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)
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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
●●●●●●●●○○
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