I am afraid that there probably isn't.....Please, some one prove me wrong on this!! Most of the Montreal restaurants tend to have a more general pan-Indian outlook, with some notable exceptions.

I spent the summer in Gujarat a few years ago and the food is really great! I hope you bought some good cookbooks, because you can get pretty much all the ingredients and if you already know the tastes it shouldn't be too hard to recreate.

I went to Tanjai last year when it was still on Victoria, and if the food is still as good now as it was then, I would be excited to go back!

I was very sad when I walked past the old location on Victoria and saw that it was no more, it was only the other day that I happened upon the new location. Good choice, since the old place only had 4 tables!

We have been buying the Liberté and the Horizon dairies 35% cream at the two health food stores at the Jean Talon market (Mondiana, the new one, also has a branch on Belanger at Christophe Colombe) as well as Rachel-Bery.

We were using them for ice creams until our machine started hemorrhaging blue fluid. :-(

The puffed rice is pretty much the regular cereal kind, just make sure it isn't sweetened.

I would buy the lentils already fried, mostly because the thought of getting all those teeny lentils out of the deep frying oil gives me a headache....

It is available in most bigger Indian stores as a flour. It is called jowar or jolada atta (jowar or jolada meaning sorghum, atta meaning flour- do not confuse it with regular atta which is from wheat).

Its use is widespread in Maharashtria and Karnataka, but not a lot of other places, which means if the store is run by, for example, Punjabis or Sri Lankans, they may not even know what it is (even if they carry it) so it is best to scour the flour shelves yourself before asking for help....

I have bought it in the last year or so at Marché Victoria Oriental (on Victoria between the two metro exits), Marché Thurga (Jean-Talon one street west of Parc) and Marché Murugan (Belanger and Louis-Hebert). It is usually very inexpensive, comparable in price to a bag of all purpose flour.

Most of what you need , especially the fresh produce, doesn't require a specialty market as it is pretty standard Canadian fare.

For the puffed rice, sev and fried dal (the term "channa dal" refers to the type of lentil, not the fact that it is fried), you could probably find them at Loblaws, as catroast suggests, or, since you are already in the neighbourhood, go to Marché Thurga on Jean-Talon and one street west of Parc.

Bear in mind that this is a mix-and-match street food, if you are missing one ingredient it won't be the end of the world, just try to maintain the proportions of crunchy bits to vegetable.

I got mine online from Evergreen Seeds last year. I have some seeds I could give you, but I didn't get the Japanese variety.

Here is the link to the perilla page:
http://www.evergreenseeds.com/perjaps...

Did you just receive this month's Saveur magazine? I did and was so taken with the article on Senegal that I also wanted to see if there was any decent Senegalese in town!

Yes! I have seen them at the Conca d'oro (Molson/Jean-Talon) and Patisserie Tillemont (Tillemont/deLorimier)....haven't gotten any yet because my partner doesn't like them as much as I do.....hmmm, I should just wait until he is gone around coffee time and indulge!

Ah, the pick-up points, those are important! We live in Villeray, near Iberville metro. Since this isn't really an area that is very central, we are willing to go to the Jean-Talon area, Rosemont or the Plateau to pick up a basket.

I should also mention that, ironically enough, I am interested in the basket mostly for winter and spring (say October through June), since in the summer I have more vegetables than I know what to do with from my own garden.

As we finish the last remaining Jerusalem artichokes from our garden, my thoughts turn to finding a good CSA.

Years ago, in another city on another continent, we had the CSA of our dreams. Once a week a big, cheap, cardboard box of dirt-clad produce that had been picked that morning would show up on our doorstep. It was always a surprise and we were always pleasantly surprised. The occasional "weird" veggie came in small quantities and with some recipe ideas.

I know it can never be this good here in the far north, but would still love to hear recs for a good CSA. I *LIKE* surprises and don't overly mind "winter veggies"(during the winter, that is).

Last year we tried Jardin des Anges (don't even know if that actually counts as a CSA), and, while it provided us what we needed in terms of convenience (we have no car and I am the main grocery shopper and was 6 months pregnant and just couldn't walk home with all the groceries at a certain point), I found it a bit pricey and extremely depressing to get plastic bags full of packaged vegetables.

Would also be interested in knowing about Maghrebi restaurants, even if they have no wine (I have a baby, so wine is on the backburner for the moment). Alas.

The stomach in spicy sauce was my favourite, despite the fact that the waitress tried to convince me not to order it- but then I often find that those are the best dishes! It was different than I had expected, very chewy and meaty and satisfying.

ETA: Is there any way that the name of the thread could be changed to include the name of the restaurant?

I realize that it may not be a "destination" kind of place, but I do have fond memories from the Cons Servent. I used to live near there and I liked to go on Tuesdays when they have three courses for 25$. So far, almost everyone I have taken there recently has enjoyed themselves (myself included). That said, most of the people I have taken there have been out of towners and not people who ate French bistro style food frequently.

I second the request! We are also going to spend a week there this summer. It would be nice to have some recs other than what is in the guidebook and plus I always like to encourage any info on chow outside of Montreal since it is very much over-represented!

Have been meaning to check this out for a while now, and it just so happens I have a group of 10 people wanting ME to choose a place that will suit them all for dinner. Lots of fun, not too ethnic and plenty to drink (or BYOW).

It sounds like it fits the bill for the first two, does anyone know if they have a liquor license and what their drink prices are like?

Thanks, I always look for good excuses to go to Akhavan!

Have been in the mood for Pakistani of late and wanted to know if anyone has been to Sana or Halal 786 recently. The google street view of Halal 786 seems to show a store, not a restaurant. Updates would be much appreciated since ideally I would try to get several friends together and don't want to drag everyone across town for a sketchy dining experience.

And now that I read about Momoi, I know I will simply have to pay them a visit too!

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Halal 786 Restaurant
768 Jean Talon, Montreal, QC H2R1V1, CA

Sabor Latino on Belanger has a selection of chorizos from all over Latin America. I don't know if any of them are "fino" but they are definitely the uncooked, Mexican kind as opposed to the cured Spanish ones.

My partner was at the Baie des Fromages yesterday and picked up some "fior de latte" that they say that they make themselves. It is very tasty and has been sampled melted on pizza and cold, on it's own!

Baie des Fromages
1715 rue Jean-Talon E, Montreal H2E 1T3, QC
5147278850

I bought some this morning at Anatol.

I am still alive :-)

But my partner and I were wondering what exactly a recall entailed. Whether stores could choose to ignore it if it suited them, or whether they were obliged to pull the offending item from the shelves? In any event, I have seen them around at other locations the past week.

The boring middle ground: It's interesting to share, because the first piece is intriguing and tasty, but by the fourth piece, if you are eating it alone, you will be suffering from some major porky overload.

I had it once alone and did not feel the need to ever have it again, but the next time I was with friends, other people wanted it and everyone very much enjoyed their small slice (including myself).

Horsemeat is one of those things that you always seem to find until you actually go out to buy some.... I have seen it specifically in la Maison du Rôti on Mount-Royal (corner of de Bordeaux) and I hear that there is a Boucherie Chevaline in the Galleries d'Anjou. A bit (ok, a lot) out of the way, but they may have harder to find cuts.

By mutton, do you mean sheep mutton or goat mutton?

Lamb is fairly easy to find, but I think that sheep mutton is much less popular. If you were using mutton to refer to goat, there are a lot of halal butchers who offer it, particularly in places like Parc-ex, where it is popular with folks from the Indian Subcontinent.

I second the Aphrodisiaque Stout, it is absolutely amazing.

Being pregnant, I have to say it is the one beverage I most miss. I had really been in the habit of drinking it before, so I guess you could say it lives up to it's name :-)

I have bought rosewater flavoured ice cream balls in both the Adonis on Sauvé and in Place vertu.

It is in the freezer next to the sorbets, they are frozen into packs of 6 hard balls, IIRC. Maybe 4 or maybe 8 balls per package. In any event, it is not a scoopable ice cream. I think it might have some sort of cornstarch or thickener in it to make it hold it's shape? (I am not saying that in a negative way in the least, just trying to imply that it is not regular ice cream texture).

They are rather nice if you like rosewater, and I regret not being able to buy them more often since I usually stop at Adonis on my way to elsewhere.

I also would give this extremely positive feedback. I must admit I ate here with friends when it was late and I was exhausted and hungry and my friend said he knew a good dumpling place in chinatown (which was a 3 minute walk) as opposed to the concordia ghetto (which was several metro stops in the wrong direction). I did not believe him, having never really had good food in Chinatown, but everyone was hungry and tired so we went for the closest option.

It was amazing! We were there 10 minutes before closing and so it was dumplings and salads only. We had the jellyfish salad, a leek and dried shrimp dumpling, pork, shrimp and mushroon dumpling and a beef coriander dumpling. The leek steamed, the others fried. The vinegar, chili oil and soy sauce were on the tables (although the chili oil wasn't the best one I have had).

I am happy I didn't insist on dragging everyone across town, and even happier that I now know ONE good place to eat in Chinatown!

I don't know if you are a big lunch eater or more of a snacker, but my husband keeps going on and on about a depanneur near Java U on Union and President Kennedy that has awesome samosas and chicken biryani. I have only had the samosas and they were nice. Sorry I can't give more specific directions, I have never been there and my husband isn't always so good with directions.

That's too bad, I had also passed it a few times and hoped for something more....exotic. Actually the immediate reaction I had to seeing "yoghurt" inside the Heineken logo was to expect some sort of Ayran-like salted yoghurt drink, which brought about an almost Pavlovian reaction as my mind wandered to sanswiches involving freshly roasted meats. Oh well.

Was also at Hawaii yesterday and they have them for 1.49....some machete work required

Can one reply to oneself?

Just to say that I was at the San Pietro patisserie today (1950 Jean-Talon est) and asked about the two types of sfogliatelle that they had and her answer was that the bigger one was NOT sfogliatelle but rather lobster tail, and the sfogliatelle was filled with ricotta but the lobster tails were filled with "crème chantilly". Not being fond of cream, I got the sfogliatelle....will have to reply to myself yet again to report on how they were because just after I got home, a friend stopped by with a cake and the pastries got put aside.

Now that I know that there is a difference, the Conca d'oro on Jean-Talon and Molson also has lobster tails. I got one once, thinking it was sfogliatelle, but was a bit put off by the cream (which is purely a matter of taste, it would have been quite nice if you like that sort of thing). They were also HUGE, more the size of a forearm than a lobster tail!