Jolee

5495 Avenue Victoria

Montreal, QC
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6 out of 10

Sri Lankan/South Indian/South Asian

Kind of fuzzy on the type of food, I know, but International boundaries don't really bind culinary traditions in places whose interconnected histories go back thousands of years. For example, everything on the thali plate above looks like standard Indian except the noodles. Even the restaurant's sign says "Indian" but the Sri Lankan influences are huge, and there's definitely a combination of Northern and Southern Indian fare being offered here.

That being said, here's what this restaurant/take-away serves: dosa, idli, vada, biryani and uttappam - all South Indian specialties - as well as pittu, string hoppers and kottu, Sri Lankan dishes.

But Wait! There's more! Butter chicken, spicy vegetable and non-vegetable curries, naan, all served as part of thalis, and appetizers like pakoras - very much Northern Indian fare. Then, just in case you don't like any of these foods, there are the Chinese dishes of noodles and meat, vegetables or seafood with shrimp, egg, oyster sauce and soy sauce, reminiscent of Cantonese chow mein. There's nothing called "fried rice" on the menu, but between the biryani and the string hoppers kottu you'd probably never know the difference unless you were from one of the places listed above.
Because of all the selection, this restaurant does a mean take-out business with all the different people living in the Cote-Ste-Catherine area. With a buffet-style counter at the front, you can get your crab leg curry and chicken roti to go, along with samosa-type deep-fried pastries or vats of over-cooked meats in spiced oil. Yes, they've been sitting there for awhile, but the turn-over can be pretty good depending on the dish. I actually saw a fresh chafing dish of beef put out between the time I entered the restaurant and the time I left. Impressive, and the highlight of my whole trip was the take-away roti of ungreasy sweet baked dough wrapped around spicy chicken and potatoes, the whole thing the size of a kids hot dog, but much more delicious. I like spicy and despite my requests for spicy dishes, this was the only thing that came close to satisfying my tongue.
That's not to say that they didn't try to spike my string hoppers kottu with diced fresh green chiles. Unfortunately, it just didn't work very well. I could see mustard seeds and fennel mixed into the home-made diced noodles, onions, chili, egg and fried seafood mixture, but it just didn't taste like much. Turns out the trick with this dish is to order beef or lamb since the fat of those cheap pieces of meat flavours the entire dish. The seafood was tough, chewy and bland, and therefore so was the rest of the dish. The interesting part was that it was served with lime on the side, which is definitely a Thai influence on the Sri Lankan dish, not Indian. The lime added a lot to the enormous platter of food ($8.00 for the seafood option, $6.50 for lamb, chicken or beef, $5.50 for vegetarian), but there wasn't enough lime to flavour three meals of the stuff, which is how many meals I made out of it. God bless take-out containers and tupperware.
I really couldn't expect the Idly to be spicy. It's not supposed to be. 5 discs of steamed dessicated rice and lentils ($5.50) aren't supposed to be extremely tasty by themselves. It's their accompanying sambar and coconut chutney that should do the work. Unfortunately the sambar, a mix of carrots, okra (another less common ingredient), lentils and spices, ended up pretty watery and bland. I couldn't taste fenugreek or cumin or mustard seed (despite seeing them again) or coriander. The coconut chutney was worse. It tasted metallic and a little salty. It should be a little sweet, even the unsweetened variety. This probably means the coconut was not fresh, but it also means no spices or flavourings were added to help.
Sambar is served with just about all the South Indian appetizers and dosas, so there were a few more disappointments. The vada, deep-fried balls of lentils, coriander, onions and chilies sit in a soup of the stuff (thoguh they may be saved by the oil from the balls leeching into the liquid (think Gulf of Mexico oil spill but delicious), and the masala dosa - giant, thin, crepe-like cones of lentil and spices wrapped around potato and other unidentifiable, kind of spiced oily vegetables, all fried in more oil - didn't really have a chance.
The dosas themselves (we tried the regular masala version - masala just means spice blend, like curry means Indian spices to a lot of Westerners - and the onion version, which was exactly the same but added raw chopped red onions to the inside of the lentil wrap). The dosa shell was tasty, slightly fermented and lemony, but the inside was nothing to write home about. It needed a whole lot more fresh spice and heat, and less oil.

I'd never had stringhoppers before, so I was looking forward to trying the Sri Lankan specialty. These home-made noodles are very fun. They're a little brownish-red in colour and once steamed, stick together in small circular bundles, that are easily removed from on top of each other. They were served in a thali, a mixed metal plate separated into sections of different cooked vegetables, lentils and meats. The vegetarian version came with beautifully squishy (thanks to all the oil) eggplant, boring potatoes in a turmeric-based heat-less spicing, and a very respectable daal. I liked the daal because it didn't cheat by using salt to add flavour. I could actually taste the fennel, FINALLY! The noodles themselves don't taste like much, they're just noodles, after all, but there's something very comforting about noodles, and it's very different to be eating noodles, and not rice with what you think will be a rice-heavy South Indian meal.

Of course, the standard Indian thali is just like, but maybe a little worse, than any North Indian place in Parc Extension. For almost no money you get a ton of food - the same eggplant, daal and potato, along with rice, a piece of thin, sub-par naan and a curry of beef, lamb or chicken. The lamb was over-cooked and chewy, since I think it came from the counter-top buffet in front instead of the fresh pan I saw put out.

So there were problems here. The restaurant was dirty. Apparently they violated a whole lot of health codes in the past. There were hairs in some of the food. The bathrooms weren't clean, nothing seemed sanitized. Most importantly, the food was just so-so, but as a restaurant experience it was really fun. If you're the type of person who likes to try a new dish, a new style of cuisine, and learn about a different culinary tradition, this is a great place to come. Just ask what's fresh, order what the locals order and don't expect anything to be amazing. It will be very, very good for the meagre amount of money that you spend, though. I would go back for the chicken roti.

Hours: Noon-11pm, daily
Expect to Pay: Vegetarian - $7, Meat - $7.50-$13 including tax and tip, less on take-out.
Licensed: In theory, yes, but they don't sell alcohol and you can't BYOB, so probably they don't have a license anymore.
514-733-6362

Kitchen Galerie

Kitchen Galerie

60 Jean-Talon East
Montreal, QC
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7 1/2 out of 10

Glorified fruit salad. I liked you until you gave me glorified fruit salad. If that's as creative as you can be, oh great chefs, well, you need to try a little harder.
I was warned not to get my hopes up. Kitchen Galerie is creating tons of buzz with their chefs who are servers who are fun. A team of quasi-bad-ass guys who joke and yell in their open kitchen (the stove is in the dinig room) and dance to the cool music they play in the restaurant. There are probably some tattoos involved, and there's definitely a lot of meat and potatoes. All this being said, this is still an upscale place. A table d'hote menu cost you upwards of $45 including tax and tip, so with wine and choosing one of the 6 fois gras options, prices get increasingly astronomical. That's pretty standard in Montreal, though, as long as the food lives up to the expectations.

Expectations...Maybe it's not fair to expect so much of these guys, but I spent a lot of the meal being impressed rather than disappointed. You're welcomed into the restaurant casually, you sit, look around at the other diners wearing jeans and t-shirts, and get explained the menu by a guy who is serving for the night. He knows everything about every dish. He can recommend wine, knowing exactly what flavours in the dishes will match with the extensive wine list. This guy has obviously done a lot of eating amazing food and drinking amazing wine, even if he looks more like a beer drinker...or a lumberjack. A fairly attractive lumberjack, mind you.

First, the bread came. The crusty baguette was perfect. Soft and doughy, but crisp on the outside. Now I was convinced this was going to be a great meal.

As much as this is a meat-centric restaurant, a vegetarian can also have a good time as long as they don't mind having no choice in their meal. A gazpacho to start and a goat cheese pasta as a main. Unfortunately the tomatoes in the gazpacho are not at their best. It's certainly not August yet, so the soup lacked any kind of a punch (this is certainly a restaurant where a punch wouldn't be out of place). The texture of the vegetable brunoise (very finely chopped vegetables) was very nice, featuring fresh shallots, but it couldn't make up for the mildly sweet, but otherwise bland flavour of the heaping bowl of red. In fact I have a small feeling that my amuse-bouche came from the same brunoise. While the other diners at my table were given a lobster-avocado mouthful to start the meal, my dairy-free concoction was made of finely diced carrots and shallots with green onions, kosher salt and truffle oil. There may not have been truffle oil in the gazpacho, but the very, very subtle flavour of it in my little pot of mouth-amusement was strikingly similar to the soup. I also wish I could have tasted more of the truffle oil, though I was happy every time I came across a big grain of salt that would explode when I bit into it and bring out the flavour of the rest of the mouthful of sweet but mild carrots.
Then a starter of tilapia, seared and planked to cook it through. Unfortunately a little too cooked through. The poor little fish probably knew he was raised in a tightly enclosed fish farm on the remains of other fish that he would otherwise not choose to eat. Kind of like broiler chickens. That kind of upbringing would make anyone a little tough. In a tough neighbourhood he had to fend for himself, and elbow his way through the crowds to eat (the entrée of red snapper is actually deemed completely unsustainable by Seachoice, and really shouldn't be on the menu at all...). The tomato confit rushed juice into the slightly over-done flesh of the tilapia, but only saved the thickest parts. The cherry tomatoes didn't gain anything from rosemary or garlic (maybe the same tomatoes used for the gazpacho). The tomato oil garnish was beautiful, though flavourless after a bite of the confit version. Plated on salad of fresh spinach, the greens seemed more like plate garnish than something that worked well with the fish and tomato. So not an ingenious dish, but not bad.

The excellent appetizer of the evening was the beef and pork terrine. A less than traditional version, this small slab of lusciously fatty meat was interlaced with nuts and spices beside a little salad with beautifully thin and sweet yellow beets that worked much better with the rest of the dish than the leafy bed for the tipalia. The terrine was better on its own than with the perfect baguette, but it was incredible with the server/cook's wine suggestion of a 2008 California Cabernet Sauvignon, Frontier Red from Fess Parker ($45). Suddenly the wine was sweet and the terrine was buttery. Ah! That's what the tilapia needed! More butter! If I wasn't lactose-intolerant it would have been swimming in the stuff, and the fish would have been more tender.

See, this is the problem. I called in advance and told the Chefs that I was lactose-intolerant. Normally that's fine. They'll say, "Sure, there are things you can eat," or, "We'll make some exceptions. Our Chefs are very good," etc. What I was told was, "Our Chefs love it when there's something like this! It's a fun challenge!" So they got my hopes up. My little heart was moved, touched. This team of creative, successful, respectable young men was going to go out of their way to cater to me. I could be their muse and push them to new culinary feats.

Instead, like almost every other restaurant, they just left things out. They used a bland oil instead of butter. Now oil is fine as long as you do it well, and use the right oil, but if not...well, I don't deal well with getting my heart broken. It's not like I go all Carrie or anything, but men can be so disappointing. Lets just leave it at that.

I once ate a restaurant with a woman who didn't think it necessary to inform the kitchen in advance that she couldn't eat anything that had touched black pepper. That's SO much worse than dairy! Out go stocks, sauces, long-cooking meats or vegetables, soups, anything remotely prepped in advance. Really, I'm not that bad, and will not excuse the kitchen gallery for their less than stellar creativity when it came to dealing with a stomach that can't handle all the beautiful cream and butter their knives like to throw into dishes.
Moving on. The main courses fared much better. This is a meat place, so once you start learning to ignore the fish and vegetarian options you fare much better. Braised rabbit came sitting on a large bed of thinly sliced, buttered up potatoes. Even the Quebec asparagus got to soak up the braising liquid. While this was definitely the smallest portion of meat of the evening's mains, what was there was perfectly cooked, tender and flavourful. The slow-cooking brought out the best of the high-quality meat.
Still, there wasn't enough there to satisfy a larger appetite, which is why it was good that two other dining companions got the rib-eye beef for 2, since there was more than enough leftover to fill the wanting belly of the diner who finished off the lovely rabbit. A huge hunk of meat on the bone cooked medium-rare placed above and around (it was that large) a bed of creamy mashed potatoes and some green beans, all served on an enormous white platter. It even says in the menu that people sharing this dish need to sit across from one another because of the communal plate. Don't worry, though. You probably won't be fighting for the last bite (not unless you're our server, who said he can eat the whole portion himself). Not because it's not good, just because it's huge. The sauce is a simple red wine reduction with anise (either ouzo or some other kind of black licorice flavoured liqueur, or anise) and comes on the side. There's more than enough to help out the potatoes and coat the roasted root vegetables, as well as covering the meat, if you so wish.

Wait, winter's over. Why are they still using root vegetables? There were already lots of mashed potatoes and enough green beans to call a serving of green vegetables on the platter. The winter vegetables didn't make the plate look much more attractive. Besides the amount of beef, there wasn't much going on on the plate (no garnishes or extra flavours), but it was good on its own, and this was one huge chunk of meat.
I was a little worried when I wasn't asked how I wanted my veal chop cooked, but when it came out a nice medium-rare I was happy. I would have just said to cook it however the chefs suggested anyway. My veal reduction was simple, being spiked with nothing (no anise here), but I'm glad there wasn't too strong a flavour to overpower the highlight of the dish - the crushed potatoes. These weren't creamy. They were just crushed enough to give texture, and the salt, garlic and herbs were perfect combined with whatever kind of fat they were cooked in. I don't know if the supposed lobster mushrooms sneaked off (lobsters being slow creatures on land, so their mushrooms probably being about the same...), but if they were in the potato mixture, they certainly helped. The sliced and quartered pieces of salty sausage thrown over and around the potatoes were wonderful on their own as well as with a bite of the veal, but added too much salt to the spectacular potatoes.

The green beans were necessary and fresh, and subtly sweet compared to the salty acidity of the meat and sauce. My favourite part of the presentation of the dish was how the potatoes and green beans were seemingly haphazardly spread around the bottom of the plate and then the veal chop was hacked into two enormous halves and placed carefully on top. Hunting under the meat for the bountiful hidden treasure was fun, and made the whole evening seem like what the chefs wanted it to be - entertaining, care-free, rough gourmet. Home-style cooking for hungry people who appreciate expensive high-quality ingredients (meat, mushrooms, truffles, and wine). The veal chop itself was beautifully seared so the fat locked onto the meat and moisturized the flesh. Not too chewy, not too fatty, not too lean. This was the veritable Goldilocks of meat chops. Just right.

My only complaint is the wine that paired so well with the sweet fat of the beef and pork terrine and the tomato confit didn't go well with the veal. On its own the veal didn't taste spicy but with the wine it suddenly did. As interesting as this was, it didn't help the veal. So was this the veal's fault of the wine's fault?
For dessert, nothing innovative. Just some (mostly) very good takes on standard chocolate mousse, New York style cheesecake, and creme caramel. The pot of rich 65%(?) chocolate ganache came with a generous dollop of whipped cream. A few bites were all that could be managed after the portion of beef. Again, the creme caramel was extremely rich. The top was expertly torched, and made it a little more fun spooning out the insides. The cheesecake came with a much too sweet blueberry coulis, but at least there was lemon in the cheese to lend some acid and flavour to the mix. It's a long, long way from Quebec blueberry season, so these ones would disappoint any Quebecer who knew that blueberries here are small and a little acidic, not large, kind of sweet, but otherwise bland and uninteresting. The other ridiculously sweet topping, a thick caramel, was luscious, but would have been better paired with a blueberry coulis that had a little more lemon in it. The cheesecake shouldn't have to do all the work on its own.

Up until this point I was pretty happy with my meal. There had been some problems, not necessarily mistakes, but more so differences of opinion between myself and the chefs, but there had been some wonderful surprises - the terrine, the rabbit, the crushed potatoes, and the ample and nicely cooked meat. Ingredients were fresh and dishes were generally well thought out. Then the moment I had been waiting for...

...the server promised me a special dessert since there was nothing on the menu I could eat (everything had cream) but it was a table d'hote that was supposed to come with dessert. I generally do not pass on trying a dessert if it's part of the meal and I can digest it. There are such things as "wrapped to go, please?" I was so excited. See, when you're lactose intolerant, dessert at a nice restaurant means fruit salad. I hate fruit salad. There's nothing wrong with fruit salad. In fact, I've eaten some phenomenal fruit salads, but I can make them at home with phenomenal fruit. There isn't a whole lot of culinary magic that goes into fruit salad. Not like creme caramel or a pot of chocolate with fruit whipped cream, or a home-made caramel sauce. So I will judge a restaurant that promises me that the "chefs like a challenge" by the quality of the special dessert that I am offered.
In general, I do prefer soup to salad. It fills you up more. Unfortunately, when it comes to dessert neither term that I generally associate with restaurant dinner appetizers, soup or salad, belongs in front of me. You can purée gorgeous canteloupe with sugar and water, pour it into a bowl, dice some apples, grapefruit, amazing oranges (just like the ones currently in my fridge), and pineapple to throw over top and say "fait accompli", aka "we fed the lactose intolerant girl," but I'm sorry, that's not good enough. If you're going to get a girl all excited about a special dessert at one of the newest hot restaurants in town then you've got to deliver more than fruit soup.

65% Chocolate soup...Maybe I could change my mind about dessert soup, but what would the other 35% of the soup be?

Hours: Tues-Sat 6pm-11pm
Expect to Pay: $55-$90, including tax, tip and at least one glass of something red or white
(514) 315-8994
www.kitchengalerie.com

Montreal Patio Guide

Walls of vines, fountains, fish ponds and wonderfully oppressive sunshine combined with blissful shade. When Montreal decides it's finally warm enough to not need a toque, it becomes warm weather paradise. Brunches, long afternoons, and evenings spent with friends, drink, and food in a city of terrasses all help make this city great. Since there are way too many times of day and situations when a terrasse is required, read on for the categorized list of Montreal's best...

Best Hidden Courtyard: Le Sainte-Elisabeth (1412 rue Sainte Elisabeth)

Find your way to a dark alley, enter a dark pub, and step through to a secret garden of light. Look up to the top of the 30-foot walls of cascading vines and feel like you're on a patio oasis. Doesn't hurt that Leffe Brun is on tap and imports are two-for-one on Wednesdays. Also doesn't hurt that happy hour is 4-8 on weekdays and the pub's own microbrew goes for $4 a pint.

Best Forest/Lunch Terrasse: Santropol (3990 St-Urbain, at Duluth)

I was going to call this the "Best Forest Terrasse" but it has really amazing sandwiches that I would be remiss if I didn't mention. They're huge, so even with a lot of area in the back, expect to wait in line while the servers wind through the restaurant wielding big, heavy plates. There's a fish pond, good people, and amazing coffee, though. I'm sold.

Best Laundromat Terrasse: Blanc de Blanc Buanderie (248 Villeneuve West)

Yes this is a laundromat, but a laundromat with good coffee. Have a turkey and pear sandwich, or a veggie-pate and pesto, both made fresh in-house with thick Premiere Moisson bread, and sit in the partially enclosed terrasse or at one of the backyard picnic tables while the suds do their work in the adjacent room. Kids can even play with the pedal cars and toys set in the back for laundry-doing moms. Or you can just hang out in the back and pretend like you don't own your own washing machine. Either way, hipster that you are, you definitely have your own retro clothesline to air dry all the skinny jeans of the male population of your home.

Best Spralling Terrasse: Le Saint-Sulpice (1680 St-Denis, south of Ontario)

One giant fountain on the huge back terrasse. Or sit out front on or over-looking St-Denis for some great people-watching. You could get lost in this place, and you will during happy hour when you'll never find your way through the crowd to find your friends. Upside is you'll make new merry friends along your way, and you'll definitely find a bar or 2 wherever you end up in the place. Drinks are pricey when it's not happy hour ($6.25 for a standard mixed drink), but no more than your average St-Denis watering hole. So get a pitcher of Hoegaarden for $16.00 (it's $18.25 for Keith's) and settle in for awhile.

Best Terrasse with a Hammock: Picapica (1310 de Maisonneuve East)

Yeah, it's a category. See far right of picture above.

Best Upscale Old Port (but not touristy) Terrasse: Boris Bistro (465 rue McGill)

Considered calling this category the "Best 'If you have the guts to walk through the metal gates to luxury' terrasse", but maybe I'm just a chicken? If you work downtown, this is a beautiful place to feel secluded, have a great lunch, and enjoy the sun in a gorgeous, elegant courtyard. Probably you should think about wearing a suit or something designer. Lunch, dinner and drinks will all cost you a pretty penny, but you pay for location and ambiance.

Best Brunch Terrasse: La Croissanterie Figaro (5200 rue Hutchison)

Contentious, I know, but what is a stereotypical Montreal brunch without a perfect croissant, and these are the best. Brunch can also stretch into the afternoon and its accompanying craving for a piece of cake, which is where the "Best Montreal Desserts" post pushes La Croissanterie to victory.

Runner Up: La Petite Ardoise (222 Laurier West)

A little piece of heaven hidden in the back of a cute French bistro. Unpretentious and with free WiFi, this is a great place to have an afternoon espresso, an after-dinner drink, a date, or take your Grandmother for brunch. You need to go experience this place for yourself to understand how it's possible to cater to all these audiences, but keep in mind it closes by 10pm, so whoever you come here with, keep in mind that this place is just a touch classier than, say, Foufounes Electriques, no disrespect intended.

2nd Runner-Up and the only winner from Griffintown is Brigade Volante (1414 Notre-Dame West), a little lunch/brunch spot just above a parking lot. You don't see the cars when you're nestled under the metal overhangs. It's kind of industrial, but the flowers are a nice touch. The menu is overseen by a nutritionist and features organic salmon actually decently priced, home-made soups, home-made pasta, and entrées like lamb curry, or you can take advantage of the catering service if you like.

Best Rooftop Terrasse: Suite 701 (701 Cote de la Place D'Armes)

The swanky cocktail bar in the St. James hotel also boasts a great look-out. The lounge is itself is busy year-round, combining a DJ, suits and fancy heels (the male clientele in suits, the women in heels, the DJ in neither), but the elevator to the top is what you want to take if a great view of the city is what you want to see.

Runner-Up: Magnetic Terrasse (1430 rue de la Montagne)

The food's not as good on the 20th floor of the Hotel-de-la-Montagne as it is at Suite 701, and you can only get it until 4 or 4:30pm depending on the day, but there's a pool. WAIT! It's only for hotel guests. You're allowed to look at the pool, at least, and you're definitely encouraged to drink until the wee hours while looking at the pool, and wishing you were in the pool. Are you allowed to swim if you meet a hotel guest who kindly invites you to room? Is that prostitution? Selling yourself for a pool?

Best Coffee Terrasse: Cafe Olympico (124 St-Viateur West)

One of the great Montreal experiences: buying bagels, cream cheese and lox at St-Viateur Bagel and taking your picnic to the outdoor seating of Olympico with one of their beautiful espresso drinks. Very old-school, competent service. Only downside is the outdoor seating is not exactly comfortable for a good long sit, but the fun of watching all the action and friendly people in the Mile End neighbourhood will make you forget about your sore toosh.

Runner-Up: Cafe Myriade (1432 rue Mackay)

It's still too small for all the people who want to sit, even though the terrasse about doubles the café's capacity. Sitting outside, you won't hear the timer being used to measure the drip length of every espresso in this Third Wave coffee place. Free WiFi and very nice counter staff unless you ask for something special, like more lemon in your lemon, ginger and honey drink when they're busy, or if you ask for an espresso served at a different temperature than theirs. That's frowned upon. It's kind of like asking for your organic, locally-raised prime rib to be cooked well-done. Someone in the food industry dies every time a request like that is made. Hopefully it's someone mean on a silly television show. So take your perfect espresso, or your huge cup of latte art and enjoy the sun-filled day. One question: Can you get the Soma hot chocolate on ice? The exquisite sipping chocolate goes for $3 for a tiny glass but is worth every penny. Myriade brings it in from Soma Chocolate Maker in Toronto, the best quality, they say, that they can get in Canada. Note that though the terrasse itself is actually better at Caffe in Gamba on du Parc, and both places make fine espresso, Myriade still wins. Tough call.

Best Dinner Terrasse: Il Piatto Pieno (177 St-Zotique East)

This Little Italy restaurant is perfectly quaint and family-oriented. In fact, you might have trouble even getting on the back terrasse since there's probably a communion, an anniversary, a retirement or some other special event using the space. Their group menu is ordered about as often as their regular one, it seems. Still, ordering a la carte makes for a great dinner, starting with an acqua frizzante (sparkling water), then prosciutto and melone, fettucine primavera (it is spring, after all), gelato and espresso all for less than $40 including tax and tip without wine. Or try one of the more expensive table d'hotes ($45-$50 with tax and tip) that skip the pasta and give you one of the 8 kinds of veal or chicken cutlet (that, un-traditionally, can come with vegetables or pasta in tomato sauce anyway) and be unable to push down that last bite of cannoli. Probably better to go for the flavoured granita. There's always room for sugar and ice.

Best Club Terrasse: Tokyo Bar (3709 St-Laurent, at des Pins)

Lots of martinis but a young-ish crowd, plus music ranging from house to hip-hop, to electronic to disco depending on the night. Expect more standard club programming on weekends, a fair-sized St-Laurent club line to wait in, and busy dance floors. Nice thing about a rooftop is there's always a place to get some fresh air and a great view.

Best Street of Terrasses: Bernard (Outremont, west of Hutchison)

Little Italy and St-Denis come in close 2nd and 3rd but there's nothing like the quaintness of sitting in front of Les Enfants Terribles (1257 avenue Bernard) or Le Petit Italian (1265 avenue Bernard) for brunch, or just under the awning of La Moulerie (1249 avenue Bernard) for dinner, watching the strolling young couples with or without (not yet, anyway) baby-strollers. Then there's Bilboquet (1311 avenue Bernard), which has almost no seating but what terrasse post is complete without mentioning amazing ice cream? The line around the block is worth wait at any hour of the day. Oh, and you can't forget du Parc, stretching from Mont-Royal up to Bernard with great spots like Le Massillia (4543 du Parc) and Buvette Chez Simone (4869 du Parc).

La Maison du Nord and the Secret of Magic Noodles

La Maison du Nord
2130 St-Mathieu (look for the number on the door, not the name)
●●●●●●☺○○○○
6 1/2 out of 10

I walked up St-Mathieu from Maisonneuve, then turned right on Lincoln, right again back onto Maisonneuve, over to St-Marc...where is this place? It was 11:30am and I was looking for noodles and the sign-less restaurant La Maison du Nord.

Actually, there is a sign, and it does say "Restaurant", but the words "La Maison du Nord" are certainly not to be seen in either of Canada's official languages. I shamefully walked into Le Roi du Wonton and asked the lady where I could find the actual restaurant I was looking for. It felt like maybe I should order some wontons for the road (1 block, just around the corner) for so rudely leaving the place with the intent of finding lunch elsewhere. Finally I got back to St-Mathieu, having gone full cirlce, and found La Maison du Nord on the east side of the street, just south of Lincoln ((2130 St-Mathieu)...basically where I had thought it should have been in the first place. Look for the number and the sign saying "coiffure" and you'll have no problem finding the place.

The whole reason for wanting to come here was to try the "magic" noodles. There is one chef who is capable of taking a long strand of dough and stretching it, pulling it, and miraculously shaping it into a giant soup bowl's worth of glutinous noodles. I sat myself in front of the open window to the kitchen and waited to be amazed. I expected to see noodles flying through the air, being spun, twirled and dangled.

In fact, the whole stretching process seemed kind of boring. The man had obviously stretched a whole lot of noodles in his life and he made it look no more complicated than shuffling a deck of cards. Actually, the first time he did it I didn't even notice. He kept his subtle hands under the opening of the kitchen window. I felt cheated because I figured my noodles had actually been machine-stretched as there had been no show made of the whole magic noodle creation, which didn't make sense because I had been warned that it would be a 20 minute wait for the noodles, since the chef had just arrived. This in itself made me skeptical because noodles take a whole lot longer than 20 minutes to make from start to finish usually. You need to combine the dough, knead it, let it rest for awhile, sometimes knead it again, sometimes let it rest again. All in all, it can be a long process. So I'm going to hope that much of this process was pre-done, and the dough had been prepped in advance of the "magic" noodle chef's arrival.

You can have these noodles in a whole lot of different kinds of meal soups. I had the noodles in a lamb broth. Most of the options are beef, but you can also get tomato and egg. Vegetarians are a bit out of luck , but maybe you could just get the noodles by themselves??

A giant bowl of steaming noodles with shaved, tiny pieces of delicious lamb came to the table. It was topped with a heaping pile of tasteless green onions, along with some also bland carrots, but the highlight of the bowl was the cabbage, which was perfectly al dente and sweet.

At least the soup, unlike the noodle throwing, didn't let me down. The broth was surprisingly un-salty, which is definitely atypical of noodle soups in Montreal. Maybe, just maybe, they didn't add a ton of MSG to the broth. Maybe it was actually mostly flavoured by the lamb? I was overjoyed to find that the broth was just a little spicy. It wasn't too greasy, either, which is both a good and a bad thing. It means it was either skimmed of fat, which is unlikely, or a whole chunk of lamb was not used (as would be traditional) to make the broth, but it didn't feel like I was wading through fat to find broth.

After being let down by my expectation of the "magic" noodle show, at least the noodles themselves were pretty good. They were filling and comforting and just what a bowl of noodle soup should be, even if for some reason they didn't have any distinguishable noodle taste, like when you make fresh pasta with a really good quality flour. With a bit of black vinegar, though, they were so satisfying, and a great addition to the rest of the soup fillings.

I had to try the dumplings to compare them to Qing Hua down the road. The dumpling wrapper here was thinner, and the fillings weren't as juicy. In my shrimp, chive and and egg dumplings I had a hard time finding any shrimp. I would have liked them better if the sauces that accompanied them were better. The hot sauce didn't taste like anything. I'm pretty sure it was just chili flakes and oil, so it really didn't help the dumplings out at all. The black vinegar was good, but I'd had enough of that with the soup. The soy sauce provided was just packets of Wings. Does the trick, I guess.

The exciting part of the meal for me ended up being the dishes that you don't find in every other Chinese restaurant. The Northern Chinese (Shaanxi) dishes, like a side dish of spicy shredded raw potatoes in a salty, spicy, and sour sauce, were delicious! They kind of tasted like noodles, and certainly looked the part. It would be an amazing lunch if Montreal's raw foodists got together at the very un-vegan La Maison du Nord to talk about the values of noodles made of potatoes and turnips.

Finally a sweet baked flatbread filled with a periodically sweet sesame paste. "Periodically", because whoever made the paste didn't stir in the sugar very well, so some bites were sweet and some were savoury, which was actually pretty fun. One bite would taste like natural peanut butter, and the next would taste like Kraft's sweet and salty version. The bread was beautiful. Kind of like a Northern Chinese version of naan. It had the most flavour of all the doughy foods I tried. The wheat flour definitely won out over the glutinous flour used for the noodles.

The price? Ridiculously affordable. Even though you can get a dozen dumplings here for $8, which beats Qing Hua's pricing, I'd still say it's worth it to "splurge" down the road. It's all relative, since it's not like Qing Hua is particularly expensive in the grand scheme of Montreal restaurants. The Maison du Nord sweet bread was $2.99, and makes a great snack for two at any time of the day. You can get lamb soup for $3.99, but with the noodles it gets bumped to $7.99, which is basically two meals of soup and so, so many noodles. You could also come here and order main dishes (mostly pork-based, or fried fish and vegetables) for slightly more money (around $8-$10 a dish), and leave happily stuffed or with leftovers. Whatever you get, you won't spend a fortune and you'll be very full. Oh, and tax is included!

Hours: 11am-11pm, daily
Expect to Pay: $8 to be full, $14 to have to roll yourself out of there...
514-670-3188

Cafe Harvard Gourmet

Café Harvard Gourmet
5688 avenue Monkland
Montreal, QC
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7 1/2 out of 10

This neighbourhood is picking up. What used to be a strip of quaint but over-priced, mediocre restaurants now has at least 3 gourmet chocolate shops, 2 vegetarian joints, a mikado sushi restaurant, a Ten Thousand Villages, a Petits Gateaux cupcake shop, and more stores opening all the time. Doesn't hurt that it's very liveable, scenic and safe. Not that Montreal is a city of crazies, but sunny sidewalks, people smiling, and a whole lot of clean and green make this a place you want to be.
What I stumbled into in Monkland Village, after a lot of window shopping, was the second of the two vegetarian cafés, Café Harvard Gourmet. I had quickly left the first one when the cook told me that the eye-popping vegan cakes in the cooler display were all made with soy, because, well, you can't avoid that if you don't use real milk. Sorry, but I have a whole lot of eating experience that tells me otherwise. I will not be frequenting a vegetarian place that doesn't explore, and even denies, all its options, which is where Harvard Café Gourmet comes in. Less soy, completely dairy-free (parve), vegetarian, and kosher to boot. Not vegan, though. There are lots and lots of eggs, but you can definitely find some egg-free options. The whole concept of the restaurant is healthy, delicious food, since the owner and Chef, Gigi Cohen, has written several cookbooks on low-sugar cooking, and general healthy cooking.
So I'm excited. Shops that are so proud of the ingredients they use that they sell them in containers make me happy; freshly ground spices and vegetarian staples like nutritional yeast.

The menu is small and changes daily according to the whim of the chef, and probably what's being made for whatever catering engagement is going on at the time. Choose from just a few entrée options, a soup, and some salads. The beautiful kitchen in the back is used for cooking demos and the catering business, which seems to be where a lot of the business comes from. A staff of kitchen workers are kept busy cooking dried black beans, chopping mounds of onions, and assembling platters. If you don't want to sit at one of the café's small tables, you can get your food to go, and grab some raw energy bars (bars that are made from raw, unprocessed ingredients, not balls that are filled with "raw energy"...).
The soup was spicy black bean. With all the vegetables being chopped in that kitchen I figured the broth would be homemade, but it wasn't. The powder the Chef proudly uses is organic, but the first ingredient is corn starch, which is what makes the soup sweet. I was told the broth is in a lot of the dishes and it's what makes everything taste so good. When you add a lot of sugar things get magically better...Still, the soup was fresh. The spinach was barely wilted, the chunks of potato were just softened, the yellow peppers were crisp, and the green onions sang. The beans were perfectly cooked and so much better than beans from a can.
The quiche was a tower of eggs, sliced potato, onions, tomatoes and sesame seeds. The tomatoes were a bit bland (since it's not tomato season, I'm okay with that), but were just tasty enough to help out the accompanying salad, whose dressing had disappeared in the water probably used to wash the greens or the bean sprouts, and there were a whole lot of bean sprouts. The quiche itself was sweet (from the corn syrup organic broth, since no milk, regular or soy, was used), so it kind of tasted like sweet omelet that you find in sushi that's sweetened with mirin (which also often includes corn syrup, and not the organic kind, if that makes any difference to you).
The counter in the front of the restaurant was piled high with patties. I've eaten a whole lot of bad vegetarian patties, but there were no other soy-free entrées available that day, and I didn't want to fill up on corn syrup soup, even if it was delicious. The patty came sadly bun-less, but with the same fresh but watery salad, and the highlight of the entire meal: a sweet chili paste. I probably don't want to know how it was sweetened, but I'll cross my fingers it was made in-house, because it was so good.

The patty was a little soft and mushy, even though it was pan-browned on the outside. The sesame seeds got a little bit of a toasted taste from the browning, but somehow the outside of the patty gave a strange metallic aftertaste. So I stopped eating the crust (do patties have crusts?) and picked out the filling, and dipped. On its own the filling was fine and simple, but pretty bland. I was dreaming of Crudessence's dehydrated or sundried tomatoes while trying both the patty and the quiche, since both would have benefited from them.

So on any given day you could walk into this café and have a great meal, but you'll never have less than a pretty good meal made with the best of intentions and care. You'll leave feeling good about yourself and walk out onto the gorgeous strip of street that is the growing Monkland Village.

Hours (following the Sabbath - early Friday closing, closed all day Saturday. I like to call it Outremont hours): Mon-Thurs, Sun 10am-7pm, Fri 10am-2pm
Expect to Pay: $13-$15 for an entré, $14-$22 to add soup or a drink, including taxes and tip
514-483-9494

Takara Restaurant Japonais

Takara Restaurant Japonais
4th floor of the Cour Mont-Royal Shopping Centre
1455 rue Peel, Montréal, QC
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7 out of 10

I'm always really nervous going to Japanese restaurants in Montreal. Well, nervous and excited, because the Japanese in Montreal is not known to be incredible, but that's not really fair, because the sushi in Montreal falls more into that category. Often, the Japanese food, cooked small plates with sweet and salty flavours, varying textures and beautiful presentation is very good. The interesting thing about Takara is that the chef is Japanese, unlike so many Chinese or Vietnamese-run establishments. So Takara is going for authenticity, and I'll bite.
The meal started with a complimentary amuse-bouche of a cube of something akin to salmon salad. A little bit of green onion and some garnish made the presentation pretty, but the salmon was bland and so was the liberally-applied mayonnaise.

My appetizer, pictured above, was the higlight of the meal, and was certainly an example of what the kitchen does best. Belly-fish was lightly marinated in sweet miso and served with fried eggplants. The oil soaked into the eggplants nicely, which I happy to find weren't over-cooked. The miso flavour wasn't as strong and fish-infusing as I would have hoped, but it was a prime example of Japanese cuisine - simple cooking with good quality ingredients. The beautiful presentation, the slightly browned colour of the fish, and the perfectly cooked thick parts of the fillet were wonderful. The thinner parts got a bit over-cooked, and unfortunately those were the first bites I took, but it just lead to the happiness of seeing that the kitchen had an intended level of done-ness in mind for the thicker parts.

For $23 this is a very expensive seafood soup. For the heaps of fish in it, though, it's definitely a good bargain. Inexpensive calamari and crabstick sat next to mackerel, shrimp, bellyfish, cod and one beautiful clam. The leafy greens and scallions were a beautiful colour addition to the bowl, and you can't even see the mounds of noodles hidden underneath. The bowl even came with a side of rice, as if there weren't enough noodles (though I understand that rice was necessary for when you take pieces of fish out of the broth. You can place them onto your rice and then get one good mouthful. The noodles can be saved for the end to slurp up the with the water-based broth that by then will have become infused with fish flavour).

The broth really was simple - just a basic dashi - and I was happy to find neither the broth or the fish to be over-salted.
Eel is very much not sustainable. I very rarely eat it, but at a good Japanese restaurant I find it hard to resist. The sticky sweet sauce is so appealing. Often you get just a tiny bit of eel stuck on a medium sized bowl of rice. This version proved a bit better. The eel was a bit more substantial, and the rice was just enough. Really, what it comes down to is how well the eel is cooked and the quality of the sauce. I'm happy to say the eel was nicely done, it consisted of more than just skin and fat and had a good amount of meat in it, and the sauce was addictive. Mirin and sugar and sake flavourings soaked into the entire bowl of rice, not just directly under the fish. I kept seeking out pools of it in the bowl's corners. All in all, very satisfying.

I still couldn't bring myself to try the sushi here, out of fear of disappointment. I would definitely come back for more of the appetizer-style selections. Things baked in foil, and a lobster dish that had sold out that day. Other options seemed more standard, like udon or soba noodles (not home-made), and breaded pork and chicken with rice. Still, if their unagi is any indication, the standards here are a cut above. When you crave fusion-less Japanese in Montreal, this is definitely an option.

Hours: Mon-Fri 11:30am-10pm, Sat-Sun 5:30pm-10:30pm
Expect To Pay: $35-$55 at supper for an appetizer, entrée, and drink or dessert, tax and tip included
514-849-8242‎

Why, I DO Love Cake!

For the Love of Cake
Toronto, ON
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9 out of 10

I've eaten a whole lot of cake in my lifetime considering that I'm a lactose-intolerant person.

There's something about not being allowed to have it that makes it so seductive. That being said, I will not eat just any cake. I will only eat home-made, preservative-free cake. I usually also avoid cupcakes because by the time you're done eating one you want another. They're just too small and unsatisfying. There's never enough icing. The icing is too greasy and doesn't taste like anything. The cake part is bland or dry. Basically, there are just too many things that can go wrong and ruin my cake experience for me to spend money buying, or time baking, cupcakes.

But the fact is, I love cake, and I will go out of my way to try a restaurant or a food that has received a lot of buzz. I just need to know if it's really that good. With this little cupcake shop, For The Love Of Cake, I really had no excuse, since it was a hop, skip and a jump from where I was staying in Toronto, in Liberty Village.

There's a little shopping complex in the developing south-east area of Liberty Village that plays host to a dance studio, a few hair salons, some designer clothing shops and most recently a high-end cheese shop, but why would you eat cheese when you can eat these cupcakes? Normally, I would never say that, but these cupcakes, oh god, these cupcakes.

They are called "4 dimensional cupcakes", which is silly, but makes for good marketing. It just means that most of them are filled with something, as well as being topped with something, and garnished with something. So there are a few more flavours involved than your a-ver-age cupcake.

An example is the strawberry shortcake cupcake made of an angel food cake base (1st dimension) filled with strawberry purée (2nd dimension), topped with whipped cream (3rd dimension), and garnished with a fresh slice of strawberry (4th dimension). Or the salted caramel made of a chocolate cupcake filled with homemade caramel, topped with chocolate butter cream, and garnished with sea salt and a chewy piece of caramel. I'd be more inclined to give the nod to the chewy caramel being considered a 4th dimension than a little slice of strawberry, but it's the thought that counts.


I tried a grand total of 5 cupcakes over the course of a week and a half, and these two were the best. The chocolate cupcake was like no other chocolate cupcake. Not too dense, not too airy or light, and never dry since all the cupcakes are sold the day they're made. Usually I'm all about the icing, but this cake was just incredible. Since eating these cupcakes, I've searched far and wide for a better chocolate cupcake, or one that can even compare, and I just can't find one. Then the vanilla angel food cake...it was the equivalent of the joy created by the chocolate, but in a luscious vanilla. It actually tasted like vanilla, and was light but rich, with the perfect texture. I never thought there was a perfect texture because different people would prefer different textures, but no, these are just the best.

Cookies and Cream came close to being as good as the salted caramel (the same chocolate base was used so it had a big head start in the direction of being amazing) but it was filled with chocolate ganache instead of caramel. The ganache was too bittersweet and overwhelmed the cupcake base that really wanted to be filled with semisweet or milk chocolate. Either way, it just couldn't compare to the caramel, which was supposed to ooze out of the cupcake. I could have used more caramel and more oozing, but what was there was still delicious. The best part of the cookies and cream was the oreo cookie garnish. Somehow the oreo cookie wasn't rock hard, like they usually are from a package, and the vanilla frosting was so much better and richer than whipped cream.

Besides its four-dimensional cupcakes, For The Love Of Cakes is known for its "mancakes". These range from the standard usage of Guinness in desserts (like a regular stout cake, or the chocolate version with Irish whiskey ganache), or a regular black forest cupcake with the traditional kirsch brandy. The only really unique cupcake is the maple-bacon option where a maple and bacon-flavoured cupcake is filled with blueberries jelly, topped with a maple frosting, and garnished with bacon bits. The blueberries and maple are a brilliant idea for a combination, and the bacon just acts as salt flavouring in a similar way to salted caramel.

Black and White Cupcake

Gimmicks aside, the rest of cakes at For the Love of Cake are all pretty good. Some are bigger than others, so you feel like you get your moneys-worth with some of them more than others. $3 can get you a mouthful or a meal. Then there are some that don't have 4 dimensions, like the lemon meringue. It just has a lemon base, deliciously sweet and sour lemon curd, and a toasted meringue frosting. Toasting is not a dimension. Fortunately there's LOTS of meringue, so I will stop complaining and enjoy the beautiful cupcake.


Another interesting cupcake was the Japanese ginger: a ginger cupcake filled with a plum sake jelly, topped with cream cheese frosting and a plum slice covered in a sake glaze. The plum sake jelly was absolutely delicious and the garnish of plum was nice, but the cupcake was pretty small, and the cream cheese was too rich and didn't fit with the tangy jelly. I think a different kind of frosting would have worked better. The pieces of candied ginger in the cupcake batter itself were very nice touches, and made it worth hunting through the cake to find and savour them.


Since my favourite shop, Sitting Around Eating Bonbons, closed down I was left guilty-pleasure-less in Toronto. Now, I'm happy to say I have a new addiction, the best cupcakes in Toronto, and I've very much reconsidered my stance on the whole concept of cupcakes.

Hours: Mon-Fri 9:30am-6pm, Sat-Sun 11am-4pm

Expect To Pay: $3 per cupcake, $15.90 for 6, or order a minimum of four online for pick-up at $2.50 each
416-306-6446
www.fortheloveofcake.ca

Gourmet Garden Brunch and Update

Since my previous review of Gourmet Garden International Cuisine, there have been a whole lot of new developments, I'm sorry to say. That's why you need to go there - to tell them to stop, and to experience the amazing Pakistani food before it's too late.

When I first went to Gourmet Garden I noticed the menu was trying to combine traditional Pakistani dishes with pasta, panini, and a whole host of items that were very much not South Asian. I was okay with that because I could ignore all the junk and focus on the stellar Pakistani selection. Now I want to cry. Apparently the owner's son is taking over the restaurant and is responsible for re-vamping the menu with a North American 'healthy' food slant. All skepticism of 'healthy' lasagna aside, I'm pretty heart-broken that the manager feels that a piece of bread with some salty, sliced, grocery store meat and cheese is more desirable to the St. John's lunch crowd than a stew of tender lamb combined with the perfect blend of spices. These two meals come from very different traditions and I know which one is better. Don't you dare try to tell me that panin are Italian. Yes, good panini are beautiful, simple and a good lunch, but that is not what Gourmet Garden is offering. If the bread is not made in-house with the highest quality flour, the meat is not hand-sliced from the top quality meat, and the cheese is not made with care locally or imported, in essence, carefully chosen, then all you have is an over-priced sandwich. Why should anyone spend their money on a lunchbox they could replicate at home for less money? Heck, a lunchbox that you make yourself can even come with a yogurt, a snack or a compartment for a juice box. Ironically, one of the only things that the new menu of Gourmet Garden and the old have in common are the fresh juices and smoothies, since both North America and Pakistan can agree that mangos are delicious. But how many mango trees grow in North American backyards? Yeah, exactly. So, again, Pakistan wins.

I found out that Gourmet Garden now offers brunch and I nearly died from joy. I had dreams of Pakistani brunch of biryani and lentil crepes and chutneys in place of jams!!! Naan and chapatti to make toast commit suicide because it would have no reason to live. Unfortunately, there is again a menu transition in effect. I got to the restaurant and there's a new chef. Seems like a nice guy, but definitely not Pakistani. 4 standard breakfast options on the menu, like steak and eggs, or crepes. Okay, here's the first of my complaints. If you're trying to do brunch a la North America, you need to do it right. Even fancy restaurants suffer at brunch. You need a perfect hollandaise, and you need croissants, home-made, not bought from Sobeys. Maybe some challah, some waffles, real maple syrup, fresh whipped cream, fresh-baked scones. You need sauces that are made of more than sugar and some sort of tasteless fruit.

The brunch saving grace was the Pakistani menu option - beautifully spiced ground lamb patty in home-made flaky wrap. Sobeys stayed out of this one. The chapatti bread was absolutely to die for. This Pakistani woman knows what she's doing. No offense, new non-Pakistani crepe-making chef, but this bread is the equivalent of the most amazing French brioche, but savoury and done so much better than you could ever do a brioche. I'm sorry. Why try to change what you're so good at, restaurant? I feel like I'm lecturing an adolescent! Love yourself for who you are! Don't try to change yourself to make a boy like you. Certainly don't let a child take control of your life. Family is family, but sometimes family is wrong. Okay, fine, the market for Pakistani food is not huge in St. John's, and that was his argument, but it's all about marketing. If people don't know how good your food is, what reason do they have to try it? Getting bums in chairs is the key. More shmucks like me writing reviews about you.

The brunch buffet was all Pakistani...except the store-bought muffins on the side...gross.

Four beef dishes swimming in fat and oil. Cow's feet! Where else can you get that? A big table of South Asians came in and gobbled it down. Fresh huge pans of beef biryani were brought in. The same daal and frozen vegetables from the buffet...the daal was better this time, actually, and the vegetables were decent, just like lunch. So it's fine, but oh God, the lamb in chapatti a la carte was so much better than everything, including my crepe with bananas and orange sauce, which was made completely with strawberry and I felt I had to try just to be fair to the new menu. Last time I checked orange was very much a different fruit, and a different colour.

Finally, a peace offering. The brunch buffet had dessert. Well kind of. You should come just for the halwa. Not to be confused with the Middle Eastern sesame paste dessert, this is more like a cream of wheat breakfast cereal, sweetened slightly and served with puri, a fried lentil bread. Completely traditional and warm and filling and comforting. So fried lentils don't sound amazing, but that's where you need to give this place's Pakistani food a second chance. Three 6" round and thin wraps came to the table, hot and so flavourful that you could eat them on their own, and I did, not knowing until later that you're supposed to scoop up the halwa with them. No harm done. They certainly did not go to waste. I couldn't stop myself, and that very rarely happens to me. So many things I have yet to learn about this cuisine. Imagine what all of St. John's could learn if you decided not to force them to eat horrible panini!!

If this restaurant changes over to all-American (read pasta, sandwiches and, God forbid, quiche) it will be a sad, sad day in the culinary development of downtown St. John's. As it stands, the American-style menu will be served everyday for lunch, and the Indian buffet will be served for lunch on Thursdays and Fridays, with maybe some Pakistani foods sticking around on the same American-style evening menu.

Please, please, please, St. John's eaters, go to this restaurant and beg for the Pakistani food to stay. Even be so bold as to ask that the American-style food leave. There are times when you should respect your elders, and try to support the business they started, menu-changing son. First and foremost it's all about a good product, and you already have that in the Pakistani food. If the pasta took over you wouldn't have that anymore, and even with incredible marketing you just can't compete in that market in St. John's, what with newish upstarts like the Pantry and the Hungry Heart Cafe, who have much stronger "local", "organic", and socially-conscious mandates. "Niche" is the right word here, and the niche of fast lunches of so-so food into which the restaurant will fall is not one in which you will thrive.

Here is my advice in the form of gustatory flattery: If I could eat your puri every week for the rest of my life I would die a happy, slightly overweight, happy person. If you can offer me the best Pakistani food in St. John's at even higher prices than the ridiculously low ones that you currently charge, I would pay it. I have developed an addiction to your food in three visits. I crave it. My mouth salivates at the possibility of lamb from your mother's deft hands. Fennel and coriander appear in my dreams. I wake up Saturday morning and feel sorry for the poor saps who get excited over eggs benedict because they just don't know what Pakistan and Gourmet Garden have to offer.

Here's my practical advice. You can't be just a casual, inexpensive Pakistani or North American spot or you'll never make any money. Your Pakistani food is fancy by North American standards. Your buffet is casual. India Gate does the buffet/fancy dining establishment gimmick well. If you go that route, you can do it better. Your American food, however, is a cop-out, without any kind of reward in sight. That's just self-loathing and foolish. I'm sorry, but this is how sad your restaurant makes me. I love your food and you're taking it away from me and everyone else in St. John's who would love your food as much as I do. More people should love your food! This is how good it is, that I complain so fervently about its soon demise.

Save this restaurant from generic food!!!

Basho

Basho

283 Duckworth Street
St. John's, NL
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8 out of 10

Japanese

After dining at Atlantica, portions here seemed excessively large...they weren't, but it's all relative. The evening at one of St. John's' top dining locations started with an ample amuse-bouche of chunks of Atlantic salmon deep-fried and then marinated in a dashi, soy and onion sauce, paired with miso soup. This proved to be much more than a nibble to start the meal. Atlantica would have called this a $12 appetizer. The miso soup was even very good, levels above the overly-salty versions you can find at most generic sushi restaurants. It certainly set the tone for the high-quality meal to come.

Cocktails are the fashion of the day here. The day's special was a watermelon martini with "muddled" watermelon. Muddling is very chic right now, but basically just means "sort of crushed" using a kind of pestle, and more often applies to herbs than to fruit, like the fresh mint in a well-made mojito. When the cocktail list is as a long or longer than the wine list and the wines have only names and not years, you know the restaurant is trying to be hip. At least, not stuffy. The corresponding food is fun and innovative. There are also a few sakes (good sake being hard to come by in St. John's), but the two options by the glass were not of interest. The Hakutsuru draft sake is fine, but nothing special, and the unfiltered nigori is sweet and simple, but again, nothing special. A 300mL bottle of the menu's only Junmai-type sake at $45 is probably your best option. When St. John's develops a clientele for good sake, perhaps this list will grow.

So I was completely confused about what to drink. Sweet cocktails aren't exactly known for their pairing well with lamb...Fine, my companion got a glass of red, a Cuvi Tempranillo, so I'll go for a "Mikan" martini - sake and gin with white cranberry, grapefruit and lemon juice with muddled orange. I was expecting refreshing citrus, but I got "Sex on the Beach" sweet.

On to the food. Sure you can get sushi here, but sushi is more like Japanese snack food. I love high quality fish, simply placed on perfectly-made sushi rice, but that's an experience to have when you go to a sushi bar, sit in front of the chef and ask what's fresh today. Or you can order the Sushi "Toby" Omakase here at Basho for $44 and have a similar, but not the same, experience. Besides, I've had good sushi before. What I hadn't had was amazing Cantonese-style lobster in black bean sauce.
Served as an appetizer for two, or a main for one, this whole crustacean got coated in Japanese bread crumbs, deep-fried and then slathered in the best black bean sauce I've ever tasted. The fermented beans were perfectly sweet and sour, chewy and thick. The ribbons of green onions for garnish made the plate explode with colour. Someone in the kitchen was kept busy that night with making sure all the meat in the lobster was easily accessible, the claws and tail somehow already opened but left filled with their heavenly meat. Minimal lobster shucking utensils were required, and the dish wasn't even embarrassingly messy thanks in large part to the finger bowls of lemon water to clean the remnants of the sweet sauce off the fingers. I wouldn't want to eat it on a first date, though, unless the date loved it as much as I did and could forgive the necessary but generally unattractive breaking of shells, sucking of meat and licking of the sauce off both the lobster and your fingers.
This is the only restaurant I've seen scallop sashimi in St. John's. Seared, often, but raw, rarely. The earthy flavour of the raw mollusk is a delicacy, and the Chef at Basho knew exactly what to do with it. Thinly sliced it was spread around a light pile of shredded deep-fried potato. The bland potato didn't add anything to the flavour palette of the dish, or even work particularly well with the scallops, but it made for an attractive presentation. Each individual slice of sashimi was topped with a piece of raw ginger and a piece of scallion as well as toasted sesame seeds and a sesame soy sauce with a touch of citrus. The lemon made the dish more like a ceviche where the acid is used to quickly marinate the fish, but it was not so overpowering as to cover the delicate flavour of the scallops.The same sort of sauce was poured into the shucked oysters, presented on the half shell on beds of rock salt. The slice of ginger and scallion appeared again, but the oyster's own liqueur revolutionized the sauce. The visual of the sesame oil droplets remaining separate from the soy and liqueur in each shell was also beautiful.

A simple organic greens salad with seared salmon and the house soy dressing was light and refreshing. The dressing was very salty and enveloped to the point of almost overwhelming the greens, but it worked very well with the lightly seared salmon that had been seasoned only with salt and pepper. The generous slices of thick fish were more than satisfying.

Sure, I've seen a bigger rack of lamb before, but the Chef Tak Ishiwata has a way with anything that gets coated in Panko. These Japanese breadcrumbs generally lead to a dish being cooked so that every bite sucks in oil and flavour and lets the juices of the meat win out.

The sauce on the Muscovy duck breast is intense. Red wine combines with soy sauce and grapes for an incredible sweet and salty rendition of the classic red wine reduction. It helps that the duck is cooked medium-rare to medium, according to your tastes, so you don't end up chewing over-cooked meat long after the joy of the grape sauce has left your mouth. The slices are thick, so it may take you awhile to chew your way through this course anyway.

Other options included Atlantic cod with a cilantro aioli, a type of mayonnaise, and the closest thing to buttery heaven on the menu is an appetizer of sea bass with vermicelli and a sweet miso sauce. The butter sauce gives the impression of the high-end Japanese restaurant staple, black cod that is usually unavailable in Newfoundland.

Dessert options are full of French influence, from chocolate mousses and cakes, to lighter sorbets. If you still have a sweet tooth, there's always the rest of the cocktail menu to peruse, and there's a cool bar upstairs where you can pose for the rest of the evening.

Hours: Tues-Sat 5pm-close
Expect to Pay: $50-$90 per person, including an appetizer, entrée, glass of wine, tax and tip

(709) 576-4600