DINNER November 28, 2008

Good Mexican food is hard to find in Montreal and even when you find a restaurant with the goods, it can be a fickle mistress. I drive by Los Clasicos pretty much everyday and finally decided to give it a shot (although, honestly, only because I was jonesing for Mexican and Le Coin de Mexique was full).

I’ll give it points for authenticity. The room is sparsely decorated and has that rickety South American vibe. A cimbalom player entertains the diners for tips. The cimbalom not being remotely connected to Mexico, I find this bizzare, but it beats the yodelers with sombreros and guitars on the Mayan Riviera (or so I’ve heard–I don’t vacation there) and adds the downmarket feel of a Juarez taqueria. Our waiter can barely speak French or English but his enthusiasm more than makes up for it and I order the agua de horchata based solely on his evident affection for this drink (“every Mexican loves it”). Also, Los Clasicos doesn’t have a liquor licence (at least not yet), so this milky rice-base concoction swimming with cantaloupe and watermelon and topped with cinnamon and ground nuts is as potent as it gets. Its milkiness actually offsets the spiciness of the food quite nicely. Continue Reading…

DINNER November 21, 2008

Lower St-Laurent is not exactly known for good taste, in its restaurants or otherwise. Clubbing? Sure. Eating? Not so much. There are a lot of places that will vacuum up your cash, but unless your idea of a good meal involves being served by a Nicole Ritchie clone, refugees from the South Shore living large or someone grinding against your table to the latest R. Kelly single, then you may not be in restaurant heaven.

So, I admit it. There isn’t a restaurant between Sherbrooke and Pine that I would recommend for the food and, when the idea of going to La Porte for a quiet dinner on a Friday came up, there was more than a bit of hesitation on my part. But stepping into La Porte immediately put my fears to rest. Decorated with care in subdued,  earthy tones it is redolent of the modern luxe, calme and volupté that has become the calling card of top restaurants around the world. Comfortable leather armchairs and dim lighting lend the restaurant an intimate atmosphere. There is no loud music here–it’ is actually so calm you speak in hushed tones. The only testament to the  exuberance of former occupant Il Sole is the mosaic representing the sun overlooking the room. Continue Reading…

DINNER November 22, 2008

There is a moment in zombie movie every when the protagonist is faced with a loved one who has morphed into a zombie and needs to decide whether or not to kill the facsimile lumbering towards her in order to preserve herself.

The first two courses of my initial meal at L’Atelier in 2006 could rival almost any one-two punch I have taken: seared foie gras on grilled tuna accented with a valrohna chocolate sauce was bizarrely perfect and an escargot risotto with foie gras shavings a memorable follow up. Subsequent meals, while quite good, never lived up to that initial moment . L’Atelier was always a bit of an outlier in the Roy group of restaurants: a  traditional business model in a portfolio that includes some of the top BYOW spots in the city (A l’Os, Les Infideles etc..). And so, some might say, it was only a matter of time that when business faltered, L’Atelier was converted to the BYOW model. Continue Reading…

DINNER November 14, 2008

If you asked me to name one local chef whose current operation does not fully utilize his talents, Ian Perreault (who seems to have decided that there is more money in selling vacuum-packed boeuf bourguignon to Outremont housewives than in fine dining) would be at the top of the list. Until recently, Samuel Pinard would have been up there as well. While the food that at Reservoir is cleverly conceived and executed, it remains more micro-brewery than restaurant–not the ideal venue for a budding culinary star. So, for me, the opening of Pinard’s new restaurant on Mont-Royal, the none-too-cleverly named Salle A Manger, was one of the big food events of 2008. Continue Reading…

DINNER November 13, 2008

No, I haven’t recently developed a fixation for Pakistani restaurants, but with the JJ out of town it seemed like the perfect opportunity to partake in an indulgence too often withheld, a taste of the Indian subcontinent, and Sana was the next contender on my list. International media superstar in the making DJ DonRay and I navigated the grotty streets of Villeray to the not so welcoming facade of Sana.

Dingy and ill-lit, the hospital green walls are offset by black and white checkerboard linoleum and pink tablecloths covered by industrial grade plastic cling to the tables. A 1960s era clock and the ugly stepsister of a chandelier complete the look. But as Mark Greaney (Irish punter for the McGill Redmen circa 1998) used to say, albeit in slightly different circumstances, “you don’t look at the mantle when you stoke the fireplace.” Truer words were never spoken of Sana, where the food is good enough to make you indifferent as to the decor. Continue Reading…

DINNER November 7, 2008

I am a big fan of the original Rumi restaurant in the Mile End but when I took a look at the menu of Rumi Grill & Café newly installed smack dab in the middle of St-Laurent all I could think was “Petit Alep”. Much like Alep’s Syrian food  is served in a simpler and trendier manner at its junior counterpart, Rumi Grill & Café seems like a fast food version of Rumi restaurant’s fare.

The food at Rumi is alternatively described as Turkish, Persian and even Sufi (a relatively obscure variant of Islam) cuisine. It is really a cuisine that draws from the greater Middle Eastern food pantheon and accordingly, is hard to pinpoint using a current map of the region. It might be called Ottoman cuisine, but I suspect that referring to it as a cuisine inspired by religion is sexier than naming it after a piece of furniture of limited utility. Continue Reading…