Montreal – ohdenny

Marché de la Villette – Montreal Series

January 9, 2015 Posted in Canadian, Food Reviews, French, Montreal, Restaurant ReviewsLeave a comment

Marche de la Villette was recommended by my sister because of their soupe à l’oignon (aka French Onion Soup) so we had to give it a try. Located in Old Montreal, this eatery is super popular. We travelled down to Old Montreal twice on our visit and even in the late afternoon, there was not a spare seat in sight. Having a little patience, we found a table.

Their French Onion Soup comes in this cute bowl, with the cheese oozing on the sides. The soup itself is rich and creamy, and very flavourful. I’m not fond of very creamy soups but sharing amongst the three of us it was just enough to go around.

We also ordered the Quiche Lorraine, the pastry is nice (although harder than I’m used to) but the filling was moist.

Keeping it a bit light, we also ordered Pate Sandwich, being in Montreal and all I had to order it. Coming in a baguette roll, the pate was delicious although I’d prefer if the bread was warm or toasted as it was a chilly day on our visit.

Impressions

To be honest, it wasn’t amazing but above average I would say but it definitely a lovely dining experience in Old Montreal.

Marché de la Villette (Menu)

Noodle Factory – Montreal Series

October 31, 2014 Posted in Chinese, Food Reviews, Montreal, Restaurant Reviews, SingaporeanLeave a comment

Noodle Factory in Montreal’s Chinatown is one of the more favourable restaurants in Chinatown and it’s one of the reasons why we were curious to dine there.
Noodle Factory is a incredibly small restaurant, but nonetheless a popular eatery. As being in Chinatown it serves Asian cuisine, and in particular offers a variety of noodle dishes to choose from.

Noodle Factory’s Singapore Fried Noodles reminded me of those Chinese Food take-away meals, with it’s generous use of curry powder. It isn’t something I would order again though.

Their Beef Hor Fun was interesting in that the noodles itself were not the soft flat rice noodles I’m used to. The noodles here are a bit denser, with more bite so it’s actually quite different to the Beef Hor Fun’s I’ve tried before. Flavour wise, it didn’t standout or have the signature “hot wok” flavour you would tend to get with this dish. However, for just a meal to fill you up this would be sufficient.

Impressions
Maybe my tastes are just so disparate from the locals considering the positive reviews by most compared to mine. Or we just lucked out with the three dishes we tried.

Noodle Factory
1018 St-Urbain
Montreal QC H2Z1K6
Canada

Eggspectation – Montreal Series

May 30, 2014 Posted in Canadian, French, MontrealLeave a comment

From our hotel on a mission to find somewhere good to eat, we somehow ended up in front of Eggspectation. As their name suggests, eggs are their specialty and they have quite a diverse selection of dishes to choose from even beyond just eggs of course. Such as sandwiches, salads and burgers for breakfast and lunch. Somehow when we decided on our breakfast meals, we all ended up ordering almost the same dishes with slight variations.

The Veggie Omelette looked great, and has wonderful flavour from the mushrooms, spinach and onion. It’s served with Lyonnaise style potatoes which is a French originated dish with pan fried thinly sliced potatoes. I found the potatoes to be warm but not hot that seemed to possibly have been left on the plate waiting for omelettes to be cooked.

I love how most North American restaurants allow you to choose how the eggs are cooked. I find it quite scarce in Melbourne to find a place like that as it’s usually just offered as scrambled. The Eggspectation’s The Classic comes with two (any-style) eggs with the Lyonnaise potatoes and a choice of bacon, sausages or ham and served with baked beans and toast. As pictured, we ordered the sausages and they are quite stock standard sausages. Scrambled eggs were moist but needed a bit of salt and pepper to give it life. Otherwise, I’d say it was a decent meal.

Being in Montreal, you have to try their famous Montreal Smoked Meat, so we ordered the Montrealer which comes with your choice of two (any-style) eggs, the famous smoked meat, pickles, toast and fruit and of course potatoes which were noted as french fries but they came out similar to the Lyonnaise potatoes served in the other two dishes (*shrugs*). I found the smoked meat to be fantastic, along with the oozy poached eggs that just need a sprinkling of black pepper. Again the potatoes were a bit cold, but other than that it was a great meal.

Impressions

Eggspectations’ Second floor is wonderful in its atmosphere, with a industrial like feel but modernised. However, I found their service though is a bit sparse. Food-wise, the dishes were about average which was a slight disappointment for one of our few breakfasts’ in Montreal but you never know until you try.

Eggspectation
1313 Boulevard De Maisonneuve West
Montreal QC H3G

Burger Bar Crescent – Montreal Series

October 18, 2013 Posted in American, Canadian, Food Reviews, Montreal, Restaurant ReviewsLeave a comment

Burger Bar Crescent on Crescent St, Montreal is one of those trendy burger joints that appeals to the younger generation with its offerings of alcoholic beverages and cute burgers that can almost be considered to be sliders. Being unfamiliar with the area, I used my trusty Urbanspoon with led me to this popular place with a pretty high rating.

The restaurant is two floors with the ground floor being the more “bar” scene and the second floor having seating catered for larger groups and sit down meals.

Burger Bar Crescent’s menu is diverse, it actually took me a while to pick what to eat because they all sounded good on paper.

We ordered the Firestorm aka supposed to be the token spicy burger, with beef, peppers, jalapeños, cheese and spicy sauce with coleslaw. Their burgers are high but more petite in girth. The beef is succulent and juicy, cooked to perfection. The spicy sauce was a tad disappointing, it was creamy but lacked the edge. It definitely required further spicy seasoning which meant TABASCO to the rescue. Other than that, I’d think it’s a pretty decent burger overall.

The coleslaw was interesting, I can’t quite put my finger on what ingredients they made the dressing with. It was sweet, not particularly creamy, but with the dressing slathered all over the cabbage and carrots. Kinda odd but maybe it’s because I’ve never had coleslaw like this before.

Being the adventurous one (when it comes to food only), I ordered the Bison Burger, that comes with a Bison patty, sautéed leeks, wild mushrooms, brie and truffle mayo. My two main attractions to the dish was the Bison patty, having had Bison sausages back in Melbourne which were delicious, I had to seek it out. Secondly. truffle mayo, I’ve only had truffle butter previously and that has wet my appetite for some more truffle seasoned food. I really did love this seemingly packed burger. The patty was juicy and had a nice grilled texture/smokiness to it. The hard cheese retained it’s shape but was velvety and stringy. Loved it.

As the burgers come with either coleslaw or fries, you can also upgrade to sweet potato fries, caesar salad, onion rings or poutine. Wanting something a bit different, I ordered the sweet potato fries, that were seasoned with the right amount of salt (not too much) and were crispy as they should be. Like most sweet potato fries, you’d find the innards are still soft and floppy but the crispy outside makes it retain its shape very well.

They also have hotdogs on the menu that are an absolute stunner. Juicy sausage, with buttery onions, BACON, and cheese. One of the best hotdogs I’ve ever tasted, everything just worked in perfect harmony with each other. Just needing a bit of tomato sauce (a requirement for all hotdogs)

Unfortunately, I’m unsure if it’s still on the menu but if it is, I definitely recommend it. The fries ordered with it were on the slightly darker, near overcooked side of things but very crunchy I must say.

Impressions

One thing I haven’t touched on is their service, staff are friendly but my golly it took at least 30 mins for the food to arrive on a not so busy night. There were only two other tables filled around us with a large group nearby, with a another group on the bottom floor. No way near a quarter filled actually.

My only real qualm with the place, but other than that I loved the food here. They do burgers well even if it leans on the pricier end of things.

Burger Bar Crescent (Menu)

1465 Rue Crescent
Montreal QC H3G2B2

Juliette et Chocolat – Montreal Series

June 14, 2013 Posted in Canadian, Desserts, Food Reviews, French, Restaurant ReviewsLeave a comment

On our last day to Montreal, we didn’t really know where to go so we just walked around. After a couple of hours exploring, we found Juliette & Chocolat. It wasn’t even near lunch time, but this place seemed so inviting for morning ~~tea~~ cocoa. Juliette et Chocolat specialises in all things chocolate, and they certainly do it well and with flair.

Being Montreal, we had to try some crepes, and with chocolate, bananas and peanut butter, this sounded like a dream come true.

The crepes were very thin and light, with the creaminess of the peanut butter and rich chocolate. It was simply fantastic. The slightly sweet bananas gave it a freshness and well it doesn’t cut through the richness, but it certainly doesn’t make you feel overwhelmed by the sweetness. I loved it.

I had to order the Passionfruit petit pot, I was thinking about the Hazelnut pot but I really do love the blend of passionfruit and chocolate. It’s simply amazing. As you can see it’s multi layered, with the passionfruit layer on top, then a layer of cocoa ganache, and at the bottom a dark chocolate and passionfruit mousse. It’s so light and just melts in your mouth. Fantastic mousse. The passionfruit coulis was sweet as expected but the flavour of it just works so well with the mousse and ganache. Ah, it was chocolate heaven.

As a drink, we ordered one of the warm hot chocolates with whipped cream. It was definitely creamy and rich but oh so chocolately. I think after this we had an overdose of chocolate but very satisfied in the end.

Impressions

Juliette et Chocolat was definitely a highlight for places to try in Montreal. It does chocolate very well, their crepes, desserts and drinks. It really is fantastic for chocolate lovers. I’d definitely make time to try other things on the menu if I ever go back to Montreal.

Juliette et Chocolat

3600 Boulevard Saint Laurent
Montreal QC H2X2V4

Montreal Poutine – Montreal Series

April 19, 2013 Posted in Canada, Canadian, Food Reviews, Montreal, Restaurant ReviewsLeave a comment

For something a little bit different, I’m going to post about my food travel when I went to North America. Well, I didn’t go overseas just for food, but searching for tasty food made my holiday all the more exciting.

My sister told me you must try poutine in Montreal, that’s what it’s famous for. For those saying, what are you talking about, what is this poutine? Basically it’s chips/fries with gravy and cheese curd pieces that start to melt with the hot gravy and fresh chips. I guess it’s similar to the UK version of curry and chips.

We went to Old Montreal to seek out poutine, I felt this part of the town was beautiful with all the French buildings, but also seemed like a tourist destination too. Montreal Poutine didn’t seem to have all that great reviews in Urbanspoon but you think that a place specialising in poutine shouldn’t be all that bad so we went ahead and tried it anyway.

As we were quite full from our breakfast, we just ordered the original poutine without any extras for all of us to share. The chips were nice and crisp, but also I love thick chips so that was a plus too. What I found a bit disappointing was the gravy and cheese didn’t have enough flavour.

I assume the gravy would have stock flavour to it, of either chicken or beef but couldn’t really taste anything all that much, and there wasn’t enough gravy too! The cheese wasn’t even salty, and I can usually pick up salt in food pretty easily.

Overall, I found it to be decent but nothing too special. I could go for chips with just tomato sauce any day.

Montreal Poutine
161 rue Saint-paul est
Montreal, Quebec City H2Y1G6
Canada