Lots of cyclists on our walking route. Huge park beside us as we walked along Avenue du Parc in a northeast direction. Good exercise and readies our appetites for more good food. We arrived around 6:15 pm and there was a table in the rear of the restaurant that we shared with two couples. We ended up sitting right in front of the pick up station for all the food so had a great look at everything coming out of the kitchen. Alas, there was a heat lamp that they would turn on to keep hot food warm and every time it was turned on Lana felt like she was under the heat lamp as well.
Another long and narrow restaurant space. In the middle is a u-shaped bar with many seats and on the perimeter are communal tables and smaller tables. There wasn't a lineup yet. Very hip interior and the average diner was in their 20s and 30s.
It is a wine bar that provides small and large plates. They are known for some of the best roast chicken in Montréal. The server was friendly and arrived quickly to take our order. You are provided a pencil for your food choices and hand the small paper to your server. For the wine, beer and cocktails there is a menu. You can purchase wine by 1/2 glass, full glass or the bottle. The 1/2 glass allows you to try more wines, although it goes pretty quickly. ;-). I am conflicted over ordering larger glasses of wine that last longer or smaller ones for more taste variety. You know life is tough when, . . . ???!!!??!!!
We made our choices in pencil and submitted to the server. Again, the food came fairly quickly and fortunately the server missed one of our orders as we were full after finishing our three plates. Lana ordered a Campari (liquer popular in Europe) that she enjoyed. I ordered an Italian white wine (Toscano 2011) 1/2 glass size for $5.50. It was dry and enjoyable. For my next two 1/2 glasses I ordered a French Sancerre 2012 (Vincent Guadry) that was excellent. A Sancerre is a Sauvignon Blanc variety and the French really do it well.
The Cheese plate arrived first. It was a Brie cheese served with bread, crostini, red currant jam, honey dew melon, pomegranate seeds, walnuts and pistachios. What a great start to our meal. The cheese was creamy and delicious. The complementary bits were tasty and the presentation was perfect (Lana wishes she could plate cheese like this!!). The special bread that came with it was almost as good as European breads.
The Salad was comprised of avocado, mango, endive, lettuce, tomatoes in an Asian style dressing. Interesting that the lettuce was found on the bottom of the bowl. The flavours from each of the ingredients was memorable and wouldn't be too hard to make at home.
Apparently, the roast Chicken is ranked as one of the best in the entire city. We ordered the 1/4 size chicken which as you can see below was a pretty good size portion. Not sure how large the 1/2 size and full size chicken orders would be. The chicken comes with potatoes (not quite fully cooked) and roasted carrots and another vegetable. Yup, the chicken was tender and melted in your mouth. The skin was crisp and tasty. By the time we were close to finishing this plate we were much too full.
Friendly expeditor at server pickup counter
We really enjoyed this meal and thanks again to Andrew for his recommendation. While it was noisy, people were having fun and it is a Friday night. The walk back to our hotel was mostly downhill and we took some time walking on Saint Catherine's street. Back to our room around 8:30 pm. Two more excellent meals today.
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