Canal Lounge

I've had my eye (ok, both eyes) on Canal Lounge since last summer, when they opened. I'm a member of H2O Adventures where I get ma kayak on every couple days and ride the canal from lock to lock and I was like hey wattaf*ck is that. My friend Margo from work told me she knew the guys that started this wonderful, first restaurant on water in Montreal. We HAD to go. Oh, and we did. Clo joined too.

The two owners renovated a bateau-mouche (or pleasure boat) and moored it to the Atwater dock. Prime spot. Prime. A floating lounge if you will. It's full of beautiful flowers and they have two outdoor spaces for clients. Inside, it's actually quite spacious and nicely decorated. They did an awesome job.

Basically, it's a bar with some bites to eat. I'd say they could have more to offer, snack wise. I understand that they have limited space to store goods, but I do know they have more stuff in an outdoor area, close to the boat. We saw one of the owners run back there for alcohol a couple times. They serve up olives, profiteroles, chips and a plate for two with cheese, tapenade, bread, crackers, what have you.

Sangria Tinto de Verano. I loves me a good sangria. Summer=sangria. Especially since Saturday was a pretty effin decent summer day, FINALLY! Man, it was like drinking water! Like, the best water ever. Tinto de Verano, created in Cordoba (one of my fave spots in Spain), unlike sangria, has no fruits. It's actually very simple: wine, soda, and some lemon fiz. It's known as summer water. Aw! Apart from a couple strawberries in our drink, there were none in the actual bottle. Although it was a tad on the sweet side, we really liked it. Hey, it's the summer drink d'excellence!

It was cute how they brought us a little bowl of popcorn. Who doesn't like popcorn? Plus, their cost on this is probably next to nil. Bravo. BRA-VO. We all like free stuff, am I right?

We got some olives on the side, because, let's face it, olives are yummy. And these hit the spot. Nothing like a little salt to counter sugar.

We also ordered the tapenade for two: hummus, tsatziki, guacamole, ciabatta, brie, charcuterie, pumpernickel bread, and some crackers. Very cute presentation! What was oh-so-cute were the little jars with all the dips but they were oh-so not practical. It would've been fun (yes, FUN) to dip but we had to take a spoon and put. Yes: spoon and put. As Chandler in Friends said: 'Baaaah, you licked. You licked and you put!'. I must admit this has NOTHING to do with this situation (except for the presence of a spoon) but I love talking about Friends too much, that's my problem. And what a big problem it is! Anyhoot, the charcuterie was just salty enough and went really well with some hummus and the brie. Or with the tsatziki, on a baguette. OR... You get the point. Everything was good with everything.  

We finished off the evening with their Aperol Spritz! Aperol is this liqueur made of bitter orange, rhubarb and some plants. This, mixed with bubbly Henkell, was A: really f*cking good and B: really f*cking good. Wait. Did I say that twice? Yes, yes I did. Needless to say it finished us off REAL well. Alcohol, hello! We certainly felt drunkered after this.

Service was. That's it: it was. It wasn't very quick and it wasn't very good. She only checked on us at the end of the soirée so that became somewhat of a moot point. It was long before she came to take our order and it took a while to get our food.

I *have* to mention that, by the end of the night, it had started to smell like boat washroom. You know, THAT smell? Mmmmya. We were leaving so it didn't bother us as much as the peeps that were still eating and drinking. It was NOT a very pleasant smell.

And now, the scores!

Food + drinks: 8
Service: a generous 6

I'm going back fo shizzle but I'm going to wish that service is quicker and that, maybe, they have more to offer, food wise.