DINNER September 25, 2009

It’s not easy to get me to eat a meal on Lower St-Laurent. But spurred on by rumours that a new restaurant had a vague connection to Milos (and might benefit from that restaurant’s stellar supply chain of Mediterranean-fresh fish), the JJ and I booked at Taverna Zante. The room is small and the bar shoehorned at the back makes it seem even smaller. Decorated in azure and gold tones with a stylized sea horse made out of tiles on the wall (which we noted–hopefully–was vaguely reminiscent of that Milos fish). 7:30pm and the place is dead. We are told we can sit where we want. I feel like a princess. Seriously, there is us a table of three salesgirls from the Gap in the corner and a couple guys in the I-might-work-here-but-I-might-just-be-friends-with-the-waiter category milling around the table near the big screen TV at the back of the room. There would be a lot of milling around this table, especially once the Habs game got underway. The house music blared, I noticed something called “Greek Poutine” on the menu and we started to wonder if maybe this was not such a good idea after all. Continue Reading…

BREAKFAST September 5, 2009

The graying fiftysomething guy behind me in the Ed Hardy t-shirt finished his latte, paid his bill, walked out the front door and motored off on a shiny, red Vespa. Olive & Gourmando may be primarily a breakfast and lunch joint, but it is that kind of trendy: Quebec celebrities you’ve never heard of, rejects from the Real Housewives of Orange County and thirty year old children who own polo-field sized lofts paid for by their daddies. It’s a bit of a pretentious place, but you don’t come for the people. Continue Reading…