Portus Calle

This restaurant has been on my to go list for a while, especially since I went to Helena last year and was just amazed by the tasting menu. Sooooo when a benefactor gave me 250$ to 'enjoy good food and have fun' (heeeeeelllls yes!), I called Portus Calle right away.

I was going with my friend Rach, who was here on vacation from them Cayman Islands (lucky bastard), and she was pleased with my choice of resto.

We got a very pleasant welcome by the maitre-d' that showed us to our very lovely table close to the window. The place itself is quite big... lots of room at the bar and even more room in the brick walled dining room. Portuguese music was playing, which was a nice change from let's say a Mexican restaurant playing 95.9 (ok... I'm not aware of the radio stations here.... but let's just say I was happy it wasn't pop music!). It was very cozy and cute.

Since everything on the menu looked great, and we were about to order every damn thing on there, our waiter suggested the tasting menu for 55$ each. OH YES!

We started out with a glass of Porto, because hey, with that money in my pockets, we could! Ha! It wasn't too strong and went down well. If I had to, I'd have no difficulty drinking that all night! We wanted to have some vinho verde with our meal but the one we wanted was not available so we went with white wine.

Alrighty, fooooooooooood (enter drooling here). First was chorizo aioli (hello!), olives, olive oil, bread and tuna rillettes with daikon. Hum, yum! Tuna melted in your mouth but tasted a tad like it came out of a can, the aioli was damn wonderfully greatness and had just a touch of spiciness! The olives were great but the bread.... meh... it was a tad too dry for my taste. Ps: wine service was ITHQ worthy and perfectly executed.

Uh, hello tuna, is it me you're looking for? I really liked the plating on this one. Very modern and Picasso like (what? I dabble!). The crab salad was great and kind of sweet and had somewhat of a rice cracker to add some crunch. Breaded tuna looked like it was going to be a warm offering but alas, it was cold. Still yummy, but cold. The tuna tataki was melt-in-your-mouth good with a nice sesame crust and a wonderful tartar sauce. I could not have asked for more. Totally woke up my taste buds!

Ok, who knew warm tomatoes and goat cheese could be this good? It was a nice take on the bocconcini and tomato salad, but 100 times better. Flavours just popped right in my mouth. Man, this was good, yet so simple!

Cod cakes. I've had them before and I'll have them again... these were good but a tad too potato-y but I loved the sauce which was quite spicy.

OK, obviously this picture doesn't do it justice, but this octopus was WOW. Like, wow WOW! Fak! Perfect 'cuisson'. Puuuurrrrrrfect. Plus, the fried kale and the white beans were great with it. It's as if they were born together. Seriously. This was a good one.

Scallop with bacon 'chips' on top and lima bean puree with a cranberry and onion confit. OK, you guys know by now that's I'm a sucker for seafood but this was something else! The mix of flavours was to dssssiiiie for and the bacon chip? Well, I was aware that bacon could taste THAT good (yes, I'm aware it's freakin good!). Oh and that puree was so smooth and so tasty and well seasoned! Nothing bad to say about this at all.

You must also know that apart from lobster, shrimp is at the top of my list. Since the good old summer days in Maine when I was 6 and eating an actual PILE of shrimp, they have been my fave. They were garlicky spicy buttery unctuous goodness. Most importantly, perfectly cooked.

Pork cheek with aubergine puree. The veggies were cooked to perfection and the meat was so tender, so soft, melted in your mouth. It was perfection, basically.

Our desert. Well hello there, how you doin'? First off, the pasteis de nata was exactly like it was when I tasted it in Portugal about 3 years ago. Hoooooolly! The truffles were good and dsamn good: the chocolate one was good but a bit too fruity for my taste and the champagne one... well hello champagne! It was so airy and right on. The panacotta had some sap and herbs in there and made it absolutely delicious. The last desert on the right was such a nice surprise: many stories of fluffy egg whites and caramel. The whole desert plate was just didily damn good!

We had one last glass of porto to finish off the meal. What??? We were rich that night :) If we had known it was going to be 20$ a glass, I don't think we would have had it but hey, we were on vacation! It was even better than the first one.

Service was wonderful: great wine service as previously mentioned, we always had water in our glasses, plates were taken away and brought to our table in a timely fashion.

And now, the scores!

Food: 9
Service: 9.5

What a great experience! When I have the cash, I'm going back for sure!

La Cabane

I was invited to try Apollo's La Cabane, one day before the official opening. That's cutting it a bit close I think, no? I bet most of the other people got invited before and then they were like, wait, we need more people! Hahaha. 

Anyhoot, I got there and was offered a beer cocktail. I told the bartender that I really DID NOT LIKE beer (like, at all.... like I can't even take a sip) and she offered me, womp womp womp, a fruit cocktail. Really girl? I see that you have a bunch of bottles of alcohol behind you; you could at least put a shot of somethin somethin in there, no? No.

So as I was 'enjoying' my fruit cocktail, I looked around. The place had somewhat of a modern cabane à sucre feel, with long wooden tables that you share with lots of people you don't know. After my drink, I was invited to go upstairs and, as downstairs, it was all wooden, communal tables with some writing on the wall and wooden lamp fixtures. Nice.

I was seated in front of a desert blogger (and pastry chef) and the dude from Montreal Food Pictures (funny guy) and beside somewhat of a food expert...I didn't really get what his job was.  Anyhoot, at first, conversation was a bit meh...I realized I don't really like going out alone to restaurants, especially when I'm sitting beside people I don't know. But then the wine came flowin' and conversation obviously got easier :)

They were waiting for all the tables to fill up before serving the first course. It took about 50 minutes. Pffff. Thank the looooord they decided to start after around 6 out of 10 tables were full. And since we were the first table that was full, we were the first ones getting served! Celebration!

We were to have 5 courses. Those 5 different courses were presented by 5 different chefs that have participated in the past 4 years of La Cabane: Helena Loureiro, Marc-André Jetté, Martin Juneau, Danny St-Pierre and Patrice Demers. I had been to Helena's restaurant in Old Montreal, aptly named Helena and looooved it, I had seen a couple videos on Danny St-Pierre at ITHQ a year or so again and found him quite the interesting chef and I had heard of the other three. Needless to say I was a tad starstruck when I saw them all sitting at a table! My reaction: 'hihihi, oh my gawd'! Yes, I'm THAT loser!

On top of this, we were to have white wine for the first two courses, red wine for the third and fourth and cidre de glace to go along with the desert.

Alright, here we go!

First, we were treated to warm (oh yes!) maple bread (double yes!). It was so soft and yummy! It was accompanied by cumin butter. Or cumin with a tad of butter. WAY too cumin-y! But the bread was marvelous. It was so marvelous that later on, we asked for more but they said that the bread was 'rationed'. Ok then.

First course was the cod croquettes with a mustard and maple aioli, maple roasted pecans and endive and cucumber salad. This was good. Why? Well probably because Helena makes a mean cod croquette. It was a tad disappointing to know that she had served the same croquettes the year before though. Anyhoot, the salad was refreshing but had large pieces of chicory that did not fit into my tiny mouth and the pecans were good but overly sweet. On the other hand, the aioli was marvellous, smooth and yummy, and the croquettes just melted in your mouth. That's what I look for in a croquette; the melting in the mouth factor :) 

Second course was a smoked squash soup with maple salmon 'candies' and a hazelnut dipped brioche. Oh man, this did it for me. A regular squash soup=good. THIS squash soup: oh-so-damnedidamn-good! The flavours and textures were all there: the soup itself was smooth and well seasoned, the little cubes of salmon were a nice welcomed surprise in my mouth, the soft brioche just exploded with flavours and the harder croutons just gave it some texture. Good, good, gooo-hoood!

Third course was disappointing. It was lamb ham, crunchy vegetables and a citrus mostarda.  First off, let me mention the only part that was pleasing: the presentation. It was so pretty! Most veggies were cut with a mandoline which made for a good lookin' plate. Aaaand that's it. Crunchy carrots, ok. Crunchy beets, NOT ok. The meat didn't taste like anything except when you dipped it in the mustard/mayo combo that was on the side of the plate. And don't even get me started on the citrus mostarda. What the hell WAS that? It tasted like the filling in a lemon meringue pie. It had a weird texture, it was overly sweet and just did not go with anything on the plate. 

Bean, carrot wieners, bean, maple and cheese cassolet. It was nice; they put the dish on the table and we were to serve ourselves. The waitress said it had coriander on top to add some freshness buuuut turns out it was parsley. The meat was nice and juicy, the wieners, which I never ever like, were actually quite pleasant and the beans were really good. They weren't overly cooked and mushy like they tend to be. And the parsley DID add some freshness!

The desert was a maple ice cream sandwich and a maple financier.

The financier didn't taste like much. It was dry and meh (technical term). The ice cream sandwich brought me back to my ice cream sandwich eating days :) It was very maple-y. Unfortunately, all in all, desert was a tad disappointing.

Service was great. Our waitress was cute (bonus point there!) and when she didn't know something, she'd go check and get back to us promptly. We always had water and she tended to our needs. Us blogger folk are hard to please :p She explained the wines and the plates very well (except for that coriander mishap!). We got to personally meet Apollo who came to introduce himself and then his chef. Nice.

And now, the scores!

Food: 7
Service: 9

It was very nice to try for free but I don't know if I would have been this happy if I'd payed for it.

Helena

One of my good friends Lena was in town for a convention last month and I got to stay with her in her hotel room at the Westin on St-Antoine so Helena was just a hop and a skip away.

We went with her boss which meant... yay... free meal :p But seriously, it was really pleasant to meet her and REALLY nice of her to pay for me! 

Anyhoot, we got seated right away in this very cute resto. Our waiter arrived at our table in 2,5 seconds and served us water in 3. He was very knowledgeable ( me hates stoopid waiters) and answered all the questions we had about the mneu and even suggested a bottle of wine.

First, he brought us some olives and oil oil with some bread---> just like in Portugal (ah...Portugal!). Also, fava beans!Yum! He suggested we have the tapas menu for three... and that's exactly what we had!

We started off with the bread and chorizo butter. Miam!!! The butter wa not over powering and the olive oil was just nice!

Then we had the octopus. Hello, octopus! Seriously, the first octopus EVER that I ate and did not go EW! It wan't squishy like most I've eaten. It was just right! It had a nice char on it and it was actually very tender!

After that, aperagus with St-George cheese. Looked quite fancy, all shaved and stuff (and no... I won't make a 'shaved' joke here... ;p ). They were well charred and the almonds on top added a nice crunch!

After that, there was... wait for it... foie gras. Well hellooooo there! It was very silky and soft but the fig that was accompanying it was a bit grainy. Also, we wished that there had been more toasts!

The next one was cured meat with peas and aparagus. It was a bit on the salty side but still very delicious!!!

The clams and chorizo was a bit on the salty side and a tad squishy unfotunately but still quite didelidam delicious!

The scallops were good, but cold :( Grrrrr! I hates me some cold food that should be hot! Parsley added a nice touch of flavor and the thick silky sauce was amazing!

Our desert reminded me so much of Portugal, its A-MA-ZING! First of all, hello pasteis de nata!!! They were even BETTER than IN Portugal (I swear!). The churros were awesome and flaky... but the figues, again, kind of disappointed.

The service was wonderful throughout the meal. Our waiter was very present and seemed to always be there when we needed him! Water? Check! Wine? Check! We even ordered a second bottle.

And now, the scores!!!

Food: 9
Service: A great 9.8

A wonderful portuguese restaurant by Helena, who also own Portus Calle on St-Laurent! Please go and feel like you're in Portugal again. OR, pleae go and just feel like you're in Portugal ;)