business lunch #5: Lunch at Birks!

So I finally found my new favorite business lunch location downtown: Birks Cafe!

This is the new restaurant by Europea in the Birks jewellery store on Cathcart and Ste-catherine. We didn't have reservations but luckily a reservation for 2 had just been cancelled.

There`s something about eating surrounded by pearls, gold and diamonds that`s just so glamorous! The dining area is situated in the back in the elevated area and is all white table cloths, nice silverware and glass cases with pretty items such as vases on display. Of course, my camera battery died when I got there so bear with me and the blackberry photography.

When we sit down they immediately offer us a taster of cabillaud mousse with some pretty edible gold thing on it. Quite tasty although mousse form is not usually the way I enjoy my fish... But I absolutely adore when a place offers their patrons little dégustations, it's just so classy and considerate and a little extra that clients really appreciate and it allows the restaurant to show off what they're capable of creating. Also the bread was whole wheat and the butter came covered in seaweed and rock salt and there was also some lemon infused olive oil and balsamic. Very nice touch.

Every dish on the menu has been reviewed by a nutritionist so its all relatively healthy and portioned properly for a one person meal. This restaurant proves that healthy doesn`t have to mean boring. We had the table d'hote and I ordered the beef gravlax which came with lentils and whole wheat toast. It was ginger honey flavored and delicious. My mother ordered the squash soup and it was a little spicy and contained cubes of tofu and squash. Both very good entrees.

Next, I ordered the papillote of sole which came served to me in a plastic wrapping that made it feel like I was recieving a present! The waitress cut open the package for me and in it was the rolled sole which contained tomatoes, olives and zucchini. It was served on quinoa and vegetables. I loved it. It was light but still flavourful. My mom's ricotta stuffed ravioli was also amazing. It was covered with beautiful delicate mushrooms and truffle shavings.

For dessert, I went for a litchi macaron which was not comparable to Pierre Hermé one, but good and not as sweet as the other ones I've tasted in Montreal. We had cappucinos (5.50$, the only overly expensive item on the menu!) and they gave us lemon madeleines.

Everything was amazing. The service, the food, the decor.

Even the prices were not offensive (a little less than 30$ each for an entree and main) considering the quality of the food.

Also the man who offered us dessert and gave us our bill really reminded me in his graciousness of the man in Breakfast at Tiffany's who allows them to get their cheap ring engraved. The whole experience sort of reminded me of that movie which is maybe why I liked this place so much!

Finally, my hunt for an excellent lunch location in the downtown core is over!

This is definitely my go to place from now.

xoxo

s.

How I wanted to love you based on looks alone: Barroco

I had walked by this restaurant thats in the place of the defunct Cobalt and thought it looked cute and cozy. I liked the brick walls, the dim lighting and the nouveau Baroque theme they were playing with. I really really wanted to like this place. I really did.

I suggested we try it out so 8 of my favorite ladies and I decided to get all dolled up and have dinner there on wednesday night. There was lots of fur, good shoes, a few Blair Waldorf inspired outfits, some 90s. We have fun.

The cocktail list was enticing and the drinks were good. Kristina got a maple syrup, orange and bourbon that was delicious at first but the orange was overpowering after more than one sip. Alissa and I ordered a white wine, a Chablis, and for 68$ were not at all impressed. The whole menu was excessively expensive actually.

The menu was appetizing. Renata and Alissa ordered squash soups that came in little pumpkins which was a cute presentation. It was decent tasting, not mind-blowing.

Isabelle's endive and goat cheese salad was extremely bitter and uninteresting. Alyssa's coquille St-Jacques were actually well executed and for some reason reminded all of us how our mother's used to serve them at christmas parties in the 90s.

Kristina's octopus salad was chewy and as she so wonderfully put it, underwhelming. When she threw a piece into my plate for me to taste I asked her what it was forgetting what she had ordered and not being able to identify it. Jessie ordered the bison tartare and was horrified and incredibly disappointed. It was bitter and chewy and just plain gross. L'orignal a few streets away has a much much better bison tartare.

I ordered a 34$ main of ricotta stuffed dorade royale with green pea gnocchis and... green peas. First of all the presentation was awful. The red wine sauce was heavy and didn't go well with the fish. The gnocchis were pretty good. But for 34$ I was terribly offended.

I don't even understand how these people have the balls to offer such sub par food at those prices. It's a nice place, it looks great, but the food is not. The cocktails were their only redeeming factor. And the waitress was really nice.

That's about it.

Save your money and go eat somewhere where they care about the freshness and quality of the food and not just looks. There was just no love in this place.

Gnight!!

S.

Downtown dining: Dominion Square Tavern

Downtown, as I have come to learn, does not have very many quality dining establishments. So i was excited to try this place i've heard so much about off of Ste-Catherine on Metcalfe. My friend Jessica (check out her blog withstolenguns.blogspot.com) and I decided to dress up and go have a few drinks and a late night bite to eat before going out.

First off the place is beautiful. Old school 1920s glamour. Long bar. Checkered tiles. Warm lighting. Old rock n roll music. Very high ceilings. Pretty vintage looking dishes. All the waiters are men in uniform.

Dominion makes their own ginger ale which I found to be quite exciting. I ordered a rye and ginger although im not a fan of cocktails unless they're extra dirty martinis. It was good but I kind of wish the ginger flavour was a bit more pronounced. Anyways, I think my friend Jessie may be a better judge since she does work at an irish pub and she is obsessed with Dominion's rye and ginger!!

Next, the food. The small menu consists of modern fancy pub food and had a lot of items that weren't typical. We ordered 4 appetizers to share: bocked shrimp, deviled eggs, salmon gravlax and the infamous scotch egg.

The bocked baby shrimp was flavoured with nutmeg and something spicy and served with pumpernickel style toast. Loved it. The deviled eggs were perfect. The salmon gravlax was not at all like the delicate slices of fish I'm used to. It was sliced a bit chunky which I enjoyed. The salmon came with sour cream and a blueberry compote and blinis. Making the blinis whole wheat was a really nice touch but I just don't like sweet blueberries with my seafood. It makes me feel weird. And the scotch egg!! What a wonderful delightful artery clogging creation this is!! I had never had one before but it's basically a soft boiled egg wrapped in ham covered in breadcrumbs and deep fried. Enough said.

Overall, great experience. The service was good, the prices a little steep (11$ for one deep fried egg!!!) but it's such a gorgeous place you kind of just overlook that. The menu could use some more options though (full menu is on their website www.tavernedominion.com).

S.

Business lunch #4: F bar

So I felt the need to compare and contrast the two relatively new bistros that have the same design, the same location and 2 different well respected establishments backing them up.

Last week was Brasserie T! (by Toque!) and this week F bar (by Ferreira cafe).

First off, good bread service! They offer two different types, one regular and one portuguese corn bread with a delicious olive oil for dipping. As an appetizer, I went for the clam chowder and my mom ordered the beat salad. She won that round. It had pieces of bacon and a delicious slice of some hard cheese like a sort of asiago i think.

In the chowder there was potato cubes and corn and the soup was good but there was not enough clams in it. And I prefer when they come in the shell.

F bar definitely won points for the presentation of the food. None of the mains were served in a regular plate. My spicy mayo beef tartare came on a wooden cutting board and my mom's halibut (served on mashed potatoes and accompanied by asparagus) came in a casserole. It was different and fun. The almond and raisin mix scattered on the dish were amazing, especially the crunchy delicate almonds.

The tartare was good , flavoured with minuscule chopped onions and capers and spicy mayo. I usually don't like mayonnaise as the dressing for my tartare because i feel like it's too easy and it takes away from the rest of the flavours. It tasted pretty similarly to the sauce used in spicy maki rolls so i actually quite enjoyed it afterall.

The food was good, the service too but there's something about these restaurants that i just dont like. My mom put it best i think: "J'aime pas ca manger dans une roulotte". And that's kind of what it feels like in both brasserie t! and f bar: a long fishbowl trailor. It's a cold sort of atmosphere. I'm just overall not wowed with either one of these places especially considering the restaurants that are behind them.

I did enjoy F bar a little more then Brasserie T, they seemed to put more attention to detail and the menu was more interesting. Still, I don't think I'd go back to either one.

S.

Business lunch #3: Brasserie T!

If you ever receive text messages from me you know I love exclamation points. This little bistro next to the museum of contemporary art is the little sister of the famed Toque! restaurant, hence the ! at the end of its name. I like it.

I've never eaten at Toque! but from what I hear it's very pricey innovative food served in very small portions. This is not quite the case at the Brasserie T!. The menu doesn't offer much out of the ordinary for a bistro. I had the salmon tartare as a main and my mother had the entree portion of the same dish. Very well executed with the salmon chopped in rather big pieces (which i really liked) and flavored perfectly with olive oil, capers and echalottes. However, the main dish tartare didn't seem that much larger than my mother's entree... I really couldn't tell the difference at all.

I ordered it with the salad which was basically romaine lettuce. Not too exciting but the vinaigrette was very good so I got over the lack of visual appeal pretty quickly. My mother ordered the french fries and I have to say they were worth the calories. Crispy and not greasy at all.

The service was very professional and efficient and the waiter/bartender was helpful in suggesting wine to go with our meal. We had a meursault chardonnay called le petit tetu and at 14$ a glass cost more than my mothers meal(12$). It was unusual and a little nutty but accompanied the salmon very well.

This was a perfect place for a fast lunch as we were out of there in 45 minutes. I liked that my allonge came with a little pot of warm foamy milk. It was a nice, friendly touch.

I should probably mention the decor since it was quite strange in that the whole restaurant is pretty much all window which creates a kind of fish bowl effect. And to greet you at the door there's a vase with a fish swimming around a bottle of vodka. Clever.

I don't think I would come here for dinner because of this modern environment. I like my nightime locations to look more like men's clubs a la club chasse et peche.

But good bistro food at good prices! Even if there was nothing on the menu that enthralled me I'd like to come back to try some charcuteries and the steak tartare.

http://www.brasserie-t.com/

xo

S.

Brewery Brunch: Brasseurs de Montreal

Breakfast in Montreal, always such a dilemme.

I'm very picky about my eggs. 

Scrambled are generally burnt instead of fluffy and delicate.

Hollandaise sauce on eggs benedict often disappoints.

Omelettes suffer the same fate as scrambled eggs and are overly dry.

I've just learnt to not expect much from Montreal breakfast joints.

So today I went for brunch with Renata, hoping to find a decent place around the Atwater market. We drove by McKiernan's but couldn't find parking and just continued on Notre Dame. Renata suggested Les Brasseurs de Montreal, a brewery in Griffintown, which was right around the corner.

 

From the outside this place doesn't look like much but inside it's actually quite an impressive location, high ceilings, a long wooden bar and a semi-opened kitchen with a huge chalkboard that displays the beers they offer and the special of the day.

 

The menu was exciting with several different types of egg dishes, a section of rostis (their was a goat cheese spinach ham, a sausage and a smoked salmon chive cream cheese), fancy grilled cheese and crepes. There were also things like crab cakes (which i hear are amazing!!), sausage and several other options I can't quite remember. Renata and I both went for the eggs with goat cheese and spinach. Our typical breakfast choice. 

(me being very excited about the menu apparently)

The dish was wonderfully presented and so very delicious, from the baked goat cheese on the eggs to the roasted lightly herbed potatoes and the little fruit tower.

The service was super friendly and relaxed and the waitress even let us sample the beer of the day which was a blonde ginger beer called le chi orientale i believe. I definitely want to come back to try all the different ones like the rebelle quebecoise or the ghosttown with absinthe.

And there's a ton of parking (it's located in a really random area with nothing else around it) 

Overall, love this place!!

http://www.brasseursdemontreal.ca/

S.

Business lunch #2: L'Aromate

Today we hadn't planned on going for lunch and so we made a last minute decision to go eat at the new L'Aromate location on Maisonneuve. Considering that it is now part of the Hotel St-Martin, we expected the food and service to be of a certain standard. It was most certainly not.

There were many items on the menu that I was interested in. They had a good variety of contemporary cuisine and I had a hard time deciding on what I wanted to eat. I finally went for the tian de legumes with goats cheese and the seared sesame tuna steak as my main while my mother went for the cauliflower and potato potage and the veal cheek bourguignon.

First of all, the service was slow and unattentive. They took away our utensils after our entrees as though we were done our meal, they couldn't remember who ordered what and they gave my mom a coffee when she ordered a mint tea. It just felt like the staff was hungover or that they simply didn't care much.

In terms of the food, well the presentation was nice. The tian was probably the best part of my meal. It was a tower of aubergine, peppers and red onions with a few slices of melted goat cheese. There was a bit too much onion though as it gave me heartburn after and the aubergine was not cooked through and so a bit hard to cut. The soup was ok, nothing very exciting.

For our mains, once again, well presented. However, the ponzu sauce was way too salty (and i loooove salt) and the sesame crust seemed to be glued in an unatural way to my tuna steak. It scared me a little. The veal cheek was tender as it should be but the dish was underwhelming which should never be the case with veal cheek or a bourguignon.

The fare was very ordinary. The prices were not.
The meal without desserts nor wine came to 100$. This is ridiculous for the level of attention placed on the food and service.

I'm all for aesthetics but there has to be something more than just well presented plates and fancy decor. L'Aromate is definitely one of those style over substance kind of places and I would absolutely not go back here.

Can't wait to try Le Renoir's lunch menu at the Sofitel hotel. From the brunch I've had here, i can safely assume that the dining experience they offer is what it should be at a 5 star hotel.

toodles

S.

Tuck shop!

Notre Dame west has had several new gourmet dining establishments pop up over the past several years like the joe beef/liverpool house/mckiernans trilogy in Little Burgundy. Tuck shop opened up even further west, casually located in St-Henri. It isn't the most chic corner but it adds to the charm of this great new place.



The first thing i noticed when I walked in was this place was packed and loud! We had reservations and our 2 seats were the only empty ones in the whole restaurant. The decor was really appealing with an open kitchen and the menu scribbled on a chalkboard, wooden tables, deep green coloured booths. Tuck shop looks really good but the atmosphere is still laidback and cozy.



The crowd was mixed, a family at one table, young couples and groups of friends, older men at the bar.
When the noise died down a little, we noticed the Rolling Stones were playing. A whole album actually (Cameron approved of their choice and he's a huge music nerd so i guess that means something).



The first thing that jumped out at me on the menu was the octopus salad but i was promptly informed that they were all out. So I settled for malpeque oysters instead and a steak tartare appetizer as my main. Cameron ordered steak and potatoes (typical male go-to meal!). The rest of the menu looked really interesting with things such as morue fritters and a duck magret and confit dish for 2. The mascarpone and crab stuffed ravioli also seemed really exciting but I wasn't quite hungry enough to venture into pasta territory. Maybe next time.

The six oysters came with lemon wedges, cocktail sauce and a mignonette sauce. I really didn't like the red cocktail sauce, i just associate that flavour with shrimp and not oysters. The mignonette was really good though and the oysters were fresh!



My steak tartare was absolutely amazing! It had pickles and capers in it and a celeri rave kind of salad on top. For 13$ they served me a very reasonable portion and it came with a bowl of french fries.



The steak (served rare) and potatoes were also very good. The meat was tender and well spiced and the potatoes were typical comforting and delicious mashed potatoes.



I think the most expensive thing on the menu was a 45 dollar steak which is nowhere near the prices you would pay at somewhere like Joe Beef. The menu got me excited to see what else they would come up with in the future. Tuck shop has a kind of cool, a tiny bit trendy vibe but is totally unpretentious and kind of subtle in its coolness.

And often the service at these kinds of places tend to be a bit sloppy or snobby but the people here were super friendly but professional. Someone from the staff or maybe the owner or manager even came outside when he saw we were looking for a cab and he immediately found one for us and even opened the door for me! What service!Totally unnecessary but super appreciated. Maybe certain of the patrons feel a bit uneasy in that part of town so he felt obliged to assist us. I read a review by some Montreal foodies that mentioned that they had noticed prostitutes strolling by while they were enjoying their meal. The only encounter we had was with a tipsy fourteen year old boy trying to bum smokes off us. He was adorable and friendly but I can see how that can be unnerving for some people. I actually really liked the location of the restaurant, i think it's fun to get out of the main areas and not do the typical strips. And especially if it's worth it and I think at Tuck shop it is. I would definitely like to try this place out again!




Sabrina