La Bêtise

We tried the restaurant on August 25th, 2015. We heard that this restaurant's speciality is their tartare and it is true! And we were lucky enough to get their ladies night promotion. It consists of ordering a drink that costs more than 12$ and they offer you for free a salmon tartare. Their tartares are good, good portion and well presented. We were a group of 10 people and 6 of us decided to order on their tapas menu. Here are what we got :

Marinated octopus salad (10$)
I like it, but it was average. Not impress.

Salmon tartare (free with the drink on Tuesday only)
We were all surprised by the relatively big portion of salmon tartare even if it was a free appetizers with the drink. You have to dig into the bottom of the glass to reach the sweet and salty sauce and grab some avocado on your way up. The chips were crispy enough to add crunchiness to this tapas.

Filet Mignon Beef Tataki (13$)
It was fresh in mouth, well cut and the sweetness and sourness were balanced.

Beef tartare BBB (Beef, Bacon, Basil) (15$)
It was fresh but the taste was just alright.


Mac n Cheese shredded duck (14$)
Well done. Creamy cheesy rich enough and we can see the duck. I found that the richness of the mac n Cheese was too overwhelming for the duck... we could not really appreciate the meat inside.



Poutine Filet Mignon (14$)
I was not impressed at all and disappointed that the cheese was not up to what we usually find in a poutine. The filet mignon was alright. Some of my friends commented it tastes a bit like the McDonald's poutine...



Mussels' ceviche (9$)
The lime was not too strong and well balanced with the coriander. They served 6, right enough one for each.



















Fish'n Chips (? $)
It was really average. The sauce was okay, nothing special. Basic Fish'n Chips. The fries were crispy like the "allumettes" French fries. If you want to try something special, I would not recommend this one.



*** For the drink
I tried the Christmas mojito and it was one of the best I had. Strong enough! well done barmaid!
(Rhum, mint, soda, honey, sugar, lime, strawberries and lychees)



Overall, I like how the tapas were presented. The tapas portions were bigger than what we expected. It was a big plus for sharing and being able to taste various tapas. They also have a degustation menu for 4 people, but the ones we wanted to try were not on it so we individually ordered on the tapas menu. The service was excellent, the waitress was always courteous and polite. It is a small restaurant they can hold up to 40 people inside and around 16 people on their terrace.

Rate :
Food : 4/5
Service : 5/5
Price/quality : 4/5
Overall : 13/15

A plus : you can make your reservation online through their website.

http://labetise.com (menu available on their website)
Address : 6015 st-hubert, Montreal, H2S 2L8
Phone : 514-274-8288 

Opening hours :
Monday to Thursday : 5pm-10pm
Friday and Saturday : 5pm-11pm
Sunday : Closed

Copoli Restaurant

As I really wanted and needed to eat meat, one of my good friend introduced me this place. They are known for their big burgers at a low cost and «voted best burgers in Montreal» according to their menu. The picture was actually true about the size of their burgers.

What disappointed me was the slice of beef inside. It was very thin (probably to cook it well and faster) and it was not that tasty. I shouldn't expect too much from a 8,75$ burger though. Now what I liked : the homemade bun was fresh not your usually burger bread and my friend loves their fries large and a bit crunchy on the outside. On my part, they reminded me McCain frozen fries...

I would recommend you this place if you want something cheap, fast and filling. It is located right next to Vendome metro.

Rate :
Food : 3.5/5
Service : 3.5/5
Price/quality : 4/5
Overall : 11/15

Copoli Restaurant NDG
5181, Boul. De Maisonneuve West
Montreal, Qc
514-483-0000

The Friendly Thaï

Hello everybody,

First day in Toronto and my friend's brother living there suggested us a Thai restaurant called The Friendly Thai. He said a lot of good thing about it, so we simply said «Why not?». It is food and we never tried it, so let's go!

Appetizers : Friendly Thai Appetizer Plate (hot and cold spring rolls, calamari, shrimp satay and mango salad served with plum and peanut sauce) (15.99$)

Appetizers plate

The spring rolls hot and cold were vegetarian and bland taste. The shrimp were good, but did they taste satay sauce? not sure...The calamari were well fried : crispy outside. Mango salad was super yummy : the mangoes were crunchy under the teeth and well marinated.

Sauces (left to right) : Plum, peanut and sweet/spicy/vinegar sauce.

Avocado Spring Rolls

I didn't have a chance to taste them, but the person who ordered it loves avocado and definitively loved those spring rolls :)

Main plates :

Marinated Grilled Chicken (10.99$)

Was the chicken really marinated? Bland taste! Fortunately, the fish sauce mixed with sugar (top right of the picture) saved the plate. On the good side, the chicken was very tender, not dry at all. The salad underneath the chicken added freshness to it. How I like to eat it : slice of salad, chicken and dip it in the sauce. Hmmmmm 

Shrimp Curry Pad Thaï (12.99$)

Chicken Oodles of Noodles (10.99$)

Chicken Oodles of Noodles is stir-fried noodles with marinated chicken, mixed with broccoli, bok choï, red bell peppers, tofu and bean sprouts, garnished with green onions, and parsley, lemon and orange. It is served with a bowl of peanut sauce. The noodles were well cooked, the sauce thick and a bit sweet. One of our friend told us to mix the noodles with the peanut sauce, verdict : it made the sauce thicker, add richness to the plate but I found it a bit on the heavy side. 

Note : The plate looks small, but they are really filling. Proof : we couldn't finish them.
Disappointment might have come with the fact that I didn't feel the authentic Thai flavor in the cuisine. I found it very americanized, but overall good. 


Rate :
Food : 3.5/5
Service : 4/5
Price/quality : 3.5/5
Overall : 11/15

The Friendly Thai
678, Yonge St
Toronto, ON
M4Y 2A6
(416) 924-5804
http://www.thefriendlythai.com/index.html
(Menu available)

~V.Cat~

El Trompo - Taco Bar & Cactus Grill

Hello everybody,

My friend and I just arrived in Toronto downtown with Megabus (if you want to travel Montreal-Toronto, I would highly suggest it to you, because it is cheap ~15$+tx and it is pretty comfortable, the bus only stops once at Kingston). We walked towards Kensington market and it is already late afternoon, we didn't have lunch yet. We were starving to death from the bus ride and the walk. What's best to do when you don't know where to eat but want to eat something good? Let's ask people :)

Actually, we get lucky and a Mexican Restaurant was recommended. Frankly speaking, we were skeptical about the choice, but still wanted to give a try as we were tired and hungry with no idea where to eat - brains were not working at this time. 

There you go : 

First, 2 sauces were brought to our table : the red one (left) is a basic salsa with tomato and the green one (right) is made with green tomatoes and chipotle (so a little bit spicy). Both sauce enhance the taste of the tacos we ordered. They brought something *humph a little tanginess but not overwhelming the flavor of the tacos. So it was a plus.

We ordered 2 different taquitos : 1) Spicy tangy chicken (chicken cooked in a sauce made from tomato and chipotle - 9.75$); 2) Chorizo (we choose this one because we were told the sausages were homemade, it was served with coriander, onion and lime - 9.75$). Please, try them with the sauce, they were both DELICIOUS. What's special about them is the soft tortilla (what I have not seen in Montreal). 

                                                                        

We completed the meal with 2 beverages which were really refreshing : on the left, it is the Tamarind (sweet and sour, but for the texture, it is thicker than water which doesn't please everyone - 1.50$). On the right, it is the Jamaica (Iced tea made from a tropical flower called Jamaica or Hibiscus - 1.50$), it is a very flavorful drink and not too sweet.

Note : Don't be fool with the size of their tacos, they seem small but you will be full at the end.

Rate :
Food : 4.5/5
Service : 3.5/5
Price/quality : 4/5
Overall : 13/15

Restaurant El Trompo
277, Augusta ave. (corner Oxford)
Toronto, ON
M5T 2M1
(416) 260-0097
http://www.eltrompo.ca/index1.html
(Menu available)

~V.Cat~

5000 ans - Korean Restaurant

Hey everybody,

After helping a friend to pack and move her boxes, we decided to have a supper at 5000 ans, a Korean restaurant close to her place. We were so tired and hungry, we would have been able to eat a whole cow :)

We ordered a combo Budae jigae (~25$) which include a ramen plate with sausages and kimchi and a bowl of bibimbap (vegetables and meat on the top of a stone bowl of rice which you have to mix before eating). The service was quick, but there were only 3 customers at the time we went.

 Stone plate with Ramen, pork, sausages, kimchi and vegetables.

When the broth boils, you mix it and wait until everything is cooked. Time to dig in! It was decent, the soup in which the ramen cooked tasted like the powder you find in the package you buy at the grocery store, so we were kind of disappointed. But we were totally full after the meal. Very filling!

Bibimbap

Nothing special about this bibimbap, the red sauce on it tasted too sweet for what I would have expected from a Korean restaurant. It seems it was gojuchang (korean spicy sauce) mixed with Ketchup, but a bit too much ketchup in my opinion.

Note : Usually, in the Korean restaurant, they used to serve some side dishes (kimchi, soybean sprouts, potatoes...), but in this one, I can't believe it they didn't :( Big  big disappointment!  

Will we go again? NO!

Rate :
Food : 3.5/5
Service : 4/5
Price/quality : 4/5
Overall : 11.5/15

5000 ans 

2176 Rue Sainte-Catherine West
Montreal, QC H3H 1M6

(514) 932-7565

~V.Cat~

Cacao 70

Hello everybody,

So what's the best place to have a get together with a friend that you haven't seen for a while? Obviously, around chocolate (between girls, it's our péché mignon but which solved and comforted us so many times :P). Moreover, my friend LOVES when i say she loves, I really mean it : She LOVES chocolate! I think it will be difficult for her to chose between chocolate and her husband (just kidding). We choose Cacao 70 for the meeting place.

We both wanted to give a try to this new place, especially after hearing people said that it was better than Juliette & Chocolat. We didn't hold ourself for the order, we wanted to have sample of their various items on the menu, so we picked : «sharing sharing» (for two). Basically, it consists of «1/4 of triple chocolate pizza, banana split waffle, chocolate snacks, warm chocolate sauce, chocolate covered ice cream, strawberries, chocolate hazelnut wafers and milk chocolate fondue served with your own personal grill to roast the marshmallows» (28.95$+tx). I should have checked the description before ordering. It was a lot, a lot and a lot of chocolate, you have to love sweet in order to be able to finish that monster. 

Sincerely, we first received a sample of their chocolate in 2 glasses, it was thick and very chocolaty (milk chocolate). Appreciated but not impressive.

Then, come the chocolate snacks, warm chocolate sauce, chocolate covered ice cream, strawberries, chocolate hazelnut wafers and milk chocolate fondue served with our own personal grill to roast the marshmallows. The small balls in the center are crispy inside like puff rice covered with chocolate, nice texture change of texture.

Here is a closer look of the personal grill which I find it really cute and fun to roast our own marshmallow.

                                        

Sincerely, it was just good for two. But the waiter came with another huge plate with again a lot of chocolate. I thought I was going to have an heart attack with that much sweet (that's why I mentioned earlier that I should have checked the complete description...). However, my friend was super happy, so what do I have to say, let's enjoy it :)

Second plate and last one (fortunately for me) : 1/4 triple chocolate pizza, banana split waffle (the bananas were caramelized before being covered with chocolate, so it added a special touch),  warm chocolate sauce, vanilla ice cream.

Comment : The waffle was just okay, not enough crispy according to me but tasted just fine. My friend loved the chocolate pizza which I found quite boring : just a basic dough covered with chocolate... bofff! There was too much chocolate, it all tasted the same at the end :(

Overall, for people loving chocolate, it is a place to go. Better than Juliette & Chocolat? not sure, they both are quite the same in my opinion, but simply offer different ways of serving the chocolate. Debate still on for fans of chocolate, let me know if you have a preference and why.

Note : I found it a bit pricey for the quality and for what we got.

Rate :
Food : 4/5
Service : 3.5/5
Price/quality : 3.5/5
Overall : 11/15

Cacao 70

2087 Ste. Catherine West

Montreal, QC H3H 1M6

http://cacao70.ca/

(Menu available)

~V.Cat~

Universel Restaurant

Hello everybody,

We were a big group (22 people) going for an anniversary to «Universel». The service was good, they didn't charge us extra fee for being a group. They told us that we needed to pay 1$ per person for slicing the birthday cake, but at the end they didn't charge us :)

Some people took a calamari appetizer. The tomato sauce was tangy and sour. It paired well with those fried seafood. I found them good, crispy on the outside.

Another choice of appetizer was the broccoli and clam cream soup. The clam flavour was strong but didn't overwhelm the soup.

 Salad cesar

Fillet mignon brochette -- The dish came with a pepper sauce which was good but tasted like those you buy from the grocery store. My friend asked for medium, but it was well cooked and the meat was dry. The meat already has pepper on it. I expected that the fillet mignon was tender and didn't have pepper on it letting us to taste the true meat flavour.

 Teryaki chicken fillet -- The poultry was tender, not dry at all. It was covered with a thick and sweet sauce. Not too sweet. It would have been tastier if the marinated the chicken. Although the sauce seems to be industrial, the dish was still good.

Seafood fettuccini -- The dish was rich even if there aren't any cream in the sauce. The sauce tasted okay. There were a lot of mussels (as you can see on the picture).

Salmon pennini

Seafood pizza

Linguine Vongole -- clams, shallots and cream sauce.

British burger -- mushroom and swiss cheese. Charcoal grilled meat... it was so dry. I couldn't taste the swiss cheese and the mushroom had no flavour.

Rib steak -- The first one was burnt and we had to ask to replace it.

 Dessert included in the table d'hôte
3 layers of 3 different chocolate -- too sweet according to my friend.

 Pacane tart

Note : Thanks for my friends being so patient even if they were really hungry, they waited for me finish taking the pictures before eating. THANK YOU!

Rate :

Food : 3.5/5

Service : 3.5/5

Price/quality : 3.5/5

Overall : 10.5/15

Universel Déjeuners et Grillades

2055 rue Peel

Montreal, QC, H3A 1V4

514-840-7136

http://www.restomontreal.ca/fr/4051/Universel-Dejeuners-et-Grillades (menu available)

~V.Cat~

Pizza Napoletana

Hi everybody,
I meet up one of my long time no see friend from my Bachelor degree (at least 5 years we didn't see each other). Fortunately, she insisted so much about not reporting again and again this meeting, we had a good time trying a new restaurant and keeping each other up dated about our respective lives.
Here we go, we choose Pizza Napoletana which is known for being the first traditional Italian pizza of little Italy since 1948. My friend Marmotte said that during her trip to Italy, it was at Naples right in front of her hotel that she ate the most amazing pizza. So we wanted to give a try to this one.

We shared an appetizer called «Polpette di Angelina» which is basically meatballs (around 8$). They were average. Nothing special about them, the tomato sauce doesn't have any special flavour. They were moist and melted in your mouth, but enough solid to stay together when cut.

Then the main reason we got there came : the pizzas!! :)

We ordered : #15 «Vegetariana» which has mushrooms, mozzarella, tomato sauce, olives, onions and green peppers (cost : 15$). I was quite disappointed, because I expected large grilled flavourful vegetables on top of it and what appeared in front of me was basically small diced vegetables. The taste reflected the picture below : Boff! Really nothing special, the crust was a little dry and crispy.

The other one : #35 «Porcini» which includes mozzarella, porcini, arugula and topped with olive oil (note : porcini is a kind of mushroom) (cost : 17$). It was much better only thanks to the sweet and peppery taste of arugula.

Overall, it was acceptable, nothing special or very particular that will invite me going back there.

NOTE : They only accept cash. There is an ATM inside.

Rate :

Food : 3.5/5

Service : 3/5

Price/quality : 3/5

Overall : 9.5/15

Address : 189, Dante street (corner de Gaspé) 

                514-276-8226 

                http://www.napoletana.com/index.html  (menu disponible)

~V.Cat~

Omma

Hey everybody,
My friend heard of a new Korean restaurant opened in Outremont district. We wanted to give it a try as we both like Korean food. So here we go :

It is not the typical Korean restaurant, it has that «Outremont French» vibe in it. I found that the cook tried to force the thing to fit into the neighborhood mold which can be good...

We were first served with one side dish : black soybean simmered in soy sauce.

Sam Dak Bulgogi -- Spicy barbecued chicken fillet, lettuce wrap, rice and kimchi (18$).

Rice

Lettuce with gochujang

Spicy Salmon -- Grilled salmon fillet with a gochujang sauce and spring onions (18$).

 Enjoy!

Overall, the ingredients used were really fresh. Both the chicken and the salmon were well cooked. But if you are looking for a more «authentic» Korean restaurant, that is not the place for you. Although, for a Korean fusion dish, you can sure give it a try.

Rate :

Food : 3.5/5

Service : 4/5

Price/quality : 3.5/5

Overall : 11/15

Restaurant Omma
177 Rue Bernard Ouest
514-274-1464
https://www.facebook.com/restaurantomma