So now that I work in the same office as my momma we often go out on lunch dates together in the downtown area. I find it extremely hard to find good restaurants in the financial district of Montreal so we're sort of on a mission to try out new places. Lunch is my least favorite meal of the day but I'm hoping to find a restaurant that will change my mind about that!
Last week we went to Le Marly which is a relatively new bistro opened up by the people of Europea, right next to their other two restaurants (beaver hall and andiamo) on Beaver Hall. The terrasse was attractive but since it was raining we sat by the window inside. The decor is modern with purple being the main colour as well as striped grey, silver and black accents.
The menu was interesting but as usual I like to order 3 small appetizers instead of a main because I find main courses less exciting and I feel like chefs take more risks with their appetizers anyways.
I ordered the salmon gravlax ( I always need some sort of fish!), the nougat de fromage de chevre and the lobster and foie gras cromesquis. My mother went for a little tart of sundried tomatoes and gorgonzala and for her main she picked the seafood and fish in lobster broth with market vegetables.
For every dish, there was a suggested wine to accompany it which I really enjoyed because I often have a very hard time trying to successfully pair wine with my food! Also, while we were waiting for our meals to come, they brought us white baguette with olive oil instead of butter as well as spicy garlic kalamata olives. The olives were a nice touch.
The salmon gravlax was delicious, great texture, great flavour, nothing too special in terms of seasoning. The nougat de fromage de chevre on the other hand was very unusual! The flavour of hazelnut was prominent in the soft creamy cheesy and gave the dip a nice crunch. I really enjoyed these two flavours together and i am now inspired to attempt a goat cheese noisette cheesecake. I'll let you know how it goes...
The cromesquis came with a wasabi mayonnaise dip which had a bit of a weird radioactive green looking colour. However it did pair well with the fried spring roll stuffed with foie gras and lobster. I actually had forgotten that there was foie gras in the roll and I thought it was risotto for a while. Either way it was great (especially if you like fried things which I normally don't go crazy for but I just couldn't resist lobster AND foie gras!!
I feel like my mother's choices weren't as good as mine. Maybe I'm biased because I don't like pie crust very much unless it's for a tourtiere. It seems too heavy for anything else. A leger feuillete would have been more suitable in my opinion. The seafood marejade lobster broth was filled with fish (red snapper?), shrimp, lobster, scallops and some other unidentified food that had the texture of tofu but tasted like sausage... It was good but I honestly have no idea what it possibly could have been. My mother enjoyed this dish but I wasn't crazy about it. It sounded better on the menu than it turned out to be.
The desserts were quite tempting because the waitress brought this pretty tray to our table. However the verrines weren't terribly inspired: tiramisu, mango or berries. I opted for the tiramisu but i found they put too much whipped cream and not enough mascarpone.
Overall, nice interesting food at reasonable prices. I would recommend it for a lunch but it's not somewhere I would go back to with my girlfriends. Oh and my mom says she didn't like the music. Some latin beats were playing in the background and it didn't really fit the modern vibe.
Next week, Brasserie T!!
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