TONG SING - CHINESE FOOD/DIM SUM

LET'S ALL HEAD TO 

TONG SING FOR DIM SUM!

Their website: http://www.tongsing.ca/
43 Rue de la Gauchetière Est, Montréal, QC H2Z 1J4

Telephone:(514) 940-8811

Their dim sum menu: http://www.tongsing.ca/html/menuDimSum-Steamed.html

Price range: This really depends on your appetite! But typically, if you're a group of 4 or more people, everything - meal, tax, tip - will average out to be between $12 and $20 per person. It's a good deal, folks!

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Mouthwatering Summary:  A variety and a ton of great Chinese food, literally wheeled right to your table - CONSTANTLY.
Meal to try: Dude. Seriously. Just try it all.

Ah, dim sum. The Cantonese form of restaurant breakfast/lunch/brunch, where a small army of waitresses constantly push carts laden with appetizer-sized plates (sometimes main-dish-sized plates) of different Chinese food from table to table. All customers have to do is just select the dishes they wanted from the waitress, be served, and then enjoy the food (and then, of course, settle up at the end. No free lunches and all that). I remember when I was a kid, it was the highlight of the week to go on a dim sum excursion. The variety of the type, smells, tastes, colours, and shapes of the food was something that always intrigued me.

NUDO NOODLE HOUSE - HAND PULLED CHINESE NOODLES

FULL REVIEW-NUDO NOODLE HOUSE:

GREAT HAND-PULLED NOODLES IN CHINATOWN!

No website yet! 
1055 Boulevard Saint-Laurent, Montreal, QC H2Z 1J6
Phone number not found!

Price range:  $15 or less for one person including one drink, meal, tax, and tip 




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Mouthwatering summary: Fresh and delicious hand-pulled noodles made right in front your eyes!
Meal to try: Scallion pancake followed by BBQ pork with sesame sauce on noodles

MON NAN VILLAGE - CHINESE FOOD

  MON NAN VILLAGE:

AKA, ONE OF MY MOTHER'S FAVORITES

Their website:  http://www.restaurantmonnan.com/

43 Rue De La Gauchetiere E., Montreal, QC H2Z1J4  
Telephone: 514-866-7123
Price Range:  ~$15-$30 per person including one drink, meal, tax, and tip 

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Ah, Mom. One half of the reason why I can't ever seem to stop eating. Or stop thinking about eating. You see, Mom is a tiny woman - all of 5'2" tall and 120 lbs - but she is an eating MACHINE. She loves to eat, but never gets fat, is never out of shape, and could probably devour the planet, given enough time. Oddly enough, my love of cooking does not come from her - that's from Dad. My Mom, if anything, HATES cooking. No, seriously, she does. She's really, really, REALLY good at cooking, but she hates doing it. She still does it every day, out of habit and tradition, but she's already told me that if ever I win the lottery or otherwise strike it rich, I'd better be hiring her a personal chef very next day. 

I'll see what I can do, Mom :P.

So, anyway, every year around Mother's Day and her birthday, we spend a number of days eating out, or buying awesome takeout to eat at Mom and Dad's. Typically, if we buy something, it would include a little something called wor sue gai - otherwise known as almond boneless chicken - from Mon Nan Village, a Chinese restaurant tucked away in a small corner in Chinatown.  Wor sue gai is a North American Chinese invention, wherein you mix together minced skinless deboned chicken, pork, and shrimp into a huge patty, bread it, deep fry it, and serve it over lettuce topped with Chinese gravy. When we don't buy that take out, we just go to this restaurant (among several). This past weekend, we went to Mon Nan Village for her birthday - wor sue gai next year, I guess!

So, what did we have? Three glorious fried dishes, and a vegetable dish that somehow managed to be pleasant (by my standards, of course). The first to arrive was goo loo pork - sweet and sour battered pork nuggets with peppers and pineapple:

This dish is why my uncle is fat. No, seriously - the man almost can't go a day without eating this dish. Remember children:  Moderation is key!

PRET A MANGER (PM) - CHINESE FOOD

PRET A MANGER (PM):

CHINESE RESTAURANT, FRENCH NAME; ALL TASTY

 

Their website: http://www.just-eat.ca/restaurants-restaurant-pm/menu
1809 Rue Sainte-Catherine Ouest, Montreal, QC   
Telephone: (514) 931-8889
Price Range:  $15 or less per person including one drink, meal, tax, and tip 
 
*This restaurant is a Mouthwatering Favorite!
 

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I first sauntered into this Chinese restaurant years ago and was immediately intrigued by its menu. They served snake soup. That's right:  soup, with serpent in it. Holy HELL, I had to try this! And I was duly rewarded. Don't know how or why, but it turns out that putting snake meat in your soup was an AWESOME idea. Who knew (well, apparently, and obviously, Chinese people)? For a while there, I couldn't stop going to this restaurant, because I loved that snake soup just that much. And because I have a tendency to overdo or overeat something when I first discover it.

Yeah, I'm a wee mild touch obsessive at times.

Anyhow, it's summer and crazy hot now, and snake soup is a winter dish, so I'll post a picture of that when I order it in winter. And besides, they do have other things on their menu, and little by little, I worked my way through their menu. The stuff was always good - never ever disappointed. However, being the full-blooded hardcore carnivore that I was (and am), I never touched the vegetarian side of their menu.  Why would I? I'm a full-blooded hardcore carnivore. 

One day, at the wheedling of a close friend, I was convinced to give at least one item on the veggie side a try. Lordy, I doubted and then some. But, it was a very good friend who knew me well and was always full of good ideas, so I ordered it (I also ordered an all-meat dish to offset the veggie dish, but that's neither here nor there). And I have to say, I was very happily surprised. It was tofu and somehow it was good.

Oof. I feel as dirty typing that as I did the first time I admitted to it. Gah!

So, here's a picture of the magical tofu dish that I'm sure must be laced with some kind of magic:
 

Yellow stuff=tofu; white stuff=giant mushroom; green stuff=vegetable.

 ... Why am I eating this stuff again?

MAISON DU NORD - NORTHERN CHINESE FOOD

MAISON DU NORD 

AKA: FOR THE LOVE OF GOD ORDER THE CHINESE CREPES HERE!

Maison du Nord - Northern Chinese food - Downtown

Their UrbanSpoon page:

http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/67/1549250/restaurant/Downtown/Maison-du-Nord-Montreal

Their own page (sadly, not yet in English, or French):

http://www.restolamaisondunord.com/index.php 

2130, Rue Saint Mathieu  
Montréal, QC H3H 1H5  Telephone: (514) 670-3188
Price Range:  $15 or less per person including one drink, meal, tax, and tip 

*This restaurant is a Mouthwatering Favorite!

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Readers of this blog (if any) will have noticed this restaurant noted on (one of) my (increasing number of) favorites list. Just can't help it! It's a small restaurant but the flavors are intensely big. Of all the stuff on the menu that I love, the Chinese crepes are what I love most. To the uninitiated, Chinese crepes are typically bigger and thicker than their Western counterparts. This is what the savory green onion crepes served here typically look like:

Looks more like a stuffed pita than a pancake, don't it?

They're big, thick, and chewy, and most of them are absolutely teeming with flavor. I very often go to this restaurant just to buy one of these ($2.99) for a quick salty snack on the go. That said, smaller eaters, be warned - a single crepe is a meal for most of you! That's the power of their crepes! The other crepes are a dollar or two more, but they're all worthwhile (especially the sweet ones!).

MRS. AMIGOS – FRENCH FOOD (YES, I KNOW THE NAME IS SPANISH)

MRS. AMIGOS – A FRENCH RESTAURANT WITH A SPANISH NAME OPERATED BY CHINESE FOLKS – QUIRKY BUT DELIGHTFUL!

Mrs. Amigos – French(-ish) food with Chinese touches - Brossard

Bring your own wine

Their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Restaurant-Mrs-Amigos/160118584020156

1200 Rome Boulevard, Brossard, QC J4W 3H3 Telephone: (450) 671-3777
Price Range:  ~$15-$30 per person including one drink, meal, tax, and tip 


 

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So... This place was... different. But in a decidedly very good way.

Approaching the restaurant, the first thing that struck me was the sign. The utterly deceptive sign. It was bright. Colourful. And the sign promised breakfast and meals. 

Mrs. Amigos - restaurant exterior

Given the name, the associations immediately conjured up were Spanish- or Mexican-themed breakfasts and brunches. Which was great! Except – didn't my buddy invite me to a French restaurant...?

Maybe he got his European races mixed up...? Unlikely, right? But hey, anything's possible!

When I get on in there, a bright and shiny and clean restaurant interior awaited me. Sitting down, I was handed a menu by eager waitstaff. And then something else stuck out – the waitstaff was all Chinese, and on display in the back were Chinese pastries. ... Wasn't this place called Mrs. Amigos...?

Curiouser and curiouser. My friend, seeing the skepticism on my face, assured me that the place was great, incongruencies and all.

So, I cracked open the menu and saw largely French fare – mussels in white wine sauce, leg of lamb, and the like. And every now and again, something Chinese-sounding caught my eye. Like dumplings.

Shrugging, I ordered the things that caught my eye: Mussels in white wine sauce to begin, and pork chops as a main dish. My friend got the fried chicken on pasta.

And then, as the food started arriving, I got the first of the excellently pleasant surprises that the place delivered. The mussels smelled fantastic, and was doled out in a huge portion. I checked the menu again: Was all this really only $7.99?!

Heaping helping of hot... mussels (Damn it!The alliteration has been broken!)

Oh HELL YEAH.

FAVORITE CHINESE AND PIZZA RESTAURANTS

FAVORITES! Part 1: Chinese Food and Pizza

 

So, let's get started, shall we?

Montreal is a pretty big city with literally thousands of restaurants and hundreds of pubs and bars. In some locations, restaurants stay open for decades, whereas in others, some disappear quickly. I'll sort through old and new eventually, but for now I'm going to begin by compiling a list of favorites across the board!

In no particular order of favoriteness (yes, I know that's not a real word, and I don't care), here are the places I go to pretty damn often. Don't ask for an absolute favorite of mine, because seriously, that ain't happenin' (it's like asking me to choose between my index finger and thumb - it. Can't. Be. Done.). I will be doing more in-depth posts on each of these later. For now, you'll just have to live with quick blurbs. For convenience, I list restaurants by Name - Food Type - Location:

CHINESE FOOD

1)Maison du Nord - Northern Chinese food - Downtown

This is a small restaurant tucked away on St. Mathieu, right outside the Guy-Concordia Metro Station. They make their own noodles, craft thick Chinese crepes (both sweet and savory), and offer a wide variety of dumplings (steamed, boiled or fried). Plus: The serving sizes are HUGE. Double-plus: The food is VERY INEXPENSIVE. 

Their UrbanSpoon page:

http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/67/1549250/restaurant/Downtown/Maison-du-Nord-Montreal

Their own page (sadly, not yet in English, or French):

http://www.restolamaisondunord.com/index.php 

2130, Rue Saint Mathieu  
Montréal, QC H3H 1H5
Tél: (514) 670-3188