Vomitting from both ends

Ai. Sorry for the descriptive title. At least it wasn't me. Luckily, I escaped this horrible fate.

I joined some friends across town to Touski for breakfast this morning. I haven't been there for brekkie for at least a year and it was a (rare) gorgeous day and Touski has a great big backyard full of picnic tables.

I hate to slam any place run by a co-operative, but things are kind of hit and miss at Touski. When I lived close to there, I didn't go very often for that reason. One of my friends said that the last time he came here, he had to wait over 45 minutes after ordering to get his breakfast. How long does it possibly take to cook eggs??

It seems that Touski no longer do table service. Everything is done at the counter. You order, give them your name, they stick their head out of the kitchen door which opens to the backyard, shout out your name when your order is ready, you go back in, to the counter to pick up your food (obvious question: why can't they just give you the food from the kitchen door?)

I got the "Consistant" - two eggs, bread, one "thing", and fruit. You get to choose from a list of "trucs": sausages, bacon, cheese, vege-pate. I made the mistake of ordering vegepate before, three years ago. It was gross and cold, and if I remember correctly, full of alfalfa sprouts. Not the kind of thing I would want for breakfast. So I avoided the pate and went for cheese, which they said is cheddar, but turned out to be a nice mozzerella.



I remember one of the few episodes of a Gordon Ramsay show I saw had him saying to a chef that one of the most basic things for a chef to do is not break the yolk when making a fried egg. And it's also one of the basic pleasures of having a fried egg - breaking the yolk yourself. So I always take a broken yolk as a sign of a shoddy kitchen. Jen's plate had a broken yolk - that egg was hidden under the first one. Classy.


(I always forget to break out the camera when the food comes because I like to dive in -obviously the food didn't come looking like this!)

My breakfast came with delicious bread, kind of yeasty and crunchy, like German bread. Definitely the best part of the breakfast. Unfortunately, the cook forgot to give it to us so I had to ask for it. My eggs were pretty runny up top for sunny side up, plenty of "rooster juice" as another friend called it. Yuck. But at least they weren't broken. The potatoes were not deep fried, which was good, but they were cold and shrivelled, like they were cooked at least five hours ago, which was bad. Still, I was ok.

Then one of my friends jumped up, napkin to her mouth. "Oh my God, I'm going to puke". One of the eggs tasted funny, very funny. She kept her food down, sat back down and decided to eat everything else. Then she disappeared and bum vomited. Mel's stomach started feeling funny. Then she disappeared and vomited. I was freaked out that I was next but luckily, nothing happened to me. Honestly, not worth it, despite the lovely bread. There's not really a reason to head back to that place. I'm sorry to say that, especially as it's a co-operative and the kind of place I would like to support.

I had a 40 minute bike ride ahead of me and I was really worried that I would be in bad shape along the way, but instead I had a great ride back in the sunshine, and stopped off at Atwater Market to get some cheese (at Les fromages du paradis - 3 cheeses from a changing selection for $11.99).

Touski Café du quartier
2361 Ontario E
two eggs, bread, potatoes, fruit, and one "thing" $5.50

Tous les jours

Oh yes. One of the best things about North America, and what I missed so desperately while in London was a good, greasy spoon brekkie. Montreal does not disappoint. We have tonnes of lovely breakfast places here, but I tend to shy away from the beautiful people, posh brekkies accompanied with a smoothie, served by a surly hipster. It's breakfast, people! Keep it real! So I tend to go for the places where the food is cheap, the coffee refills are free, and the waitresses are chain smokers. A friend told me that what makes him happy is when you can get a good breakfast and leave with paying and tipping with a $5 bill.

Tous les jours is my favourite Montreal greasy spoon. Ok, you can't get away with leaving $5 for the brekkie and tip, but you don't have to pay much more than that.

Now my "dining companion" and I don't head out to TLJ as much as we'd like anymore as we now are keeping it real in Verdun (The Green Spot in St Henri is a pale, pale substitute but it will do) but we occasionally make the trip because it's such a wonderful deal. Potatoes sliced into half moons and deep fried, not those dried out, frozen, pre-cut, shrivelled potatoe cubes other places serve. Ok, I don't know if they cut the potatoes fresh there but it seems like it - nice and fluffy soft inside, a little crispy but not rock hard outside. Portions are generous too. Once I'm sure I got a whole potatoe's worth. Not like the attempt at modern art, minimalist scattering of cubes you get at some other greasys.


I really am quite partial to their feves au lard too, nicely cooked eggs, your standard quality brown bread, generously magarine-d, and - my favourite, a good helping of fruit. Quite odd for a greasy spoon, but their fruit brings the TLJ brekkie to another level for me. Once I counted six different fruits! This time there were just four, still, it's better than a only slice of orange.


Question though: why do these places give you milk/cream in those horrible little UHT containers and what's with the little packets of sugar? Sure it's fun the first few times the surly waitress grabs a handful from her apron and unceremoniously dumps it on the table on her way to take another order. But what a waste! I like how they do it at Cosmo's- they just pass the milk carton around. Much better. But other than that, Tous les jours gets full marks from me. Oh we were stuffed. It's really great value for money.

Two egg breakfast, with potatoes, with either bacon or sausages, feves au lard, fruit, bread and coffee, $5.45. No meat - $4.65. Brekkies until 2pm.

Oh apparently, it's technically Steerburger tous les jours but I just know it was tous les jours (what is a Steerburger?)

Steerburger tous les jours
1689 Ave Du Mont-Royal E
Montréal, QC H2J
(514) 523-1727 (but cam'an - what are you going to call them for? reserve a table?)