Nacarat, part deux

Nacarat, Fairmont Queen E's bar, is takin' out a new cocktail menu and it is hot of the press! Head mixologist Nader Chabaane worked hard (I know, because I know his wife... BAM!) on a new menu, set up like a tasting wheel: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and my fave, umami! I was SO happy to see that on the menu!

First of all, I love the vibe in that bar: not too fancy, not too serious, but still sophisticated! If I'd have extra money lying around, I'd be there, like, a lot. A LOT. Perhaps worryingly a lot. I say that because the drinks are pricier than at other bars (16-24$), but hey, at other bars, the quality perhaps just ain't there.

And seriously, if you'd hear Nader talk about the way he came up with drinks, or how they make them, or what kind of scientific method goes into it, you'd understand the price of it. And they just look damn good. In another life, if I'm the head notary at the National Bank next door (let's face it, this was my uncle's job--props to Jean, up there), I'd be there every day after work for a nice, and much needed cocktail.

First, I had the Toadka: vermouth, vodka, crème de menthe, sweet peas, wasabi. My eye obviously got caught on the wasabi part. A drink with wasabi in it? Ugh... YA! I was totes excited, nay, ecstatic! Nader explained that for this drink not to actually BE green (I was actually wanting a green drink... but in hindsight, I guess getting a green drink doesn't fit everyone's taste!), they have to... well, I heard the word centrifuge and my mind kind of drifted off. What's important to know is that they go through a lot to make this drink. And this just goes to show you how high end this bar is! I did taste the wasabi, even though I would've loved more in there, and I thought there was a bit too much crème de menthe. Let's face it, I am not a crème de menthe girl. I'm just not. It's ma fault: my eyes got stuck on 'wasabi' and I was like I WANT IT! All in all it was a good drink and I did not regret ordering it, but I would have been coo coo with less crème de menthe and more of the waaasss!

Second drink I had was the Nacarat Is The New Black: midori, mescal, citrus, orange bitter and squid ink to make it black (SO awesome!) I mean, how cool does this sound? And how cool does it LOOK? Makes me think of a detective in the 50's! Yes Imma call it 'Detective Nacarat' from now on! I really loved the fact that they used squid ink to turn it black! Who here has seen squid ink on a bar menu, like, ever? No? That's what I thought. They definitely go the extra 8 miles. Btw, I really didn't mean to refer to Eminem's movie here, HAHA! All the flavours were in there! All o' them levels! It was just strong enough and the citrus was lovely! They know how to dose their sh*t at Nacarat. Oh, they know!

Third drink was le Ptit Louis: rhum, Southern Comfort, pineapple, lime, clove and anise on top. The surprise here was the anis. I do NOT like anis. Just like I can't handle fennel. Meh. BUT, surprisingly, this fit and I wasn't totally repulsed haha. It was a tad on the spicy side, which was quite lovely. A good pick!

We also got food. I mean, what is a night at a bar without the food? Well, that doesn't make much sense since usually, I go DRINK at a bar and it's rare that I order food. But... when in Rome, am I right? I absolutely loved everything on this pic! There as also 'Les Chinoiseries' which is not on here: cold soba noodles with shrimp. hello, shrimp. Yes, shrimp. I gotta say that we were all a bit surprised when we had our first bite and it was cold. But you know what, it was still much liked. The salmon tataki + homemade kimchi (YA, I said homemade) was right up ma freaking Asian alley. It was legit one of the best kimchi I've eaten... and I've eaten kimchi before. Believe me you! It was spicy enough, fermented enough, awesome enough! The salmon was also perf cooked/uncooked. It was a bit of a peculiar pairing but it was, let's say it together, right UP my ALLEY! I happily finished it when my girls were like 'girl, there's too much kimchi in there', and I was like 'yo, there's no such thing'. I mean, there WAS, but who gives a sh*t. The duck tacos in chicken skin. Excuse me? What did you WHAAATTT!!! The duck was perfectly cooked, the seasoning was on par and the chicken skin was so effin good! Not fatty at all, surprisingly. Les escargots! I used to HATE snails. Hate them hate them hate them. Of course, like a lot of people that hate them little creatures, I just had never tasted them :p With wild mushrooms and a red wine sauce, there is no way this was going to be bad. Well, it was amazing. It was literally gone in 2.5 seconds. Oh look, there are some escargots... oh wait, look, no more escargots.

The service was worthy of a great bar: quick and efficient. AND, hey, it doesn't hurt that the waitress was dang hot. OK, I do feel a couple harassment cases coming my way but pfff you don't know who/where I am! Alright, I guess you could just look at my bio, damn it! Anyhoot, it was good serv!

And now, les scores!

Booze: 8
Service: 9

And another win for Nacarat! And y'all KNOW I'll be back!

Canal Lounge

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And now, the scores!

Food + drinks: 8
Service: a generous 6

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

Chez Dallaire

This place was on ma list. Two weeks ago, I was supposed to hit up Chez Victoire and then plans fell through, bla bla bla, and it took me a good 40 minutes to figure out where to go instead. It had to be on my list, not too far, and, the clincher, open on Sunday. Chez Dallaire was the winner. I met Daiz there for dinner and drinks! Because, in life, what's better than dinner and drinks? The answer is NOT MUCH.

The place itself is located buttf*ck nowhere. That's where. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to curse like that. It's on Wellington where no one goes, like, ever. It's on a very sad strip of Wellington between the happy stores and restos in Verdun and the trains and all those container yards. Exciting, right? NO. Basically, a no man's land.

Music was quite loud when I got in and then they calmed down a bit on the base. It was heavy metal music at first but then they started putting classics from the old days (my high school days), which was great! Daiz and I shazamammed all those bad boys. It was nice to hear Matthew Good Band, which, excuse meee, I've seen twice in concert, and Fatboy Slim, which I'd hoped I'd seen twice in concert. It was a cozy space, separated in 3: when you got in there was the bar with a space for dancin', on the right, a space with some tables and on the right another room with some booths and more tables. The look was classic: brick walls, forest green chairs, wooden tables and light brown booths. Wooden floors, some candles and art on the walls completed the décor.

We arrived right before happy hour was done so hello 5$ glass of wine! I believe we ordered at 6h59. It was cutting it a bit close! We were to share the food because SHARING IS CARING... and things like that.

Los nachos: house pork sausage, red peppers, green onions, L'armateur cheese (which I can't find anywhere on the net... whhhheird) with sour cream and salsa. They weren't cheap on the salsa nor the sour cream, I'll tell ya that much! The peppers were grilled very nicely and full of flavour, and the green onions added a nice tang to the dish. Yes, a tang. TANG. Not a thang, a tang! You must get it by now. The sausage was juicy and spicy and I would've wanted more! Speaking of more, the nachos to toppings ratio wasn't awesome. Way too many nachos for the amount of toppings. Or more like not enough toppings for the amount of nachos.

The Dallaire poutine. This was interesting. Instead of fries, it was somewhat of a shredded potato patty which I found great! I believe the word I use was 'wow'. Yep, I went there. I enjoyed this 100% more than regular old fries. The duck was a bit dry (it seems to be a recurring thing recently) and the sauce was a bit too salty. I must say though that it tasted way better than the usual brown sauce. Ugh, brown sauce. The peas were nice and completed the 'hot chicken' look. The cheese

Service was wonderful at first: I got seated in 2 seconds and while I was waiting for Daiz to get her butt there, I got the two boys comin' over, asking me if I wanted anything, bringing me water, bringing me the menus... And then we were ready to order and suddenly, no one was there :/ I MAY be exaggerating... one of them came about 5 minutes later. Five minutes is long when you're starving! They didn't ask us if we liked our meal but the food came in a timely fashion.

And now, the scores!

Food: 6.5

Service: 7

L'Gros Luxe

I wanted to write another restaurant review. Ah, it always starts like that. Whenever I only have one review left on the back burner, I start feeling antsy and feel like I should have another one goin'. Why L'Gros Luxe? Easy: open late on Sunday evenings, close to my place, and cheap food that one would eat when wanting to pig out. OK, I didn't totally want to pig out but, since I hadn't had dessert in a couple weeks, I was planning on doing just that. Oink oink.

L'Gros Luxe is located where Limòn used to be. I loved that restaurant and I still, to this day, do not understand why it closed. Especially to be replaced by a l'Gros Luxe. It's very sad, really. Let's all hold hands and cry. Aaaaand we're good! But seriously, even if you serve awesome food and you have 8 billion clients, your restaurant is always at risk of closing. Yep, this is what I retained from my stint as an ITHQ student: 'Your restaurant WILL close. Do NOT open a restaurant. You will NOT succeed'. And all that jazz. Props to my friends who actually have opened restaurants and are still successful (read: surviving) to this day.

L'Gros Luxe kind of feels like a saloon. 'Hey, meet me at the saloon', I'll say. OK, no. No one ever says that. Forest green walls, wooden everything, chandeliers hanging. Alright, does that even sound like a saloon? What IS a saloon? Maybe I was a bit off. Hey, I was comin' off a 12 and a half hour work shift so I might have been a bit woozy. Bob Marley was playing and everything was irie man.

I was seated very quickly by the window. Great little spot so close to the sidewalk that I was afraid to leave my phone on that side of the table. I had already looked at the menu and knew what I wanted: a grilled cheese with pork and a pickle. Or pickled pork? Hum, ew. Side note: apparently they make awesome caesars with lots of stuff in there AND out (i.e.: a burger on a stick WHAT!!) but I'm still doing my month-without-alcohol business.

Grilled cheese Cubano and sweet potato fries. Lets start with the fries. Think about the most perfect fries you've ever tasted. Got it? Well, these were it. Crunchy, yet soft on the inside and seasoned to the t. Perfect. This, paired with that tangy dijonnaise type of mayo was a great match. The grilled cheese had 3 cheeses: mozarella, cheddar and suisse. Should be good right? Wrong. The cheese actually tasted like nothing and the only way I knew there was cheese in there is that it was all stringy and shizzle. They could have put water in there and it would have tasted the same. It would have been a bit soggy though. The pork was nearly nonexistent and the existent part was dry. The pickle was nice and briny but a pickle-only grilled cheese? Not a huge fan. On the menu it mentioned that the bread was artisanal (hehe, anal!--yes, I am 5) and from my point of view, this was white bread bought at Maxi. Nothing artisanal 'bout that!

Not sure I mentioned it, but I hadn't had a 'real' dessert in over 2 weeks. I deserved my dessert. I picked this: fried cookie dough, vanilla ice cream, lemon, white and dark chocolate. Before I say anything else, let me just mention that having known it was gonna be like dat, I would have waited to have a different dessert somewhere else. First off, it tasted nothing like the cookie dough I had been dreaming about. Yes, I have weird food dreams. It just tasted like a ball of fried dough. Bah. And it was quite hard to get through with my spoon. I would have needed a fork AND a knife! The ice cream had transformed into soup within a couple minutes and the white chocolate and the lemon were no where to be found. I looked, I swear! All in all, a very disappointing dessert.

Service was ... normal, for a lack of a better word. Got seated right away and mentioned that I was going to start by my lonesome but probably would be joined by a friend in a bit. They took that as 'I am waiting for a friend and am absolutely not hungry or thirsty right now so don't come to my table for 10 minutes'. I may be exaggerating. It was at least 6 minutes. Actually, I had to wave him down so that I could order and get some agua. I hate waving, it makes me feel like the Queen. Ha! At least he came and asked if we wanted anything from the kitchen when it was about to close. Many places don't do that and then you are still hungry and annoyed.

And now, the scores!

Food: 6 (potatoes can't always save the day)
Service: 7.5

On account of the flat grilled cheese and the uber dough-y dessert, I shant go back.

Sparrow

A couple weeks back, my friend Isa and I were looking for a new brunch place. You know the rest: we wanted somethin' hip, somethin' new, somethin' good. We chose Sparrow because it had all those qualities AND it wasn't far from my friend's place on Le Plateau. I also would like to mention that although I am fully bilingual, I'm more on the Loi 101's side when it comes to restaurants and shops' names. But you know what, let's face it, 'Le Moineau' would be a shitty name for a restaurant. 'Sparrow' is much prettier and magical (yes, I'm going for 'magical' here).

We headed there at around 10:15 am and lemme tell you that the brunch crowd apparently woke up way earlier than usual because it was full. Full, full, FULL. I remember a time when going out for brunch at 11 was still considered early. I mean I'm all for the early wake up time but I thought that was MY thing, not half of Montreal's population's thang.

Anyhoot, Sparrow is a bar. Prettier than most bars, it's a nice setting for brunch. A very popular brunch setting! It has high brass-covered ceilings, sparrows on the wooden walls, marble tabletops and a big arse bar you can eat at. Filled with 100 MILLION bottles. Well, it's a bar... duh. Nice catchy indie music was playing and although the place seemed loud, with the 800 people talking, we could still hear each other.

They have what I like to call an international menu (like at Le Bon Vivant): smoked meat, steak, eggs, Turkish plate, Moroccan dish, breakfast banh mi WHAT! I love it. I love eating where they don't only have eggs for breakfast/brunch. This menu was 1000 times more interesting to me than a lot of places. Which is pretty much mainly why I was attracted to it.

 

I had the breakfast banh mi. Duh. I mean, even if you know me a little bit, you just KNOW imma gonna have this. I was so damn excited it! As soon as I read the menu on my computer, at home, I knew. It was pretty much callin' out my name: Maaaaaariiiiiiie. OK, no, not like a ghost. I'm getting off track here! So this is what I got: a huge chunk of leafiness with three slices of radish and sesame seeds they called a salad. I'm sorry, this was NOT a salad. NO! Oh and I got a huge mofo of a bread with tiny bits of things inside. Seriously, this was nothing compared to the 'regular', 'normal' banh mi I usually buy. The only thing that was different was the egg and at least that was well done: runny but not too much, it acted kind of like a spread on the bread. The coriander was nice but I would have liked more and the pickled veggies were few and far between.The pork was quite tasty but sadly a tad dry. All in all, quite the early morning Vietnamese deception ( I AM aware that it was not technically Vietnamese).

Isa had the Turkish plate. Turned out to be about 15 times better than mine. Sigh. She gave it an 8 and said it was a fresh, delicious variety of thangs. I agree. I tasted most of it and it was just on par. The egg actually tasted like a farm egg, olives were nice but a tad too salty (I agreed but informed her that hey, olives are pretty much supposed to be salty) and a tad mushy (mmmya, you do NOT really want that in olives), feta was good but too salty yet again (there's a theme here) and the bread was perfect and moist. a great mix, if you will.

Mimosa. Perfect. One of the best I've had. Eva.

We HAD to have ourselves some donuts. What? Giving in to a guilty pleasure now and then is fine. Right? RIGHT? These were nutella donuts. Yes AND yes. The time we waited for them: NO! I seriously think we waited a good 25 minutes. TWENTY-FIVE. For three tiny bits of donuts. Come on! I'm sure our waitress forgot to punch it in. Grrr. Well, they were effin delicious. Oh GOD. It was very close to orgasmic. They absolutely saved the day for me. Hot, doughy, smushy, yummy, lemony, nutella-y goodness. Right. In. My. Mouth.

Service was.... meh. Basically, we were told we had to wait 20 minutes but got seated at the bar 5 minutes later (yay!) and then relocated to an actual table because the bar was too high for tiny me (I say it was an all-together way too high bar!). That part was good. And then our waitress came to see us and as soon as she did, I knew I was not going to love her. Or like her. Throughout our meal, it just seemed like she didn't give two shits about us. She was just downright unfriendly. She didn't ask us how our food was, and she was plain rude half the time. The bus girl was way nicer, at least flashing a couple smiles here and there.

And now, the scores!

Food: 7.5 Donuts clearly saved the day
Service: 6 And we are being nice here

I have many friends that love this bar and go there in the evening to have drinks. I would like to go back and try more on their menu but I'm certainly not going to order the banh me again and imma gonna steer clear of that waitress.