Aix Cuisine du terroir

Ah yes, the Happening Gourmand is upon us again (www.happeninggourmand.com)! Last year, we went to Verses and this year, we decided to try an all new restaurant in the old port: Aix Cuisine du terroir, or Aix for the regulars. Let me reiterate what this Happening is all about: 6 restaurants (Vieux Port steakhouse, Restaurant Modavie, Taverne Gaspar, Méchant Boeuf, Suite 701, Bevo Bar + Pizzeria) have 23$ table d'hôte instead of the regular 36$ and 2 restaurants (Verses, Aix Cuisine du terroir) have a 27$ or 37$ table d'hôte instead of 44$. About half of them also offer a table d'hôte for lunch at 15$ (22$ usually). This, from the 10th of January to the 3rd of February. Basically, this gives us poor-ish people a chance to eat a great meal at a lower price :) We liked our experience last year and we love the concept so we decided to do it again this year! This time, instead of going with a bunch of people (and risking that some will be late![lots of swearing ensued]), we went with one friend and we had a great time!

Aix is located in the Place d'Armes hôtel, right below Suite 701. Actually, the latter was also part of the Happening but Aix's menu looked more appetizing. It's a 5 minute walk from the metro so it is quite well located indeed!The restaurant is very nice and chic, with banquettes everywhere, brick walls (we love love love that!) and big lamps, 60's style. I kind of had the feeling I was entering a Mad Men episode :)The ambiance was very nice at the beginning what with people talking and the clinging of glasses (but then a: the couple beside us started fighting and b: a loud group came in).

Anyhoot, our friend was already waiting for us so we sat down quickly. On top of it... at 7:45, the resto wasn't even half full. A very professional waiter arrived at our table right after we sat down. The way the Happening Gourmand works is that you have either 3 or 4 choices of appetizers and entrées and one desert. We had some questions about the menu and he was able to answer all of them. This is nice because sometimes you get waiters that don't know their menu. This pisses me off. WHAT? I'm a difficult client :) 

We had had the chance of looking at the menu online before and we had chosen what we wanted so the ordering was quite quick. We shared a bottle of white between us three. I had the bison carpaccio and the beef medallion (served with swiss chard, shiitake, dried fruits, mashed parsnips---yum and porto sauce). Ze wife had the vegetarian poutine and the salmon steak (served with shrimp bisque, butternut squash pearls and herb chiffonade) and ze friend had the smoked bacon parmentier (soup), spinach and l'Île-aux-grues cheddar  and the salmon as well.

The bread arrived with our appetizers and I kind of expected it to be warm but alas.... :( The waiter served us wine the right way (well, the right way is of course the way they do it at ITHQ... duh :)... but seriously, I mean he asked who wanted to taste it, and after, served the others before that person got more wine. Also, he did not turn the bottle while opening it. That is key. Why? Because it looks better damn it! So koodos to him! Oh, what was also ITHQ-like is that they brought us the right utensiles before every course. THAT's nice. It's nice not to have 18 utensiles on your table at first, you know?

My bison carpaccio

Ze friend's soup

Ze wife's veggie poutine

Let's talk about food, shall we? Let me just mention that I was lucky enough to pick the best things on the menu (which will explain my score, later).My appetizer was darn good, if I may say so myself (and the two other girls at my table said so too!)! Very thin slices of bison accompanied with jerusalem artichokes' chips, beet sprouts, parmesan shavings and apple jelly. Ah man. It's rare that I'm THIS satisfied with my food and this was gooo-hoood! The mix of flavors was perfect. Every bite was good. I must say I was perfectly amazed! Ze wife's veg poutine was good too, very original I must say. In it, there was polenta, leeks, caramelized onions, pepper sauce and cheese curds. The mix was a weird one, I must say, but it kind of grew on you. Ze wife liked it but I don't know... it remained a bit of a 'weird special poutine'. Another thing was that the polenta itself could have been crispier according to her. Ze friend's soup was good but a tad watery... which always sucks when you order soup.I must say though that the smoked flavour from the bacon came out really well and was delicious.

As for the main, well I have nothing bad to say about mine. Only good. First of all, all the plates were beautiful. The different colours and textures were there and our eyes were more than pleased! My beef was cooked just the way I like it, semi-rare. I'm not even exaggerating when I say it melted in my mouth. The parsnip puree was so smooth and very well seasoned, the mushrooms and the sauce were a great addition to the plate and the little green deco on top was lovely. Lovely!

Ze wife and ze friend's meal was enjoyed but not as much. It had a shrimp on top of the salmon and it was a tad plastic-y :( Also, the skin was still on and it was quite soggy so that was a tad unpleasant. Ze wife said that if they are going to keep the skin on, might as well make it crispy. Ze friend's fish had many bones still in there which was rather uncool (on the other hand, ze wife's had none). Don't get me wrong here, they liked their salmon very much, they just didn't like it as much as I LOVED my beef.

As for the desert, there was only one choice... so no choice :p It was basically cream and cookie and tiny chocolate balls in a verrine. Tasted very nice but obviously, it was nothing special. But that's ok. It wasn't overly sweet either so that's good sometimes and ze friend liked it like that:) It was a nice, simple desert. We didn't go there for desert!


Without tip, it cost me 45$ for my meal and 1/3 of a bottle of wine. Not too shabby for such a good, very much appreciated meal!

The service was amazing at first. AMAZING. The waiter was very present and he answered all of our questions. But then, nothing. No more waiter. He did not serve the wine again, or the water. The only other time we got some water was at the end of our meal by a busboy. And I was the designated wine girl during the meal. He also did not come by (not even once) to ask us how our meal was. That's just common courtesy! Sheesh!

So, for the (much awaited) scores:

Food: Me: 9

          Ze wife: 7.5

          Ze friend: 7

Service: I would say an average of 7 overall because our waiter was not nearly as present as we wanted him to be.

All in all, such a great foodie experience, especially for me! You have to try the Happening Gourmand... it is well worth it! You still have time, it ends feb 3rd.

Brit + Chips

Front of the resto in CDN. Meh.

We rarely go to fish + chips restaurants (well when the wife was in England in the fall she did take advantage of them f + c restos) so we decided on a whim to try one of them after going to see the new Bond movie (ha, you see the theme here?). So we decided to try Brit + Chips near our place on Côte-des-Neiges. There is one downtown which is quite popular and has a 91% on urbanspoon.com. Not too sure this one would get that score.

I say that because well... the place has been opened about 6 months, maybe a bit less, and there is never ANYONE in there. NO ONE. EVER. Who wants to go eat in an empty restaurant? How good can the food actually be if it's empty? THAT's what passers-by will tell themselves. Of course I don't think like that :) I wanna see WHY there's no one in there! And we have our first clue right when we get in. The way the restaurant is laid out, at the front, there are single chairs at a counter. Obvisouly you won't eat there if you're not alone. It's just badely laid out. They must lose a ton of customers because of that! Makes me sad. I feel a tear a-commin'. Also, it is not well located. Just before Pacini on Côte-des-Neiges, it's kind of in a 'hole': on the first floor of an apartment building, it's kind of weird and well, there are people south of it and north of it but not many pass BY.

As the restaurant is layed out, there are about 25 [noticeably very empty] seats up front and about 70 at the back. There were 4 clients in the resto when we got there. 4. And it was prime dinner time too. This is not starting off well.Anyhoot, the lack of clients aside, something reaked. I mean really reaked. What was it? Well what do you think can smell so bad in a fish and chip restaurant? Frying oil of course. Bah. I swear, the next day, after having a shower, I still smelled like that damn oil.Apart from that god awful smell, the place seemed really nice, brand new moldings, counters, etc... all in white and beige with frames on the wall of, you know, british stuff :p The music started off nice but then we started wondering why, you know, as somewhat of a theme, they were not playing english music. There was french music, popular music, but no english music. Weird. I mean whhheird.

We were starving when we got there, therefore very eager to eat! I guess that's the good thing about there not having very many clients: service is quick! Our waiter was very friendly and peppy. We read the menu, and decided on a couple things that we were to share. Luck would have it that half the things we wanted (pasties and pies) were not 'available' because they make them in the morning and when they're out, they're out. FUN! We ordered the cod with burgundy batter (a beer batter, very popular in fish and chips' native England) and the haddock with maple syrup batter, mushy peas and as a starter, we had the curry fish cake. We also had a glass of white wine each. 7$. Full to the brim. TO...THE...BRIM. I mean it wasn't the best wine, but not the worst either.

Curry fish 'cakes'

Since we were 4 in the resto, the food came very quickly, so 2 minutes later, we had our first course. Our 'nibble' was good (curry fish cake) but I must say that it DOES say 'cakes' on the menu and there was only one :( It was very nice and tasty and well curried (oh, and hot, which was nice!:) Accompanied with a nice little mayo and a slice of lemon with a great batter that was quite crunchy and satisfying indeed. The cake itself was a bit smooshy (such a technical term!) but still very enjoyable.

Haddock with maple syrup batter + fries + mushy peas

Cod with Burgundy batter

Now for the main course, I was not so keen on the mushy peas. They just didn't taste very good. They didn't have mint in them like they do in England and frankly, didn't have much taste. As for the fish, we couldn't really tell the difference between the maple syrup and the burgundy batter. Maybe one was SLIGHTLY sweeter but that's it. Both fish were moist and well cooked but not seasoned enough. I also found that there was a tad too much batter on both but I guess that's why it's called fried fish. I also found it a tad too greasy for my taste again, I am aware it was deep fried...). The fish came with a lovely tartar sauce (it was quite lovely indeed!) and some lemon of course. For a couple bucks more, you can take the chips (fries) with your fish so we did for one plate. Meh, the fries were ok but nothing to write home about. A bit disappointing seeing as they are supposed to be half of what people come to this restaurant for.

mmmya, it dson't look good...

...but at least there's ice cream! :p

As for the desert, well... we just HAD to try their 'deep fried whatever', a deep fried chocolate bar! I've heard about this a lot and never had I tried it SO.... we had the choice between a deep fried O'Henry, Bounty, Reese, Sneakers and 3 Musketeers so we took the latter.It was OK. Weird but OK. The batter could have been crispier. Apart from that, not much to say... I mean it's probably one of the piggiest (!) thing I've ever eaten. Leaving the restaurant we actually uttered the words 'je vais exploser'. When we got home, I think we stayed on the couch for an hour  before we could move again.in.

The service began really nicely and then we didn't see our waiter for a while. He didn't even check up on us to see if the meal was to our liking. Uncool. I'm just asking you to at least be in the room, you know? Sheesh!

Now, for the scores...

Food: 6/10

Service: 6.5/10 Could have been higher but, you know, he deserted us :(

OK experience but from what I've read, the downtown Brit + Chips should be better.

L'Avenue

Ah, l'Avenue! Nous adorons, ADORONS ce resto mais à chaque fois que nous y allons, il y a une file d'attente. Nous y sommes allées hier et laissez-moi vous dire qu'il faisait froid en ti-pépère! Le mercure est descendu jusqu'à -22 je crois. Très, très plaisant! En plus, tout le monde qui est déjà allé à l'Avenue le sait, il faut attendre dehors et souvent, on attend longtemps. Mais bon, des fois il faut souffrir pour être belle...euh... pour bien manger :)

UNE HEURE plus tard, une fois rentrés, nous pouvons admirer l'excentricité de la place. Il y a des gros miroirs avec des cadres dorés et des grosses boules lumineuses. Plutôt rétro :) Les toilettes sont, comme à l'habitude dans ce restaurant, psychédéliques avec des télévisions et plein de couleurs. Il y a un mannequin en entrant avec des habits excentriques. L'atmosphère en tant que telle est très plaisante: musique moyennement forte (le soir, par contre, il paraît qu'on ne s'entend pas parler) des années 90, beaucoup de gens et des serveurs qui courent ici et là.

Je ne vais pas mentir, l'unique et seule raison qui nous amène à manger le petit déjeuner à l'Avenue est la sélection d’œufs bénédictines au menu. En parlant du menu, il est IMMENSE!!!Celui-ci a l'air d'un livre...Un peu encombrant lorsque nous sommes cinq à une table destinée à quatre personnes! Revenons aux œufs bénédictines adorés: ils avaient changé leur menu depuis la dernière fois que nous étions allées donc ceci était très excitant! Habituellement, nous prenons les oeufs bénédictines avec du vieux fromage cheddar mais cette fois-ci, nous nous sommes décidées à choisir un nouvel item. Celui-ci avait l'air tellement alléchant que nous ne pouvions passer à côté! Bien sûr, comme d'hab, les oeufs ben sont accompagnés de petites patates délicieuses aux épices et aux herbes. Mmmmmm! Une brochette de fruits accompagne également cette assiette et est servie avant de recevoir le 'plat principal', un peu comme une petite entrée :)

Vu que nous connaissons bien les grosses portions de l'Avenue, nous allions séparer notre repas. Notre choix, Tout le monde à poële: poêlée de champignons sauvages, lardons, ail confit, roquette, réduction à la crème, nappés de sauce hollandaise. Tout ce que j'ai à dire est MMMMmmmmm! Quel bon mélange de saveurs! Les lardons avec les champignons=mmm. Les lardons avec la crème=mmmm. La roquette et les champignons=mmmm!!!! La seule chose qui clochait un peu c'est que l'ail ne paraissait pas très présent dans l'assiette. La sauce hollandaise était parfaite, l'oeuf parfait, tout était parfait. C'est certain que c'était un peu plus salé mais bon, il y avait des lardons donc on devait s'y attendre un peu.Les patates étaient excellentes, aucun autre commentaire n'est nécessaire!

Nous avons aussi pris un petit chocolat chaud (avec crème fouettée, bien sûr!) qui n'était vraiment pas si petit donc nous étions contentes de ne pas avoir pris le grand!  La personne qui faisait les drinks était très occupée donc notre serveur est venu nous informer que nous allions devoir patienter un peu, ce qui fût très apprécié. La crème fouettée était délicieuse (comme toutes les bonnes crème fouettées :) mais le chocolat chaud en tant que tel était un peu trop comme de l'eau chocolatée. Même pour 2$ et des peanuts.. c'était un peu triste.

Nos trois amis de table ont tous pris quelque chose de différent. L'amie de ze wife a pris un classique, les oeufs bénédictines de Monsieur Séguin. Son commentaire: délicieux comme d'habitude, le chèvre est bon et soyeux mais il y a un mini morceaux de chorizo qui a quitté une autre assiette en cuisine et s'est rendu jusque dans son assiette. Elle aimait le petit 'kick' mais pas tout le monde aurait aimé ça. Elle donne un 9 pour la bouffe.

Son copain a pris une omelette nommée La biquette (fromage de chèvre, asperges, oignons rouges, poivrons, poireaux, épinards, champignons sautés au beurre): un peu sèche, aucune bouchée n'est pareil, et il trouve un cheveux (qui, on espère était le sien!) dans son assiette. Il donne un 7.5.





Le copain du copain avait pris le Bobby does Dallas (3 oeufs brouillés avec cheddar, steak, champignons, oignons sautés à la sauce BBQ, sur pommes de terre rissolées). Celui-ci a dit de son assiette qu'elle était fantastique, merveilleuse, un vrai orgasme culinaire! Surtout la viande et la sauce. Il donne 7.75 car l'omelette en tant que tel n'était pas très satisfaisante, un peu fade.

Notre serveur était très amical, très enjoué. Il venait voir si tout allait, il nous emmenait les choses que nous lui demandions le plus vite possible, l'eau était sur la table avant même que nous aillions le temps de regarder nos menus, et il était souriant. J'aime les serveurs souriants :)

Alors, pour le pointage:

La bouffe 9.5
Le service 8.5 ... Nous avons attendu un peu trop vers la fin pour avoir l'addition...

Nous adorons ce resto et vous allez l'adorer aussi... si ça ne vous dérange pas d'attendre! À moins d'y aller soit à 8h OU à 14h!

Mâche

I met ze wife and her bro there after school one day. It's a new resto located right at the corner of Emery on St-Denis. I thought Mâche was a weird name for a restaurant and I STILL think it's weird. Mâche. Why? There's a pig on their sign out front. Pig... mâche...? There's a kind of lettuce named mâche...

Anyhoot, shouldn't look too deeply into it I guess!They have a pig on their sign because they use pork a lot. Clever.

This restaurant has about 40 seats, kind of cafeteria like... I don't know why I got that feeling... maybe because of the cement floors and the rows of seats. Actually, they're stools, not seats. Maybe that's where I got the caf thing. I loved the music that was playing... some classics like Les Cowboys Fringuants were very welcomed! Loved it! We were seated at the extreme end of the resto, yet when someone would open the door, the cold would be, well, very noticeable. Quite unfortunate. I really HATE it when that happens. Quite unpleasant, really. There was a tv, just hanging out there, that no one was watching and so I didn't really see the point of purchasing a tv that no one would watch. On the walls, there were stripes of colored lights and I also didn't know what they were doing there. And by that, I mean that they did not match the restaurant or the vibe.

The waiters were cute in their little plaid shirts and jeans. Kinda hip and 'cabane à sucre' at the same time (or a hip cabane à sucre?).

The menu is very simple: about 20 choices in all, most being either sandwiches, poutines or shepherd's pies. The prices were very affordable too, which I obviously like! No wait... love! For me, the menu gave me comforting choices: comforting poutines with meat, comforting shepherd's pies. A play on the classique québécois: there were many kinds of 'pâté chinois'! I love that! They sold wine by the glass and it was either white or red... nothing complicated. 6$ per glass. Mmmmgood, very affordable. 

I had pâté chinois with leeks, corn, meat and sweet potatoes. A classic! Well, not a classic per se but one of ours anyway: we always make pâté chinois with sweet potatoes. But not with leeks. And I won't start. That was my least favorite part of my meal. In the leeks' defense, ze wife loved that. The potatoes were so good and silky, the meat was very tasty and well seasoned and the whole was an all-around great mix.     Two things though: the portion was way too big and it was way too hot.

Now, the scores!

Food: 7/10 Good enough food but nothing to write home about! Especially not to yo mama who makes pâté chinois twice a month.

Service: 7.5 It was good but not the best. First waiter we got was very nice but the second one... smiles could have been more present :) :) :) !

All in all, a good place to go hang out with your buddies, not very much of a date kinda place. You certainly don't want to spend hours there but it's enjoyable nevertheless. 

Cacao 70

I love eating breakfast in a warm cozy restraurant. And that's just what we did last Saturday. We decided to try a new place so we picked Cacao 70, a relatively new spot on Ste-Catherine between Guy and Atwater. It was a tad funny to be stuck between a korean store and a ghetto bar, but anyhoot...Urbanspoon.ca informed us that 91% of the users liked this chocolaty restaurant so we went for it. We were meeting two of the wife's friends to celebrate her birthday but we ended up being 6 with a baby.

The place itself has very high ceilings, and it was nice how vibrant it was with all the hustle and bustle of coffee and hot chocolate (they have over 50 different hot chocolate recipes, including an 'international collection') being made and the waiters/waitresses running about. It was very busy, we got there at around 11:30 am and we were lucky to get a table in this resto that has around 100 seats. It's funny but I got the impression that we were kind of in a farm. Well for one thing, there was hay with cocoa bags put on wooden shelves everywhere. It was movember friendly...:) They had some stashes drawn on a board! Cute! We were seated right at the window so we could see all the french mistakes they made on their window signs. Great! I felt like telling them about it but didn't bother. I'll give them another month to change it or I'm calling the french police :p Loi 101!!

So, the menu is huge. No, sorry, it's mother freaking HUGE! On top of it, there are two! The regular menu and the brunch menu. The brunch menu has about 15 items on it so it ain't that bad but the other one, man!!! It has, i'd say, about 100 items, in very tiny writing that only people with 20/20 vision can read. Yep. Anyway, we just had the impression that they were repeating themselves a lot. It's as if they went like: 'how many dishes can we make with spinach? how bout eggs? how bout ham? how bout that God awful sausage(more on that later)? I think it took us at LEAST half an hour to choose what we wanted to order. They did have some crazy good ideas, especially with the chocolate items on the menu. 

Ze wife took this ke-ra-zy chocolate dish (meant for two) with this ginormous waffle, strawberries, bananas, super thick yummy hot chocolate, chocolate beads, chocolate fondue, and to top it all off, and THIS is the ke-ra-zy part, this tiny burner for your marshmallows!! OH and ice cream with melted chocolate on top. Dsamn! It was excellent! 

What was cute was that every brunch started with a plate of fruit and melted chocolate. Mmmmm mini fondue! I liked that. 

 

I was true to myself and took the piggiest (it's a word, I swear!) on the menu. It was called the Lazy breakfast. The works: eggs, bacon, sausage, ham, potatoes, beans and bread. LOTS of bread. A whole field of wheat in my plate :p i think I had about 6 slices of bread on there. I have to give them props for the presentation! It came in a metal skillet (which kept my food really hot)! I was pleasantly surprised and satisfied. Unfortunately, it was probably the best thing about my meal. The eggs were dry, there were too few beans (and I looooves my beans!), the ham was meh and the sausage, oh the sausage. I LOVE sausage. OK, stop laughing... I know that sounded weird and stuff since I love me some girl (for the record, the wife does not find this funny... but I am not going to yield! therefore, I'm not taking the sausage joke out :). It was so bad I couldn't eat the whole thing. I can't really explain it. It was even worse than that tiny sausage you get at cheap diners. 

As for the service, it was OK. The many waiters seemed to always be running around. And when we asked to join tables because we were going to have 2 more people comng and a baby, it was the end of the world. That kind of sucked. Although, I will give it to them; we were 3 at a table waiting for someone else for about 45 minutes without ordering, with people waiting to get seated.

So for the scores:

Service: 6.5/10

Food: 6/10 (for my plate), the wife gives hers 8/10 (props for originality!!)

Basically, they have good, original ideas but they have to work at it. It doesn't mean your restaurant will be good as soon as you open it: it takes time! I feel so wise.  

Here's the website! It's very new so it is not complete yet.

Les Tontons Flingueurs

After a loooong day at school last week, I got home to ze wife who said 'we're going out'. I was MORE than happy to oblige! We decided to go to a new restaurant (about 6 months) in Côte-des-Neiges, Les Tontons Flingueurs. In the hot summer days, there was always a bunch of people on the terasse, on Côte-des-Neiges and it seemed quite 'happenin'. Therefore, Tontons Flingueurs it was!!

The atmosphere itself was chill, with a nice vibe with jazz music playing. The actual place seems really big for the seats: there are about 70 seats and there should be more like 100. Hello profit? Mirors adorned the walls and there were a few chalk boards amongst the wooden panneling. Don't get me wrong, usually, I dson't like panneling, but it gave the place somewhat of a charm and kind of a cottage feel. Oh, also, the banquettes were church benches, which I found cool.

We got seated right away and our funky waiter (man, the afro on that guy was spectacular!) brought us paper menus (the menus were getting a makeover apparently). He told us about the specials that day. There were three and all seemed fancy and way more expansive than what was on the actual menu. On the menu, you could have believed that you were in somewhat of a somewhat fancy snack bar.

We ordered a bottle of Pinot grigio for 25$. As the waiter was bringing it to our table, I could see it was Barefoot, the 9,90$ wine at the SAQ. Man it really fizzles my dizzle (yes, it's an expression!) when restaurateurs sell a cheap SAQ wine for 2.5 its price! grrrrr! Nevertheless, it was served well, selon les standards de l'ITHQ, so that made me happy ;p

Ze wife ordered l'agneau et j'ai commandé la surlonge. We had the vegetable soup: somewhat of a puree of veggies, nicely seasoned, very comforting. La soupe était servie avec des croutons et du beurre. Twas quite nice.

About 15 minutes later, the waiter comes back and announces to ze wife that there is no more lamb. Hum, il est 6:30 et déjà, tu raye un plat de ta table d'hôte? She said she would take the surlonge instead and guess what? 10 minutes later, he was back telling her that was out too! Il lui a dit qu'ils allaient lui donner de la bavette à la place ('qui coûte plus cher en passant'). Fun. So now they've changed her options TWICE. BEFORE 7. By the way, we weren't even 10 in the restaurant. What the hell?

The food turned out to be just OK, nothing special, too many peppercorns on the meat. On a cold plate :( Grrrrr! The waiter could have asked us how we wanted our meat because it turned out to be a tad overcooked, which just added to all the shiz. Anyway, for 22$, not worth it! En plus, dans notre petite salade, il y avait des betteraves à la cuisson douteuse... elles étaient trop dures. Yet another dissapointment.

To add to all of this, the waiter took Isa's plate when she was done and I wasn't. I really hate it when waiters don't follow the protocole!

SO, next time, we won't pick 'the new place'... we'll just go back to Olivieri, right in front, which we are 100% that it will be worth our money.

Scores:

Food:5.5
Service: 6

And I'm being nice. If you want to try a new place, try another one.

Tempi Fa http://www.tempi-fa.com/

Tempi Fa is not located in Montreal. It's not even in Quebec or Canada... It's in Corsica. That's right: this is EATING OUT IN CORSICA!!! I know it doesn't seem that exciting right now but, who knows, you might go there at some point :)

Tempi Fa is located on the main street in Propriano, la rue Napoléon, juste en face du golfe du Valinco. La vue est absolument époustouflante, même si le restaurant en tant que tel n'est pas sur le bord de l'eau comme plusieurs autres aux alentours. Juste en face, de l'autre côté du golfe, Porto Pollo, Serra di Ferro en montagne et Olmeto, l'endroit où je faisais mon stage cet été. Il y a plusieurs restaurants au centre-ville de Propriano (prononcé Propriane), plusieurs, et je dis bien PLUSIEURS sont des pizzerias (la Corse est juste à côté de l'Italie après tout). You get kind of sick of pizza, even if it's good. Tempi Fa is a restaurant all on its own. Ce n'est pas seulement un resto, c'est une cantine, un bar à vins et une épicerie! En fait, tous, et je dis bien TOUS les produits que j'ai acheté en Corse pour ramener au Québec soit à ma copine ou à mes parents, ont été achetés à Tempi Fa.

Je suis allée mangé à Tempi Fa maintes fois cet été. Je suis allée avec Isa, avec d'autres amis avec qui j'habitais et notre toute dernière soirée en Corse a justement été célébrée à Tempi Fa. Vers 20h30, il faisait encore environ 30 degrés celsius, et nous étions une quinzaine à célébrer notre départ. C'était vraiment mémorable!

La première fois que je suis allée manger à Tempi Fa, c'était avec  Isa. Elle m'avait apporté le guide Lonely Planet de la Corse et, à Propriano, c'était le restaurant 'coup de coeur'. Donc, juste avant son départ pour Montréal, Isa et moi avons décidé de manger là. Quel bon choix! Premièrement, notre serveur était un ancien de l'hôtel où je travaillais donc nous en avons parlé à l'infini. C'était bien de pouvoir chialer avec quelqu'un qui avait déjà travaillé dans ces mauvaises conditions de travail (more on this later!)! Alors, il va sans dire qu'une petite connexion entre le serveur et moi s'est établie. You know what that means... better service :) En fait, le service à Tempi Fa était très bien, voir excellent, comparé à presque tous les autres restaurants que j'ai fréquenté en Corse. Un petit à côté:le service en Corse n'est vraiment, mais vraiment pas à la hauteur du service qu'on a au Québec. Vu que leur pourboire est supposément 'compris' dans la facture, et que nous ne devons pas laisser plus d'argent, les serveurs ne font aucun efforts pour plaire aux clients. Aucun. Nous en avons vu de toutes les couleurs.- des serveurs qui nous apportent le menu 15 minutes après notre arrivée, d'autres qui prennent des pauses cigarette juste à côté de nous sur les terrasses, et d'autres qui nous ignorent  complétement.

That said, our waiter was great. We had a bottle of bubbly, a Casa Nova rosé, which I would buy for 9 Euros at the market but would obviously go for about 3 times the price on the wine list. pfff. Still, this summer, I really appreciated my bubbly and also my rosé :) Mousseux rosé? Yes please! Anyhoo, good bottle, great serving of the bottle by our friendly waiter. As for the food, they have a couple different menus. They have the tapas menu, the regular menu and the wine list. They also have some extras on a board on the terasse. I just want to mention here that out of all the restaurants I went to in Corsica, this was my favourite one. It wasn't that cheap, but no that expensive either, the service was great and the food reprensented well Corsican products. Personnellement, j'ai pris la insalata di capra: salade verte, crustini de chèvre fermier saveur miel de printemps et figue, Prisuttu, tomate, Salinu, herbes du maquis, huile d'olive AOC Aliva Marina. Delicious. Simple, but really good. Le chèvre était excellent sur des croutons qui n'étaient pas trop durs, pas trop mous. Salinu est un sel aux noisettes et le Prisuttu est une viande qui fait partie des charcuteries populaires de la Corse. Le mélange des saveurs est excellent. Avec une petite touche d'huile d'olive que le resto vend dans leur petite épicerie, superbe! (ps: AOC=appellation d'origine contrôlée).

For the scores:

La bouffe: 9/10
Le service: 9/10



Tout ceci pour vous dire que si, un jour, vous allez en Corse, et, par chance, Propriano, allez à Tempi Fa! Ça vaut la peine!

Jardin de Panos

I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack baby! Corsica was wonderful but more on that later :) First review: un resto où Isa et moi sommes allées pendant mon heure de lunch lundi passé (ah oui, l'école a recommencé!). Nous n'y avions pas vraiment pensé préalablement mais il n'y a vraiment pas beaucoup de restos ouverts le lundi midi. Alors notre philosophie s'est vite déclarée: let's find a resto that's opened and eat there.

So we found it: Le jardin de Panos... a greek(y) resto on Duluth between St-Denis and Parc Lafontaine. From outside, this place looks like a quaint little place but when you walk in, you discover that this place is HUGE! I mean about 250-300 seats huge! The decor is nothing special... kind of cheap looking and there are so many tables that you kind of get the cabane à sucre feel. There is a big terasse at the back holding up to about 80 to 100 seats (did I mention that this place was HUGE?).

Also good to know that it's a BYOW. Another thing that should be noted: no debit, only credit and cash).

Quaint looking resto!

We were, I believe, the first clients there for lunch (it was around 11h30!) and so obviously we got seats right away. It was a tad weird that we had to go through a portion of the kitchen to get to our section. Not sure how much I liked that! Également, la console proche de notre table était beaucoup trop grosse et beaucoup trop remplie! So many things were going on there!

We got our menus and it was a bit bizarre how, yes, there were greek dishes... but then a 'greek section'. Rapport! Why? We ARE in a greek resto, right? We got bread first and it was nicely warm, which I like. Anyhoot, we shared everything, as per usual. I had the lentil soup and the wife had tomato juice. Neither were good.... my soup resembled the one that you get dans une cabane a sucre (pour continuer le thème)... very thick and culinarily unsatisfying. We had the spanakopita as an entree: ok but lacking in taste. We then shared the moussaka and souvlaki. Those were the highlights of our meal. The souvlaki (not the sandwich, the plate) was nicely seasoned and, well, tasted like a souvlaki :) I had never tasted moussaka before... but the wife had and she said it was quite authentic. Good to know SOME things were authentic!

Desert: we had 4 or 5 choices and so picked the baklava and a chocolate cake. I THINK I can compare this cake to my 4th birthday choco cake: made of plastic chocolate. Seriously... vraiment pas bon. Needless to say, don't get the cake. The baklava was ok, but not great... again lacking a tad in taste.

By the end of our lunch, we didn't know who was serving us, I think we got 2 or 3 different servers. I'm NOT ok with that. One of the reasons being that communication then becomes messed up. Case in point, both came one after the other to ask us about coffee and desert...


And now, the scores:

Food: 6/10
Service: 6.5/10

I mean, this was pretty much the only resto opened on Duluth so we basically didn't have a choice. If you HAVE a choice, go to another resto.

Congé

Bonjour tout le monde!!! Ceci est juste pour vous dire que je prends un ptit break de ce blog car je suis en Corse en ce moment!!! Merci de votre compréhension et on se revoit en septembre!!!

La Prunelle

Coupons are back in my life :) I bought 2 coupons, 12$ each, worth 25$ (each) on vieurbaine. We made reservations at La Prunelle, this cute bring-your-own-wine french bistro on Duluth. Looking at the menu, it looked really nice and filled with good ideas and interesting pairings. The place itself is quite small (about 47 seats including the bar) and cozy. I can only imagine how it would be in the summertime with all the windows opened. We 'called in late' and they said no problem which was nice. When we arrived, the waitress showed us to our table at the window right away (and the only bad comments I'd heard about this place was the fact that, even with reservations, people had waited too long before getting a table, which obviously was not the case here). The ambiance in the resto was relaxed and chill, a little chit-chat here, a little chit-chat there :) The music was there but not TOO present so that we could still hear ourselves talk. When we got there, at around 7 and there a couple people in the restaurant and it filled up quite quickly. I would suggest making reservations if you intend on having dinner there!

The bubbly waitress brought us a bucket for the wine right away which was appreciated and explained the 'extras' that were on the board very thoroughly. We had water on the table as soon as we sat down and we found her very efficient. We had already discussed what we were going to have: the menu dégustation (which is basically table d'hôte including dessert...) for 48$ and one main. Right before getting our appetizer, we got our [cold] bread with [cold, hard] butter. :(

Pour l'entrée, nous avons commandé le tartare de filet mignon de boeuf, labneh fouetté au chipotle et chips maison. Mmmmmm! The spices were just right, with cumin and hints of cardamome. La coupe était inégale selon moi mais Isa ne partageait pas mon avis. Même si ce facteur était présent, le plat en tant que tel était vraiment délicieux, les chips juste assez croustillantes et robustes pour soutenir un peu de tartare et un peu de labneh (un genre de yogourt très gouteux, rehaussé avec un peu de sel). La présentation du plat était ravissante et invitante. Nous avons beaucoup apprécié l'entrée, est-ce que ça paraît?

And now, the main! Nous avons partagé le pavé de thon itsumo, salicorne de mer au vinaigre de citron et salade de quinoa aux légumes ainsi que le magret de canard de la canardière, caramel de cassis et vinaigre de groseille, gratin de Yukon Gold et patates douces. First thing that hit me when I touched my plate was that it was cold. And Isa's plate... was cold too. When you pay 30 $ for your plate, you expect it to be hot! The quinoa on my plate was really good and savoury and cooked to perfection. Topping the quinoa, there was some micro mesclun with flowers in it, very beautiful on a plate (my favourite: flowers on a plate! It brings such joy :) ) The tuna itself...At first I appreciated the tuna... pretty much raw in the center, nice colour. First bite was good but then I noticed that it was cold and that the texture where it was cooked didn't feel right. It seemed like they cooked it in advanced and then 'finished' it up right before serving. A tad disapointing.

As for the magret de canard, it was well cooked and had a nice little balsamic/fruits des champs reduction type sauce. Very savoury, very nice on the palate! Tiny courgettes and zucchinis were there as accompaniments along with the Yukon Gold and sweet potato gratin. The miniature veggies were the perfect bite size but according to ze wife, the ratio of sweet potato and potato was 1:5.

We shared the dessert: gâteau au fromage rose blanche, sirop d'érable, beurre et rhum. This was a nice end to our dinner. Very tasty, especially with the maple syrup. The butter and the rhum added a certain 'je ne sais quoi' to it all. The plate was a tad dirty which was disapointing. You could actually see fingerprints on it.

You can't pay debit which kind of sucks so watch out! Bring cash or credit!

The scores:

Service: 9/10
Food: 7.5/10 it was just a tad disapointing overall considering the high prices

Going on a date? Go there!! It's nice, good service, nice ambiance, good times!


ps: Just a little reminder: if you want to go to the restos' websites, click on the title and it should bring you there!

The Grenadier Restaurant

I decided to go see ze wife in Toronto over the weekend. Therefore this will be eating out in Toronto part deux! Ze wife went for a walk in High Park earlier this week and saw that there was a little restaurant hidden in there, so when I got there, she told me we were going to go eat breakfast there on saturday morning. We got there at around 12:30 that 'morning' and went into this eighty's ish restaurant that looked really old school but not in a good way. There are two sections in there: one where you go up to the counter and pick whatever you wanna eat and then sit down and then there is the sit-down, you-get-a-waitress part of the restaurant. We chose the second one. We passed by this tiny table with only bottles of ketchup on it on our way to our table. May I also mention the abundance of plastic plants, some even creeping onto our table, in this restaurant. Ah, the charm of it! And the OLD carpets... bah.

You see when you enter this restaurant, you realise it's run by all these little elves, no, students... that are barely 16 (some looked 13 or 14). Therefore, the service was bound to be so-so. The waitress came to our table with the really-too-old-menus-that-u-can-barely-read-anything on. They had a nice selection of breakfasty stuff like omelets and pancakes and what have you. I chose my 'usual', the biggest breakfast there is on the menu: sausage, bacon, ham, eggs, bread potatoes. It was not the best breakfast, by far. First, three eggs= too much. Why not two? I think two should be the magic number here. But no, every breakfast contained three eggs (MY breakfast, all the omelets,...). The maple syrup that came with the pancake was obviously not real maple syrup but I guess that was to be expected. Ze wife ate the pancake and said it was really dry. My potatoes were so-so and there were not nearly enough on my plate. I don't know, I get THREE eggs, can't I get TWO and more potatoes please? The ham was a bit dry too. All in all, not exceptional.

We all had desert after, I don't know why... we were already full :/ I had a cheesecake and it was nice but not as nice as many I've tasted before and the wife had the banana choco cake (which I found a tad too dry and too banana-y) and it was the same for her. (Rockaberry ROCKS!)

As for the service, we had many people coming to our table and at some point, we were confused; who is serving us again? We didn't get regular refills of water, and at some point, it seemed like all the servers were sitting in a corner, eating. It took us a while to find our server and ask her for the bill, took a while to GET the bill and then another while for her to show up so that we can tell we'd be paying interac. Not too satisfied of the service but again, these people were all learning. (you should have seen the busboy--who could not have been more then 13, trying to see how he could pick up about 12 glasses, 5 plates and cutlery without making more then 1 trip. hehehe. funny shtuff. He actually managed it in the end!)

So, for the scores:
Food: 5.7 (don't ask)
Service: 6

It was fun to go and the prices were good, but I won't go back.