Just went for a long weekend to Montreal, and as it’s reputation is of a great food city, we planned the dinners fairly carefully. A mixed bag; with one exception, the service was excellent, friendly and very professional. The food, well when it was good…
It did not begin well: O’thyme was highly recommended by a number of people. The food was poor; for instance a lamb dish I had ordered was ill-conceived (what the hell are you doing when you put large pieces of pickles into a stew) cold and the lamb itself so tough it required a saw to cut. The wine service also was a problem; it’s probably asking a lot for a BYO to do handle wine properly, but this was real amateur hour, and when I tried to stop the waitress shaking the bottle, she spent the rest of the meal glaring at me.
Pied de Cochon: As the name suggests, this is not a place for vegetarians. In fact, think of it as La Tupina north. Wonderful, artery clogging food, my kind of place, specializing in foie gras and pork. But the highlight dish was a special that night: Salad Nicoise, the tuna confited in duck fat. Spectacular, I do hope it makes it to the main menu. And every dish was superb, heavy of course, but just beautifully cooked. The wine list is excellent and reasonably priced. I am on a Cecile Tremblay kick at the moment, and they had the NSG on the list, and it was lovely.
Quartier Generale: Another great restaurant, located slightly off the beaten track in a residential neighborhood. BYO, and extremely professional. The food was very good, everything carefully prepared and well presented.
Hosteria Venti:
An Italian place that can’t cook pasta! My wife was particularly unlucky that night; she sent the seafood appetizer back, as everything was overcooked and rubbery, then the pasta arrived, and she was too embarrassed to ask them to replace it, so she took a couple of forkfuls and ended up eating part of my food. Decent wine list offering a couple of bargains; we were probably unlucky.