Padoca

After going to Pho Viet, we needed something sweet. Isa, who works right around the corner, suggested a new place, Padoca. A Brazilian bakery. Hello. And hello again.

The place itself is really quite quaint (say that 5 times in a row, I dare you!), very simple and very white. They have a counter with lots of yumminess, where there must be puddles of drool where clients have opened their mouth in awe of the deliciousness.

I had two desserts, because why just have one? Exactly!

The pao de mel. This basically comprises of chocolate, honey and caramel. It tasted like a big gingerbread cookie but WAY better. It had the spices and the honey sweetness and then, when I got to the middle, BAM, caramel. Oh, and it was coated with chocolate. SO good! Not overly sweet and I really liked that spicy side. Isa thought it was too spicy but I loved it. I obviously couldn't get enough of that caramel; y'all know I go cray cray for sweet thangs. I ate it very fast. TOO fast.

The queijadinha! Whoa, that was a mouthful! This dessert included coconut and cheese. Weird sounding, right? Wrong! Ok, no, it DID sound weird, but strangely, both flavours went very well together. We could even say they 'married well'. Yes, the experts say that. It was a bit stale and could have been cheesier. It tasted more like vanilla than cheese. Since I've been sadly self-diagnosed as being lactose intolerant (it was hard on the whole family and on the part of me that LOVES DAIRY), when I do eat cheese, I want to eat cheese, you know?

The score: 8

Don't you worry, I'll be back to try more loveliness!

Sweet Lee's

Last week, I was sick as a dsawg. You know why? Because I hang out with cute-ass kiddies that go to daycare. OK, those kids are my nephews. I just can't stop myself from sharing food, getting/giving kisses or anything else that includes germs. Every time I get serious sicknesses, I know who to blame. Coincidentally, I can always trace it back to a couple days prior, when I saw them last.  Oh, and did I mention I'm almost out of sick days at work because of those cuties? Yep.

After going to the clinic last week, I felt like eating something, but I didn't really know what to put in my mouth. NO, that was not sexual. You never know. So I thought maybe something sweet would make my stomach happy. I googled 'patisseries in Verdun' and the first thing that popped up was Sweet Lee's. Sounds sweet enough!

This cute little place is located pretty much right in front metro de l'Eglise, not far from my second home, le gym. You go in and they have a counter for dem pastries and one for coffee. It's St-Henri coffee so that's AWESOME.... apparently. I dislike coffee to the highest level of hate so I can't say nothin' bout that, but I KNOW peeps go cray for this coffee. What I was looking for were pastries.

The coconut meringue. Coconut? Yes. Meringue? YES! It was soft and flaky although I like my meringue EXTRA flaky! My grand-mother used to make the perfect chocolate chip meringue. Ah, the memories! I have a feeling the coconut made it a bit stale for some reason. Maybe not stale, but at least dry. I mean, it was nice, and y'all know how much I like coconut, but it wasn't my all time fave meringue.

The dark chocolate, maple, cranberry fondant. Imma say yes. Imma say a BIG yes. Imma... you get it. I absolutely LOVE fondants. Love em, love em, love em. Although the girl at the counter warmed it up, it still wasn't hot enough for my liking. But who CARES! OK, I did a little bit, but the flavours more than made up for it. The sweetness of the chocolate and the tartness of the cranberries were a marriage in pastry heaven. A perfect match, one might say. The crust was right on and the maple syrup, not overpowering. It was heavy as shiz but I didn't expect anything less from a fondant.

Service was good. Well, it was counter service. She DID come to my table to bring me my fondant. And for that, I will LOVE HER FOREVER.

And now, the scores!

Food: 8
Service: 9

Before you ask, yes, I'll totes go back. Perhaps for a different fondant! Who knows!?

Le Red Tiger

I went to Le Red Tiger (Btw, LOVE the name: I just imagine this very french person saying it with an big accent. I loves it) last winter (ugh, winter) for a birthday and loved it. I HAD to go back and write me a review!

I got some peeps together: my awesome gym girl, Vanes, and my awesome work girl, Clo. It was gonna be, wait for it, awesome! I realised that I hadn't eaten anything Asian in at least 3 weeks. Possibly THE longest time I've gone without it. It's like a drug, you know. Dem Asians know how to pull you back in.

We got there for 6h30 pm and it was already getting full damn it! They had a bunch of reservations so we got stuck at the bar, and then we got even MORE stuck because there was a reservation right beside us. This meant that the waiter had to bring us another stool and that one of us (I'm sorry Clo), had to be in the corner, with barely enough room to eat. Nobody puts Baby in a corner. Nobody. Ah, Dirty Dancing! But seriously, that sucked. Nevertheless, the place was happenin' and we could see all the hustling and bustling in the kitchen.

Grilled pork sausage spring roll à la viet! This was very.... leafy! Hoisin sauce accompanying the dish was lovely. I just LOVE that sweetness! That pork sausage was a tad dry but still awesomeballz. I just wished there would've been more of it!

Pork and shrimp Vietnamese crepes. I really loved these! Little bites of loveliness, really! The mix of pork and shrimp was right on and the fact that it tasted like coconut was just right up my alley. My coconut alley. The green onions added a certain tang to it, which I love in any dish. Well, except dessert: I usually don't need green onions in ma dessert.

5 spice pork chops. Yes. AND yes. The meat was falling off the bone and uber tender! I'm a fan of fall-off-the-bone-goodness. I totes dug (yes, I speak like I'm a Cali surfer now) the spices and the addition of peanut made it even better. I love to have a crunch and the peanuts gave me just that!

Pork and shrimp fried wonton. These were super crunchy but did not hold enough stuff. It kind of felt like we were only eating wonton. So basically, I was eating only the fried stuff. Not a fan of just eating a ball of fried shizzle.

Service was alright. In my opinion, we were sitting in a position where we should've had better service. Water wasn't always full and you just KNOW how high on my priority list this is. Water is what you need to live, damn it! The food came at a great pace so that was a plus. Points for YOU!

And now, the scores!

Food: 7.5
Service: 7

I'll go back, but I'll make a reservation next time!

Satay Brothers

Last week, I partied way too hard. Like, WAY. Ugh. I remember tequila shots. And more tequila shots. It wasn't pretty. This level of drunkeredness (yes, this is an AWESOME made up word) only meant one thing: a huge hangover. No amount of water or tylenol would fix what was to become the winner of all hangovers: a two-day one. Ugh. I needed food. Good food on the cheap side. As I've said before, it seems like most of the restaurants in the South-West are closed on Sunday so Lea and I had to try to find la perle rare as we say in French. Loosely translated, a gem, nay, the holy grail! The winner of this lengthy search was none other than Satay Brothers.

Satay brothers have a stand in the Atwater market during the summer and it's always uber busy. I've eaten there on a warm sunny day and it was delicious. Well, this time, we were going to the actual restaurant on Notre-Dame. Mmmkay, so as soon as you walk in, you find yourself looking right back to the entrance to make sure you're still on Notre-Dame. I compared it with the old Warshaw that used to be on St-Laurent. I remember going in there once with a friend and we had to make sure we were still in Montreal. It's like entering a whole other (Asian) world.

I absolutely LOVED the deco. Lots of lanterns everywhere, dragons (and tigers and bears, oh my!), birdcages hanging right beside the bar, Asian currency taped to a wall. It felt and looked like what I could only describe as an Asian diner. I. Love. It. The place itself, at that time, wasn't that busy but the ambiance was still oh-so-present. Some oldies were playing on the radio and everyone was merry! Well, except me: I was hungover as f*ck.

We wanted to eat everything on the menu. Alas, our stomachs would not have been OK with that choice. We decided to share two different buns (buuuuns!), the Laksa and the Char Kuay Teow.

The pork bun, more commonly known as the damn-this-is-effin-good bun. So... this was effin good. First off, that bun resembled the texture of a perfect cloud. Soft, airy, awesome (clouds can be awesome too, you know!). The pork was perfect: juicy, tender, melt-in-your-mouth goodness. The coriander, well, you know where I stand with coriander: I loves me lots of it, ALL the time. This was a hit.

The crab salad bun. Special of the day. We were totes excited about the prospect of crab in a bun but were a tad disappointed. Seriously, you could have told me it was any other kind of seafood and I would not have known the difference. It was a bit watery and the bun, being fried, had kind of lost it's softness and cloudiness. Let's just say I'd pick the pork bun over the crab bun any day of the week.

Char Kuay Teow. On the menu, it was written rice noodles but it was definitely egg noodles, the fatter friend of the tiny rice noodle. Let's just say if there was a fight between both noodles, the egg one would win by a landslide. See, these are things I think about daily. (erratum: my token Asian friend, Jer, tells me there are different sizes to rice noodles when I thought it was just the tiny one. So, in this case, the rice might have won over the egg!)When the plate was placed in front of me, my first thought was this: 'oh, now that's brown'. I put the colour aside and discovered a whole new world. It was full of flavor! It tasted like ginger and it tasted like hot peppers. I love that combo! It was multi layered! The Chinese sausage was yummy and moist and all that good stuff. I was just saddened that there were only about 4 pieces of it in the dish. The shrimp were cooked perfectly. I find it so hard to have someone serve me the perfect shrimp and Satay Brothers brought it, brought it good. Green onions brought in another level of flavor and the bean sprouts totes fit in there. All in all, I was genuinely surprised after judging the dish for its brownness or lack of colour if you would.

Laksa. Chili shrimp coconut soup. Now THIS is a comforting piece of soup. Piece of soup? Ya, I'm going with that! Coriander was awesome in there and although I didn't like it as much as Lea, it was really tasty and right up my alley. The noodles were way too cooked and started breaking down as soon as they hit my mouth. Or before, which made this a bit hard to eat. The shrimp in there were really on par, but I felt like the whole thing was emanating shrimp. Meh. Not a fan of the emanation. It was spicy, which was really welcomed. I love spiciness that sometimes, I'm ready to cry for it :)

Service was great! First impressions are very important and the manager/owner/bartender/everything dude just said 'join me!' and we were hooked. He was very efficient, as if he'd been born to restaurateurs parents and had lived in a restaurant his whole life. You know, THAT kind of guy. We got our plates fast and water was served as soon as we sat down.

And now, the scores!

Food: 8
Service: 8.5

Toootes goin' back and no one will be able to stop me. Warning: I might also go back on my next hangover.

Arepera

I have about 4 groups of friends at the gym. Hey, what can I say? Peeps are attracted to my muscles, like, 'oh, she'll show me the way, she must be awesome!'. Or something. Haha. All jokes aside, I love my gym friends. And I gots to say, some have become my, wait for it, real life friends. Fo realz yo. Anyhoot, my girl (yes, you are MINE) Mar wanted me to review her fave Venezuelan restaurant. I warned her about my reviews that can go both ways and she still wanted me to go to Arepera. So I dsid. Along with her (wait, also MINE) home girls Al and Ash. Oh and Mar is from Venezuela so this was gonna be eeeeepic. I may be exaggerating. Epic is a big small word. It was gonna be dsamn awesome.

The place itself is so cute: colourful, vibrant, everything a South American resto should be... and usually is! Large paintings of the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix adorned the walls along with a rainbow colored guitar, a hammock full of plantains (so, basically my fave kind of hammock) and in the corner, little wooden houses on the wall. Too cute. The 28 seat restaurant is on the small side but the vibe is on the big side! Latin music is playing and you KNOW it's festive. For me, South America is always having a big partay. That everyone is invited to.

Mar was actually going a bit cray cray (hey, that's a good thing!) at the idea of me tasting all that Venezuelan goodness. Well, to be honest, I was going a bit cray cray too. Just looking at the menu, I wanted to eat it all. Fun fact: this restaurant is pretty much 3 quarters gluten free and has many vegetarian/vegan options. I actually asked 'how many of these arepas should I order' (and in all honesty they all looked like they belonged in my mouth and I was planning on ordering at least 3) and Mar answered a very decisive 'only one'.  A bit of sadness ensued. Side note: arepas, apart from being the best corn product out there (and we all know half of the stuff is made out of corn), is a traditional, hand-made, Venezuelan corn bread.

Passion fruit and sugar cane juices. I had a sip of the sugar cane one. It was good. I found that it tasted like a sweet iced tea. Not uber fond of iced tea tho. The passion fruit juice was oooooooh so good. Hells to the yes. It was like drinking a field of passion fruit. Ya, if that wasn't a thing before, it is now. It was a bit tart but so sweet and diddely damn delicious.

Platanos!! Ah yes, plantain. The hotter brother of the more common (at least here) banana. I mean, come on. Come ON! They were soft and full of flavour and add a bit of queso (mild feta) on there and BAM, you got yourself awesomeness in the form of a bananer.  Oh ya and put some of that cilantro and citrus sauce on there and you got the number 1 platanos. Fun fact #2: Ash proclaimed herself to be a cilantro hater but, turns out, she loved the sauce more and more as the meal went on. We got another one on our [cilantro] side, guys!

Reina Pepiada. Or shredded chicken breast in an avocado sauce OR avocado attack as I would describe it. This was everything I'd want an arepa to be: hot, fresh, full of avocado and oh-so-tasty. Ya cause after having a couple bites, I could've called myself an arepa expert. Duh.

La LLanera. 'Carne mechada' with feta cheese and avocado. Oh and watercress on the side. I found it really nice to have watercress on my plate. When do you EVER have watercress on yo plate? Neva. That corn bread was soft and crunchy all at once and just heavenly, really. And I'm not just saying that because I hadn't eaten anything that resembled bread in 1 week. The meat was very well seasoned but a bit on the dry side (that put a tear or two in Mar's eyes, I swear). The avocado was obviously amazing (I mean, when is avocado NOT), the watercress was a very interesting touch and I loved it. I liked the earthiness of it and the way it married well with the cilantro. That's right, I say stuff like 'married well' now. I'm totes fancy. Since the arepas themselves aren't on the spicy side, we had a nice home made hot sauce. And when THAT got too hot, we could balance it out with that amazeballz cilantro sauce. I want some of that in my fridge, man.

I had set my heart on their cheese cake with plantain but alas, they didn't have any at the time. Damn iiiiit. So, I settled on the gluten-free chocolate cake. It was more like a reversed fondant: caky on the inside and lots of liquidy chocolate at the bottom and on top. Dude, I am NOT complaining. It was chocolate and more chocolate. Thickness was de rigeur and I was very ok with that. It was super duper heavy and you know what, it was so tasty that I didn't really mind.

Coconut rice pudding. Coconut? Oh f ya! Rice pudding? Not usually a huge fan. This one was fresh and cinnamony and the rice was perfect. So f*ck ya to rice pudding baby! And, come on, who doesn't love coconut?

Flan. OK, wow. Best damn flan ever. I think they mixed somethin' up because this tasted exactly like the cheesecake I wanted, safe for the platanos. Seriously, wow. Woooooow. It dson't look like nothin' but woooow. I'm gonna stop saying that now. Wow. OK, now. It was soft, it was dense, it was gone in 2.5 seconds. I secretly wished Ash would not have liked it so that I could just put it all down my throat.

Service was very friendly and fast. Just the way I like it. We had to ask for some more water though, which, as you know, is one of my pet peeves. Ugh.

And now, the scores (Mar, hold your breath)!

Food: 8.5
Service: 8

I believe there are many more arepas I must try, and i will not rest until I do!