LE RESERVOIR - MICROBREWERY

 

LE RESERVOIR - 

MICROBREWS, TONS OF PEOPLE, GOOD TIMES

Their website (in French only):  http://brasseriereservoir.ca/
9 Avenue Duluth Est, Montreal, QC H2W 1G6 
Telephone:(514) 849-7779
Price Range:  
Meal - $30+ per person including one drink, meal, tax, and tip
Drinks only - Before 8pm:  $3.50 for a glass of beer, $5.50 for a pint
                     After 8pm:  $4 for a glass of beer, $6 for a pint

 

Exterior, nighttime. Have I EVER been here during daytime?

View Larger Map


 

Here's a place that hearkens right back to my university days - i.e., a HEAVY drinking period. Just what is it about university life that incites such high volumes of alcohol consumption? Is it the movies, the beer commercials starring schlubby guys and hot women, the WB dramas? Who knows - it just happens, and I got swept along with the massive drinking. I am currently well past those days, and if a pub managed to stay with me till now, it's only because I love the taste of their food or the taste of their beers.With the microbrewery Le Reservoir, it's because I loooooove their beer, especially the cream ale.

Now, one of my buddies is convinced that I still love this place just because it's dark and gloomy. LORDY, the boy don't know me none (I am well aware that the previous sentence was grammatically incorrect. Grammar sticklers:  Down! Down I say!)! Yes, the place is thoroughly dark at night, with candles seemingly purposefully chosen to be poorly illuminating. And, come to think of it, most bars and restaurants that I like and frequent are, coincidentally, dimly-lit. But man alive, I come for here for the beer! The lovely, wonderful microbrewed beer! Drinking microbrews nearly exclusively IS part of my low-rent food snobbery, after all! The darkness is just something I live with to get access to the delicious beer nectar! So, with that in mind, here are my thoughts and impressions of the beers on tap at this place. One of the first things you'll notice coming here is the fact that the place is PACKED and that you might not get a table right away. On a recent trip, me and my drinking companion were crammed into a corner underneath the stairs. That's fine though - still a good view of the action in the place, and besides, I came for the beer. And so, I present their beer menu:

We begin with my absolute favorite here, a glass of cream ale ($4):

Right after serving.

One minute, twenty seconds after serving (yes, I timed it).

VAN HORNE PIZZERIA - PIZZA (WELL, DUH!)

STUB REVIEW:

VAN HORNE PIZZERIA - 

THICK, DELICIOUS, FILLING PIZZA

Their Urbanspoon page:  http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/67/723262/restaurant/Montreal/Outremont/Van-Horne-Pizzeria-Montreal

1505 Van Horne Ave, Outremont, QC H2V 1L4   
Telephone:(514) 277-5555

Their menu:  http://www.urbanspoon.com/cities/67/restaurants/723262/menu_photos/125234 

Price Range:  $15 or less per person including one drink, meal, tax, and tip  
 
*This restaurant is a Mouthwatering Favorite!  

View Larger Map



Ah, pizza. One of the manifold joys in life. I still remember the first pizza I ever ate. It's actually a vivid flashbulb memory. Yes, I know, most people have flashbulb memories about where they were when John F. Kennedy was shot or when Princess Diana died. Me? I have flashbulb memories for food.   ...I really do march to the beat of a different drummer, don't I?:P.  

Anyhow,  I was all of six years old, and Dad had brought home a greasy, topping-heavy all-dressed pizza with a very thick and chewy crust. In one bite, I became a demon possessed. I couldn't stop eating it, and I licked the plate so clean it glistened in the afternoon sun. I've been a pizza believer ever since (did I just make pizza sound vaguely spiritual?!). I keep on trying new pizza places - well, most pizza places. Not chain pizzerias (I'm slightly mildly snobbish about food, I know). I've come to appreciate both thick greasy pizzas and the more delicate thin-crust pizzas cooked in "authentic" ovens. Van Horne Pizzeria is an unassuming, sparsely-appointed restaurant that serves the thick greasy type of pizza. And it is GLORIOUS, and it is inexpensive, which makes it even more glorious!

On a recent visit, me and an eating companion got a 10" Sicilian pizza and a 10" Special Van Horne to share. Here are the pizzas!

Sicilian ($10.95):

Whoever came up with the idea of putting anchovies on pizza is a genius, I tell you!

CRUDESSENCE - VEGETARIAN (HELL HAS FROZEN OVER)

PIGS FLY, THE WORLD ENDS,  AND HELL FREEZES OVER - 

  I ATE AT A VEGETARIAN PLACE... AND LIKED IT?:  

CRUDESSENCE - MACKAY STREET

Their website:  http://www.crudessence.com/
2157 Mackay Montreal, QC, H3G2J2   Telephone: (514) 664-5188
Price Range:  ~$15-$30 per person including one drink, meal, tax, and tip

Strangers blotted out. Or maybe my camera freaked out :P.

View Larger Map

As you can all probably tell from my other reviews, I'm a carnivore. I eat my fruits and veggies in massive quantities (like, a half-kilo or more per day) because they're good for me, not because they're good-tasting. And when I go to restaurants, I order things I don't prep at home. I indulge myself. So, when I go to a vegetarian place, I technically am doing the first part (i.e., get things I don't do at home). Is it an indulgence though? AW HELL NO.

But, never let it be said that I don't have an open mind. I try all kinds of dishes all the time. Because, now and again, experimenting yields interesting finds (like, for example, discovering that putting peanut butter on your hamburgers is AMAZING). And so, one of my cousins (among other people) convinced me to meet up with her at Crudessence, a vegetarian, RAW FOOD restaurant. This blog post now chronicles this rare event.

So, the place was well-lit and had a pretty warm, inviting atmosphere. Definitely not a bad start. Right inside the front door was a small grocery section where the restaurant sold a ton of its products:

MECHANT BOEUF - STEAKHOUSE

STUB REVIEW:  MECHANT BOEUF -

SOME SERIOUSLY GOOD TARTARE AND A DRINK THAT TASTES A LOT LIKE BLACK FOREST CAKE

Their website:  http://mechantboeuf.com/en/
124 Rue Saint Paul Ouest, Montreal, QC H2Y1Z3   
Telephone:  514-788-4020
Price Range:  ~$30-$60 per person including one drink, meal, tax, and tip 




View Larger Map

Readers of this blog, if any, have probably come to realize that I'm a bit of a carnivore. If it weren't for issues of health, meat would probably constitute 90% of the food I eat, with desserts making up the remaining 10%. Setting aside my (admittedly silly) fears of getting scurvy, there is the very real fact that not balancing out meat consumption with the eating of fruits and veggies over the long-term will lead to all sorts of realistic and all-too-common nasty ailments such as heart disease and diabetes. And since I don't want nasty ailments, fruits and veggies I will eat. In great bulk. Sigh. Oh well. Such is my concession to reality and human biology. Damn you, frail crude human frame!

That said, I loooooooooove meat-centric restaurants. In fact, my grudging concession to healthy eating probably makes me love meat-centric restos even more! I especially love discovering fantastic ones. And that is exactly what happened recently. Immediately after her flight touched down from Toronto, a friend was seriously jonesing for Méchant Boeuf. Being a good host, I acquiesced to the request, and off we went. My WORD I was not disappointed.

As it turns out, Méchant Boeuf has a late-night menu that runs on the following special, one-size fits all pricing:  After 11pm, it costs $14 for one person and $23 for two people for everything on the planchette menu. Their late-night menu link:  http://www.mechantboeuf.com/images/MB_latenight-menu.pdf .

From the menu, we chose the "Tout Cru" ("Raw" in English).

Tiny, but positively bursting with flavor!

RESTAURANT RAPIDO DU PLATEAU - DINER

RAPIDO: 

UNEXCITING BUT FILLING

Their Urbanspoon page:

 http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/67/722744/restaurant/Montreal/Plateau-Mont-Royal/Restaurant-Rapido-Du-Plateau-Montreal

4494 St Denis St, Montreal, QC H2J 2K8  Telephone:(514) 284-2188 
Price Range:  $15 or less per person including one drink, meal, tax, and tip 

View Larger Map

I had a hell of a time trying to figure out how to describe this place. I mean, I like the (rotating) staff, and the place has good opening hours. But... well, I guess the only real thing to do in this situation is to just jump right in and express how I'm feeling. 

Basically, this restaurant is not bad by any measure. It is, however, average. Formulaic. Boilerplate. A thoroughly competent diner, with no real defining feature outside of the fact that it's open late and is therefore accessible. And there is definitely a place for such places in the hearts and bellies of customers. Well, mainly bellies. Yes, the name of this blog is Mouthwatering Montreal, but I would be doing a disservice to seekers of reliable late night places if I didn't also talk about reliable stuff from time to time too. And so, away we go...

When I pay a visit to Rapido, I usually grab something off the table d'hote - it's typically a pretty good deal. Before 9pm, you get a soup, main meal, dessert, and coffee/tea for $14 or much, much less. Some of the table d'hote items are actually $9, if I recall correctly. There are also even cheaper combo options that aren't a part of the table d'hote. For example, you can get a sizable poutine and a bottle of beer for $8. Rapido certainly gets the pricing part right!

Let's get the bookend items of the table d'hote out of the way - soup and dessert.

Chicken noodle rice soup. It's okay...

And a bit of cake. Again:  It's okay...

There's really not too much to say about the soup and dessert. The soup is some variation on standards - chicken noodle or vegetable - and the dessert has been either brownies or chunks of cake. Nothing's ever stood out. The food is just competent and filling.

Things you find as main dishes in the table d'hote include souvlaki in pita and big burgers: