I have to say,
my girlfriend Mélanie and I aren’t really lucky when we go out on a date for a
quiet meal in a restaurant; it almost always rains, it’s cold and windy, and it
sometimes dampers our mood and excitement about trying something new.
Our night out to eat sushi was
one such evening. My girlfriend is new
to eating sushi and macki, so I wanted to be sure we would go someplace where
the food is fresh and the setting appropriate to maximize our enjoyment. If you’ve ever had bad sushi, you know some
of us don’t recover from a bad experience and vow to never eat sushi
again! I could have searched forever for
the perfect place... but then I thought I should consult my favorite expert:
Marie-Christine from “Eating out in Montreal”. She recommended “Mikado” – I looked it up,
read the menu, saw some pictures off of their website, and found they had 3
restaurants in Montreal! I figured I’d save on gas and make reservations
at the Monkland establishment.
First, they have a reservation
form you can use on their website, and they give you call to confirm. The whole thing took 4 minutes, from filling
the form to getting the call! I thought
that was very efficient indeed! I should
warn you though, if you have your computer speakers on max, put the volume down
before accessing the website because they have a splash welcome screen with
music that sort of doesn’t sound good when it’s super loud.
I also thought the Monkland area
would have better parking than the St-Denis or Laurier areas... but oh my was I
wrong! If you’re going to go by car,
prepare to walk some! I didn’t think it
was a big deal, we ate so much that the walk back to the car was a welcome
digestive aid... I believe access by
public transport is much easier though.
The Monkland restaurant has a
tiny terrace area in the front that looks out onto the busy street – it was too
cold and rainy for us to sit outside but otherwise I still wouldn’t want to eat
sushi with busy traffic zooming around me.
As for the inside decor, it’s pretty standard for a Japanese restaurant;
they don’t overcrowd the walls with knick-knacks which is a good thing. The table settings also have traditional
items on them, such as a weird looking bowl-apparatus that they remove from
your table when you sit down. It’s just
decorations I suppose. The music
could’ve been more traditional, but Japanese music does tend to be... snoozy at
best. What they had going on was a lot
of 80’s pop music which we thought was kind of funny, it certainly made us
smile to hear “Billy Jean” with our food.
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| Shrimp dumplings |
And speaking of food... there isn’t much that I could say about how
the general setting could prepare you for such a delicious experience, because
they are two separate things altogether.
At first I thought the weird bowls and Michael Jackson could mean the
food would be sub-par, but I assure you it is not! We started with a half-bottle of Kim Crawford
sauvignon white wine (it was expensive for a half-bottle) which had the
fruitiest taste that blended marvellously with our food! We started off with an order of 4 shrimp
dumplings, absolutely sublime! If not
for the large plate of sushi coming our way, we’d have eaten more
dumplings. Mikado has different ways of
ordering an assortment of sushi and maki, depending on your level of tolerance
for such things as caviar and algae.
 |
| Mixed makis with soya |
Mélanie, being new to sushi, still can’t get past those two traditional
ingredients so she went with a standard assortment of sushi wrapped in a sheet
of rice (or was it soya, I don’t know{note from M-C: soya!}) – this, you need to
do upon request otherwise they assume you’re ok with algae. This assortment had the usual cucumbers in
rice, and also salmon and shrimp and all of that (you’ll have to excuse me but
I didn’t retain every type of sushi on the plate).
I had the larger assortment which also
included maki, I like my sushi with algae and caviar. Overall we were blown away by the freshness,
the texture (I’ve often found the rice to be either too soggy or too dry) which
was perfect and the quantity. Prepare to
bring some money with you, our experience set us back a little.
We concluded with what they call
a “moelleux au chocolat”. I’m a dessert
fan, and a good dessert can make or break my experience. So when I inquired about this mysterious
item, I was surprised to learn it was not some fruit fried in oil soaked in
chocolate (again, I apologize if that sounds like I assume things about other
cultures, it’s not a bad thing if it has fried fruit) but rather it was a
chocolate soufflé! And this was our
first soufflé ever... and it was freaking awesome! I’ve seen it on TV and how when you cut into
it it’s supposed to be gooey and warm.
It was all that and then some!
One soufflé was enough for the two of us.
Throughout our culinary event we
were served by a very knowledgeable young lady who really made sure we knew
what we were ordering and came around just often enough to check up on our
table without being overbearing. I’d say
Mikado has a lot of confidence in what they serve so they don’t act insecure in
any way – they bring you food, you eat it and they know you’re not going to be
disappointed!
Service – 10/10
Food – 10/10
I highly recommend Mikado in the
Monkland area, and I hope to try out their other two establishments soon to
compare and validate their work ethic.
*Stuff to watch
out for: lack of suitable parking, might have to walk / tiny terrace next to
busy street / potential to be cold in the restaurant if seated near an air duct*
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