's nothing to it. it's an old school diner. you walk in, there's the main bar lined with stools and then there are some private booths for the families and the lovers.
i've been going here to eat since my dad took me here many years ago after a good long ski in the gatineau hills. all it is, is feeling like you're in the movie "Grease" and a damn good breakfast.
there's the owner of the place..i knew her name at one point. a few years ago my girlfriend at the time and i would go there literally every sunday morning and she'd recognize us no problem. i would, and still do, recognize her easily. she's uh..a big lady. it ain't over until she sings. she's the classic diner waitress. calling you "doll" and "sweetheart" and calling out orders in some ridiculous vocabulary you can't recognize and saying how much she loves the maple leafs. she's nuts and gets the job done with incredible efficiency and precision. "hold the ketchup" and all that jazz.
the folks who go there are also what make it so special to me. you've got the retired (honourably or dishonourably) sailors with the rapier tattoo'd on their forearms, but the kind of tattoo that was done with such vile ink that their skin tried its hardest to reject it, and now looks like it could be brushed off. you've got the people who have been coming their for a hell of a lot longer than i have...silver haired ladies and gentlemen who do their crosswords and kill off easily a few hours sipping on 5 cups of coffee. you've got older burly men with Harley Davidson merchandise who talk about when they used to ride their metal steeds down these streets but got too preoccupied with families or a chronic heart problem.
and then you've got kids like me...giving off a desired aura of innocence and honesty that we may or may not actually have. with last nights smoke filled hair tucked into a toque (i don't smoke, but the rest of the world does, apparently), a plain white t-shirt with a stain from a drink I don't remember wrecking the New Jersey appeal i strive to accomplish, and scuffed shoes. i sit there with a good friend and i eat my breakfast. 3 slices of french toast with legitimate maple syrup served up with a duo of breakfast sausages and finally a slice of true ham. 10 bucks with my cup of coffee that is so god awful but there's no other coffee i feel i deserved in that current state. that coffee that tastes like no hell but that's just want you need. the heat and the caffeine to try and jump start your mind in a lacklustre fashion.
it's a morning ritual i really take in and enjoy. Graeme and i didn't really talk much during breakfast...no doubt because we felt like bollocks and were decimating our brekky's, but also because my eyes were scanning every brick, every stainless steel top being sprayed down and every word that big lady would bark out.
i don't know, it's just a magical place to me. brings me back to an era that i wasn't even close to living in. don't you ever feel that? that retro feeling in your soul but in a way where it's like you were there, or you sure as hell would have loved to be? just for a while?
i find there's a poetry that goes about this town, and i find the introduction can be found at Mello's.
Check it out on Dalhousie street. huge sign. truly can't miss it, and nor should you.
Keep the memories in your bones.
-M
i'm half drunk now, i battered myself friday and saturday, so when my african family who is currently living in the house i grew up in decided to throw an impromptu soiree i had drinks again. i haven't had a weekend like this in..well a week, probably. i actually don't get that ridiculously drunk that often... that was so last year..when monday through friday was when i'd party and the weekend was serious time. when i made incredibly great choices with life and women...nawt. i don't regret a lot, i promise, but we can all agree i was not the smartest fellow on templeton street.
last night my roommate (and co host of this podcast) and i crashed at a family owned property near the market. after a night of decimating shots and eyeing ladies to no avail, we went the hell to bed. in the morning we decided to go to Mello's on dalhousie for breakfast.
Mello's has been around literally as long as ottawa has...well as long as i've been around in ottawa. There's so much to it, yet at the same time there's nothing to it. it's an old school diner. you walk in, there's the main bar lined with stools and then there are some private booths for the families and the lovers.
i've been going here to eat since my dad took me here many years ago after a good long ski in the gatineau hills. all it is, is feeling like you're in the movie "Grease" and a damn good breakfast.
there's the owner of the place..i knew her name at one point. a few years ago my girlfriend at the time and i would go there literally every sunday morning and she'd recognize us no problem. i would, and still do, recognize her easily. she's uh..a big lady. it ain't over until she sings. she's the classic diner waitress. calling you "doll" and "sweetheart" and calling out orders in some ridiculous vocabulary you can't recognize and saying how much she loves the maple leafs. she's nuts and gets the job done with incredible efficiency and precision. "hold the ketchup" and all that jazz.
the folks who go there are also what make it so special to me. you've got the retired (honourably or dishonourably) sailors with the rapier tattoo'd on their forearms, but the kind of tattoo that was done with such vile ink that their skin tried its hardest to reject it, and now looks like it could be brushed off. you've got the people who have been coming their for a hell of a lot longer than i have...silver haired ladies and gentlemen who do their crosswords and kill off easily a few hours sipping on 5 cups of coffee. you've got older burly men with Harley Davidson merchandise who talk about when they used to ride their metal steeds down these streets but got too preoccupied with families or a chronic heart problem.
and then you've got kids like me...giving off a desired aura of innocence and honesty that we may or may not actually have. with last nights smoke filled hair tucked into a toque (i don't smoke, but the rest of the world does, apparently), a plain white t-shirt with a stain from a drink I don't remember wrecking the New Jersey appeal i strive to accomplish, and scuffed shoes. i sit there with a good friend and i eat my breakfast. 3 slices of french toast with legitimate maple syrup served up with a duo of breakfast sausages and finally a slice of true ham. 10 bucks with my cup of coffee that is so god awful but there's no other coffee i feel i deserved in that current state. that coffee that tastes like no hell but that's just want you need. the heat and the caffeine to try and jump start your mind in a lacklustre fashion.
it's a morning ritual i really take in and enjoy. Graeme and i didn't really talk much during breakfast...no doubt because we felt like bollocks and were decimating our brekky's, but also because my eyes were scanning every brick, every stainless steel top being sprayed down and every word that big lady would bark out.
i don't know, it's just a magical place to me. brings me back to an era that i wasn't even close to living in. don't you ever feel that? that retro feeling in your soul but in a way where it's like you were there, or you sure as hell would have loved to be? just for a while?
i find there's a poetry that goes about this town, and i find the introduction can be found at Mello's.
Check it out on Dalhousie street. huge sign. truly can't miss it, and nor should you.
Keep the memories in your bones.
-M
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