VACHEMENT BON - REALLY GOOD ICE DESSERTS

 

VACHEMENT BON - A FANTASTIC PLACE FOR ICE DESSERTS!

Their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/vachementbonmontreal

366, rue Sherbrooke Est

Montréal (Québec) 

514-419-9510

Price range: Depends on the size of your sweet tooth! I'd say about $6 per person, including taxes, for a generous 1-person serving of gelato or frozen yogurt!

 

Mouthwatering summary: Bright, clean, new dessert place that has some seriously good yogurt and gelato, as well as inventive new twists!
Meal to try: Dessert poutine (relax, it's not what you think! :P), ice cream sandwiches, and frozen yogurt!

PUB RANDOLPH - PUB AND BOARD GAMES!

FULL REVIEW:  PUB RANDOLPH - 

INVENTIVE DRINKS AND 

1000 BOARD GAMES AT YOUR FINGERTIPS!

Their website:  http://www.randolphpub.ca/

2041 St Denis St Montreal, QC H2X 3K8
Telephone:   514-419-5001

Their alcohol menu: http://www.randolphpub.ca/#!boire/c11rf
Their food menu:  http://www.randolphpub.ca/#!bouffe/c1jo3

Price range:  $15 or less for one person including one drink, meal, tax, and tip (depending on drink and food). Note that if you want to play games, you have to pay a $5 flat fee which grants you access to games for the entirety of the day.

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Mouthwatering summary: Just $5 to play over 1000 board games for an entire night! Plus playful drinks!
Meal to try: You're really coming here to play the board games. But, I DO recommend the "Carrot Muffin" shooter and the brownie!

Ah, Pub Randolph. This is one of those crazy awesome places where, despite there being tasty food, the attraction is actually NOT the food. Oh, no, not at all. Pub Randolph is, instead, a two-story pub that is home to ONE THOUSAND BOARD GAMES. 

...

Oh, how the inner (and outer) nerd in me just glistens with glee every time I visit or even THINK about this place! I mean, just LOOK at the games they have:

Wall ONE of games.

Wall TWO of games.

Where Wall 1 and Wall 2 join.

EN CACHETTE SPEAKEASY - COCKTAIL LOUNGE

  EN CACHETTE SPEAKEASY - 

GREAT DRINKS AND A BURGER TO KILL FOR

Their webpage (not as yet finished):  http://www.encachette.ca/final/

Their Facebook page:  
https://www.facebook.com/pages/En-Cachette/236973259707378

1765 St Denis St, Montreal, QC H2X 3K4    Telephone:  (514) 419-1986

Price Range:  ~$20-30 per person including one drink, meal, tax, and tip

On the approach...

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Past the sign, and on the way down into the speakeasy...

And the burger to KILL for!

Speakeasies have come a pretty long way. Historically, this was a type of bar that illegally sold alcohol during Prohibition. No matter  how many speakeasies were raided by cops, these bars were simply too profitable for their owners to shut down. So, what does this say about human nature? Basically, nothing is going to stop us from having our fun :). Okay. Pseudo-sociologically-valid commentary is now out of my system.

Speakeasies are now (obviously) perfectly legal, and are now fairly synonymous with retro-style, swanky places. And that's pretty much what we have with the En Cachette Speakeasy on St-Denis Street:  Swanky bar, swanky food, and swanky drinks. Now, I have to say, En Cachette is pretty accurately named - it is VERY well hidden. The first time I went was to meet up with ten people, and we ALL walked past the place by accident. But, as we discovered, En Cachette is well worth finding! They have interesting, flavorful drinks and even more flavorful food.

DIABLOS - BBQ SMOKEHOUSE AND COCKTAIL BAR

  SINFULLY DELICIOUS BBQ AND DRINKS:

DIABLOS SMOKEHOUSE AND COCKTAIL BAR

Their Facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/DiablosBbq

1693A St-Denis, Montréal QC   Telephone:  514-283-4666

Price Range:  ~$15-30+ per person including one drink, meal, tax, and tip (drinks and meals have a fairly wide range in price).  CASH ONLY!!!

*This restaurant is a Mouthwatering Favorite!
 

Diablos: Meaty, drinky goodness!

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Oh man, where do I even begin...

Let's just start simply and build from there, shall we?

Point the first:  I love this place.

Point the second:  I. LOVE. THIS. PLACE.

Readers of this blog (if any) will have noticed that I loves me some serious meat. There's something just so awesomely satisfying about ripping into a rare t-bone steak or whole bbq chicken. ESPECIALLY if I do it caveman style - no utensils, just my hands and teeth, wrenching and gnawing away! I like finding my inner neanderthal from time to time, y'know? And one of the best places to explore this more primal version of my being is Diablos BBQ Smokehouse and Cocktail Bar.

Rather than jumping into the meat dishes here, I am going to begin by describing the drinks. Specifically, I am starting with a little something called Grace's Apple:

Tastes like liquid apple pie.

L'AMERE À BOIRE - MICROBREWERY

L'AMERE A BOIRE - 

LOTS OF GREAT MICROBREWED BEER

...PLUS RABBIT BURGER!

Their website (in French only): 
http://www.amereaboire.com/index.php?page=home&hl=fr_FR
2049 St Denis St, Montreal, H2X 3K8  Telephone:(514) 282-7448  
Price Range:  ~$15-$30 per person including one drink, meal, tax, and tip 

*This restaurant is a Mouthwatering Favorite!


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Let me tell you about my first experience with drinking beer. So, as a child, I was endlessly curious. I used to drive my father crazy with questions. To his credit, he did his damndest to answer all my questions, no matter how inane or crazy they may have been. My father is also a bonafide, diehard, hardcore manly MAN. So, when the time came for me to ask about beer - specifically, the one he was having over supper, y'know what my father did? 

He let me have some.

Oof. Me, age seven - first sip of beer. Lemme tell ya, that was my LAST sip of beer for well over TEN YEARS. My child's tongue didn't know what precisely to think about beer, except that it was profoundly AWFUL. 

That was probably the smartest bit of parenting my father ever did - in my adolescence, while all the rest of my contemporaries were getting powerfully drunk in isolated parks or while their parents were away, I abstained. The memory of my first sip of beer was just. That. Visceral.

Well, those days have long since passed. And now, I do enjoy a pint with friends every week. Which brings us to my currently-favorite pub in Montreal:  L'Amère à Boire. This is evident from the fact that L'Amère à Boire is the first pub listed on my favorites list of pubs (http://mouthwateringmontreal.blogspot.ca/2013/08/favorites-pubs-and-bars-part-1-update.html). This is a microbrewery on St-Denis, and it makes TONS of awesome beers. There's only one beer here that I find truly disappointing - everything else, I keep on comin' back for. So, let's begin, shall we? To properly describe their beers to all of y'all, I went and got me sample glasses of ALL of their beers:

Even at small sizes, this is enough beer to pack a wallop!

FAVORITE PUBS & BARS, PART 1

FAVORITES! 

PUBS AND BARS PART 1

Update August 9, 2013:  This list was originally part of a two-part favorites post, along with Japanese food. It now has its own page. The link is here:  http://mouthwateringmontreal.blogspot.ca/2013/07/favorites-part-2.html . Maps and more places have been added. Don't say I never do anything for you guys!

PUBS AND BARS

1)L'Amère à Boire - Microbrewery and Pub - Quartier Latin

Their website:

http://www.amereaboire.com/index.php?page=stout-imperial&hl=fr_FR 

2049 Rue Saint-Denis, Montréal, QC H2X 3K8   
Telephone:(514) 282-7448

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Oh, how I do love this place. They make a collection of their own beers (in fact, they don't serve anything they don't make, as far as I know), and they serve some pretty delectable food to go with it.  A perpetual favorite combo of mine there is the rabbit burger with a pint of Cerna or a pint of Imperial Stout. But really, try all the beers - they offer them all in convenient, inexpensive sampling sizes (but which are still fairly substantial for a sample). Or, go hog wild and order pitchers if you're with friends. My blog post on it: http://mouthwateringmontreal.blogspot.ca/2013/08/lamere-boire-microbrewery.html