Le mignon Filet

ok so le filet. yes. yes. yes.

small plates. expensive. trendy but chill.

see and be seen kind of vibe.

mount royal.

the food, the food.

impeccable.

small plates, mostly seafood.

MIAM!!!

we had a scallop dish with beets, to die for, the scallops were raw i believe, tender as fuck and just so delicious. like butter.

the colours made me think of le chateaubriand in paris.

tuna tartar with seaweed crisps. amazing.

morue with bits of chorizo. very good fish dish, would of enjoyed a bit more sausage.

gnocchi-like pasta with veal cheek and foie gras melted in.

octopus, my least favorite, a little charred...

.

(Jean Paul Gaultier apprently enjoys this place too)

I just loved it. The service was decent, a lil cold and impersonal but the food was so good nothing else mattered.

xoxo

S.

Restaurant Jane

So i haven't posted in a while because I've been preparing my move to Paris. I came to study fashion business in the fashion (and food) capital of the world. The last week before I left Montreal we had one last girl gathering at new notredame west little burgundy restaurant, Jane. Their specialty is pizza although the chalkboard menu suggested interesting appetizers as well.

We all ordered different pizzas. I had the buffalo mozzarella, the red sauce was delicious and salty(I believe it was made with rock salt). Others chose the bianco which was a cream based sauce with mushrooms and pesto. Also very very good.

However the favorite amongst all of us was definitely the shwarza which consisted of smoked meat, pickles and mustard. It sounds kind of strange and a little bit gross but it was actually the most amazing pizza ever!!

(kristina looking very proud of her choice of pizza)

The prices were a bit high (all around 20$ for a pizza) but they’re huge and made with fresh ingredients. This is not your dirty Montreal street pizza. Totally worth it. And you can easily share one pizza between 2 people.

The drinks are made with homemade juices and are all very interesting sounding and some better than others (the favorites were the cucumber one and the beet juice one).

Overall we had a wonderful time, the food was great, the place is cute and comfortable.

I’m going to miss my friends so much but I’ll definitely be having more food adventures here in Paris.

I'll keep you posted!

Xo

S.

La gourmandise: mon peché préféré

Au cinquieme peché has been on my Montreal restaurants to try list for quite some time now. I've only heard positive comments about this little bistro on Mont Royal, near Bily Kun, so I was very excited when Renata decided to go there for her birthday dinner last weekend. The menu changes frequently depending on what's fresh and all the wine is what the french call vins natures (basically organically made wine).

This place is small, seating about twenty, and very charming and inviting. Our waiter for the night was superb! He was very helpful in suggesting wines and just patient and pleasant throughout our whole meal even though we're quite an undecided bunch especially when it comes to ordering wine to suit all our tastes. By the end of the meal, he even knew all our names! He also brought us a little taster of a dip that I can't remember the ingredients of...

To start, we all shared appetizers which included oysters, croquette de brandade and salmon gravlax. All three were delicious but my favorites were the croquette that were lightly fried and just so wonderful I kind of wish i didn't have to split it six ways...

As for the mains, I decided to do something uncharacteristic of me and not order the fish. Instead, I opted for a steak, rare, with mashed potatoes and bok choy that also came with a 2 hour braised paleron de boeuf ( beef shoulder). To cut this delicate meat all I needed was a spoon. It was one of those melt in your mouth experiences it was so tender. Amazing. Renata ordered the wapiti and according to her it was a rich texture for game but with a dry tenderness, like horse meat. She seemed to have enjoyed it.

My sister went for the sweet potato gnocchi and goat cheese which was just perfect. Claire and Kristina were the ones to order the fish of the day: a dorade served crispy with a chickpea polenta on the side. Everything was good but I woud say the winning dishes were my beef dish and my sister's gnocchi.

Oh and the desserts!! So we ordered all three to share: the nougat glacé, a little chocolate brownie like cake ( was it called suzie?) and the marron cheesecake. I'm very particular about cheesecake because I'm used to the home made variety that I bake with quality ingredients and minimal sugar. However, this marron cheesecake was one of the best I ever had. The little chocolate cakes were very good too and were scattered with pomegranates and other fruit. The nougat glacé was another crowd pleaser and we basically couldn't decide which was our favorite because they were all so excellent.

Au cinquieme peche was a great dining experience. The food was creative and high quality and the service familiar and professional. The prices were fair, it was about 70$ per person including 2 shared bottles of wine.

It was a great place for an intimate birthday dinner!

xo
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 #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

Business luncheon #1: Le Marly

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!!