Monday, February 13, 2012

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!

Rôtisserie Mavi on Urbanspoon

Thursday, February 2, 2012

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!

Le Cagibi on Urbanspoon

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

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!!!

Verses on Urbanspoon