Sunday, August 16, 2015

Café Bloom

Look! Look, it says 'Café Bloom' on the window!
Do you know how many restaurants are opened at 8 am on a Saturday morning in MTL? 3. OK that's a lie. But for us early risers (yes, even on the weekends!), there aren't that many options if you don't want to go to a 24 hour diner (meh) or a coffee shop (let's face it, NOT breakfast!). I was looking at my options on Zomato and I found this little gem, hidden in plain sight, about a 10 minute walk from my place. Oh, and in the past 2 years of living in this neighbourhood, I had neva eva EVA heard about or seen Café Bloom. Oy! 

Alright, so, located in a weird part of Pointe St-Charles where people rarely go if they don't work/live around there (unfortunately restaurants often close their doors because of lack of clients in that area), Café Bloom closes early on week days alike many restaurants around it (i.e: Café Cantina) because, well, there's pretty much no walking traffic. Like, at all.
This place was a lovely discovery, I must say! It's tremendously cute with its kids corner, mismatched tables and chairs and kinda hipster-y vibe (only kinda :) and great indie music. I kind of felt at home. They have an open kitchen, which I love... well until you see the cook pick his/her nose but thank the little baby Heysus I didn't witness any of that that day. 

The menu is on the black board behind the oh-so-very-cute bar: viennoiseries, coffees, home made juices, and brunch. Val and I both had the same thing, which, I must say, is a rarity; we usually try to get different things so we can taste them both but apparently we had our eyes on the 'tartine du brunch'. 
Tartine du brunch: scrambled eggs with herbs, parmesan and mushrooms on rye bread, mixed salad and cabbage salad. Let's start with the bad. Neva EVA put mixed salad anywhere on your menu. NO! I do not care if YOU like it (I don't know why you would) OR if you think it's oh-so-cheap (obviously there's a reason for that). Just don't do it. It was slightly acceptable about 8 years ago. Then, it was arugula, which is MUCH better, and now it's somethin' like kale which is MUCH MUCH better. Needless to say the addition of the three slices of radish was lost on me. Then, the cabbage salad. It was alright: adding sesame seeds was a nice touch and brought a little je ne sais quoi to the dish but it lacked salt, therefore flavor.

The scrambled eggs were nice and fluffy and moist (I despise that word--cringing!). The parmesan could have been a tad saltier, surprisingly. The mushrooms which were mainly morels (hello!) were good and full of flavor (garlic, hello!) but a tad on the squishy side. The herbs were great and obviously fit right in there: eggs? bread? mushrooms? I'm gonna have to say 'hello!' again! All in all, good but I wished the parmesan would have been a bit melted, ya know?

Service was ok: First off, when we said we didn't want coffee (that's right, TWO non coffee drinkers eating breakfast together), she didn't even bother asking if we wanted something else. Well, she a: lost more sales and b: more tip. And we had to ASK for water. I don't like asking for water. It should always be in my glass. Point final.

And now, the scores!

Food: 7
Service: 6

I'm toooootes going back to try more! And soon!

FYI: they have hosted exhibits in the past 2 years for up and coming artists!

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2 comments:

Linda said...

Hi Marie! So nice to see a post from you, especially since I just got home from a friend's place and thankfully they lived just two blocks from me, because this high heat and humidity is killing me.

The scrambled eggs look delicious! Never heard of this place before and I have been to Pointe St. Charles, although now it has been a good 4 or 5 years since I was there. Thank you so much for sharing, and I always look forward to your posts. :)

Marie said...

Thanks so much for reading Linda!!! And yes, the humidity is a killer!