Was the duck poutine worth the 120+ minute wait?
Eehh ....
Yes, you need to make reservations at this place. You really do! And if you don't feel like calling, you can make reservations on line too.
We looked online and saw that the next available time slot was 8:30 so we called to verify this - hoping we could be seated earlier. The hostess said, no guarantees but just come in and maybe a spot will open up ... 120+ minutes later we were seated at 8:30.
The food itself reminded me of trendy type chain restaurants - Joey Tomatoes, Earls, depending on the location - Moxies, etc.
We ordered the salmon tartar (EXCELLENT!!!!!!!!!!!!) and the duck poutine (what brought us to the restaurant) for our appetizer. According to my husband, the duck poutine was his favourite western dish on our trip. Even better than his duck crepe - what?!?!?!?
The salmon tartare was so flavourful ... my mouth is watering just thinking about it. Capers, lemon, onion, garlic - OMG.
The gravy to the duck poutine was quite good, there were also some caramelized onions, and the fries were seasoned and relatively crispy. It was good but I actually preferred the poutine from Reuben's. The poutine from Reuben's was also larger and cheaper. There is no way I would have been satisfied with ordering just the duck poutine as a meal.
We split a pasta dish - some sort of asparagus, special cheese, and proscuitto concoction. It was disappointingly bland and memorably bad - in my opinion. The parmesan cheese that was sprinkled on was SWEET ... yuck. I didn't even see or taste any proscuitto.
Our server was nice but seemed really "new". We had mentioned to him that we would be splitting our pasta dish so our pasta dish was brought out split into two dishes. BUT!!!! our two mini pasta dishes were given to my husband and to my cousin (she had ordered the same thing since it had sounded so delicious). My brother who also ordered the same thing received one full serving and we just assumed the discrepancy in serving size was a human error. So, my husband and I proceeded to split our MINI serving. Then, another pasta dish came out and we said we didn't order it so it was sent away.
Okay, so everyone at our table was just like "oh well"
But, I was upset ... I really felt like I should say something. I had been waiting for two+ hours and was hungry and didn't think it was fair that I was paying $16 for a SMALL plate of BAD pasta.
I asked the waiter when he stopped by our table about the discrepancy in serving size about the pasta dishes - since my dish was noticeably less than my brother's dish and the dish that they had brought out but we stupidly waved away (my girl cousin's dish).
He quickly gave the explanation - which makes me think he knew what was going on but was choosing to let the situation slide.... I usually give people the benefit of the doubt but I really do think he was willing to let me starve with my 1/4 of a serving of bad pasta.
The bad thing is that this ALSO happened with a Duck Poutine that my brother and boy cousin were going to share ... my boy cousin mentioned that the shared serving of duck poutine seemed so much less than our poutine. But, we just said "oh well - what can you do" And sure enough, another poutine was brought to our table but we stupidly waved it away. So, we were "cheated" of a poutine ... but with this, nobody had said anything...
And the thing is, my cousin's boyfriend said that our waiter was actually NOT new ... he had been served by the same waiter a year ago! And that he also seemed "new" at that time too, hehe.
Okay, so enough venting.
Well, with all the amazing and ethnically diverse food in Montreal, I highly doubt I'll want to return.
I prefer mom and pop type restaurants anyway :) read more