Le Nil Bleu

On Monday, the wife and I had plans of going for tea and then finding a restaurant near by to get something to eat fast and then attend an improv match at the St-Ciboire. Well, we had the tea, and then decided we were too tired to actually go to the improv match and so decided to go look for a restaurant to eat at. We walked along St-Denis and thought about La Fabrique. That was closed. So we thought about Le Nil Bleu, an ethiopian restaurant, because we had been meaning to go there for a while. Yay, it was opened! And so we entered Africa!

It was a nice little restaurant, very quaint, we thought. Upstairs, there is room for about 100 people and downstairs, there is a reception room for a private party of about 40 people. They have a nice decor, zebra and leopard prints on chairs, some african-looking sculptures everywhere. They were playing Amadou et Mariam which we thought was quite fitting! They also have a nice grand piano which is apparently used Fridays and Saturdays for a little ambiance. We got there at around 7:30 PM and it was about half full. We got a table right away and water was poured into our glasses. We bought a bottle of wine: they didn't have the one we wanted (one of the cheapest one) so we took another one (Fleur du Cap, an african chardonnay) which was more expensive so that was a tiny bit annoying.

We looked at the menu and immediately, we knew what we were going to have: a combination of four choices from the menu (for 2 people) for 33,95$. There is actually 3 selections you can make and we chose A:
1-Doro Watt (slightly spicy chicken with onions and half an egg)
2-Yebeg Alicha ( pieces of stewed lamb with potatoes and carots)
3-Beef Key Watt (tender pieces of beef, slightly spicy, simmered in a berbere sauce)
4-Yekik Alicha (chick peas cooked in curcuma and fresh ginger)

This combo was presented on a huge plate that we were to share. There was also a salad in the middle to freshen the palate, if need be (and the need was there, after all that spice!)

The tricky part was that there were no utensils! We were to eat with ingera(right),which is basically a thin looking bread or a crepe if you will. It was going to be messy, I thought, but turns out, it worked well! I wouldn't necessarily suggest this on a first date but perhaps a second or third one :)


One thing I didn't like that much was that on the tables, there were cloths and over it, a glass to prevent the soiling of the table cloths. Well, I didn't really enjoy the couple hairs that were tucked under there, in plain site. That was not too cool.

Apart from that everything was great. Even the washrooms were very nice, the stalls were made of glass and I found it very sleek. Oh but at some point, there was no more soap :(

We even made friends with the people sitting at the table next to us and had a nice conversation! Isabelle and the wife were talking about something (she is a journalist), while the husband and I were talking food, of course! he used to be a sous-chef and has a site called janroncommunications.com (Canada Travel News). It was nice to talk about our respective blogs and mostly, about the food!

So for the scores:

Service: 9/10. Service was great. Our waiter was friendly and came to ask us if the food was good once and came only to serve water which was nice. He also did not rush us to pay the bill at the end because he could see that we had made new friends :)

Food: 7.5/10. As Isa mentioned, she wouldn't eat ethiopian food every day and when I asked her what she would eat every day, she looked at me with dreamy eyes and said 'butter chicken!'. hahaha!

A good, new, ethiopian experience! I would recommend this restaurant to anyone who's not afraid to eat with their hands!

Europea, my love

For my birthday, the wife took me to Europea. Actually, my all-time dream has been to go to The French Laundry (chef Keller) in California and since that entails paying flight fare and about 300$ for dinner for one, Europea by Jérôme Ferrer was the next best thing.

What to say? It was AMAZING! We loved our fine dining experience! We had the tasting menu which is basically a 10 service meal with a couple extras at the beginning. This menu cost 89,50$ and if you choose to accompany this with wine, the pairing is an extra 64,50$ for 5 glasses. We did not take this option seeing as A: I had quite the party the night before and B: we are not millionaires.

We got there at around 5:30 PM (us oldies eat early :) so there weren't that many people in the restaurant. We went in and immediately there was the hostess to take our jackets and lead us to our table on the second floor right next to the window: a very nice spot. Everyone that worked there seemed to either smile at us or say hello, which was nice. Our waitress immediately brought us the first amuse-bouche which was basically cheese on a stick. But good cheese. Mmmmm.

After that, the feast was about to begin. here is what we ate:
1st course: Lobster cream Cappuccino with truffles shavings
2nd: Mediterranean bass marinated with yuzu juice, rice lettuce
3rd: Giant caramelized scallop, parmesan risotto and crisp, béarnaise sauce emulsion
4th: Seared Quebec Foie gras, root vegetable purée, sautéed chanterelles and chips.
Morel mushroom emulsion, veal jus flavoured with arabica- arpégio coffee
5th: Cornwell chicken, Galanga infusion, Shiitaké vermicelli
6th: Fresh ravioli with ricotta mushrooms, porcini emulsion, grilled Portobello, Alba truffle sauce
7th: Short ribs of Eumatimi Beef, crispy galette of roots vegetables, braised chipolini onions and baby carrot, sweet and sour BBQ
8th: Selection of cheeses
9th: Sweets and deserts (macarons, chocolate and verrines)
10th: Mignardises (barbapapa!, madeleines in a chinese take out box!)

This was, as I just mentionned, a FEAST! WoW! Everything was so good and I we were highly pleased! Starting with the lobster cappuccino: it was marvellous and SO amazing!! The texture and the taste of it were perfect! It was also the first time I ate foie gras and I loved it. I would eat it again any day, in small quantities of course :)They even came up the stairs with the pot where the Cornwell chicken was brewing and showed it to us before they plated! OK, that was a tiny bit exagerated I found but still!

As for the service, we found it very courteous. When you enter the restaurant they take your jacket and lead you to your table. Ours was upstairs on the second floor near the window which we found was a very good spot. The only thing I can say that we didn,t really appreciate is the fact that so many waiters came to our table 9I,d say about 4 or 5) and we found that a bit weird. Also, the table beside ours was so close that when the waitress came to fill up their water, her ass was pretty much on our table. Apart from that, very good, pretty exceptional service.

For the scores:

Food: 10/10
Service: 9.5/10

Prices:

Tasting menu: 89,50$ per person
Wine paring (5 wines): 64,50$ per person

You can also have the discovery menu for 64,50$ (5 courses) or à la carte.

All in all, an amazing culinary experience!


ps: I must mention that someone I know also went to this restaurant, actually for his birthday, and was not pleased at all! he was siting next to the stairs and apparently every time someone came up or went down, the table shook a bit. Also, he claims they served too much wine and that he felt kind of sick when he left because 'the food contained too much fat'. I say, it's your special day, bring on the fat!!!

Franglish

Just so you know, from now on, this blog will either have fully french posts or fully English posts!! It'll make things clearer, I think!

Afternoon Tea au Café Birks par Europea

Je suis allée au Café Birks le 13 mars dernier en compagnie d’une amie. Nous avons réservé pour 15h30. Sachez qu’il est préférable de réserver (c’est ce qui est indiqué sur le site internet) et consultez bien l’horaire du resto sur leur site. Dans notre cas, nous avons dû quitter à 17h car le resto fermait. Nous y sommes allées pour le English Tea (servi à partir de 14h30 tous les jours, eux l’appellent le Afternoon Tea). C’est l’une de dernières places à Montréal qui offre encore le English Tea (le Maître chocolatier l’offre aussi).

Le premier service était constitué de petits canapés. Nous avons chacune eu droit à un canapé au concombre et crevettes, un canapé au foie gras et chutney et un canapé de saumon et caviar. J’ai aimé ces trois canapés et je les ai trouvé tous trois satisfaisants (surtout celui au foie gras et chutney!). Toutefois, dans les trois cas, la base était une tranche de pain grillé sans croute taillée en forme de rond ce qui m’a laissé un peu perplexe… Nous avons également reçu lors de ce premier service un petit club sandwich fort délicieux (mayo excellente!! Je ne sais pas ce qu’il y avait dans cette sauce mais miam!).

Ensuite, est venu le deuxième service. On nous a servi 2 scones avec de la crème et de la confiture d’oranges, une petite verrine (mousse au chocolat pour l’une et mousse de noisette et praliné pour l’autre), un macaron et un chocolat. Comme nous étions deux et que l’on a reçu une verrine, un macaron et un chocolat différents, nous avons décidé de tout partager pour pouvoir tout goûter. J’ai beaucoup aimé les scones. Le goût et la texture étaient parfaits! Cela s’applique également aux chocolats. Par contre, les verrines ne m’ont pas fait grande impression. La mousse au chocolat était correcte mais le premier commentaire de mon amie fût : << Ta mousse au chocolat est meilleure que celle-ci>>! La verrine aux noisettes était pour sa part beaucoup trop sucrée, nous ne l’avons pas terminée. Les macarons étaient bons mais pas extraordinaires (mais je pense que ça c’est vraiment personnel, je suis une macaron snob! ).

Évidemment, le tout était accompagné de thé! Le Café Birks offre une sélection de 8 thés Mariage Frère de Paris. Lors de notre visite, tous les thés n’étaient pas disponibles mais nous n’avons pas eu de difficulté à choisir un thé qui nous convenait (Thé sur le Nil et Jasmin Mandarin). Celui-ci nous a été servi dans une jolie théière chinoise. Pour l’ensemble des services, je dois dire que la présentation était jolie, pas extraordinaire mais tout de même élégante. Nous avons déboursé 33-34$ chacune (incluant taxes et pourboire) ce que nous n’avons pas trouvé exagéré puisque cela constituait un réel repas. Je n’avais pas dîné auparavant et il faut dire que je n’avais pas faim pour souper par la suite! On nous a également remis un baluchon de Flocons de Montréal (mini-meringues avec des brisures d’amandes et des noix trempées dans le caramel) à emporter! Miam!

Je ne peux pas commenter le menu régulier (que vous trouverez sur le site internet) mais sachez qu’il a été composé par Jérôme Ferrer, chef et propriétaire de Europea, et par Isabelle Huot, nutritionniste. La table d’hôte du midi varie entre 20 et 28$ et le brunch est 39,50$. Par contre, il est possible d’y aller pour prendre ce qu’ils appellent les collations gourmandes (ex : salade, club sandwich, potage, etc.) ou les compositions glacées si votre budget est plus serré.

Le restaurant se trouve directement dans la bijouterie, sur une mezzanine est doit comporter environ 45 places? Bien que le décor était tout ce qu’il y a de plus classique et chic, l’ambiance laissait à désirer. Est-ce dû au fait que c’était un dimanche après-midi ou est-ce représentatif de l’ambiance quotidienne? Difficile à savoir… Il y avait peu de clients à notre arrivée et le resto était très calme. Il faut dire aussi que nous approchions de l’heure de fermeture. Toutefois, je dois dire que cela n’était pas sans nous déplaire. Nous n’avons pas eu à crier pour nous entendre et nous avons pu discuter à loisir. En outre, le service était efficace. Nous avons tout de suite été placées et nos commandes ont été prises rapidement. Nous n’avons pas eu à attendre longtemps entre les services et notre serveuse était agréable.

Je voulais aller au Café Birks spécifiquement pour le thé car j’avais adoré mon expérience d’aller prendre le thé à Londres. Est-ce que mon expérience montréalaise se compare à celle que j’ai vécue au pays de Diana? Non, évidemment pas. Par contre, fût-ce une expérience plaisante? Tout à fait! Différente mais agréable. Retournerai-je au Café Birks? Oui, certainement! J’ai envie d’essayer le brunch!! :)

Voici mes notes!

Pour la nourriture : 7.5/10

Pour le service : 9/10

Bistro Olivieri

Bonjour tout le monde! Comme vous avez pu remarquer, je n'ai pas vraiment beaucoup de temps pour 'poster'. Today I will briefly talk about the resto we spent 3 days out of 5 of the heat wave last summer: Olivieri. Not only do they have great air conditionning, they also have a pretty little terrasse! It's located IN a library in CDN, which is pretty cool/ interesting.

Simply put, I believe I can say it's the restaurant I can visit 3 times a week and not get bored: they have a different menu every day (most of the times, two different menus a day) and they bring back favorites with a twist like the beet and goat cheese salad(they change the cheese or the leaves for example).

Their prices range between about 4$ and 10$ for an entrée, 9$ and 20$ for a main course and around 4 to 8 for a desert. Service is always impeccable, and I know why now: they hire ITHQ graduates :)

Ils utilisent des produits du terroir, la plupart biologiques et font affaire avec les fermes du 'coin'. Ils affichent leurs fermes productrices sur un tableau à l'arrière du resto. I don't know about you but I love knowing where my food comes from! I'm very much in favor of the slow food movement and they adhere to it through their methods of purchasing, who they purchase from, and the kind of food they cook up! I love supporting them and if it weren't for my bank account, I'd be there every day!

The crowd mostly includes U de M profs and some students and also, people like us that live in the neighborhood. It has a nice ambiance and after dinner, you can hop through the library and buy yourself a nice book :)

Food:9/10 .... always amazing!
Service:8/10.... one of the waiters is not top niveau but the other one was trained at ours truly, ITHQ :)

They are located on Côte-des-Neiges, right beside the St-Hubert near Jean-Brillant. The experience is well worth your time and money!



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! 

FYI

For those of you who asked me to put the addresses of the restaurants visited, if you click on the actual post title, it will bring you to their website!

ps: try it with THIS one!

m:brgr

Two posts in ONE day!? y'all are lucky! hehe.

M:brgr= kind of a high-end burger joint!

So, the wife had been craving a tuna burger forever so we decided to go tonight! We had gone once this summer and ate the tuna burger and we ate the same damn thing today and I gotta say, it was AS good, if not better than last time! You know how sometimes, you overhype what you're about to eat? well, this was hypin' well deserved! I wasn't disappointed one bit!

We arrived at 6 ish (old ladies eat early!--hehe) and there was already a great ambiance. The restaurant wasn't full but it was quite busy. Our waiter arrived only 1 minute after WE arrived and gave us menus and water. We both wanted the tuna burger (mmmmmtuna brgr!). You can actually choose what you put IN your burger, what KIND of burger you want, AND the BREAD that you prefer. I took it with whole wheat bread and mango and cucumber salsa (oh ya!) and ze wife took hers wrapped in lettuce with some caramelized onions.

Mine was...B-U-tiful... but ze wife's... the lettuce was hard to manage while eating and the plate was kind of sloppy. AND they had forgotten the onions at first so the waiter had to bring it back (but it only took 1 minute).

The waiter was nice but not overly so...he didn't look like he was 'into' it and mmmI dunno, he was kind of blah. I like a waiter that's courteous, excited about his job (although not overly so) and knows the menu. This one appeared to know the menu well, although we didn't need any explanations, but as I mentioned, he was a bit 'blah'...Let's just say there was nothing exciting about him.

Prices were quite reasonable : tuna burger was 15,95$ and the extra topping was 2 bucks. Drinks, which we didn't have this time around, were around 10 bucks each, 40 dollars-ish a pitcher. You can check out the full menu at the link posted along with this blog entry...

So, for the scores:

Food: 9.5(me), 8.5(ze wife)
Service: I think we can agree on 8.5

We definitely recommend this restaurant AND the tuna burger...but we haven't really had anything else on the menu so I can only speak for the LOVELY YUMMY tuna burger! Next time we go: kobe beef burger (19,95$)!

Le restaurant de l'ITHQ

Change of plans: This review will be on Le restaurant de l'Institut (ITHQ) et non Europea. The latter will come a bit later, don't worry :)

Ma tante, comme cadeau de Noël, m'a invité à aller manger au restaurant et j'ai choisi celui-ci car il était sur ma liste.

Ce resto est très spacieux: haut plafond, grandes tables, beaucoup d'espace. Nous étions assises sur le bord de la fenêtre qui donnait sur la rue St-Denis. C'était très bien comme vue de notre grande fenêtre.

Nous avions effectué une réservation et c'est une bonne chose car le restaurant était plein. J'ai appelé vendredi pour le lundi et c'est un étudiant qui a répondu au téléphone. C'était assez long comme processus: mon nom, mon numéro de téléphone, combien de personnes (toutes des questions habituelles)... mais ensuite, il m'a demandé comment j'avais entendu parlé du restaurant et m'a donné des options. Ça, j'ai trouvé un peu exagéré. En plus, pauvre petit, il était super nerveux au téléphone et était presque qu'en train de bégayer. Peut-être serait-ce une bonne chose de les faire pratiquer avant avec des faux appels??!

This is what we had to eat:

Comme entrée, j'ai pris une pastilla au petit gibier à plumes rôti avec légumes miniatures, jus de volaille à l'échalote et au sirop de canneberge. Nothing bad to say about this, it was excellent. ma tante a pris un effeuillé de saumon fumé, galette de yukon gold, salade de fenouil avec des raisins frais et raisins de corynthe. Elle a trouvé ça excellent également. C'est plutôt pour le plat principal que ça se gâte!!

J'ai commandé des linguine diabolissimo avec une sauce à la crème et aneth. Let me just tell you there was a LOT of dill in there. A LOOOOOT! It was more like dill with a bit of linguine. I'm not CRAZY about dill, I can handle a bit, but this was too much!

Desert was good but not exceptionnal. (to be honest with you, I started this entry a month ago and lost the paper where it says what we had to eat... :( )

Bouffe: pour ma tante et moi-même, la moyenne était de 7.5/10
Service: again, for us both, 8/10

What kind of annoyed me was that my aunt asked for a wine, the dude let her taste and she did not like it therefore ordered something else. It took him at LEAST 10 minutes to come back, as if he was pissed. THAT annoyed me!!!

Apart from that it was great, more experienced students work there and they are in general very polite. It was a great atmosphere and I would recommend it!! (Except, be careful, don't reject their wine! hehehe.)

All in all a good experience, and I just had to eat at least once at my school's restaurant so there, it's done! I might even go back---because I get 30% off... hihihi.

Chez Chose

Ce resto était sur notre liste de restos-à-visiter et, pendant une soirée très pluvieuse, nous nous y sommes rendues. 'Chose' est la chef et ses parents sont dans la salle à manger. J'ai beaucoup aimé le fait que le menu change à chaque deux ou trois jours comme chez Olivieri à Côte-des-Neiges et comme plusieurs autres restos à Montréal qui commencent à adopter ce 'style'. C'est une petite salle-à manger d'environ une quarantaine de places: c'est très coquet. En ce qui a trait au service, le père nous a acceuilli quand nous sommes entrées dans le resto et ensuite, nous avons attendu un peu trop longtemps pour voir le menu. Ça m'a énervé un peu!

Il y avait seulement environ 7-8 personnes dans le resto quand nous sommes arrivées vers les 18 heures. Le décor était cute et simple. Les fleurs artificielles dans le coin étaient de TROP!

Prix: pour deux personnes, avec 2 verres de vin, entrées, plats principaux et desserts: environ 90$-100$, not including tip

Concept: Très cute, le concept; 'Chose est dans la cuisine et sur le menu on peut retrouver 'La chose de la chef' ou bien 'La chose entrée'. Les menus sont écrits sur des tableaux que les serveurs ammènent à la table lorsqu'on est prêt à commander.

Bouffe: Bonne bouffe du terroir. Très fraîche. Ce qui a été un peu décevant est que Isa et moi-même avions pris des plats différents et nous avions les mêmes légumes et féculents dans notre assiette (on aime commander des plats différents et les partager). Personnellement, j'ai pris une cuisse de lapin fourrée aux champignons shitake et saucisses et Isa a pris les pétoncles avec un coulis de courge musquée. Les deux plats étaient accompagnés de pommes de terre, de pousse de maïs et de carottes. Le lapin était bon mais pas spectaculaire et les pétoncles me semblaient vraiment petites mais elles étaient très bonnes.

Pour le dessert, j'ai pris un panacotta à la noix de coco avec des ananas grillés, un shooter au rhum et noix de coco(qui peut dire non?). Isabelle a pris la croustade aux petits fruits avec une crème glacée au chèvre et romarin (how original!!!)

Pointage: 7.5/10 pour la bouffe et 7/10 pour le service

All in all, a great experience and good atmosphere. Food was good but not great.

Site internet: www.chezchose.net
Adresse: 4621 St-Denis

Intéressant: Rabais pour les abonnés du Théâtre du Rideau Vert (je crois que c'est 20%)

FYI: After reading this post, the wife said I was a bit harsh... take that into consideration!