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Centrale Bergham

1611 Bank St., 613-695-8844 , centralebergham.com

Open: Monday to Thursday and Saturday, 11 a.m. to midnight, Friday 2 p.m. to midnight, Sunday noon to midnight

Prices: large sandwiches $7.99 to $10.99

Access: No steps to front doors or washrooms

This column doesn’t stray often to cover fast-food franchises, but today’s subject, Centrale Bergham on Bank Street at Heron Road, is a distinctive, excessive and hyper-meaty exception.

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I’ve steeled myself and lunched there three times in the last week — not because the food is artisanal or delicious, but more because it intrigues and even bemuses me in terms of its multicultural message and uniqueness in Ottawa.

The casual eatery is a franchise of a four-year-old Montreal business that has ballooned to nine locations there and counting. A second Ottawa location is planned to open on Donald Street in the east end.

I don’t know what the company’s name, Centrale Bergham, evokes for you. It did not prepare for what I found there, namely massive sandwiches that were hybrids of submarines and pita pockets. “Kebab bread,” is Centrale Bergham’s term.