By Louise Rachlis
Peter So has been chair of the Somerset Business Improvement Area for three years, and he was a board member for many years before that.
“I was reluctant to join at first,” says the busy restaurateur, “but quickly realized it’s a valuable group of merchants who give each other ideas and together can negotiate with other stakeholders. We’re the voice of Chinatown merchants. The BIA is very important for negotiating with the city and construction people. Without them, nobody can do anything. Without the BIA there would not have been the hugely successful Somerset gateway to Chinatown.”
There are 14 BIA members, including city counsellor Diane Holmes.
Peter So has been in Canada since 1971, after leaving Hong Kong to come here for high school. He graduated from nursing school in 1977 and worked as a nurse at the Riverside Hospital for 17 years before he started So Good restaurant at 717 Somerset Street West.
“I picked the name So Good in 1994 because I wanted something simple people could remember, rather than a traditional Chinese name,” he says. “It reflects me and also the restaurant. Other companies have now taken the catch phrase on lots of their products.”
In the 1990s he was eating a lot of vegetarian dishes for his own health, and he realized that other Chinese restaurants weren’t doing much to respond to that preference. He added just seven vegetarian dishes at first in his restaurant to test the market, and now offers as many as 100. “Many vegetarians come and bring their friends,” he says. “Vegetarians can be very particular. If you don’t make a dish the way they want it, they won’t show up. Both vegetarians and non-vegetarians can equally enjoy the good food in our restaurant.”
Hugely popular dishes are anything with peanut sauce, and wu se vegetables (“it means ‘many coloured vegetables’, and also ‘delicious’) and the extensive variety of tofu dishes.
On the BIA front, So is enthusiastic about what’s to come on Somerset once the construction is complete. “Even though we have a lot of construction on Somerset now, when we finish we’ll have a new section from Rochester to Preston Street with new street lanterns and benches. There will also be Chinese zodiac symbols on the new sidewalk.”
He says they liked the design of Preston Street and are looking at getting Chinese sculptures along the street as well.
Despite delays, the BIA hopes the construction will be finished this year. “Construction is hurting a lot businesses because shoppers don’t like to walk long distances through a construction zone to get to a merchant.”
The BIA is proud of the Chinatown Gateway that won an Ottawa Tourism Award and many other design awards. Built totally with concrete, the gateway is one of kind outside China.
“It also won first prize for North American infrastructure under $5 million, the first time an Ottawa project has won,” he says. “The award went to Ottawa and to China, because workers from Beijing came in to work on it.” Seven officials from Beijing are travelling to Denver, Colorado to accept the award this fall.
The Chinese delegation will stay in Ottawa for a few days enroute to Denver to check out the archway. They will also help celebrate the 40th anniversary of relations between Canada and China.
The Somerset BIA hopes to persuade the City of Ottawa to give them a hand next year in putting in new benches and lanterns on the rest of Somerset to match the new section. “We’re also talking about expanding our developing area on Booth Street, so we’ll have more streets to serve the public.”
Meanwhile, this month So is renovating the So Good kitchen and taking holidays, including an Alaska cruise.
You see the BIA website at www.ottawachinatown.ca .
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