picture menu and display window in the front of Sul Pasta

This is an Italian sandwich place in Gare Central. It sells Italian and smoke meat sandwiches. The front of the store is a long display fridge with several types of salad, couscous, pasta, lettuce … etc; around 14 types. It has an open kitchen, and everything seems to be clean and neat. It has a picture menu with the price listed beside each combo.

regular smoke meat combo

smoke meat with couscous and pasta salad combo

My co-worker and I each order a smoke meat sandwich combo. The combo has the sandwich with the usual dry bread spread with mustard, fries, coleslaw, and a pickle. I ask to replace my fries and coleslaw with salads, and the clerk says that it will be 0.50$ extra for 2 choices of salad; I choose the couscous and pasta salad. Soon after we order, the clerk takes out a smoke meat from a steamer and starts slicing. The smoke meat is very soft, slippery, and watery; it has a ham like texture. It will be better if the meat isn’t steamed, but I guess is their way of keeping it warm and moist. I enjoy the salads more than the sandwich. The couscous is red with a slight tomato taste, so it is probably mixed with tomato sauce. The couscous has green bean, corn, chopped red & green pepper in it and it is lightly salted so the taste of each ingredient can stand out. The pasta salad is the total opposite; it has tube pasta, ham, parsley, corn, shredded carrot, and mixed with mayonnaise. The ham over powers other ingredients’ taste; it will help if they diced their ham smaller.

The price of a smoke meat combo with fries, coleslaw, and drink is $8.25; for the same combo with 2 choices of salads & drink is $8.75. The price is reasonable for a combo’s portion, and there are some other salads that I would like to try; so I’ll be back.

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Cuisine Korean
5030 sherbrooke west
Tel: 514-489-3686
google map

Visited this place about 11 month ago, and said that I wasn’t coming back. I was wrong, a friend claim that Maison seoul had one of the bests dol sot bibimbap in town; and with my girl friend’s craving for a dol sot bibimbap, we’re back. This time we’ll like to try their sea food pancake.

The setting is still the same, very low lighting with light candle on each table. It gives a romantic atmosphere, but too dark. Everything else stays unchanged; maybe they’ve changed their table, I’m not sure.

We order seafood pancake, (2) dol sot bibimbap, and a unagi donburi. We start with the salad, and this time they use romain lettuce instead of iceberg. Using the romain lettuce give adds a sweet taste; and it doesn’t have too much water to dilute the sauce. Their wasabi Japanese salad dressing is still amazing. The kimchis are: nappa, potato, spicy curly lettuce, and coleslaw. The coleslaw is too western; I prefer the bean sprout from last visit. Spicy lettuce is still the best kimchi, the curly lettuce has this slight bitter taste with Korean chilli, garlic, and sesame oil; it is very refreshing. I haven’t visit all Korean restaurants in town, but Maison Seoul is the only that serves it.

The portion of dol sot bibimbap is large; and it’s topped with the usual ingredients egg, bulgugi, bean sprout, carrot slices, cucumber slices, mushroom, and spinach. From all the bibimbap that I’ve tasted, only Maison Seoul’s bulgugi meat stands out from all the ingredients. The only setback is their chilli sauce, it isn’t flavourful enough.

The unagi donburi is a Japanese dish. Maison Seoul makes it like a bibimbap in a stone bowl with unagi(eel), cucumber, carrot, seaweed, and fish roe. The eel has a teriyaki marinade. It is an ordinary dish. The focus of a unadon (grill eel on rice) should be the eel, but by serving it in a stone bowl with a lot of other ingredients takes away the focus on the eel. Note that bibimbap was created from let over meals, and using eel kind of downgrades its value. The meal ends with a small plate of slice apple, something that you don’t get in other Korean restaurants.

Their bibimbap’s price is slightly higher than other place, but they backed it with ingredients variety and portion.

I will include their take out menu, so people that will like to visit this place can know before going.

Situated on top of Casino de Montréal, buffet La Bonne Carte provides the necessary nutrients to gamblers in between their roller coaster ride of fame and bankruptcy.

The staff gave off a general sense of confusion when members of our troupe mentioned a reservation. Seeing that it’s a buffet and that it is located in a Casino, I don’t blame them. What kind of crazy fool reserves seats for 10 in a buffet anyway? That fact combined with their haut-société French waitering training makes the situation quite amusing. If you want to feel good after losing your life fortunes. This is the place for you.

Overview

Price: $35
Score: 12 /15
Google Maps

1, avenue du Casino
Montréal, Québec
Canada H3C 4W7

Official website

The Setting:

You can’t get anymore flashier than this. Everything in the Casino points to the Casino. Meaning that even though we are in the restaurant at the top floor, they made a point of hollowing out the center so that anyone eating there will have the greatest new of the gambling/bankruptcy action they are missing out. I am glad that I only brought my credit card that night in case I can’t hold myself back. The decor is typical of a Casino: flashy, wild and hints of money.

The Menu:

There is a “à la carte” option where you can choose meals from the menu. But I strongly suggest going with the buffet option which should set you back for around $35 in exchange for unlimited gourmet food. If I get to go a second time, I will make sure to try the ordered meals.

Service:

This is a buffet, don’t expect services. Now, with that in mind, they do go out of their way to provide service.  Complete with a waiter asking how your meals are and frequent replenishing of the roast beef that you are devouring.

Conclusion:

Will I go there again? Probably not. I believe that once is enough and I’d like to check out the other restaurants in the Casino.

Service & Atmosphere: 3/5 (It’s a buffet, but the waiters still gave their 150%)

Food: 5/5 (I’d put their food they serve up against main dishes in a high end restaurant)

Price: 2/5 (Very expensive for a buffet)

Bonus: 2/5 ( Gamble all you want, good service for a buffet)

Total: 12/15

This is another restaurant in Chinatown that I visit quite often; it has a good reputation amount the Chinese community. The majority of local Chinese restaurants doesn’t create new dishes, so a chef’s skill is the most important to determine how good the restaurant is. According to a friend, who knows some restaurant owners, the turnover rate is high amount Chinese chefs; and chefs often leave for a better salary in competing restaurants. This been said, how can a restaurant keep such reputation when its chef keeps changing? Why can’t the other restaurants attract more customers when they acquire a good chef from a well known restaurant? It could be restaurant management reason, but strictly from the point of view of food; I feel little difference in taste. One of the assumptions is that the chefs are religiously following the restaurant’s recipe. Anyway, this is just some questions that I like to ask; anyone has other assumptions?

The setting of this restaurant is a bearable pink. It is on 2nd floor and always crowded with a line-up at the stair case. The space is limited, so tables are close from each others. The worst table is the one beside the entrance where you’re eating beside those waiting in line. They did a good job of getting rid of that weird smell in the men’s bathroom. It is just another “Asian” restaurant setting.

The food is Cantonese style cuisine. We’ve always order their stir fried lobster; fresh lobster with a little coat of batter deep fried then sauté with scallion and some ginger. It is very flavourful and by deep frying it seals the lobster’s sweetness. The scallion and ginger are ingredients that Chinese use to nullify the fishy smell or enhance seafood flavour. These ingredients complement the lobster’s savoury sweet flavour. Another dish that we like is the stir fried black pepper beef. It is beef sauté with onion, red & green pepper in a black pepper soy sauce with gravy like texture. The beefs are always tender, but not that it is a good cut. I think they use the tradition technique to make meat taste tender. Doing little research I find out that the technique is beating the meat with a meat hammer and marinades it with egg white. I’m not sure how did they discovered this technique, but it works. Deep fried tofu is another dish that I like. The tofu has the crispy fried outside and the usual soft inside, kind of like a potato fries. It is then mixed with thinly chopped onion, red & green pepper, salt & pepper, and dry chilli peppers. A very appetizing flavour, there are different versions where they replace the tofu with calamari or squid; but I prefer tofu because it’s lighter. These dishes can be ordered from other restaurants as well and taste similar, but by personal habit I come to this one.

The price ranges from 10 to 30 a dish; in the standard of Chinese restaurants. Unless I am seeking for a specific dish, this restaurant should be a good choice for a first time Chinatown visitor.

Service & Atmosphere: 2/5
Food: 4/5
Price: 3/5
Bonus: -
Total: 9/15

Comparing to Toronto and Vancouver, Montreal doesn’t have a lot of Chinese residents; and the majority of them are Cantonese. This is the reason why most of our city’s Chinese restaurants serve Cantonese style Chinese food. Even if the restaurant claims to serve Szechwan style Chinese food, it is cooked with a Cantonese cooking style which makes it less original. It isn’t exaggerated to say that the Chinese food that Montrealer knows is more of a Cantonese regional cuisine. There are restaurants that serve other Chinese regional cuisine, and Mon Nan restaurant is one of them. Even though it is still owned by Cantonese, they cook a northern Chinese dish: Peking duck. For specialty dish like Peking duck, there is no way to use alternative cooking style than the original one. Mon Nan is one of two restaurants (there might be others) in Montreal that serve the famous Peking duck, a slow roast duck with a crispy caramelized skin.

Mon Nan village locates at a not so visible area in Chinatown. I wouldn’t even know it if my girlfriend’s family didn’t brought me there. The restaurant is in a two story building, and each floor has its own kitchen and waiters. It’s like 2 restaurants that operates separately, but under the same ownership. Only the second floor serves Peking duck, and for some reason you can’t order it at the bottom floor unless you have asked the permission of a top floor’s waiter. It seems that there are some management conflicts, but to make things simple I’ve always eaten upstairs. Top floor’s décor is more Chinese with wall painting and Chinese calligraphy drawing; but it is dated. Like most of Chinatown restaurants, careless in interior design. I’ve always been served by the same waiter, most of the time he does his job; but it would be nice to see a smile on his face once in a while.

savory duck soup with tofu, napa, and rice noodle.

Peking duck is the specialty of northern Chinese cuisine. The duck is roast with a layer of syrup; and the end product is a beautiful red brownish caramelization and a crispy texture. When ordering the duck, I’ve always specified that I want to eat the duck in 3 ways: a plate of carve duck skin and meat, a stir fried duck and bean sprout, and a duck bone broth soup. The duck soup is the first dish; it is a clear broth soup with tofu, nappa, duck meat on bones, and rice noodles. Basically all the duck’s flavor is transferred into the soup and makes it very savory. A good introduction for this 3 course duck meal.

Peking duck with a red brownish caramelized skin.

Crepe in bamboo steamer

Leek and pickled red/white carrots

Sweet noodle sauce, adds a very important flavor to a duck wrap.

The second dish is the plate of carved duck meat. It is plated skin up to show the caramelized color. Along with it are plates of crêpe, sliced leek, pickle white & red carrots, and “sweet noodle sauce”. How to eat it? Wrap the duck, garnishment, and sauce in the crêpe. A good crêpe needs to be thin; but not to the point that it can tear easily. Mon Nan’s has the thinnest crêpe out of the 2 restaurants that serves Peking duck. Duck skin gives a crispy texture, the sauce gives a sweet taste, the leek and pickles add some complementary texture and flavors; the mixes of these flavors are overwhelmingly good.

Bean sprout stir fried with duck, scallion, and carrot.

The last dish is a vegetable dish with a lot of crunchy bean sprout stir fried with scallion, red carrots, and some duck meat. Peking duck is the dish that differentiates this restaurant from the rest of Chinatown. I’ve also ordered a stir fried pea sprout, and a sea food nest. Sea food basket is a basket made with deep fried shredded taro or potato type vegetable; and a stir fried sea food mix will be pour in the basket before serving. Some part of the basket is crispy, and other are soften by the sea food mix. Pea sprout is one of my favorite stir fried vegetable; always ask the waiter if they are young because old pea sprout has a lot of fiber and it will be very chewy. Beside the Peking duck, this restaurant serves a dish that is rarely found in other Chinese restaurants: green onion crêpe.

Sea food basket

stir fried pea sprout

Price
The price of a whole duck is about 38$ plus tax, but it is worth the money. Other dishes’ price is around 10 to 15$.

Conclusion
A must try dish that brings me back regularly. Their Peking duck is pre-made, so even if it is a off the menu item; it will always be available.

Service & atmosphere: 2/5
Food: 5/5
Price: 3/5
Bonus: -
Total: 10/5

Chow’s website

buffet 5.49

What is so special about this buffet restaurant? It’s cheap! Where can you find a buffet that cost $6.20 tax included? There won’t be other restaurants with similar price. The façade of the restaurant is really ordinary with “CHOWS” written in red giant Chinese characters and “buffet $5.49” on the façade’s window. Every thing is ordinary until I open the restaurant’s door. The restaurant has a few African masks, and with the elephant grass like wall design; I feel like entering an African hut. Lol, I guess that it was an African restaurant, and the owner never changes the design. However, the owner adds a couple of Chinese lamps to bring the much needed Asian atmosphere. The restaurant’s setting makes me laugh.

African mask and chinese lamps? lol

The buffet has 1 soup, 14 dishes, and fruit and dessert. The soup is wong ton soup and the wong ton has a little meat wrapped in thick dough; an usual trick in Chinese buffet to save cost. There is only 1 vegetable in all of 14 dishes, and it is a stir fried Chinese napa (white cabbage). There is 1 fried rice, fried short noodle and fried noodle; the fried rice is the dark color soy sauce fried rice, the short noodle is crunchy like chips, and the noodle is the Cantonese style fried noodle. 14 dishes minus 4 equal 10; the remaining 10 dishes are all meats. General tao chicken, fried pepper salt short rib, fried pepper salt pork, soy sauce honey sausage, soy sauce honey short ribs, soy sauce honey pork, soy sauce honey chicken thighs, soy sauce honey… etc. Hah, they all taste the same: salty sweet. Out of all the soy sauce honey dishes, I like the short ribs. I also enjoy their fried pepper salt pork. Of course it isn’t a “fine” Chinese food as they state on their flyer, but providing these foods with such low price surpasses my expectation for this restaurant. I enjoy it~ Chow manages to keep their buffet table spotless clean; their staffs clean the buffet table very often. The mess I make is picked up by a staff member while I’m on the way back to my seat. It is a small restaurant, but well managed.

dark color fried rice, stir fried napa, soy sauce chicken, short ribs, and pork.

fried rice and whole bunch of other things

The $5.49 buffet is available at lunch and weekends. There are also dishes that can only be order from the menu, but they cost the same price as the buffet so why bother? Fill up your stomach with little money is really the attraction of Chows.

Menu 1

menu 2

Service & atmosphere: 3/5
Food: 2/5
Price: 4/5
Bonus: -
Total: 9/15

Google Map

unclear but you can see the South Amercain design on the blackboard menues.

This Mexican restaurant locates in the food court of gare centrale where there are about 20 different restaurants. What does La Estacione do to stand out from other restaurants in the food court? Using Latin American music. If I’m not mistaking, it is the only restaurant that has music. Before you even arrive to the restaurant, you know that there is a Mexican food in this food court; a pretty good strategy.

a plate of dual burritos

My colleague and I decide to try this restaurant. La Estacione uses a brownish yellow tile for the counter top and a blue tile with a symbol of sun on the side of the counter. To add more to its Mexican theme, it uses color chalk and blackboard for the menu with drawing of cactus and South American design on the side of the boards. The menu has most of the typical Mexican dishes such as taco, burritos, nacho & salsa, guacamole…etc. The clerks know the basic English and French; they speak a fluent Spanish in between themselves.

quesadilla with big chunk of chicken and cheese along with salad, nachos & salsa.

My colleague orders a dual burritos combo with rice, salad, and an extra drink; and I order light menu of 1 chicken quesadilla with nachos, salad, and an extra drink. Both of us end up with similar price, my colleague 9.99 and 9.37 for me. However, my meal’s portion was way smaller than his. Note: never chooses from a light menu again. The salad is romain lettuce, tomato, and onion mixed with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. The nachos & salsa is good; even though the salsa is watery, the strong onion and tomato taste makes it flavorful. The comment that my colleague has for the rice is “It wasn’t bad for a fast food place.” He can’t distinguish which is the beef burrito and which is chicken, so having choice of beef, chicken, and pork become meaningless. The burritos are topped with salsa sauce and cheese; it looks very delicious. On the other hand my quesadilla looks very boring; it’s a half-moon shape folded tortilla with big chunk of grilled chicken and melted cheese in the middle. Surprisingly, the chicken is very tender; it is grilled to perfection with a pinkish color inside. Overall, we are happy of what we get for the price we paid. La Estacione is good if you happen to work near by and haven’t try it.

If you ask an Asian Montrealer to suggest a good restaurant for noodle soup, the chance is high that he’ll tell you to visit the Vietnamese restaurant Pho Lien at cote des Neiges. This restaurant has an excellent broth that out taste the other pho shops.

Pho soup all looks alike

noodle soup's garnishment

The broth has a well balanced taste of saltiness, sweet, and savory. There aren’t a lot of tables, so around 7:00 pm there will be a line up. The service is at par for a busy restaurant; it uses maroon color table. It isn’t a very spacious restaurant, so the tables are close to one and other. This also means that after meal chat isn’t really encouraged; they make sure that you get your food, eat, pay, and leave quickly. It is just how this business works with limited space. However, their broth is so good that keep bring back satisfied customers. Pho Lien’s noodle soup costs 1 dollar more than other places, but a dollar that is worth all of it. I order a small noodle soup with raw slices of beef, if I remember well it is number 2; the hot soup will slightly cook the beef to medium or medium rare.

rare beef

I like it this way because the beef stays tender. On each table there are 2 sauce bottles, there is the chili sauce and the other one is a black sweet sauce that is commonly use in Chinese cuisine. It is called “sweet noodle sauce” and it is made with mainly fragmented flour and other ingredients. My way of eating the noodle soup is to add this black sauce on the noodle and meat then drink the soup, lol some might find it weird but I like it that way.

My way of eating pho

Beside their excellent broth, I also try their spring roll which isn’t much difference than other places. The only difference is the smaller portion where 1 order of spring roll is 1 spring roll slice in half compares to other places you get 2 slightly shorten spring rolls, no big deal though. The spring roll’s sauce is the usual peanut sauce.

viet spring roll

Their “three colored ice” is a Vietnamese dessert that is packed with south-east Asian flavors. It has a green coconut taste jell-o, sweet big red bean, skinless green bean, and coconut milk; a good way to wrap up this visit.

3 colored ice packed with Asian flavors

Service & atmosphere: 3/5
Food: 5/5
Price: 3/5
Bonus:-
Total: 11/15

After a negative experience at Schawrtz, I want to search a substitute restaurant for smoke meat; and Smoke Meat Pete is the perfect replacement with similar meat and good attitude!

Facade

Smoke Meat Pete locates at Ile Perrot on the left side of high way 20; it is hidden behind a Dairy Queen. It’s an old building with faded green and red color. Their logo is a red fat devil grilling a piece of meat on his fork. The interior has old varnished wood table and chairs. Beside the takeout counter, there is a window/counter that links to the kitchen; and Pete is inside slicing his meat. This deli has a cozy atmosphere, and an overall dark wooden brown color.

Restaurant's interior

The smoke meat sandwich is a stack of meat between 2 breads spread with mustard. All the meat is concentrated in the middle, so that it looks extremely packed when the sandwich is cut in half. The smoke meat has a beautiful burgundy red color and a black char color on the outside. The sandwich uses bread that is hard on the outside and soft inside; a texture that is similar to French baguette. The bread is dry, but the meat’s fat gives this sandwich the needed moisture. The smoke meat has a similar marinade than Schwartz, but lighter; it allows me to taste the mixing flavour of bread, mustard, and smoke meat. Depending of your taste you can choose lean, medium, or fatty meat. Medium meat makes the best sandwich because little amount of fat will adds an addition sweet flavour which makes the sandwich extra delicious.

An order of a smoke meat sandwich

Side view of a smoke meat sandwich

This visit is mainly for the smoke meat, but another sandwich catch my attention: chopped liver sandwich. It is chopped liver and a piece of crispy deep fried onion in between bread spread with mustard. I think the chopped liver is mixed with onion, carrot, spices, and bacon crumbs. Liver has this pasty and sticky texture that will stick to your teeth. Liver has a light bitter and putrid taste, but the mix of spices and the deep fried onion offsets it. For liver lover like myself, this is a must try sandwich. Besides these sandwiches, Smoke Meat Pete has other delicious items to be discovered. Visit their website for more information; price is clearly listed as well.

Chopped liver sandwich

Since his meat tastes very similar to Schwartz’s, I ask the counter woman if Smoke Meat Pete is related to Schwartz. She says no and tells me the reason why he decided to open off-island. Pete’s father runs a restaurant in downtown Montréal calls “The Main”; and I guess to avoid business conflict Pete decided to start his restaurant off-island. Anyway, I seem to find my alternative smoke meat restaurant; and another one to try out!

Short Slogan with a lot of ryhmes! OH~~~~~ lol