La Maison Kam Fung is great for Dim-Sum. There's a great Taiwanese restaurant in St-Mathiew street (or, probably, St-Marc), between Maisonneuve and Sherbrook - Le Roy du Won-Ton. The food is very tasty and doesn't contain MSG (as they claim).

As for Lotte Furama, I've been there just once, but it has been a very bad experience.

We went to the address advertised in all the articles about the restaurant - 1115 rue Clark. There were 4 or 5 small groups lined in front of us. All these people were eventually seated, but when, after half an hour of waiting, it was our turn, we were said that we'd chosen the wrong entrance. I do hope that all the people in front of us were some special guests, but we felt bad nevertheless.
It was the moment to leave but we went to another entrance instead. After more waiting we were seated at the very end of the room with some other guys, although there were free tables for the both companies. Waiters with trolleys rarely reached this end of the room. For every item we had to wait 5 or 10 minutes. The food itself was quite good. It would have been even better then in Kam Fung - if it were warm. All the dishes that reached us were lukewarm at best. And the choice wasn't good either. When one of us asked a waiter if they served fried dumplings, the answer was "How should I know!?".
But the most unpleasant surprise was the bill. It was exactly twice as expensive as the bills we received in Kam Fung. We asked the waiter what was so pricey among the things we ate. Upon some reflection, he told us it was steamed bok-choy. Two small plates of it cost us 24 dollars. When we tried to check it on the menu, they gave us an order-slip instead. It was only in Chinese. None of us spoke Chinese (though I'd like to learn it one day), and none of us looks like a native Chinese speaker. Anyways, we were too tired to argue. So we just paid and left, promising ourselves to never again set foot in that place.

Thank you. I know I should try this coffee.

Could you please tell me, what are Anthony's hours now?

There's a big dépanneur on Duluth with "SAQ alimentation" sign, somewhere between St-Denis and St-Hubert. They have pretty decent offer of import, at least for this city, though I wouldn't call it "amazing". And their prices tend to be on the lower side. For example a six-pack of Pilsner Urquell (Czech beer which gave its name to all the pilsner beers) costs there about 2 loonies less then in any other place in Montreal.

I totally agree about Chinese and Korean food, but St. Lawrence definitely pales as compared to J-T. If you want to impress a Montrealer with a market, Kensington is a far better bet. It's hit and miss, of course, being not to everybody's taste, but at least it's a very different experience, while, St. Lawrence is just a smaller, more yuppie-oriented version of J-T.

I live in Montreal and I have to disagree. Thai food, as well as any Asian food, Vietnamese included is way better in Toronto then here. As about every ethnic food, with probable exception of Portuguese. But even with Portuguese I'm not sure.

Montreal shines in French cuisine, smoked meat and bagels. Et, bien sure, apportez votre vin - with no corking fees. That's it.

I did it recently. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a way to view the full wine list for any particular store, but otherwise it was quite helpful.

Thank you for the explanations

Most voters prefer that AND paying higher income taxes. But you are correct of course.

But not 2 times more expensive, I hope? I was going to visit BC soon, but if they sell wines two times more expensive then here, I wouldn't support their tourist industry.

I buy wine mostly in Plateau, Mile End or Downtown stores. That's good to hear that there are stores with better choices of South African wines, I certainly will visit them. But it doesn't deny my point: in any (major) European city wine choice is much better. You don't have to go looking for a special location to find more then 3-4 SA or Chilean wines, you can find it in any big supermarket. And particular cellars can have some 20 or more wines of a selected (not French) region on their shelves. I believe your friend, but Montreal is a big city, bigger then many European capitals, and it's incomprehensible for me, why wine availability here should be so much worse then in, say, Prague, where I live. Taking into account that Prague is famous for it's beer drinking, not wine drinking traditions, and Montreal consider itself a French city, it's even more strange.

But, anyways, I doubt there'll be a revolution in wine business while I'm here, thanks a lot for your advices on good SAQ locations and independent agents. It's really very helpfull.
Thanks a lot for your advices.

Unfortunately, I don't know your friends, but I didn't visit Europe, I lived there.
And if you're talking about a town with 220000 population, it would be fair to compare it not with Montreal, but with Trois Riviers or something like that.
As for 77 South African wines and 63 Riojas in SAQ, it's decent in theory, but in practice I never saw more then 3-4 wines from South Africa or Rioja in any given store. Same for wines from Chile, Argentina, etc. And that's the whole point. You would have at least dozen of Riojas in any wine store in any major European city. Your single Brazilian wine in the SAQ list of 7000 is a fine example. I had 4 Brazilian wines just in my corner wine store, which was quite far from sophisticated.

7000 is not much, taking into account how many wine producers you have in the world. I used to like Fleur du Cap chardonnay of years 2003 or 2004. They didn't have it in any local store, bien sur, but it wasn't a problem to find it. SAQ lists just year 2006. And that's the case with most of the wines here: you can probably chose the name, but not the year.

About prices in US - my friends from Vancouver visited Seattle a week ago. They bought a wine there for 4.99 USD, which they buy in their local store for 18 CAD. And it's a rule, not an exception. It's hard to believe that prices in BC are so much higher then here.

About Drummondville - you don't have to have SAQ to deliver you wines. If the trade is unmonopolized, your supermarket chain can do it for you.

You say: "Individuals can buy wines from the so-called "private importers". (technically, they're agents, since the SAQ does the importing)."

Could you please explain me the system? Is it that I can chose a wine that I can't find in the SAQ list, order it from an agent and it'd be delivered in a couple of weeks? How much do you pay for such a delivery in addition to the price of the wine in the country of origin?

Anyway, I would greatly appreciate if you give me some addresses, telephones or web-sites. I tried to find something like that myself, but I didn't succeed, probably due to my poor knowledge of French.

I came here from Europe and though I can't say here for Thessaloniki, every French, Spanish, German, Austrian or Czech supermarket has better choice of international wines (including wines from New Zealand, Greece, Chile, Argentina, South Africa etc.) then SAQ Sélection. And any given wine cellar has about 5 or 6 times more wines from Chile or South Africa, then you can find in SAQ. Let alone all the good wines from, say, Crete, Hungary or Georgia, which are virtually impossible to find here.
Even SAQ choice of wines from Australia or Spain, which appears abundant, is actually quite limited. For example in a decent European wine cellar, one can find at least two shelves dedicated to red wines from Rioja region, not just two random bottles, as it is there.
Choice of French, Italian and Californian wines is about the same in an average Europe wine store and in SAQ, but that's virtually it.
And, the main difference, in EU, if you can't find the wine you need in your local wine store, you just call another one. Every single one has it's own selection, and choices are that living in a big city (1 million +) you will find whatever wine you want. And here, if it's not in SAQ, well, you have to fly for it to Europe or the US.

To cut it short, I feel deeply offended not just by local wine prices (about 2-3 times more expensive then in EU), but even more so by poor choice of wines.
I think the system should be privatized and unregulated ASAP.