Les Tontons Flingueurs

After a loooong day at school last week, I got home to ze wife who said 'we're going out'. I was MORE than happy to oblige! We decided to go to a new restaurant (about 6 months) in Côte-des-Neiges, Les Tontons Flingueurs. In the hot summer days, there was always a bunch of people on the terasse, on Côte-des-Neiges and it seemed quite 'happenin'. Therefore, Tontons Flingueurs it was!!

The atmosphere itself was chill, with a nice vibe with jazz music playing. The actual place seems really big for the seats: there are about 70 seats and there should be more like 100. Hello profit? Mirors adorned the walls and there were a few chalk boards amongst the wooden panneling. Don't get me wrong, usually, I dson't like panneling, but it gave the place somewhat of a charm and kind of a cottage feel. Oh, also, the banquettes were church benches, which I found cool.

We got seated right away and our funky waiter (man, the afro on that guy was spectacular!) brought us paper menus (the menus were getting a makeover apparently). He told us about the specials that day. There were three and all seemed fancy and way more expansive than what was on the actual menu. On the menu, you could have believed that you were in somewhat of a somewhat fancy snack bar.

We ordered a bottle of Pinot grigio for 25$. As the waiter was bringing it to our table, I could see it was Barefoot, the 9,90$ wine at the SAQ. Man it really fizzles my dizzle (yes, it's an expression!) when restaurateurs sell a cheap SAQ wine for 2.5 its price! grrrrr! Nevertheless, it was served well, selon les standards de l'ITHQ, so that made me happy ;p

Ze wife ordered l'agneau et j'ai commandé la surlonge. We had the vegetable soup: somewhat of a puree of veggies, nicely seasoned, very comforting. La soupe était servie avec des croutons et du beurre. Twas quite nice.

About 15 minutes later, the waiter comes back and announces to ze wife that there is no more lamb. Hum, il est 6:30 et déjà, tu raye un plat de ta table d'hôte? She said she would take the surlonge instead and guess what? 10 minutes later, he was back telling her that was out too! Il lui a dit qu'ils allaient lui donner de la bavette à la place ('qui coûte plus cher en passant'). Fun. So now they've changed her options TWICE. BEFORE 7. By the way, we weren't even 10 in the restaurant. What the hell?

The food turned out to be just OK, nothing special, too many peppercorns on the meat. On a cold plate :( Grrrrr! The waiter could have asked us how we wanted our meat because it turned out to be a tad overcooked, which just added to all the shiz. Anyway, for 22$, not worth it! En plus, dans notre petite salade, il y avait des betteraves à la cuisson douteuse... elles étaient trop dures. Yet another dissapointment.

To add to all of this, the waiter took Isa's plate when she was done and I wasn't. I really hate it when waiters don't follow the protocole!

SO, next time, we won't pick 'the new place'... we'll just go back to Olivieri, right in front, which we are 100% that it will be worth our money.

Scores:

Food:5.5
Service: 6

And I'm being nice. If you want to try a new place, try another one.

Tempi Fa http://www.tempi-fa.com/

Tempi Fa is not located in Montreal. It's not even in Quebec or Canada... It's in Corsica. That's right: this is EATING OUT IN CORSICA!!! I know it doesn't seem that exciting right now but, who knows, you might go there at some point :)

Tempi Fa is located on the main street in Propriano, la rue Napoléon, juste en face du golfe du Valinco. La vue est absolument époustouflante, même si le restaurant en tant que tel n'est pas sur le bord de l'eau comme plusieurs autres aux alentours. Juste en face, de l'autre côté du golfe, Porto Pollo, Serra di Ferro en montagne et Olmeto, l'endroit où je faisais mon stage cet été. Il y a plusieurs restaurants au centre-ville de Propriano (prononcé Propriane), plusieurs, et je dis bien PLUSIEURS sont des pizzerias (la Corse est juste à côté de l'Italie après tout). You get kind of sick of pizza, even if it's good. Tempi Fa is a restaurant all on its own. Ce n'est pas seulement un resto, c'est une cantine, un bar à vins et une épicerie! En fait, tous, et je dis bien TOUS les produits que j'ai acheté en Corse pour ramener au Québec soit à ma copine ou à mes parents, ont été achetés à Tempi Fa.

Je suis allée mangé à Tempi Fa maintes fois cet été. Je suis allée avec Isa, avec d'autres amis avec qui j'habitais et notre toute dernière soirée en Corse a justement été célébrée à Tempi Fa. Vers 20h30, il faisait encore environ 30 degrés celsius, et nous étions une quinzaine à célébrer notre départ. C'était vraiment mémorable!

La première fois que je suis allée manger à Tempi Fa, c'était avec  Isa. Elle m'avait apporté le guide Lonely Planet de la Corse et, à Propriano, c'était le restaurant 'coup de coeur'. Donc, juste avant son départ pour Montréal, Isa et moi avons décidé de manger là. Quel bon choix! Premièrement, notre serveur était un ancien de l'hôtel où je travaillais donc nous en avons parlé à l'infini. C'était bien de pouvoir chialer avec quelqu'un qui avait déjà travaillé dans ces mauvaises conditions de travail (more on this later!)! Alors, il va sans dire qu'une petite connexion entre le serveur et moi s'est établie. You know what that means... better service :) En fait, le service à Tempi Fa était très bien, voir excellent, comparé à presque tous les autres restaurants que j'ai fréquenté en Corse. Un petit à côté:le service en Corse n'est vraiment, mais vraiment pas à la hauteur du service qu'on a au Québec. Vu que leur pourboire est supposément 'compris' dans la facture, et que nous ne devons pas laisser plus d'argent, les serveurs ne font aucun efforts pour plaire aux clients. Aucun. Nous en avons vu de toutes les couleurs.- des serveurs qui nous apportent le menu 15 minutes après notre arrivée, d'autres qui prennent des pauses cigarette juste à côté de nous sur les terrasses, et d'autres qui nous ignorent  complétement.

That said, our waiter was great. We had a bottle of bubbly, a Casa Nova rosé, which I would buy for 9 Euros at the market but would obviously go for about 3 times the price on the wine list. pfff. Still, this summer, I really appreciated my bubbly and also my rosé :) Mousseux rosé? Yes please! Anyhoo, good bottle, great serving of the bottle by our friendly waiter. As for the food, they have a couple different menus. They have the tapas menu, the regular menu and the wine list. They also have some extras on a board on the terasse. I just want to mention here that out of all the restaurants I went to in Corsica, this was my favourite one. It wasn't that cheap, but no that expensive either, the service was great and the food reprensented well Corsican products. Personnellement, j'ai pris la insalata di capra: salade verte, crustini de chèvre fermier saveur miel de printemps et figue, Prisuttu, tomate, Salinu, herbes du maquis, huile d'olive AOC Aliva Marina. Delicious. Simple, but really good. Le chèvre était excellent sur des croutons qui n'étaient pas trop durs, pas trop mous. Salinu est un sel aux noisettes et le Prisuttu est une viande qui fait partie des charcuteries populaires de la Corse. Le mélange des saveurs est excellent. Avec une petite touche d'huile d'olive que le resto vend dans leur petite épicerie, superbe! (ps: AOC=appellation d'origine contrôlée).

For the scores:

La bouffe: 9/10
Le service: 9/10



Tout ceci pour vous dire que si, un jour, vous allez en Corse, et, par chance, Propriano, allez à Tempi Fa! Ça vaut la peine!

Jardin de Panos

I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack baby! Corsica was wonderful but more on that later :) First review: un resto où Isa et moi sommes allées pendant mon heure de lunch lundi passé (ah oui, l'école a recommencé!). Nous n'y avions pas vraiment pensé préalablement mais il n'y a vraiment pas beaucoup de restos ouverts le lundi midi. Alors notre philosophie s'est vite déclarée: let's find a resto that's opened and eat there.

So we found it: Le jardin de Panos... a greek(y) resto on Duluth between St-Denis and Parc Lafontaine. From outside, this place looks like a quaint little place but when you walk in, you discover that this place is HUGE! I mean about 250-300 seats huge! The decor is nothing special... kind of cheap looking and there are so many tables that you kind of get the cabane à sucre feel. There is a big terasse at the back holding up to about 80 to 100 seats (did I mention that this place was HUGE?).

Also good to know that it's a BYOW. Another thing that should be noted: no debit, only credit and cash).

Quaint looking resto!

We were, I believe, the first clients there for lunch (it was around 11h30!) and so obviously we got seats right away. It was a tad weird that we had to go through a portion of the kitchen to get to our section. Not sure how much I liked that! Également, la console proche de notre table était beaucoup trop grosse et beaucoup trop remplie! So many things were going on there!

We got our menus and it was a bit bizarre how, yes, there were greek dishes... but then a 'greek section'. Rapport! Why? We ARE in a greek resto, right? We got bread first and it was nicely warm, which I like. Anyhoot, we shared everything, as per usual. I had the lentil soup and the wife had tomato juice. Neither were good.... my soup resembled the one that you get dans une cabane a sucre (pour continuer le thème)... very thick and culinarily unsatisfying. We had the spanakopita as an entree: ok but lacking in taste. We then shared the moussaka and souvlaki. Those were the highlights of our meal. The souvlaki (not the sandwich, the plate) was nicely seasoned and, well, tasted like a souvlaki :) I had never tasted moussaka before... but the wife had and she said it was quite authentic. Good to know SOME things were authentic!

Desert: we had 4 or 5 choices and so picked the baklava and a chocolate cake. I THINK I can compare this cake to my 4th birthday choco cake: made of plastic chocolate. Seriously... vraiment pas bon. Needless to say, don't get the cake. The baklava was ok, but not great... again lacking a tad in taste.

By the end of our lunch, we didn't know who was serving us, I think we got 2 or 3 different servers. I'm NOT ok with that. One of the reasons being that communication then becomes messed up. Case in point, both came one after the other to ask us about coffee and desert...


And now, the scores:

Food: 6/10
Service: 6.5/10

I mean, this was pretty much the only resto opened on Duluth so we basically didn't have a choice. If you HAVE a choice, go to another resto.

Congé

Bonjour tout le monde!!! Ceci est juste pour vous dire que je prends un ptit break de ce blog car je suis en Corse en ce moment!!! Merci de votre compréhension et on se revoit en septembre!!!

La Prunelle

Coupons are back in my life :) I bought 2 coupons, 12$ each, worth 25$ (each) on vieurbaine. We made reservations at La Prunelle, this cute bring-your-own-wine french bistro on Duluth. Looking at the menu, it looked really nice and filled with good ideas and interesting pairings. The place itself is quite small (about 47 seats including the bar) and cozy. I can only imagine how it would be in the summertime with all the windows opened. We 'called in late' and they said no problem which was nice. When we arrived, the waitress showed us to our table at the window right away (and the only bad comments I'd heard about this place was the fact that, even with reservations, people had waited too long before getting a table, which obviously was not the case here). The ambiance in the resto was relaxed and chill, a little chit-chat here, a little chit-chat there :) The music was there but not TOO present so that we could still hear ourselves talk. When we got there, at around 7 and there a couple people in the restaurant and it filled up quite quickly. I would suggest making reservations if you intend on having dinner there!

The bubbly waitress brought us a bucket for the wine right away which was appreciated and explained the 'extras' that were on the board very thoroughly. We had water on the table as soon as we sat down and we found her very efficient. We had already discussed what we were going to have: the menu dégustation (which is basically table d'hôte including dessert...) for 48$ and one main. Right before getting our appetizer, we got our [cold] bread with [cold, hard] butter. :(

Pour l'entrée, nous avons commandé le tartare de filet mignon de boeuf, labneh fouetté au chipotle et chips maison. Mmmmmm! The spices were just right, with cumin and hints of cardamome. La coupe était inégale selon moi mais Isa ne partageait pas mon avis. Même si ce facteur était présent, le plat en tant que tel était vraiment délicieux, les chips juste assez croustillantes et robustes pour soutenir un peu de tartare et un peu de labneh (un genre de yogourt très gouteux, rehaussé avec un peu de sel). La présentation du plat était ravissante et invitante. Nous avons beaucoup apprécié l'entrée, est-ce que ça paraît?

And now, the main! Nous avons partagé le pavé de thon itsumo, salicorne de mer au vinaigre de citron et salade de quinoa aux légumes ainsi que le magret de canard de la canardière, caramel de cassis et vinaigre de groseille, gratin de Yukon Gold et patates douces. First thing that hit me when I touched my plate was that it was cold. And Isa's plate... was cold too. When you pay 30 $ for your plate, you expect it to be hot! The quinoa on my plate was really good and savoury and cooked to perfection. Topping the quinoa, there was some micro mesclun with flowers in it, very beautiful on a plate (my favourite: flowers on a plate! It brings such joy :) ) The tuna itself...At first I appreciated the tuna... pretty much raw in the center, nice colour. First bite was good but then I noticed that it was cold and that the texture where it was cooked didn't feel right. It seemed like they cooked it in advanced and then 'finished' it up right before serving. A tad disapointing.

As for the magret de canard, it was well cooked and had a nice little balsamic/fruits des champs reduction type sauce. Very savoury, very nice on the palate! Tiny courgettes and zucchinis were there as accompaniments along with the Yukon Gold and sweet potato gratin. The miniature veggies were the perfect bite size but according to ze wife, the ratio of sweet potato and potato was 1:5.

We shared the dessert: gâteau au fromage rose blanche, sirop d'érable, beurre et rhum. This was a nice end to our dinner. Very tasty, especially with the maple syrup. The butter and the rhum added a certain 'je ne sais quoi' to it all. The plate was a tad dirty which was disapointing. You could actually see fingerprints on it.

You can't pay debit which kind of sucks so watch out! Bring cash or credit!

The scores:

Service: 9/10
Food: 7.5/10 it was just a tad disapointing overall considering the high prices

Going on a date? Go there!! It's nice, good service, nice ambiance, good times!


ps: Just a little reminder: if you want to go to the restos' websites, click on the title and it should bring you there!

The Grenadier Restaurant

I decided to go see ze wife in Toronto over the weekend. Therefore this will be eating out in Toronto part deux! Ze wife went for a walk in High Park earlier this week and saw that there was a little restaurant hidden in there, so when I got there, she told me we were going to go eat breakfast there on saturday morning. We got there at around 12:30 that 'morning' and went into this eighty's ish restaurant that looked really old school but not in a good way. There are two sections in there: one where you go up to the counter and pick whatever you wanna eat and then sit down and then there is the sit-down, you-get-a-waitress part of the restaurant. We chose the second one. We passed by this tiny table with only bottles of ketchup on it on our way to our table. May I also mention the abundance of plastic plants, some even creeping onto our table, in this restaurant. Ah, the charm of it! And the OLD carpets... bah.

You see when you enter this restaurant, you realise it's run by all these little elves, no, students... that are barely 16 (some looked 13 or 14). Therefore, the service was bound to be so-so. The waitress came to our table with the really-too-old-menus-that-u-can-barely-read-anything on. They had a nice selection of breakfasty stuff like omelets and pancakes and what have you. I chose my 'usual', the biggest breakfast there is on the menu: sausage, bacon, ham, eggs, bread potatoes. It was not the best breakfast, by far. First, three eggs= too much. Why not two? I think two should be the magic number here. But no, every breakfast contained three eggs (MY breakfast, all the omelets,...). The maple syrup that came with the pancake was obviously not real maple syrup but I guess that was to be expected. Ze wife ate the pancake and said it was really dry. My potatoes were so-so and there were not nearly enough on my plate. I don't know, I get THREE eggs, can't I get TWO and more potatoes please? The ham was a bit dry too. All in all, not exceptional.

We all had desert after, I don't know why... we were already full :/ I had a cheesecake and it was nice but not as nice as many I've tasted before and the wife had the banana choco cake (which I found a tad too dry and too banana-y) and it was the same for her. (Rockaberry ROCKS!)

As for the service, we had many people coming to our table and at some point, we were confused; who is serving us again? We didn't get regular refills of water, and at some point, it seemed like all the servers were sitting in a corner, eating. It took us a while to find our server and ask her for the bill, took a while to GET the bill and then another while for her to show up so that we can tell we'd be paying interac. Not too satisfied of the service but again, these people were all learning. (you should have seen the busboy--who could not have been more then 13, trying to see how he could pick up about 12 glasses, 5 plates and cutlery without making more then 1 trip. hehehe. funny shtuff. He actually managed it in the end!)

So, for the scores:
Food: 5.7 (don't ask)
Service: 6

It was fun to go and the prices were good, but I won't go back.

Brunch at Olivieri's

Dîner au Bistro Olivieri: check. Souper au Bistro Olivieri: check. Et à partir d'aujourd'hui, je vais pouvoir 'checker' le brunch aussi!!! Ma copine, en visite à Montréal, allait manger là avec une de ses amies qu'elle rencontrait à 11h. Vers 10:49, j'ai dit: 'Je viens!!!'. J'avais besoin de savoir qu'est-ce qui était offert pour le brunch vu que j'avais déjà mangé tous les autres repas dans ce beau petit bistro à l'arrière de la librairie. J'ai déjà 'blogué' sur ce joli petit resto, inconnu de presque tout le monde, donc je vais être brève quant aux petits détails comme le décor, déjà mentionnés dans mon autre 'post'.

Nous sommes arrivées et la salle à manger ne contenait que quelques convives et la musique qui jouait n'était pas trop forte, juste assez pour dire qu'il y en avait. La musique avait un effet presque calmant. En regardant le menu, il y avait tellement de bons choix: nous avions les plats 'habituels' tel que 'oeufs, pain, fèves au lard, bacon' et nous avions d'autres choix un peu plus excitants comme une omelette aux tomates cerises, champignons variés et fromage de chèvre aux herbes et une crêpe au canard avec du chou frisé, céleri. Il y avait aussi des petits plats comme une coupe de fruits à 4$ ou bien une salade du jardin à 5$. D'autres items se trouvaient également au menu, certains un peu bizarres pour un brunch comme la chaudrée de fruits de mer. Hum, brunch, chaudrée de fruits de mer? I'm not too sure.

Le serveur est rapidement arrivé à notre table avec de l'eau et des menus. On a commandé un jus d'orange et quand il est arrivé sur notre table, ça été assez décevant de voir qu'il n'était pas fraîchement pressé mais qu'il venait bel et bien d'une boîte de conserve :( Je pense que c'est ma première grosse déception chez Olivieri!

Ma blonde et moi avons commandé l'omelette et la crêpe au canard. Nos assiettes sont arrivées et elles étaient immenses!!! Wow. Donc, mon assiette était composée de mon omelette, une salade (mesclun :( mais très bonne vinaigrette) et de bonne petites pommes de terre servies avec une délicieuse mayonnaise épicée. L'omelette en tant que telle était délicieuse avec des petits 'hits' de fromage de chèvre de temps en temps. mmmm! Par contre, il manquait de sel. Les patates, trempées dans la mayo et même toutes seules étaient vraiment bonnes aussi.
La crêpe avec le délicieux canard à l'intérieur et le chou frisé et les minis morceaux de céleri était.... comment puis-je dire.... excellente!!! In my case, c'est rare que je n'aime pas le canard! Mmmmm... just the right amount of spices and cooked to perfection, it melted in your mouth! Can you tell I love duck?

Service très professionnel, serveur et suiteur très polis. La seule petite chose qui m'a énervée c'est le manque d'eau. Nos verres étaient loin d'être vides mais j'aurais beaucoup aimé ça qu'il vienne les remplir! Quand nous avions terminé nos assiettes, le suiteur a fait une excellente job de débarassage et nous a demandé si nous avions aimé. Il a pris nos assiettes, l'assiette à pain et nos verres en une fois. J'vous gage qu'il vient de l'ITHQ ;p

Ma blonde et moi avons partagé un petit dessert; nous avons choisi le gâteau au fromage au citron. Miam! Quelle belle assiette! Une assiette faite en long avec le gâteau à une extrémité et il y avait des petits cercles de sauce aux petits fruits parsemés sur l'assiette. Très joli. Le gâteau était très 'smooth' et fondait dans la bouche with just a nice hit of lemon. Mmmm.

Scores:

Food: 8
Service: 8

Comme d'habitude, chez Olivieri, nous avons été choyées!



ps: I'm the first that put this bistro on urbanspoon.ca, therefore this is why there's only one review! I'm sure there will be many more to come!

Mavi

Ze wife and I had been meaning to eat there for a loooong time and we finally ate there on Saturday. Correction: we ordered to take out, therefore in this review I will only be scoring the food and not the service. It had been a long time coming and it's about a block away so we were long overdue.

I was the one to go get the food---the wife was comfy on the couch---but in her defense, she hadn't slept much that night! Anyhoot, as soon as you open the door, the smells enter your nostrils and you're in Portugal. Ah, Portugal, how I miss thee! You immediately see the 'kitchen' which is out in the open and maybe shouldn't: stuff haphazardly stored everywhere, NO SINK (oh goodness, my profs would have a fit!), and a garbage bag left on the floor, in the middle of it all. Oh god! As I tried to take this out of my mind, I looked at the menu. It's been photocopied and put into this binder type thing and is not user friendly at all. As I tried to decode this menu, I noticed that Virgin Radio was blasting and I was a tad disappointed that it wasn't Portuguese music :(

I chose the sardines (with rice) and the chicken (with fries). I also took a sumol because let's face it, I just HAD to remind myself even more of our Portugal trip! The whole thing cost about 34$. This restaurant was once in the 'Cheap thrills' book (a book of restaurants that offer a meal for 15$ and under) and I found that it was juuust making it (I guess the sumol was not part of this) and restomontreal.ca mentions that you can get a meal for 25 to 30$. A bit too much for this restaurant. I think they should review their... reviews!

FOOD! I was told it was going to take about 30 minutes for the sardines and the rice which was fine, I just went back home and came back. When I arrived home, and we ate, it was like we were back in Lisboa, in this tavern type restaurant with only 2 choices on the menu (fish or meat) and there was this one dude in this enclosed grill 'cabana' type thing. Point is it was really good!!! The chicken had nice spices, although the breast was a tad dry but the juicy wings made up for it. The sardines were delicious, not too salty, with a little gremolata (garlic and herbs) on top and with perfectly crisped skin. Obviously the bones were still in there so be careful with that!!! Wouldn't be too pleasant to swallow those!

The salad that came with our meal had really REALLY long pieces of lettuce which made it hard for us to eat. Would have been nice if they'd think of cutting it! I also think there was too much salad (ratio was poor) but ze wife ate it all and didn't think like me. The rice was well cooked, with some veggies in there, but again, there was a bit too much of it. Lastly, the fries. They were damn good, if I may say so! Very crispy and delicious.

Here's the score!

Food: 8/10

Obviously, the fact that just a month ago, we were eating this in Portugal helped the experience but this is a great little restaurant!

Le Cagibi

I used to study there with friends when I was in CEGEP and they still lived in Montreal. It's located at the corner of St-Laurent and St-Viateur. So after getting some bagels at St-Viateur bagels the other day, we stopped by there to a: get something to eat and b: relive old times.

When you enter the place, some might think it would be a tad weird: old lamps and trinkets with old drapes on the old windows. There was dust everywhere: on the fans, the windows and even on the plants. There are two rooms and the one where we sat up on the stage is at the far back. Man is it musty in there! The washroom is also so fitting, as ghetto as the rest of it! It looks like an outhouse, without the hole in the ground of course!

Anyhoot, we ordered at the counter and then the girl brought us our stuff at the table. This is what we ordered: chili with nachos and yogurt (a nice twist on the sour cream with chili thing), an open-face sandwich and a croque-monsieur. The menu was basically composed of comfort food aaaand more comfort food, which was nice seeing as it wasn't too hot outside! The open-face sandwich was really good, kinda pizza-like with some sun dried tomatoes. I was not SO thrilled with the chili because a: it was vegetarian and b: not as good as my step-dad's(he makes the world's best chili!). The croque-monsieur had some brie in there and it was actually quite tasty, a tad salty but not too much.

As for the service, the girl at the counter was kind of weird: she was all shy and then we'd ask for a glass and she'd be like 'WHAT? NO! haha..ok!'. weird girl. We got our plates really quickly though, which was appreciated!

Food: 6.5
Service: 6.5... could have been 7 but you know... weird girl!

This is a great place to study in (there was practically no one talking) but not so much a place to go and have a bite. And THAT'S what I have to say about Cagibi!

Verses pendant le Happening Gourmand

Happening Gourmand!! Merci à ma copine de m'en avoir parlé et d'avoir gardé un article dans le journal Métro qui parlait justement de ce 'happening' au Vieux-Port de Montréal! Ça tombait bien, ma meilleure amie était en ville cette fin de semaine donc nous avons réservé chez Verses pour 20h30 vendredi soir pour 3 de mes meilleures amies, ma copine et moi. Ce resto est situé dans l'hôtel Nelligan, un hôtel très bien coté à Montréal.( http://www.hotelnelligan.com/ )

Nous y sommes arrivées vers 20h15 et nous attendions encore quelqu'un donc nous nous sommes assisses au bar pour prendre un verre. Le vin au verre le moins cher était à environ 10$... un peu cher je trouve mais pour un resto qui a habituellement une table d'hôte à 44$, j'imagine que ça a du sens. Deux minutes après notre arrivée, la serveuse est venue nous porter les menus, la musique était 'chill', pas trop forte, et il y avait un petit centre de table garni de pommes vertes. C'était joli et simple. Ma copine et moi avons pris la 'scarlett': bacardi limon, framboise, canneberge et vodka. Une autre des convives a pris un mojito framboises et l'autre, un verre de vin. Très savoureux! Toutefois, le mojito framboises et le scarlett étaient en tous points identiques sauf la menthe.

Bien que la cinquième personne soit arrivée plutôt en retard, nous avons quand même eu une table. Ouf!

À notre entrée, l'hôtesse nous avait dit que nous allions avoir une table ronde, donc avec une banquette mais finalement, lorsqu'est venu le moment de passer en salle à manger, il n'y en avait pas alors ils nous ont donné une table rectangulaire... un peu difficile pour communiquer entre nous.

Une fois assises, nous avons reçu les menus très rapidement, ce qui a été fort apprécié car nous étions affamées! Le service du vin s'est fait en bonne et due forme, ce qui m'a beaucoup plu (ITHQ, sort de ce corps!) Personnellement, j'ai commandé la salade de betteraves, les ravioli à la courge et comme dessert, une crème brûlée au chai!

La salade est arrivée peu après la commande sur une longue assiette rectangulaire placée à l'horizontal (tendance du moment). La salade était très bonne MAIS, en comparant à notre resto préféré, Olivieri, celle de Verses n'était pas à la hauteur. Elle contenait des betteraves rouges et jaunes, ainsi que du fromage de chèvre et des noix de grenobles caramélisées: un très bon mélange! Next: les ravioli! J'avais très hâte de pouvoir comparer leurs ravioli au ravioli de chez Olivieri! Malheureusement pour Verses, je dois dire que les ravioli de chez Olivieri sont meilleurs! Ils étaient un peu secs et il n'y avait pas assez de sauce ni de garniture à l'intérieur. Par contre, ils ont ajouté un peu de roquette; un beau petit ajout.

Crème brûlée comme dessert! J'avais hâte de goûter à une crème brûlée au chai. Nous avons été déçues encore une fois quand le serveur a apporté à ma copine une cuillière à potage à la place d'une plus petite cuillière. J'ai une amie qui a pris le plateau de fromages et pour la citer: «ça goûte le sel!» Les fromages étaient également tous trop froids; quelle belle façon de ruiner de bons fromages québécois! Une autre amie a pris la tartelette aux poires et chocolat et elle m'a dit que c'était beaucoup trop sucré et sec. Triste. Reparlons de la crème brûlée. Elle était vraiment bonne! Meilleure option du menu!

En ce qui a trait au service pendant notre repas, c'était correct mais pas spectaculaire. À la fin du service, les serveurs faisaient trop de bruits en polissant des verres et parlant entre eux. En parlant de serveurs, il y avait deux serveurs qui venaient de l'ITHQ! HAhahaha!

ALORS:

Pour la bouffe: une moyenne de 6.5
Pour le service: une moyenne de 7

En tant que cliente de plusieurs restaurants 'in' de Montréal, j'ai été déçue par le 'Happening Gourmand' et par Verses. Par contre, je tiens à dire qu'il faut quand même prendre avantage des 'promotions' comme le Happening Gourmand!!!

Tavern

I LOVE this restaurant. WE love this restaurant. My friend V, she REALLY loves this place. Her and her mom go a LOT. And it's worth it too! Although it's a tad annoying to get to when you don't have a car, it's well worth the metro and bus trip.

It's quite a small place and it's very good (did I mention that already? :p) so obviously, with that, comes lots of clients. You're pretty much guaranteed to wait at least 15 minutes when you go during dinner time, given that it's also a small place.

We went in December when it was cold outside and just being there warmed us up :) The decor is quite modern and it has a long bar for people that want to just have drinks or just for the people waiting for their tables. There was loud music playing (a TAD to loud)...Beatles and more classics like Bruce Springsteen and Aretha Franklin. 35 to 40 seats not counting the bar (about 12 seats). The only thing ruining the good vibe was un lampadère dehors that couldn't seem to decide if it was on or off. That was annoying.

I had the crispy honey ginger shrimp and the mac n' cheese (with pancetta!)--23$. Can I just mention that I LOVE shrimp and I've had them pretty much any way one can have shrimp. These were probably the best shrimp I've EVER had. I'm serious. Crispy, very tasty yumminess. Heavenly! My mac n' cheese was good too but I had had that before so I wasn't as excited about it as the shrimp!

The waitress served the wine just the way one is supposed to serve wine (well, according to ITHQ standards anyway!): she opened it with the tag on the bottle facing us, without twisting the bottle, put a bit in the taster's glass and the others clockwise and get back to the taster (of course, women are first and men, second... but we were three girls).

As for the desert, we had the 'délice d'automne' and it was just that, delicious! Panacotta pumpkin pie filling with some crumble in there... YUM!

As for paying, we had to wait a while, which was weird because there were still clients waiting at the door. You'd think she'd want us to leave so that more clients can come sit and therefore, get more tips!

So for the scores:

FOOD: 8/10
Service: 7.5 ...we did wait a tad too long to get the bill

I recommend this to anyone who wants to eat in a 'happenin' place' and eat good food and drink good wine!

ps: malheureusement, le site internet n'est pas terminé...

Manana

My school peeps always go out for lunch and I'm always the one resisting either because I brought my lunch or I'm broke. This time, I made an exception :) On a rainy lunch time at ITHQ, my friends Cam, Gab and I decided to venture out onto St-Denis and find a place to eat. And we found Manana. I had been there about 2 and a half years ago but did not remember just how good the food was.

First, I must mention how 'mexican-y' it is in there! It's wonderful; it's like 'oh, wait, I've just entered Mexico!'. There are a lot of colors and pictures of Frida in a corner. It was right before noon so there were about 3 other people in this small, cute resto. I ordered the sangria--I mean who can resist?--and it was amazing! Lots of fruits and very full of alcohol... just the way I like my drinks :)

Instead of bread, they brought us some nachos with salsa, which I thought was very fun, although the salsa was not nearly as spicy as I would have liked it to be. I had the fajitas con pollo and it was very nice, savory. It came with some guacamole--I LOVE the stuff-- and it was a great addition to a classic. I enjoyed dipping my fajitas in the smooth guacamole and making satisfied noises, much to the dismay of my lunch buddies. Of course, my plate also contained rice and black beans which were also good and completed the dish well. The girls loved their meals too, although I didn't really have time to note down what they had, having only about 40 minutes to find a restaurant, order, eat and go back to school. I actually didn't have time to finish my lunch so i took it back to school in a box and ate it for dinner :)

As for the service, it was quick, but we were about 5 in the restaurant so it wasn't much of an issue. Our waitress was nice and smiley and fast. When we were paying the bill, she gave us werthers original... rapport!

For the scores:

Food: 8
Service: 8

Whoever likes Mexican food must visit this restaurant! Its authentic decor and food makes it a great experience!

Café International

We had been meaning to go there for a while and since we were walking around dans la petite Italie à la fin de l'été, we thought we should go for it! Nous nous sommes assises dehors sur la petite terasse, entourée de jardinières et de petits arbres, créant l'illusion que l'on était pas vraiment sur le trottoir! :) Nous étions entourées de gens d'affaires, en grande majorité, surtout d'italiens bien sûr! C'était drôle, I don't know if it's because I watched the Sopranos the night before but most of them looked like they were part of the mafia, speaking to each other very quietly and holding locked briefcases. But that's probably just me!

Our waitress came to our table and she was so cute and cheerful, it made us smile! She explained the menu and the table d'hôte and came back 2 minutes later with a last minute addition to the table d'hôte: a roquette, fig and caramelized onions pizza. Hello! I jumped on that :p

So this is what I had and it came with a salad (maudite mesclun!) and canollis! Ze wife had the mushroom risotto: pleurotes, potobello, huile de trufle. My pizza was really REALLY good: tasty and not overly full of crap. So good that I made some in the weeks following our visit to the restaurant. Only shitty thing was that my caramelized onions were not caramelized at all... just cooked in a pan. That was kind of a let down. I also want to mention that the bread was excellent and fluffy, extremement moelleux, just you want out of bread :) We also had some bruschetta as an entree (she brought soup at first but we were like 'giiirl, we ordered the bruschetta!) It was very well seasoned and had celery in it which was a good addition. The salad was nothing special, I hate getting mesclun in a restaurant, I don't know why but I just do. The great vinaigrette made up for it though. Ze wife's risotto was very creamy and savory and again well seasoned. And she knows her risotto! We always make some at home and this one was really good! My canollis were good but pretty hard... like too hard for canollis. Since the wife has better teeth than me, she ate most of my desert. For the prices: risotto and entree cost 17$ and my table d'hôte cost 16$. Quite reasonable.

We had great service from the start and then the waitress kind of stopped coming. We wanted water and then the bill because we were kind of in a hurry and she was nowhere to be seen! Minus 5 points! She finally passed by our table and we had to stop her and ask her for the bill.

Here are the scores:

Food: an average of 7
Service: an average of 6.5 (could have been 9 but she deserted us!)

All in all, we were quite satisfied of our Italian experience and so if you happen to walk by in little Italy, you should definitely eat there!

Fou d'Asie

Ça faisait presque un an que mon amie Rosalie et moi nous étions vues donc vu que je vais à l'ITHQ et elle, l'UQAM, nous avons décidé de se rencontrer un peu dans le milieu; coin Ontario et St-Denis. On regarde autour et nous voyons le Commensal, Zyng et Fou d'Asie. On a choisi Fou d'Asie car nous avions entendu de bonnes choses et avions envie de manger de la bouffe asiatique.
Erreur.

Nous sommes arrivées vers 13h et dans ce géant restaurant, il n'y avait que quelques clients. Peut-être était-ce un mauvais présage. Mais bon, nous nous sommes assises à la fenêtre, avec une belle vue du Gentlemen's club de l'autre bord de la rue. Le décor (du resto et non du club en face :) était un peu bizarre: chaises roses flash et moyennement comfos, tables en bois foncées, fleurs artificielles ici et là, aquarium en arrière. Sans oublier le 'patchage' de peinture au plafond.
Notre table, qui était ornée d'un 'tit napperon' en papier, n'avait évidamment aucune nappe mais été particulièrement collante. Bah. Moi je dis go pas de nappe mais lave ta table! C'est vraiment déplaisant d'étendre ton bras sur la table et d'y laisser quelques poils!

Trois secondes plus tard, nous avions notre menu et woup, 3 autres secondes et le serveur était de retour pour prendre la commande. Surprises, nous lui avons dit, que 'euh, on a même pas regardé le menu'. L'eau a été servie immédiatement et le serveur est revenu quelques minutes plus tard.

Nous avons commandé le poulet au gingembre (Rosalie) et le poulet General Tao (moi). Ça faisait des années que j'avais mangé du general tao et j'aimais vraiment ça avant donc je me suis dis 'pourquoi pas'? Mon assiette est arrivée et l'assiette de Rosalie est arrivée... 5-6 minutes plus tard. Pas cool. En parlant de 'cool', nos assiettes étaient vraiment froides. Quand tu sers des mets chauds, tu réchauffes ton assiette!!!

Nos protéines étaient accompagnées de riz et de légumes. Premièrement, le poulet était un peu sec mais la sauce était bonne et me rappelait de bons souvenirs! Le riz était bin correct mais les légumes, difficilement mastiquables. En plus, ça paraissait qu'ils venaient directement d'un sac dans le congélateur. C'est plate.

Même pas deux secondes après avoir fini de manger, le serveur était de retour avec les factures. Il nous a annocé qu'il n'acceptait pas la carte débit. Shit. Quel resto n'accepte pas la carte débit??? Il a quand même fait signe de venir payer au comptoir donc il nous a donné l'impression que nous pouvions payer avec interac là. Nous lui avons dit que nous n'étions pas prête à payer et avons jasé un peu plus. Ensuite, rendues au bar, je lui donne ma carte et il répète que je ne peux pas l'utiliser. C'était pas clair, son affaire.

Note pour bouffe: 5.5 (décevant, légumes congelés, poulet sec)
Service: 5.5 (serveur trop vite sur ses patins pour nous faire commander et pour faire payer...tables collantes---je mets ça dans le service, oui!)

Notez que ze wife a lu ma critique et a dit que j'étais bien trop difficile.

Marché 27

I was very busy on the 19th of September and ze wife had a hard time planning time to celebrate my birthday! BUT, cute as she is, she put a note in my lunch bag with some kind of treasure hunt leading me to Marché 27. So instead of eating a homemade lunch, I ate at Marché 27. Sure beats a sandwich! I got there and the wife was waiting for me (in a very sexy dress no less... but that's another story). Knowing that I only had a short time to eat, she had already ordered and I ordered myself a drink to make it more birthday-y, even if it wasn't 12 yet. You only turn 22 once :p

The place itself is quite small: about 40 seats inside and 6 to 8 outside. The decor is simple but fun, clean tiles, clean lines, very cozy, with black boards all around featuring the menu and the specials.

The service was very fast but I gotta add here that we were the only ones in the restaurant for a good 15 minutes so if the service wouldn't have been good, there would've been a problem! The waitress was very nice and waited to take our plates away and when she did, we didn't feel 'forced to go' as we do in a lot of restaurants.

Parlons de la bouffe!!! YUM-MY! Ze wife était déjà allée avec une de ses amies et recommandait l'assiette dégustation de tartares, donc nous avons commandé celle-ci. DÉ-LI-CIEUX! Mais en premier, nous avons mangé une salade de crevettes, avocats et mangues; celle-ci était très bien assaisonnée et était entourée d'endives, ce qui nous permettait de manger avec nos mains! It was a fun dish to eat. As for the main, equally good if not more. Nous avions 5 tartares sur notre assiette avec une petite salade dans le milieu. Saumon thai, boeuf français,canard italien, cerf épicé, thon japonais. 50 g each, which was a good enough portion for the two of us, considering we had just eaten an entree and we had some fries on the side. There were also some big croutons and some uh, puffy rice caky things to eat the tartar with. They were all delicious, but my favorite one was the duck! I believe it was the wife's favorite one too. The least favorite was probably the beef and le cerf, but still good, don't get me wrong! The salmon one was good, but I've eaten so much salmon tartar that it's getting kind of old. But again, don't get me wrong, it was still good! I think it was the beef that wasn't cut like I wanted it to be; some larger chunks were hiding in there and were a bit less 'fun' to eat. Le poisson et les viandes étaient mariés parfaitement aux ingrédients et aux marinades. Très bien exécuté. As for my drink, it was called a Fancy (vodka, limonata, coulis de fraises et basilic frais) and it was goooo-hoood! Even better, if you go between 5 and 8 PM, they are only 5 $!

The scores, shall we?

Bouffe: 8.5/10
Service: 8/10

This place is a great spot, surtout pour les amateurs de tartare (il y a d'autres mets, bien sûr!) ! Il y en a tellement (cliquez sur le titre en haut et vous serez envoyés au site internet) et, comme mentionné, sont très bien exécutés. Parfait pour des petits repas en amoureux, des repas d'affaires ou même des repas entre amis. Nous le suggérons fortement!