Marta78's Profile
American stuff (foodstuffs, equipment, etc.) you can't find in Canada?
Thank you so much for this info! Is there anything else that's similarly regulated (other than alcohol, of course)? Is it why cheese is expensive here, too?
Cous cous in Montreal?
Thanks for the reply! I had a hard time finding the results that you just pointed out because I kept using the quebec board search which gives results only from a year ago to now. Anyway, good to know it's a well-known gem! I wouldn't call it 'cheap eats', it's a bit diminishing considering the really good quality of food you find, imo.
American stuff (foodstuffs, equipment, etc.) you can't find in Canada?
Where do you find milk for 3.35 a gallon? If I buy the 3 bag container that ends up being ~1 gallon it's ~6 dollars. I haven't seen it for much cheaper anywhere.
Cous cous in Montreal?
Hi All!
I looked for a thread on cous cous in Montreal and couldn't find it. I just posted a review of 'La Goulette' on the 'restaurant and bars' section in Chow.com; I din't realize it wasn't going to be a post in a thread, so I'll write it again here [not sure if it's ok--please feel free to remove the previous review if that's too much].
We found out about this restaurant from the person who used to live in our apartment. He described this place as the one making the best cous-cous in Montreal, only comparable to some he had when he was in Tunisia.
Given this recommendation and because the restaurant is a 2 minute walk from our apartment, we tried it. It's run by a Tunisian couple, and when you enter you're greeted by them and by their kid, always playing with camel and car toys in the front of the restaurant (do not take his Halloween candies, though!). It's a tiny place, with a few tables, mostly run for takeout. They serve a few appetizers and entrees, but their main specialty is cous cous, which comes with lamb, chicken or merguez, or a combination of them. They often have a daily special with veal and spinach meatballs.
We tried pretty much all of them, and they are amazing! The cous cous grains are fluffy and yet separated, and the meat is tender and tasty. We prefer merguez, quite spicy compared to other merguez; second comes the chicken, grilled and soft at the same time. The veal meatball special is also really tasty and nicely spiced.
The cous cous comes with two side soups: one that's a hearty, lamby broth, with spices and pieces of carrots, potatoes and turnips; I think this is meant to be eaten with the couscous, and in fact it's a wonderful complement to it. The other soup has small noodles in it and a really nice and subtle lime and celery flavor. The cous cous also comes with harissa and raisin.
One portion is enough for the two of us, and the highest price they have is $13,95 for the cous cous royal that includes the three types of meat.
I'd be curious to hear if other people know of it and what they think, and how it compares to other places in Montreal.
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Restaurant La Goulette
930 Rue Roy E, Montreal, QC H2L1E7, CA
New African Eaterie: Djoliba
We went to this restaurant tonight, five people. As everyobdy in this thread says, the service was really nice, so we chatted a bit and asked for a taste of everything. They came with a plantain and some meat-eggroll appetizer and after that, they brought us two servings of fish and three of the yassa. We were somewhat disappointed, as the lady who described the dishes had a few more on the list. Anyway, we tried what they brought and found both the yassa and the fish quite good, but not really amazing. The fish was dry, and yeah, the chicken was nice, soft and vinegary, and the spicy sauce on the side quite hot as advertised, but nothing really super interesting. Our colombian friends who were really looking forward to trying the plantains commented that they were too greasy.
I guess it's true, it is like eating in somebody's home, and for tonight, the dishes they brought us were all they had in the fridge to prepare. We were the only ones eating in the restaurant, and we did enjoy the nice music and their friendliness, but I'm not sure I would go out of my way again to try more of their food, given all the other places I want to explore in Montreal.
One very negative note that I have to add, unfortunately, is that the bathroom wasn't very clean and it smelled really badly like old cigarette smoke. I found that very unpleasant.
Good news for Montreal chiliheads! Cuisine Szechuan
Hey everybody! This is my first chowhound post, I've been reading a lot of threads and finally decided to answer.
I've been in Montreal for about two months and walked past this restaurant with my boyfriend while going to Qing Hua dumpling (just around the corner, went there after reading this chowhound thread:
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/590061)
We looked inside and saw only Asian people, no menu outside, and plates very similar to those we were used to seeing in 'China Village', a tremendous Sezchuan restaurant in the Bay Area, where we lived before. So we made a mental note of the place and decided to go back with a few more people... which happened last night!
We were really satisfied. We had a few dishes already described in this thready (cumin beef, garlic eggplant, sauted pork with vegetables), but the real highlight was the hot pot. This dish is not on the English/French menu: when we saw the chinese-only section at the end of the menu, we asked for a translation, and decided we really had to try one of them, as we thought these were going to be the absolutely most authentic dishes on the menu, that the owners think Westerners would like, so why bother translating. As a matter of fact, quite a few contained blood or intestines or other not too appetizing items to our taste. However, the hot pot and a 'pork with vegetables of the sea' caught our attention and decided to order the former with fish.
This soup is truly amazing. It comes with a burner, so no worries of it getting cold even if it's huge. The fish was floating on top, together with a layer of red peppers and a lot of Szechuan peppercorns, and under the surface there was a mix of cabbage, sprouts, potatoes, tofu, seaweed, and mushrooms, giving a really complex flavor that I never tasted before.
The spiciness was fierce--this was the only truly spicy dish we had: most likely, as other posters said, they thought we couldn't handle spicy food as we all look westerners, but they didn't tone down the dish that was on the chinese-only menu! Our dinner companions were sweating while eating it, my boyfriend got his mouth all burnt while trying to drink the broth, and I had a little bit of stomach burn a few hours later. Finally, some authentic Szechuan food!
The dish was so huge that even though we were five and we had only 4 total dishes, we were unable to finish it. So my boyfriend and I brought it home (the others were a bit less excited by this soup than we were), and we had the leftovers tonight. They were even better than last night, especially because we were able to eat the broth and rice with a spoon, which made it easier than trying to drink the broth from the bowl.
So, so far, I must say this is one of the best places I tried in Montreal. We'll go back and try some of the other dishes I just read about on this thread!
