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.

Farrouj

Best pic EVA

A couple weeks ago, I was heading to Toronto right after work. I decided that I deserved to buy myself some lunch. You see, I always either have a salad full of protein or meat/fish and veggies. It was pig-out time. I loves me a good Lebanese. Let me be clearer: I ain't being dirty or anything, I'm talkin' about the great food. Sheesh!

Farrouj is part of (or should I say 'THE') the food court in Galéries du Parc, right under my place of work, in the Transat building. OK, there are about 5 restaurants, but after speaking to some colleagues, Farrouj remains the best one.

I had a HUGE plate. It was a tad expensive at 16$ but hey, I don't buy Lebanese food every day! A girl can only dream! Let's begin, shall we? The taboule was right ON except for one thing: peppers. Who in their right mind puts peppers in taboule. WHO? I need names. The rest was SO nice and lemony and taboule-y (ya, it's a thing). Just take the peppers out. Thank you for your cooperation. Hummus was good but a bit on the pasty side and not seasoned enough. The garlic sauce was... effin garlicky. Wow! No vampires for me tonight OR I'd say for 2 or 3 nights. Ya, it was THAT strong. Some would have found it whhhhay too much, but for me, it was just perf. The chicken was, for a lack of a better word, perfection. Remember, in Friends, when Chandler is stuck in an ATM vestibule with Jill Goodacre and he says that gum would be perfection? No? Well, I DO. And this juicy, perfectly grilled, seasoned just right chicken WAS perfection. The beef wasn't as good and it was a bit on the dry side. The pieces were too big to put in ma mouth and it was annoying to bite into them. The falafel salad, I had never seen before. Lots of spices in there made it very tasty but the sesame sauce they drizzled (major understatement) on top made it soggy. The chickpea salad seemed a bit old but it wasn't that bad so, I mean, imagine if it would've been fresh!

Service was good. It took a while to get ma shtuff because they were cooking the meat but that just means it was that much better and fresher!

And now, le score!

Food: 7.5

I'll go back if I have a craving for Lebanese OR if, let's say, I forget my lunch!


 

Omnivore

I passed by Omnivore, I'd say, a good 148 times. I'm totes serious. Obviously, I had to go (and it took me 149 to go in). Ma gurl Cat came along to taste some Mediterranean treats on the corner of Marie-Anne and St-Laurent!

I must be honest, I had already tasted a bit of Omnivore's awesomeness: my friend Isa has take-out all the time and I just happened to be there one night when she had some. But that wasn't enough; I needed the real experience!

Omnivore is this super cute place right in the heart of the Main. Or maybe a tad to the north, but who really cares about geography, am I right? It occupies quite the small space with around 25 seats, has some great indie music playin' and lots-o-plants adorn the windows. It legit makes you feel like you're in a jungle. Ugh, I'm not made to write/say 'legit', am I? Don't worry, won't happen again.

We shared (obviously) the herbivore plate and the carnivore plate. Cause that's the way we roll: we are extremists. OK, I'm definitely going too far. I can be really intense sometimes. But only when it comes to food :)

La carnivore. I loves me some good meat! Cat was actually a vegetarian for a good, pfff, 14 years maybe. And then, she came to her senses :p The meat (or kofta) was, wait for it, just wait for IT... moist! Herbal and exploding with flavor! The baba ganouche was full of spices and so f*cking good I'm even ready to say that it is the best I've EVA had. Like EVA. And I'm getting old. The garlic sauce was not strong at all and it was nice knowing that my breath was going to be ok for my business meeting the next day. OK, I had no meeting. I'm not that important at my new job. YET. I'm used to eating garlic sauce and having uber bad breath for a good 2 days. OR 8. The hummus was just thick enough and one of the best I've had. The rice with lentils was very nice and the marinated eggplant on top were out of this world: marinated to perfection. Just wow. I never thought I'd say this about eggplant. Like, at all. The pink turnips were also uber wonderful. Dang, I'm using so many adjectives, I should give English lessons. Fo realz!

La végé. This was one good lookin' plate! I just wanted to take the plate in my two hands and go to town. Please, look the other way :) The taboule was on the awesome side of things: just citrusy enough, just the right amount of parsley and, to top it off, oh-so-yummy! The orzo salad was just BANG ON: super fresh, vibrant parsley (yes, I'm serious), some nuts added a nice crunch and cranberries added a sweet side. Oh, and by the by, I'm legit in love with orzo. OK, I had to try it again and it is official, saying/writing 'legit' is just not for me.   The green beans/carrot salad was also a hit: it tasted of ginger and sesame, two of my favorite things. The chickpeas and eggplant would've tasted better warmed up. They were nicely grilled and that's why my palate was like 'dude, this should be hawt'.

Service was just ok. The girl that took our order could have smiled a bit. I only ask for a hint of smile. Please. She was a bit nicer in the end. Yay. Food came fast though :)

And now, the scores!

Food: 9
Service: 6

The food was soooo good so I can't say I won't go back. I'll obviously have to try other places before I do!

Sumac

I LOVE Sumac. Simple as that. It's love. And I met some pretty awesome girls that love it as much as I do. What what. It's Lebanese at its best. Forget Amir or Boustan, Sumac is where it's at. So that's where I was last week with Al and Mar, the Sumac 'experts' and V, one of my fave baby gurls from the gym.

First off, lemme say that Sumac is effin busy. All the time. ALL the time. All the TIME! Y'all get it? Obviously, there's a good reason for that! You want the best Lebanese fast-ish food, you go there, it's as simple as that. On top of being busy, it's happenin'! It was full when we got there at 8h30 pm and got even more full after that!

Happenin' usually means loud, and it certainly did in this case. Which is just fine, but when the table is as large as I am long, and you have a hard time hearing the person in front of you, it becomes a problem. A problem I would absolutely accept if I were in a night club. But this was not a night club. At least not that I'm aware of.

I've already written about Sumac so I won't dwell on the place itself (you can read about it here: http://www.eatingoutmontreal.com/2015/02/sumac.html ) but more on the food because let's be honest, this is the #1 reason why you are reading this.

I wanted to have a drink. Rum and fanta sounded like just the thang I wanted. Simple and right up my alley. You know, my drinking alley. It had just the right amount of rum in there (read: LOTS) and was nice and sweet. AND, when do I ever get to drink Fanta? I LOVE that stuff.

Hummus fries. So basically two of my favourite things. It should be part of that song in The Sound of Music-- 'some hummus on fries with lo-ooots of spices, these are a few of my favourite things!'. Yes? Let's do it! I'll call up the Von Trapp family. But before I do that...I would like to rename this dish 'The Lebanese Poutine'. I don't really like poutine and will only taste one that does not include either the crottes de fromages (ew!) or that brown sauce (eeeeew!), so this was purrrrrfect! The fries were crunchy and hot and soft on the inside. Basically, the definition of a good fry. On the fries, the spices were very present, which is what you want! Well, it's what I want! Aight so there's sumac (I bet at least 62% of you did not know that it was a spice), which adds a bit of acidity, and zaatar which is a mix of spices like thyme, sumac and sesame seeds. I remember when I was in high school, dem Arab boys would always bring pita type bread (from what I recall, it is called manouché---but I might be wrong) smothered in zataar. The spiciness came from the s'rug which was kind of sprinkled on so we never knew which bite was going to be spicy. For me, it was a nice surprise but for Mar, who dsont like the spice, it was not cool. The hummus was like a cloud: smooth and heavenly. some of the best I've had. And trust me, I've HAD hummus!

Chicken shawarma OR very full and colourful vagina. No? Come oooon! In this loveliness, there's hummus, tahina, purple and green cabbage and pickled turnip. Yes. What I noticed at first was that the chicken seemed a bit old. I guess they had cooked it earlier and hey, there were closing soon soooo. Still, obviously, the fresher the better (duh), so that kind of turned me off. It was still uber tasty tho but... the question remained: when in the hell did they cook it? The bread was very soft and fresh but maybe a bit too thin in some spots because all the liquid from the sandwich would seep through. If there's one thing i hate is having hands full of food juice. Hahaha: food juice. The turnips were perfect and I just loved the cabbage in there. Really loved the textural aspect of it. Crunch crunch crunch!

Service was aight: very quick, water on the table, but does not check if we're a-ok. How it goes is that you order at the cash (those big line-ups can get annoying) and then you are seated and wait a couple minutes for your plate. It's actually rather light-speed fast.

And now, the scores!

Food: 7
Service: 7

I can't not go back because I usually love it so much so ya, totes heading there again soon for more Lebanese awesomeness that will hopefully be a bit awesomer (don't even check, it's a word!) than the last time.

Avesta

Last week, a bunch of us (a bunch is technically a number higher than 5---true story) from the gym were going to a restaurant to celebrate the birthday of our lovely... I'm gonna call her twerking queen or TQ for short. Why TQ? Well, long story short, she gets down on all four during zumba and well, you know how it goes :p

We had reservations for 9 PM. Gosh, last time I ate that late...well, I don't remember the last time I ate that late. Avesta is a Turkish restaurant and y'all know how much I love trying new stuff. This was definitely going to be new. We all knew it as 'you know, that place with that old woman in the window making lavash'. Except we didn't use the word 'lavash' but now that I know what it is, I can totes use it. Lavash, lavash, lavash. Oh, it's very thin bread that you can use to scoop things up like hummus or eggplant dip or more hummus. Hummuuuuuus.

Anyhoot, in hindsight, to be 8 rowdy girls (oh, and 1 boy---not forgetting you Gus!) in a quiet restaurant with veiled waitresses that seem even quieter than the restaurant itself was not the best of ideas. But hey, it made me discover a whole new cuisine!

The place itself is actually much bigger than what it looks like on the outside. Tall ceilings make it look even larger. There are a mix of tables and booths with beautifully designed table cloths. Turkish (I can only presume) music was playing: sometimes soft but sometimes it almost seemed violent! Hahaha! Yes, let's play violent Turkish music, no one said, ever. I officially don't know what I'm writing. 

Let's talk food, shall we? When we asked the waitress how many appetizers we should get, she wasn't helpful at all: she gave us the 'favorites' and proceeded to bring us ONE plate (yes, for EIGHT people) with three regular sized appetizers (you would think that they would have increased the size to match the number of people!). It's a good thing some peeps around the table had ordered their own!

Totes sorry about the pic. Just couldn't make it look pretty.

Hummus, Börek and the special Avesta (eggplant with red peppers). Let's start with the hummus. I love hummus. I am a huge fan of hummus. My 20 month old nephew lives for hummus (OK, I just needed to put a nephew fun fact in here). Unfortunately it didn't taste like much, obviously lacking in taste. I mean, it wasn't unpleasant per se, but it needed some lemon or sumthin sumthin. Plus, the consistency was too liquidy and actually hard to scoop up with the lavash (see, I did it again!).

The Börek, which is flaky dough with ground beef and potatoes was nice at first but then I became overwhelmed by the amount of dough. And THEN it just felt like I was eating somewhat of a shepperd's pie. When I moved back to Montreal for university way too many years ago, my mom used to make me a bunch of frozen meals and pâté chinois was a pretty recurrent one. I got oh-so-sick of it and didn't eat it for many decades (I'm slightly exaggerating here). I've eaten it again over the years but this brought back memories. Memories, man!

The 'Special Avesta' is charbroiled eggplant and red peppers with parsley, garlic and olive oil. I don't really have anything to say about this. It actually tasted tomato-y and that wasn't supposed to be part of the ingredient roster. The parsley in there kind of made it taste a bit off in my opinion. The garlic added a certain je ne sais quoi that I really liked tho. But, we all know I'm biased because I'm the garlic queen.  Think of it as a good or bad thing, it's just who I am. Half the time, my breath smells of garlic. OK, that's not true. Only a quarter of the time :)

If I'm gonna eat at a Turkish restaurant, i better order a specialty. I'm still in the dark as to why not EVERYTHING on the menu is a Turkish specialty in this Turkish restaurant but hey. Hey. HEY! I had Manti: tiny dumplings filled with ground beef, topped with yogourt and crushed garlic with some red pepper paste and oregano on and around it. It LOOKED like a piece of freakin' art. Oh, and then I remembered that I'm lactose intolerant. F*ck me. See, I'm very newly intolerant to lactose. You know, lactose, that thing that makes dreams come true. Hahaha. Everything awesome (except for seafood) has lactose in it damn iiiit. Why? Why, God, why? Point is, on top of forgetting this fact, I have a knack for ordering the most lactose filled dish on menus. And then I regret it later. Ugh. Anyhoot. It was a LOT of yogourt. I could just imagine how much farting was going to ensue. Ha. Haha. But seriously. It was too much of a good thing. The garlic was great in there tho. I mean, yogourt and garlic is always a good match. The little balls of meat were very tasty and well seasoned and actually quite awesome. The chili part didn't taste much like chili: I actually had to look at the description to find out that it was supposed to be that. The oregano made the dish even more beautiful but didn't add much, taste wise. I wanted an extra zing in there. Dried oregano, for me, is like an umbrella in a tornado; it's just worthless. That's right, I went there.

 

Service was weird. Our waitress asked if we were ready to order before giving us the menus. She seemed uber nervous to serve as many people and they so did not look 'ready' for a big group even if we had reserved. We had to ask for water. I'm not even going to start with that. Our bodies are made of 70% water and we need it to survive. Oops, I started. We also got our plates at different times. I'm not talking 5 minutes apart, I'm talking at least 10 minutes. That wasn't cool man. Not cool. Oh and they didn't clear our tables when we were done. Argh.

 

And now, the scores!

 

Food: 6
Service: 5

It was nice to try Turkish food but I don't think I'll be returning to Avesta. Imma gonna find me another Turkish restaurant. Or maybe not.