Bubblelicious

I love bubble tea. Why the hell is it so expensive though?

Neil and I were in Chinatown, intending to try relatively new Callia Patisserie Restaurant's pork and black egg congee, but found that half of Chinatown was out of electricity, with the hydro guys frantically (ok, as frantic as those Hydro guys get) pulling out wires from the ground.

No congee. But it was a hot day, and I wanted some bubble tea. We headed upstairs to L2 lounge (original name, hey?).

L2 is a get together place for people with "an active online life" - to put it bluntly, losers (though nice ones, I'm sure). The place is dark, looks dingy, and has that characteristic unpleasant smell of an internet cafe. A stereotypical teen boy's haven. There's stations to play your favourite on-line game and I'm sure a pickpocket would come out of that place with loads of iPhones and expensive electronic gadgets. It's full of boys with anime hair and I'm sure the girls there were their sisters because I think they would have exploded otherwise. Ok, I'm being mean. Anyway, I wasn't there for the ambiance (trust me, there really isn't any). Once I got my bubble tea, we shagged ass.

But the tea was great. Bubbles a nice balance between chewy and soft. Actually, I ordered the fresh fruit tea, which is more accurately a smoothie and it was good. I ordered a fresh fruit smoothie with mango, pineapple and peach and it was full of fruit (I saw them do it) but they did disturbingly add some syrup as well. Luckily, it wasn't oversweet. But at $6 a pop, I think it's a tad bit too expensive (I bought a smoothie with bubbles in Chicago for $3.50, come on! Also, $6 brings it into the range of Booster Juice prices without the health benefits) Still, my favourite bubble tea in Montreal so far.

L2 also sells "snacks", mostly of the toast and tea variety. But would you actually want to stay and eat there? Service is appropriately gruff from the anime boys.

L2 Lounge
71a, Rue De La Gauchetière Ouest,
Montreal, Quebec H2Z 1C2
(514) 878-0572

classy times in HoMa

Is it really on to New York Montreal? What's with calling Hochelaga Maisonneuve "HoMa"?? It's as stupid as DUMBO (Down under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass). Anyway. The east end is still pretty trashy but there's some nice places down Promenade Ontario. I quite liked the Atomic Café and its cool video store but I haven't been there for over two years.

Last Tuesday the husb and I had occasion to be in the East End, and had some time to kill before another meeting in that area. So it was a good opportunity to revisit Promenade Ontario (will they start calling it PO, like the teletubby?). There's a great little square at the eastern end of PO, and I believe they have farmer's markets there. I don't remember cafes near there last time but this time there were two with nice al fresco seating. I can't remember the other café's name but there were more people in front of ArHoMa so we went in there for our little lunch.

This little café was buzzing. Apparently HoMa-ers like their fancy food and freshly baked breads. What caught my eye were these gorgeous looking cupcakes. Imagine a brownie on top of a cupcake? Sugar overload. Not for me, but they sure did look perdy.

I chose a tuna sandwich with alfalfa sprouts, olives and orange slices, served in flax bread in the shape of a fish to boot. This place is out plateau-ing the plateau! It came with green salad for a decent $5.50. The husb choose a croque monsieur with a choice of two salads for an extra $1.75.



Surprisingly, despite the presence of the olives, the tuna sarnie was pretty tasteless, although I felt very virtuously healthy eating it. The oranges were a nice touch but it would have been nicer if they were sharper and if the tuna had more flavour to contrast with. The tuna was low on mayo, which was good, but there wasn't much flavour to pump up the filling. The bread could have done with a better surface crunch. As it was, it was kind of just a lot to chew on. The salad was good though.



The husb's croque came with red peppers, mushrooms and the like under the grilled cheese. I thought it was odd, but he loved it. The bread was also not regular bread, but as he put it, "some kind of eggy, kind of sweet, cakey bread". Which worked for him. I tried the bean salad and unfortunately, it was a sum of its parts, nothing more exciting than that. The combination was not magic.

So this sounds like a bad review but I have to say that I thought ArHoMa was a nice place. The location is really nice and it made me think that Verdun needs a nice square surrounded by cafés too. It had wonderful service, the coffee is fair trade, organic, etc, etc, the atmosphere is great. I'd just try something else on their menu, or even, um, add some salt to that sarnie. Hopefully these gentrified spots and the hot dog joints will co-exist happily.

ArHoMa
15, Place Simon-Valois
Montréal
(514) 526-4662

Last minute dim sum

Oh dim sum again. Now, I know I lead a semi-unconventional life in that I don't have to go into an office every morning, but I have to say it's really unnerving for me to enjoy breakfast/brunch on a workday. It just seems too decadent.

Thursday morning at 830am I got a call from my aunt from Ontario. "Hi, we are in Three Rivers and we're coming to Montreal today. Do you want to have dim sum with us?" Sadly, they choose a really bad day for a surprise visit, but I agreed to meet them at Tong Por Restaurant in Chinatown for dim sum at 1030, with the understanding that I had to leave at noon.

Why would you drive an hour and a half to go for dim sum? "Because we want to see you" said the aunt, "and also for the dim sum." My aunt lives in Mississauga, where there's enough Chinese people for a T&T, the Chinese food is great there, but she considers Tong Por one of the best. Um, ok...

Chaos descended at 1115 when my aunt and my two little cousins finally arrived. As it was still so early and as we were the only people in the restaurant, we were asked to order à la carte, as it were. We asked for rice rolls with shrimp, glutinous rice steamed in banana leaf, Chinese broccoli, turnip cake, tripe, squid, bean curd rolls and some congee for the kids. The table quickly filled up with goodies (far too quickly if they were actually cooking to order), and they were hot (so score one point over Kam Fung).

Tong Por passes the glutinous rice in banana leaf test - the rice was unctuously delicious, very saucy, and filled with a lot of minced meat and a big piece of Chinese sausage. The turnip cake was also good, although it didn't taste like it was fried immediately before serving. It's a shame that they don't have those wagons that fry the turnip cake on request. The Chinese broccoli was very good as well. I personally prefer more garlic on the broccoli, but it was not too salty, and let the slightly bitter taste of the broccoli to come through. Unfortunately the bean curd rolls sat in a sauce that was quite gelatinous, but the rolls themselves were slurp-ly nice. The rice rolls didn't taste like they were freshly made - the wrapping was a bit too tacky and slightly tough, good wrapping should slide down your throat. The shrimps also were a bit tough. Despite this, none of the dishes were too salty, and they did pass the litmus test of the glutinuous rice dumplings. Although it was obvious that the dishes weren't cooked to order, it was 11 on a Thursday, and I'm sure the dishes are fresh and hot on the weekends at peak dim sum times.

I quite like Tong Por. The service has always been very friendly, it's clean, and I like looking at one of the Chinatown gates from the second floor. It's also slightly tucked away and the clientele is made up of a large percentage of Chinese families. A plus.

On my second visit this week, on Saturday morning as my family passed through Montreal once more en route to Ontario, we dropped by and visited them as they finished dim sum. This time, the carts were making their rounds and I saw turnip and taro cake, cut into pieces and fried up with egg, one of my favourite dim sum dishes. We ordered it to take away. It was cold and the waitress wanted to heat it up for us but as we were wrapping it up, there was no need. Still, items like this should be on the cart hot. I didn't try anything else the second time around, but I hope that the other food was piping hot.

But between Ruby Rouge, Kam Fung and Tong Por, I think this is the best of the three. (But good enough to drive an hour and a half into town for? Not really) The other two don't even place. And I ate the taro/turnip cake when I got home, it was delicious. It would have been great fresh off the pan.

Tong Por
43, rue de la Gauchetière East (cross street St-Dominique)
Montreal, Québec, H2X 1P4
(514) 393-9975
dim sum average plate $3.50

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

Ds with Dr D

So this actor brought some yummy dumplings to a reading I organized with a bunch of Chinese actors a couple of months ago. Everyone crowded around and asked if it was from "that place near Concordia". Yes it was. The dumplings I tried were good and after hearing about this place from another actor who was doing a show at the DB Clarke at Concorida (maybe actors just like dumplings?), I decided to check it out.

Dumplings are called jiao zi. They're quite time consuming to make and so it's nice to have a place that does them handmade, to order, like they do at Qing Hua, the place near Concordia.

My friends Dr D and R (unfortunately, the D is not for dumplings) came to Montreal to visit. They have been to China and ate at a very popular jiaozi restaurant in Beijing (the dumplings took so long to come they almost missed their flight, but at least they knew they were made to order) so I thought they would like to revisit the experience in a less rushed environment.



Qing Hua is a hidden joint. It's tucked in in a residential street. Still, it's known. When we went, we had to wait outside until some space became free. There were others waiting with us and we ordered while we were waiting for a place to sit. Almost everyone inside was having dumplings. The menu is quite straightforward and plain - mostly a list of the different fillings for their dumplings. There's a wall with menu items written up on pieces of wood, but unfortunately I don't know how to read Chineese characters so we had to go with what's on the menu (click on the image to enlarge)



The "decor" is bare bones - white walls, white tables, folding plastic chairs - but clean. It's a tiny restaurant where you share tables. Hardly any decoration. Still, we're here for the dumplings, not the ambiance.

We ordered a noodle side dish, along with dumplings with pork and leek, with beef and onions and with shrimp. The noodles were served cold, with a peanutty sauce over it, and shredded cucumber. The noodles were freshly made from green beans and you could taste a hint of it, lovely and deliciously soft without being mushy. I usually don't like cold noodles, I found it nice and refreshing and I was battling with Dr D for seconds. I usually like strong flavours but everything was very understated here - the slight cucumber taste, slight green bean, slight peanut.


Now what to do while you wait for your dumplings? There's a sparse counter with some drinks and condiments. Dipping sauces are a personal taste where each person mixes the condiments to his liking. I like mine really hot with a bit of vinegar. I didn't find the chili oil hot enough - it barely had any heat - but it was very flavourful nonetheless.




The dumplings arrived and they were wonderful. We ordered pork and leek based on a recommendation and it was the best of the three we tried. They were very soft without falling apart and the dumpling was filled with tasty cooking juices which spurted out when you bit in. The leek was a nice compliment to the pork which was very soft so that your teeth just slices easily through it. The pork flavour was gentle and just perfect for the dumpling. They were so good I could have eaten two servings. The shrimp was my second choice, the dough was just as nice but as it was shrimp, I didn't find that it was as juicy tasty as the shrimp couldn't absorb as much of the cooking juices as the pork. Unfortunately I don't eat beef so I can't comment on it. Everyone else seemed to like it though the pork and leek was the unanimous winner.

These dumplings arrived on simple white plates, around 15-18 per order. I saw a few which arrived on metal steamer plates, so I'm guessing that we had water/soup dumplings (boiled) instead of the steamed ones.

Be careful with those juicy dumplings. I bit into one and the juice squirted right into my eye! Hot and shocking. But surprisingly not painful, even though said dumpling was entirely covered in chili oil (lucky thing it wasn't hot chili oil then).



Prices are reasonable (noodle side dish $4, dumplings around $8) especially given that they are made to order (you can see the ladies making it through a little peek window - those nimble fingers!). This is a real rare find and I'm really happy that Montreal has a fresh dumpling place. How many other Canadian cities have one?

As I said, I like strong flavours and am not used to attuning my tastebuds to softer, delicate food. I find you need to eat slower in order to savour it. I have to say, when you are on a roll eating dumplings at my speed you can easily eat a bunch. I didn't think 15 was enough for me and I left the restaurant feeling like I didn't eat my fill but later on my stomach caught up with my brain and I felt ok. Until the hunger started again.

Qing Hua
1240 St. Marc corner Tupper in the basement on the west side
Dumplings (around 15) starts at $6.99

PS - someone told me (yup, another actor - actors and dumplings...) that every culture seems to have their own version of a dumpling. I haven't found an exception yet but I have to admit this point hasn't been taking up too many of my brain cells.

gut busting in Laval

So Saturday was gluttony day because after the glory of the TLJ breakfast, the husb and I were invited to deepest Laval (actually not that deep, but it's my first time in Laval) for an authentic Tamil meal, courtesy of his friend.

Happily, she hadn't started cooking at all when we arrived so we got to cook together, meaning that I now know (kinda) how to make this yummy meal. Now this is a friend's meal so there's not going to be a review going down, but I'll describe it.

The friend was rushing all around the small kitchen like a mad woman, while we tried to help as much as we could in the hurricane. After the rush, we ended up with a spiced potatoe dish made with onion, dried chilis, black seasame seeds, cumin seeds, mustard seeds, potatoes (natch) and topped with green onion. A spinach dish with onion, cumin seeds, garlic, ghee, and creamed coconut and chopped spinach, and a dal dish with orange lentils, fresh sliced chilis, onions, cumin seed.


The meat was a chicken curry with a dozen hard boiled eggs, star anise, curry leaves, rampa, garlic, dried chilis, cardamon, cumin seeds, fennel seeds (fennel seeds are used in meat dishes, but never in fish), cloves, curry powder, cinnamon and creamed cocunut. We ate on plates with banana leaves on top and with our hands. She also made a tomatoe-onion-lemon juice-"lunu miris" (made with Maldive fish) relish, raita, and papadums. And ai - butter chilis. They are deep fried chilis which she fried again, oh my god - shove a mouthful of rice/lentils/spinach and bite one of those chilis, heaven! From a tiny basement apartment in Laval we had an amazing Tamil feast.

The rents always say that unless you're blowing your nose or sweating while you're eating, it's not hot enough. It was perfectly spiced, lots of sniffing and nose blowing. Nice heat without me needing to drink down the raita.


I asked the friend about Jolee, the only Sri Lankan resto I know here. I ate at Jolee a few times during lunch breaks at the Segal and loved it but I was curious to know what she thought of it. She said it's great, though after their extension opened, their main focus is on groups and take out (I agree - the last time we ventured up there for a meal, it was sadly a disappointment). The problem with Jolee for me is that the first time I went there, I had an awesome thali and so I have been tempted ever since to keep ordering it since it was so good. I should try the other stuff.

btw - our host lived for a few years in Beijing, and she totally agreed with me about the poor state of Chinese food here, especially the dim sum. But next week I'll be trying the dumpling place on Tupper. An actor brought some to a reading I organized and they were lovely, soft, your teeth just cuts through them, but they're not falling apart, delicate flavour, nice wrapping. Made on the spot, to order, according to the peeps at Chowhound. This place has a good word of mouth buzz about it, online and from real humans I've met. So fingers crossed it will be a good experience!

Also, if you want to buy rampa and lunu miris, the friend recommends Marché Thurga on 444 Jean Talon O.

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?)