Mavi

Ze wife and I had been meaning to eat there for a loooong time and we finally ate there on Saturday. Correction: we ordered to take out, therefore in this review I will only be scoring the food and not the service. It had been a long time coming and it's about a block away so we were long overdue.

I was the one to go get the food---the wife was comfy on the couch---but in her defense, she hadn't slept much that night! Anyhoot, as soon as you open the door, the smells enter your nostrils and you're in Portugal. Ah, Portugal, how I miss thee! You immediately see the 'kitchen' which is out in the open and maybe shouldn't: stuff haphazardly stored everywhere, NO SINK (oh goodness, my profs would have a fit!), and a garbage bag left on the floor, in the middle of it all. Oh god! As I tried to take this out of my mind, I looked at the menu. It's been photocopied and put into this binder type thing and is not user friendly at all. As I tried to decode this menu, I noticed that Virgin Radio was blasting and I was a tad disappointed that it wasn't Portuguese music :(

I chose the sardines (with rice) and the chicken (with fries). I also took a sumol because let's face it, I just HAD to remind myself even more of our Portugal trip! The whole thing cost about 34$. This restaurant was once in the 'Cheap thrills' book (a book of restaurants that offer a meal for 15$ and under) and I found that it was juuust making it (I guess the sumol was not part of this) and restomontreal.ca mentions that you can get a meal for 25 to 30$. A bit too much for this restaurant. I think they should review their... reviews!

FOOD! I was told it was going to take about 30 minutes for the sardines and the rice which was fine, I just went back home and came back. When I arrived home, and we ate, it was like we were back in Lisboa, in this tavern type restaurant with only 2 choices on the menu (fish or meat) and there was this one dude in this enclosed grill 'cabana' type thing. Point is it was really good!!! The chicken had nice spices, although the breast was a tad dry but the juicy wings made up for it. The sardines were delicious, not too salty, with a little gremolata (garlic and herbs) on top and with perfectly crisped skin. Obviously the bones were still in there so be careful with that!!! Wouldn't be too pleasant to swallow those!

The salad that came with our meal had really REALLY long pieces of lettuce which made it hard for us to eat. Would have been nice if they'd think of cutting it! I also think there was too much salad (ratio was poor) but ze wife ate it all and didn't think like me. The rice was well cooked, with some veggies in there, but again, there was a bit too much of it. Lastly, the fries. They were damn good, if I may say so! Very crispy and delicious.

Here's the score!

Food: 8/10

Obviously, the fact that just a month ago, we were eating this in Portugal helped the experience but this is a great little restaurant!

Le Cagibi

I used to study there with friends when I was in CEGEP and they still lived in Montreal. It's located at the corner of St-Laurent and St-Viateur. So after getting some bagels at St-Viateur bagels the other day, we stopped by there to a: get something to eat and b: relive old times.

When you enter the place, some might think it would be a tad weird: old lamps and trinkets with old drapes on the old windows. There was dust everywhere: on the fans, the windows and even on the plants. There are two rooms and the one where we sat up on the stage is at the far back. Man is it musty in there! The washroom is also so fitting, as ghetto as the rest of it! It looks like an outhouse, without the hole in the ground of course!

Anyhoot, we ordered at the counter and then the girl brought us our stuff at the table. This is what we ordered: chili with nachos and yogurt (a nice twist on the sour cream with chili thing), an open-face sandwich and a croque-monsieur. The menu was basically composed of comfort food aaaand more comfort food, which was nice seeing as it wasn't too hot outside! The open-face sandwich was really good, kinda pizza-like with some sun dried tomatoes. I was not SO thrilled with the chili because a: it was vegetarian and b: not as good as my step-dad's(he makes the world's best chili!). The croque-monsieur had some brie in there and it was actually quite tasty, a tad salty but not too much.

As for the service, the girl at the counter was kind of weird: she was all shy and then we'd ask for a glass and she'd be like 'WHAT? NO! haha..ok!'. weird girl. We got our plates really quickly though, which was appreciated!

Food: 6.5
Service: 6.5... could have been 7 but you know... weird girl!

This is a great place to study in (there was practically no one talking) but not so much a place to go and have a bite. And THAT'S what I have to say about Cagibi!

Verses pendant le Happening Gourmand

Happening Gourmand!! Merci à ma copine de m'en avoir parlé et d'avoir gardé un article dans le journal Métro qui parlait justement de ce 'happening' au Vieux-Port de Montréal! Ça tombait bien, ma meilleure amie était en ville cette fin de semaine donc nous avons réservé chez Verses pour 20h30 vendredi soir pour 3 de mes meilleures amies, ma copine et moi. Ce resto est situé dans l'hôtel Nelligan, un hôtel très bien coté à Montréal.( http://www.hotelnelligan.com/ )

Nous y sommes arrivées vers 20h15 et nous attendions encore quelqu'un donc nous nous sommes assisses au bar pour prendre un verre. Le vin au verre le moins cher était à environ 10$... un peu cher je trouve mais pour un resto qui a habituellement une table d'hôte à 44$, j'imagine que ça a du sens. Deux minutes après notre arrivée, la serveuse est venue nous porter les menus, la musique était 'chill', pas trop forte, et il y avait un petit centre de table garni de pommes vertes. C'était joli et simple. Ma copine et moi avons pris la 'scarlett': bacardi limon, framboise, canneberge et vodka. Une autre des convives a pris un mojito framboises et l'autre, un verre de vin. Très savoureux! Toutefois, le mojito framboises et le scarlett étaient en tous points identiques sauf la menthe.

Bien que la cinquième personne soit arrivée plutôt en retard, nous avons quand même eu une table. Ouf!

À notre entrée, l'hôtesse nous avait dit que nous allions avoir une table ronde, donc avec une banquette mais finalement, lorsqu'est venu le moment de passer en salle à manger, il n'y en avait pas alors ils nous ont donné une table rectangulaire... un peu difficile pour communiquer entre nous.

Une fois assises, nous avons reçu les menus très rapidement, ce qui a été fort apprécié car nous étions affamées! Le service du vin s'est fait en bonne et due forme, ce qui m'a beaucoup plu (ITHQ, sort de ce corps!) Personnellement, j'ai commandé la salade de betteraves, les ravioli à la courge et comme dessert, une crème brûlée au chai!

La salade est arrivée peu après la commande sur une longue assiette rectangulaire placée à l'horizontal (tendance du moment). La salade était très bonne MAIS, en comparant à notre resto préféré, Olivieri, celle de Verses n'était pas à la hauteur. Elle contenait des betteraves rouges et jaunes, ainsi que du fromage de chèvre et des noix de grenobles caramélisées: un très bon mélange! Next: les ravioli! J'avais très hâte de pouvoir comparer leurs ravioli au ravioli de chez Olivieri! Malheureusement pour Verses, je dois dire que les ravioli de chez Olivieri sont meilleurs! Ils étaient un peu secs et il n'y avait pas assez de sauce ni de garniture à l'intérieur. Par contre, ils ont ajouté un peu de roquette; un beau petit ajout.

Crème brûlée comme dessert! J'avais hâte de goûter à une crème brûlée au chai. Nous avons été déçues encore une fois quand le serveur a apporté à ma copine une cuillière à potage à la place d'une plus petite cuillière. J'ai une amie qui a pris le plateau de fromages et pour la citer: «ça goûte le sel!» Les fromages étaient également tous trop froids; quelle belle façon de ruiner de bons fromages québécois! Une autre amie a pris la tartelette aux poires et chocolat et elle m'a dit que c'était beaucoup trop sucré et sec. Triste. Reparlons de la crème brûlée. Elle était vraiment bonne! Meilleure option du menu!

En ce qui a trait au service pendant notre repas, c'était correct mais pas spectaculaire. À la fin du service, les serveurs faisaient trop de bruits en polissant des verres et parlant entre eux. En parlant de serveurs, il y avait deux serveurs qui venaient de l'ITHQ! HAhahaha!

ALORS:

Pour la bouffe: une moyenne de 6.5
Pour le service: une moyenne de 7

En tant que cliente de plusieurs restaurants 'in' de Montréal, j'ai été déçue par le 'Happening Gourmand' et par Verses. Par contre, je tiens à dire qu'il faut quand même prendre avantage des 'promotions' comme le Happening Gourmand!!!

Tavern

I LOVE this restaurant. WE love this restaurant. My friend V, she REALLY loves this place. Her and her mom go a LOT. And it's worth it too! Although it's a tad annoying to get to when you don't have a car, it's well worth the metro and bus trip.

It's quite a small place and it's very good (did I mention that already? :p) so obviously, with that, comes lots of clients. You're pretty much guaranteed to wait at least 15 minutes when you go during dinner time, given that it's also a small place.

We went in December when it was cold outside and just being there warmed us up :) The decor is quite modern and it has a long bar for people that want to just have drinks or just for the people waiting for their tables. There was loud music playing (a TAD to loud)...Beatles and more classics like Bruce Springsteen and Aretha Franklin. 35 to 40 seats not counting the bar (about 12 seats). The only thing ruining the good vibe was un lampadère dehors that couldn't seem to decide if it was on or off. That was annoying.

I had the crispy honey ginger shrimp and the mac n' cheese (with pancetta!)--23$. Can I just mention that I LOVE shrimp and I've had them pretty much any way one can have shrimp. These were probably the best shrimp I've EVER had. I'm serious. Crispy, very tasty yumminess. Heavenly! My mac n' cheese was good too but I had had that before so I wasn't as excited about it as the shrimp!

The waitress served the wine just the way one is supposed to serve wine (well, according to ITHQ standards anyway!): she opened it with the tag on the bottle facing us, without twisting the bottle, put a bit in the taster's glass and the others clockwise and get back to the taster (of course, women are first and men, second... but we were three girls).

As for the desert, we had the 'délice d'automne' and it was just that, delicious! Panacotta pumpkin pie filling with some crumble in there... YUM!

As for paying, we had to wait a while, which was weird because there were still clients waiting at the door. You'd think she'd want us to leave so that more clients can come sit and therefore, get more tips!

So for the scores:

FOOD: 8/10
Service: 7.5 ...we did wait a tad too long to get the bill

I recommend this to anyone who wants to eat in a 'happenin' place' and eat good food and drink good wine!

ps: malheureusement, le site internet n'est pas terminé...

Manana

My school peeps always go out for lunch and I'm always the one resisting either because I brought my lunch or I'm broke. This time, I made an exception :) On a rainy lunch time at ITHQ, my friends Cam, Gab and I decided to venture out onto St-Denis and find a place to eat. And we found Manana. I had been there about 2 and a half years ago but did not remember just how good the food was.

First, I must mention how 'mexican-y' it is in there! It's wonderful; it's like 'oh, wait, I've just entered Mexico!'. There are a lot of colors and pictures of Frida in a corner. It was right before noon so there were about 3 other people in this small, cute resto. I ordered the sangria--I mean who can resist?--and it was amazing! Lots of fruits and very full of alcohol... just the way I like my drinks :)

Instead of bread, they brought us some nachos with salsa, which I thought was very fun, although the salsa was not nearly as spicy as I would have liked it to be. I had the fajitas con pollo and it was very nice, savory. It came with some guacamole--I LOVE the stuff-- and it was a great addition to a classic. I enjoyed dipping my fajitas in the smooth guacamole and making satisfied noises, much to the dismay of my lunch buddies. Of course, my plate also contained rice and black beans which were also good and completed the dish well. The girls loved their meals too, although I didn't really have time to note down what they had, having only about 40 minutes to find a restaurant, order, eat and go back to school. I actually didn't have time to finish my lunch so i took it back to school in a box and ate it for dinner :)

As for the service, it was quick, but we were about 5 in the restaurant so it wasn't much of an issue. Our waitress was nice and smiley and fast. When we were paying the bill, she gave us werthers original... rapport!

For the scores:

Food: 8
Service: 8

Whoever likes Mexican food must visit this restaurant! Its authentic decor and food makes it a great experience!

Café International

We had been meaning to go there for a while and since we were walking around dans la petite Italie à la fin de l'été, we thought we should go for it! Nous nous sommes assises dehors sur la petite terasse, entourée de jardinières et de petits arbres, créant l'illusion que l'on était pas vraiment sur le trottoir! :) Nous étions entourées de gens d'affaires, en grande majorité, surtout d'italiens bien sûr! C'était drôle, I don't know if it's because I watched the Sopranos the night before but most of them looked like they were part of the mafia, speaking to each other very quietly and holding locked briefcases. But that's probably just me!

Our waitress came to our table and she was so cute and cheerful, it made us smile! She explained the menu and the table d'hôte and came back 2 minutes later with a last minute addition to the table d'hôte: a roquette, fig and caramelized onions pizza. Hello! I jumped on that :p

So this is what I had and it came with a salad (maudite mesclun!) and canollis! Ze wife had the mushroom risotto: pleurotes, potobello, huile de trufle. My pizza was really REALLY good: tasty and not overly full of crap. So good that I made some in the weeks following our visit to the restaurant. Only shitty thing was that my caramelized onions were not caramelized at all... just cooked in a pan. That was kind of a let down. I also want to mention that the bread was excellent and fluffy, extremement moelleux, just you want out of bread :) We also had some bruschetta as an entree (she brought soup at first but we were like 'giiirl, we ordered the bruschetta!) It was very well seasoned and had celery in it which was a good addition. The salad was nothing special, I hate getting mesclun in a restaurant, I don't know why but I just do. The great vinaigrette made up for it though. Ze wife's risotto was very creamy and savory and again well seasoned. And she knows her risotto! We always make some at home and this one was really good! My canollis were good but pretty hard... like too hard for canollis. Since the wife has better teeth than me, she ate most of my desert. For the prices: risotto and entree cost 17$ and my table d'hôte cost 16$. Quite reasonable.

We had great service from the start and then the waitress kind of stopped coming. We wanted water and then the bill because we were kind of in a hurry and she was nowhere to be seen! Minus 5 points! She finally passed by our table and we had to stop her and ask her for the bill.

Here are the scores:

Food: an average of 7
Service: an average of 6.5 (could have been 9 but she deserted us!)

All in all, we were quite satisfied of our Italian experience and so if you happen to walk by in little Italy, you should definitely eat there!

Fou d'Asie

Ça faisait presque un an que mon amie Rosalie et moi nous étions vues donc vu que je vais à l'ITHQ et elle, l'UQAM, nous avons décidé de se rencontrer un peu dans le milieu; coin Ontario et St-Denis. On regarde autour et nous voyons le Commensal, Zyng et Fou d'Asie. On a choisi Fou d'Asie car nous avions entendu de bonnes choses et avions envie de manger de la bouffe asiatique.
Erreur.

Nous sommes arrivées vers 13h et dans ce géant restaurant, il n'y avait que quelques clients. Peut-être était-ce un mauvais présage. Mais bon, nous nous sommes assises à la fenêtre, avec une belle vue du Gentlemen's club de l'autre bord de la rue. Le décor (du resto et non du club en face :) était un peu bizarre: chaises roses flash et moyennement comfos, tables en bois foncées, fleurs artificielles ici et là, aquarium en arrière. Sans oublier le 'patchage' de peinture au plafond.
Notre table, qui était ornée d'un 'tit napperon' en papier, n'avait évidamment aucune nappe mais été particulièrement collante. Bah. Moi je dis go pas de nappe mais lave ta table! C'est vraiment déplaisant d'étendre ton bras sur la table et d'y laisser quelques poils!

Trois secondes plus tard, nous avions notre menu et woup, 3 autres secondes et le serveur était de retour pour prendre la commande. Surprises, nous lui avons dit, que 'euh, on a même pas regardé le menu'. L'eau a été servie immédiatement et le serveur est revenu quelques minutes plus tard.

Nous avons commandé le poulet au gingembre (Rosalie) et le poulet General Tao (moi). Ça faisait des années que j'avais mangé du general tao et j'aimais vraiment ça avant donc je me suis dis 'pourquoi pas'? Mon assiette est arrivée et l'assiette de Rosalie est arrivée... 5-6 minutes plus tard. Pas cool. En parlant de 'cool', nos assiettes étaient vraiment froides. Quand tu sers des mets chauds, tu réchauffes ton assiette!!!

Nos protéines étaient accompagnées de riz et de légumes. Premièrement, le poulet était un peu sec mais la sauce était bonne et me rappelait de bons souvenirs! Le riz était bin correct mais les légumes, difficilement mastiquables. En plus, ça paraissait qu'ils venaient directement d'un sac dans le congélateur. C'est plate.

Même pas deux secondes après avoir fini de manger, le serveur était de retour avec les factures. Il nous a annocé qu'il n'acceptait pas la carte débit. Shit. Quel resto n'accepte pas la carte débit??? Il a quand même fait signe de venir payer au comptoir donc il nous a donné l'impression que nous pouvions payer avec interac là. Nous lui avons dit que nous n'étions pas prête à payer et avons jasé un peu plus. Ensuite, rendues au bar, je lui donne ma carte et il répète que je ne peux pas l'utiliser. C'était pas clair, son affaire.

Note pour bouffe: 5.5 (décevant, légumes congelés, poulet sec)
Service: 5.5 (serveur trop vite sur ses patins pour nous faire commander et pour faire payer...tables collantes---je mets ça dans le service, oui!)

Notez que ze wife a lu ma critique et a dit que j'étais bien trop difficile.

Marché 27

I was very busy on the 19th of September and ze wife had a hard time planning time to celebrate my birthday! BUT, cute as she is, she put a note in my lunch bag with some kind of treasure hunt leading me to Marché 27. So instead of eating a homemade lunch, I ate at Marché 27. Sure beats a sandwich! I got there and the wife was waiting for me (in a very sexy dress no less... but that's another story). Knowing that I only had a short time to eat, she had already ordered and I ordered myself a drink to make it more birthday-y, even if it wasn't 12 yet. You only turn 22 once :p

The place itself is quite small: about 40 seats inside and 6 to 8 outside. The decor is simple but fun, clean tiles, clean lines, very cozy, with black boards all around featuring the menu and the specials.

The service was very fast but I gotta add here that we were the only ones in the restaurant for a good 15 minutes so if the service wouldn't have been good, there would've been a problem! The waitress was very nice and waited to take our plates away and when she did, we didn't feel 'forced to go' as we do in a lot of restaurants.

Parlons de la bouffe!!! YUM-MY! Ze wife était déjà allée avec une de ses amies et recommandait l'assiette dégustation de tartares, donc nous avons commandé celle-ci. DÉ-LI-CIEUX! Mais en premier, nous avons mangé une salade de crevettes, avocats et mangues; celle-ci était très bien assaisonnée et était entourée d'endives, ce qui nous permettait de manger avec nos mains! It was a fun dish to eat. As for the main, equally good if not more. Nous avions 5 tartares sur notre assiette avec une petite salade dans le milieu. Saumon thai, boeuf français,canard italien, cerf épicé, thon japonais. 50 g each, which was a good enough portion for the two of us, considering we had just eaten an entree and we had some fries on the side. There were also some big croutons and some uh, puffy rice caky things to eat the tartar with. They were all delicious, but my favorite one was the duck! I believe it was the wife's favorite one too. The least favorite was probably the beef and le cerf, but still good, don't get me wrong! The salmon one was good, but I've eaten so much salmon tartar that it's getting kind of old. But again, don't get me wrong, it was still good! I think it was the beef that wasn't cut like I wanted it to be; some larger chunks were hiding in there and were a bit less 'fun' to eat. Le poisson et les viandes étaient mariés parfaitement aux ingrédients et aux marinades. Très bien exécuté. As for my drink, it was called a Fancy (vodka, limonata, coulis de fraises et basilic frais) and it was goooo-hoood! Even better, if you go between 5 and 8 PM, they are only 5 $!

The scores, shall we?

Bouffe: 8.5/10
Service: 8/10

This place is a great spot, surtout pour les amateurs de tartare (il y a d'autres mets, bien sûr!) ! Il y en a tellement (cliquez sur le titre en haut et vous serez envoyés au site internet) et, comme mentionné, sont très bien exécutés. Parfait pour des petits repas en amoureux, des repas d'affaires ou même des repas entre amis. Nous le suggérons fortement!

Lakeview restaurant

Last month, ze wife and I were in Toronto and we went to this resto with my bf! Therefore this is the first edition of 'eating out in Toronto' !!!

We decided to go there because a: my friend had been there many times and b: it was close to her house. It was a nice not so little diner! I love diners! I just want hot waitresses rollerblading everywhere. But sadly, there were no rollerblading girls there :( It was nice, lot's of banquettes. I like those :) So as soon as we got in, we were seated. And as soon as we sat down, we got our menus. AND as soon as ze wife saw that there were milk shakes, she knew she wanted to order one. I felt the same about the 3$ mimosas! THREE DOLLARS!!! I think I had 3 throughout the meal! What? We were on vacation!

So we ordered the drinks first and ze wife,s milk shake arrived and lets just say it was QUITE the portion. Even SHE had a hard time finishing it.

Anyhoot, so we ordered: ze wife ordered a crab cake and a mac and cheese, friend and I had a burger with onion rings.. The crab cake was amazing. The onion rings were really good. Although I must say that it wasn't clear to me that I had to pay extra to trade my fries for onion rings. My burger was a bit dry and I maintain that the all time best meat burger is at McCarolds in CDN. My friend's burger was great and apparently 'it's basically every beautiful thing in a burger'. Hehe. The mac and cheese was dissapointing. It wasn't very tasty. Let's just agree that the best mac and cheese is at La Taverne in NDG.

Scores:

Food: une moyenne de 7.25/10. I also have to mention that if ze wife would have only eaten the mac and cheese, she would have given 5 instead of 7.5

Service: 7.5 It was good, the waiter was nice and efficient but slow. Especially at the end, when we wanted the bill!

It was a good lunch with a great friend and a WONDERFUL girlfriend :) I would go back and take something else on the menu!

Laurier Gordon Ramsay

Ah, the review many have been waiting for! I'm going to deliver the punch right now: it was dissapointing. I had attempted twice to go there. Once with my dad and sister, the day after the opening but there was a problem with the sprinkler system and so they had to shut it down (talk about a wonderful opening!). The second time was about 3 and a half weeks ago. Ze wife and I wanted to see what changes Ramsay had made to the institution that was le Laurier BBQ, and there was an hour wait so we decided to go eat elsewhere . I must mention that this resto has been opened for a couple months now and their delivery/take out service is only going to be functionnal at the end of september (so about now ish). Anyhoot, we managed to go 2 weeks ago for lunch and only waited about 20 minutes :)

Going in, it feels like you are entering a cottage. C'est chaleureux :) There's a fireplace right up a flight of stairs. Thing is, especially since Gordon took over and there is all this hype about it, there's no room for the people waiting to get to try his food. OK, no... there's one bench and they added 2 chairs but when there's 20 people waiting, and there is room for only 4 people to sit, it gets crowded and annoying. Especially for the waitresses trying to get to the tables.

We were seated a couple tables from the door (there is a door 'downstairs' and then another one up the stairs going into the restaurant) and even if it wasn't THAT cold outside, every time someone would open the door, we would feel it. I wonder what they'll do come winter time.
The ambiance itself is alright: half the people were elderly and the other half were there to try Gordon's new resto. Whitney Houston and Celine Dion made an appearance on the stereo :)

Our waitress arrived as soon as we sat down; she was old and very fast.. and was most likely a waitress at the Laurier BBQ for many... many years! Anyhoot, she brought us water, which had pieces of cucumber in it. Meh. Did not appreciate it that much. I would have prefered lemon or lime wedges instead or just nothing at all. It left a bad taste in my mouth.

Let's talk about the food now! Actually let's start about talking about the chef! Guillermo Russo was the chef au bistro Olivieri à Côte-des-neiges until early this year and was doing a great job there! We love Olivieri and go there a LOT and I think he could have done better than moving on to the Laurier G.R., sadly. I guess when a celebrity chef comes to town to open a new resto, you jump at the chance. We must also talk about the actual creator that is responsible for the change of an institution. Ah, Gordon! Gordon, a scottish chef, is the host of many shows relating to cooking: Hell's kitchen and Kitchen nightmares to name a few. He researches culinary perfection in everything (except, apparently, this restaurant) and does so with quite a temper! He is also the owner of many restaurants: Gordon Ramsay's plane food (in Heathrow airport), Murano (which has a michelin star) and Bread Street Kitchen in London, again to name only a few. He has opened no less than 15 restaurants over the years.

En tous cas, food! I have to mention that there was un pot de cornichons sur notre table en arrivant et ils étaient très bons! AAAAAAAAnd that's it for food. Just kidding, just kidding.

I took the 'guedilles' au fruits de mer and ze wife had the quarter chicken. We were sharing, as per usual. Let's talk about the chicken first. Meh. I mean, I used to go to the Laurier BBQ and I KNEW I was going to get the best chicken in town. With a great little sauce and some good bread. But when we went, the chicken was a tad dry and the sauce is not the same. And not in a good way. The sauce had some wine in it and as ze wife said ' y'a une épice qui m'gosse'. hehe. Mes guédilles ont aussi été décevantes. First, the plate was not too too appetizing: a very small handful of chips (that, like ze wife pointed out, were too thick to be crispy) that tasted like miss vickies and deux guédilles (seafood rolls) filled with... celery! Ya, I had a hard time finding the seafood in there. A shrimp here and there. And it was presented in a small, cheap hot dog bun. That was dissapointing.

Basically, it's very simple food, very simply made. Maybe a bit TOO simply made!

Here are the scores:

Service: 8. It was fast, when we asked for ketchup, we got it in 1 minute. Very straightforward, nothing special.

Food: 6.5 .Simple, not as good as before, sauce wasn't good... :(

All in all, I would advise you not to go there, especially if you want to go only because G.R. had something to do with the menu etc. C'était décevant et nous n'allons pas y retourner.

'If it ain't broken, don't fix it!'

L'un des sens

UPDATE! 2013-01-31: Unfortunately, this restaurant is now closed :( What a shame :(


Yet another coupon! Again I say, yay for coupons! This lovely restaurant is right in front of the Baldwin Barmacy, great spot to end up at after a great meal :) Great ambiance with great music that brought me a few years back with Chemical Brothers, Moby, Beck and Portishead just to name a few. We were actually about an hour late for our reservation so I called and they were totally cool with it. Now, I must be honest here, I started this post back in June and did not continue it until now. Therefore, my memory of this place is a bit frazzled. But I'll try to do my best!

We got there and immediately got seated in this long and narrow restaurant. We had a very enjoyable, funny waiter who made us feel very comfortable, which is always good :) The resto itself was quite nice: long mirrors along the walls on both sides to make it appear bigger, about 34 seats, 6 at the bar and around 10 on the side where the restaurant got a bit wider. There is also a long chalkboard with some elements from the menu along the wall with little candles right under it.

The menu itself changes every season which is great: they go with what's fresh! With the coupon that we had, we could order 3 dishes each (3 dishes for 33$, 4 for 44$ and so on; you have to take a minimum of 3 dishes per person with or without a coupon) so we opted for 5 entrées and 1 desert. 


We had the asparagus (many kinds of asparagus( asparagi?) white and green... made into different things: panacotta, salad and asperges au beurre), the risotto, les pétoncles (always lovely: cuîtes avec une croûte aux amandes), canard done in a couple ways, cerf (a bit gamy and they didn't ask which way we wanted it cooked--du cerf, c'est bon saignant. Even if this was not to our liking, the sauce was amazing), and for desert, the crème brûlée au foie gras!! YUM! I mean, how decadent (and fattening) can you get? It was very good and we wanted more!

So, for the scores:

Food: 8.5/10
Service: 9/10

Even if we waited quite a while for our desert, it was worth it and I think that's the reason why we gave the service a 9... which is not too shabby!

We strongly recommend this restaurant for a dinner amongst friends or a romantic evening! It was a great discovery!

Aux Vivres

Last week, Isa asked me if I wanted to join her and some co-workers for dinner at Aux Vivres, this really cute vegan resto on St-Laurent. Without thinking about it, I said YES!! I used to eat at this place pretty regularly when I lived on le Plateau and well.. it had been a while.

It's a great place to eat some vegan food without being TOO vegan...if you know what I mean..., with a nice patio out back including a nice little garden (or from what I remember from a couple years back). They also have a take-out counter!

We were seated right away but waited quite a bit, I thought, for our food. I had the mumbai plate and Isa had the portobello burger. I LOVE this thing: chickpeas in a somewhat spicy sauce and coriander (!), salad, and refreshing chutney. mmmm...chutney. Isa's burger was nice but lacked a tiny bit in flavor and she had some fries with a marvellous spicy chipotle kinda mayo sauce. Yum yum YUM! And a bonus is that they always use very very fresh veggies and fruits :)

The two coworkers that were with us had sandwiches in a ciabatta and apparently they were tasty but full of lettuce (a little too much) and really HUGE...like enough for two meals... which usually isn't a bad thing per se but if you bring that shiz home, it'll be soggy the next day for lunch!

One thing that annoyed me was the fact that the waitress took away plates before everyone was done and that is against my service code... yes, i have a code :p

So for the scores (these will only be MY scores seeing as the wife is not home to tell me hers!) :

food: 8/10 loooove that chutney!
service: 7/10

As per usual, very pleasant, fun food experience! If you want vegan food and you are not a vegan, go to Aux Vivres! Also go if you ARE a vegan,of course, hehe.

St-Hub

I go out to lunch with my dad about twice a month to catch up and so yesterday we went to la gare Windsor. That's right, we went to St-Hubert! It had been years since I had eaten there so I said why not?!

I gotta say, it was nothing special... I guess it was to be expected...

It's HUGE. I don't even know how many seats there are in there... at least a couple hundred. We were seated right away and our sweaty waitress came as soon as we sat down to take our order. Very affordable: about 10 bucks for the meal plus a drink and a desert. We both took the chicken filets. I wasn't too pleased with the presentation... they were kinda plopped onto the plate with some fries and a piece of bread. Meh. I must also mention that the table was sticky. I HATE it when my table is sticky... it just shows that they don't clean that shiz after someone spills pop on it!

Anyhoot, a bit of history, yes? St-Hubert was the first restaurant to deliver in the 50's and also the first one to have recyclable boxes for take-out. It IS an institution. And let's face it, it's still working to this day so they must be doing something right!

Here are the scores:

Bouffe: 5/10 Not a great presentation and very VERY simple. The usual for St-Hubert: coleslaw, fries, sauce, bread, chicken

Service: 6/10 Took our waitress 10minutes to bring me water after I had asked for it. Comme mon père dirait, 'c'est pas mal ordinaire ça!'

All in all, a good ambiance, ok service, food not exceptional, would not go back in the next year or so.

Moutons noirs

All I have to say about this resto is DISAPOINTING! But first, the review:

I had been told by one of my coworkers that this place was nice and the fact that you could bring your own wine and they would then offer you an array of sangria mixes was cool.
A good thing was that even if we were seated inside at first, we could go outside if a table cleared. So we waited about 10minutes and went outside onto a tight but cute terasse.

We ordered the litchi sangria (mango, cranberries, litchi). The waiter forgot our cranberries and just came to our table and plopped them into our pitcher which was not too nice. We waited a long time for our bread but at least it was warm when it arrived! We ordered the saumon avec croûte d'oignons et l'agneau soleil. We wanted these at separate times for us to be able to share both and this proved to be very freaking difficult to understand by our waiter. And we payed the price.

We got the saumon about 20 minutes after our arrival and we got the other plate about 1 hour and some after. UNCOOL! We ended up ordering another pitcher of sangria. Waited and waited and finally we had to ask someone about our plate and they seemed surprised at first and then said that the kitchen was 'having problems'. right.

FINALLY we got our lamb aaaaaaaaaand it was cold! Oh no they dsidn't!!! hahaha. But seriously. By that time I was so angry that on our resto date night that I was inviting my girlfriend to, that they would fuck up so much! We took one bite. It was alright but as I mentioned, cold! I kindly called on the waitress and told her we were returning the plate and we didn't want to pay for it. She came back 5 minutes later to say it was OK. You better believe it's ok!!!!

En plus, on avait entendu une autre serveuse dire à des clients, en espagnol, que le resto était pas superet surtout pas le service, et la cuisine! The wife translated this for me and I mean, if people working at the restaurant think it's not that good, that can't be good, now can it?

So basically the only reason we stayed that long is that we had sangria.

Scores:
service: 4/10 (the guy inside absolutely sucked but the girl outside was nicer)
food: 5/10 (not exceptional and let's not forget our second plate was cold and we just ate one bite each)

All in all, possibly our worst restaurant experience in Montreal, sadly. We had such high hopes!!! I ended up giving 7% tip and we walked over to Rockaberry to eat some well deserved GOOD desert!

Pub Mc Carold's

Last Saturday, we were supposed to go out to eat with friends and at the last minute, they canceled :( SO we decided to go out anyway and went to Mc Carold's pub a couple blocks away. I know them as the best freaking burger place around. And they didn't dissapoint!!!

We sat down and got the menus very quickly and subsequently got our food and beverages quickly as well. Just the way I like it :) I took the Ballymore (bacon, swiss cheese, mushrooms--9.95$) and Isa took the Cheesy Jack (poutine with beer and mustard cheese and some fried onions on top with a Jack ddaniels gravy!--6.75$ for a small one and 9.75$ for a big one--she took the small one but thye gave her the big one!!). My burger was sooo good: moist, crunchy bacon goodness with enough cheese compared to other places where they put a hint of cheese in there. Isa's poutine was good. Even I liked it and I usually don't like poutine, so that one was a winner. The crunchy onions on top were a great touch! I must also mention that they use une huile sans gras trans pour les frites AND that you can make any burger a veggie burger.

We took a litre (24$) of sangria(which turned out to be a tad too much but hell...) and it was pretty good. Not the best ever, and I think we can make a better one but for a bar, pretty good. We ordered it and about 5 minutes later, it was on our table. It's always so satisfying to get your shiz quickly after ordering it! Oh and might I say that it was a BIG litre!

The atmosphere of the place was good: people talking--it was pretty full--and the Beatles playing on the stereo. That was enjoyable!

As I mentioned before, Isa had ordered a small poutine and she got a big one so they just let her have it for the price of the smaller version. More food for us! Hahaha!

So for the scores:

Food: We both agree on 8/10
Service: 8/10

I must mention that its not the first time we go there and their interac/credit machine is not working. And you know, when there's a note in the door right in front of you, you barely ever see it so we ate and then gave her cards and she said 'didn't you see the note???'. BAH. So Isa, lovely girlfriend that she is, ran home to transfer herself some money and then got some money out and came back. That was a hassle though and not very cool.

Apart from that, a very good place! If you are looking for a good burger(or poutine) and you've tried of Frites Alors! a couple times and weren't satisfied with their DRY burgers, go to McCarold's, corner of Lacombe and Côte-des-Neiges.