I took my girlfriend and our almost two-year old son out for dinner recently. We went to one of the fancier places in Hawkesbury. Which is kind of like saying I had a peanut butter sandwich with a better quality bread. But only if I wanted to be a little cruel.

We ended up at a place called L’Escale, just a few feet from the Ottawa River. There are four or five restaurants in Hawkesbury that are essentially clones — the menu selections are the same, the service is pretty much the same, the cooks were built in the same factory.

Their menu’s have at least 100 items, they price themselves two tiers above their true quality, they’re all delusional but you’ll end up at one eventually because you’ve been everywhere else six times.

They’re basically the place you go for an anniversary, or you’re tired of taking your date out to Subway every Friday.

Hawkesbury restaurants, the ones with four walls at least, tend to overload the plates. My Caesar was normal sized, but my girlfriend’s order was the more traditional Hawkesbury “10lbs of food isn’t enough, better make it 20” plate.

So, for a total of $50 ($42 + $8), my girlfriend had some kind of shellfish sampler plate and water, while I had a regular chicken Caesar salad and two diet Coke’s. Our son was acting out a bit towards the end, so we skipped dessert.

The best part of the evening was the view. We were at a table closest to a long row of massive floor to ceiling windows, and had a great view of the river, the turning trees and purple mountains of Grenville, Quebec. So that’s the photo.