BREAKFAST March 29, 2009

I’m a big believer in first impressions. Some people might see it as a rush to judgment, but I feel life is too short for second and third chances. That doesn’t mean I close the door, just that I don’t care if I ever walk through it again. I occasionally get criticism saying I shouldn’t jump to conclusions about a restaurant based on a single visit. Invariably, I respond that I have no duty to be objective. I’m not an investigative journalist, just someone who writes about what he eats and generally I don’t see the point in returning to a place I didn’t enjoy.

I first heard about La Cornetteria on the chowhound website, and after sampling the wares, concluded that it was another case of chowwashing (chowwashing, n.[chau-waw-shing] 1. a method whereby posters on chowhound who have discovered an unremarkable establishment (the more obscure, the better) speak about it so positively and at such great lengths that one becomes convinced Michelin will publish a Montreal guide just to include it in their pages…). The much-hyped zeppole was too American for me, all whipped cream with nothing to hold it together and the cornetto was dry and forgettable–the idiot stepsister to a good croissant–which, to be fair, is  something that  I have thought whilst sampling cornetti in Italy as well. Continue Reading…

DINNER March 27, 2009

Like everyone I have my heavy rotation restaurants. Those steady favourites to which I keep returning because they offer a combination of value, convenience and great food. In my neighbourhood, Le Petit Alep is the ultimate example, but when Bottega first opened I was eating there every two or three weeks for a while. I have already waxed poetic elsewhere about Bottega (and, more particularly, its pizza) and when I started jonesing for it recently I realized I hadn’t eaten there in over a year. I can’t point to any event that made me stop going so often. The food may not have always been tops; a couple  reservations were not honoured leaving me standing around the front door like a valet parking attendant; and you have to admit that Bottega ain’t exactly the deal of the century for pizza. But I never stopped liking Bottega and the JJ and I were excited as can be to be back. Continue Reading…

BRUNCH March 22, 2009

It seemed like a match made in heaven. The cabane a sucre, an all you can eat celebration of pork and maple syrup, and Martin Picard, whose portion control and adulation of fat would make Reba McIntyre squirm. When news came that Picard was opening a cabane a sucre it was greeted in the Montreal foodie community with the sort of enthusiasm I had thought was reserved for Beattles reunions and the like. And even though I did not pee my pants like some of my peers, I too was excited about the prospect of the marriage. The cabane a sucre (“sugar shack”, the English moniker, sounds more like a children’s television program) is one of those Quebec rituals of spring. When the maple starts to be extracted from the tree, people put on their plaid shirts and head to the countryside to celebrate simpler times, load up on pork, eggs and pancakes all swimming in maple syrup and take one step closer to cardiac arrest. If that doesn’t scream Martin Picard to you, then nothing will. Continue Reading…

DINNER March 7, 2009

Most people have their own little culinary fascination. For example, I have a friend who gets excited anytime a recipe calls for bits of one animal to be stuffed into another (turducken, haggis etc..). It’s odd, but that’s his thing. Personally, I get excited anytime I hear someone is roasting a whole animal. Maybe it’s the almost primal nature of the act that appeals in a society that goes to great lengths to disassociate meat from the animals it comes from. Maybe I just like the big portions. But when I first laid eyes on the eight month old Berkshire piglet on offer at Salle A Manger (cost $500), my life’s ambition became to make enough friends, if only for one night, so that I could go back and order one myself. Suffice it to say that on my second visit to Salle A Manger expectations, as on the first, were sky high.

After emerging from the oven and a brief tableside appearance the piglet was hastened back to the kitchen where it was  carved into chunks and plated with a fry-up of bacon, cabbage, carrot and onion, a generous peppery pork sausage, roasted Jerusalem artichoke and sauteed mushrooms. The meat itself I actually found a little disappointing, exceedingly salty in places with rubbery, flaccid skin–the culinary equivalent of Joan Rivers. A crisp, crackling skin is one of the hallmarks of roast pork and I can’t help but think the kitchen knew they hadn’t hit a home run with this one.  The addition of the nutty Jerusalem artichoke to a the otherwise traditional flavours  worked well enough but I would have loved to trade in the miasma on my plate for something a little simpler that would have better accentuated the flavour of the roast pork.

Maybe it’s just a difference in philosophy but the plating also really didn’t work for me. Why go through the pageantry of roasting the entire animal only to serve it so that it looks like any other plate that come out of the kitchen? My visions of a platter of roast pork crowned by a smiling head and served with a few spartan sides was, alas, not to be.

The suckling pig may have been a little bit of a letdown but it was not nearly as irksome as the service. While our 9pm reservation had been booked and the piglet ordered weeks in advance, we were told upon being seated that the pork would not be ready for another hour and a half (which would take us to almost 11pm). Accordingly, it was strongly recommended that everyone order appetizers. Not a problem in principle, except that after eating the apps and two hours worth of bread, nobody was able to finish the suckling pig. So after laying out around $40 per person for the suckling pig, half of the people at the table tapped out after making a halfhearted attempt at hiding their Jerusalem artichokes. Not cool. I understand that you need to maximize customer spend but nobody is happy when they have to pay for food they can’t eat.

But every grey cloud has a silver lining and, in this case, the appetizer turned out to be the highlight of the meal for me. On one side of the plate, thick coils of grilled octopus served on lightly dressed aragula with orange supremes. On the other side of the plate, an awkward cup of lentils with braised pork tongue and sharp pickled onions. In a very Samuel Pinard moment, you start to mix the components of the dish and find that these disparate flavors all work very well together. Maybe we should have ordered the whole roast octopus.

Another meal at Salle A Manger and another mild disappointment. Salle A Manger must get some credit for trying to do things a little differently than the average restaurant. In a way, it has the same vibe as a young Au Pied de Cochon.  It’s not that the food isn’t good here–it generally is. But there are enough little flaws and letdowns that it’s hard to pay your bill and push away from the table feeling  fully satisfied. When you start to average $100 plus per person you can eat very well in this city and, while I’m not  yet ready to write off Salle A Manger, I think a third strike might do the trick.

Salle A Manger
1302 Mont-Royal E.
514.522.0777

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