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| - I find "Tuck Shop" an odd name for a restaurant, although part of me is convinced it's short for "Tucked in a Spot Where You'd Never Expect to Find This Type of Restaurant". In fact the reason my friend, a native Montrealer, took me here was because he figured I'd never find the place on my own. Having been there now, I'm convinced he's right and am grateful to have had the experience.
(Edit - I now know what a "tuck shop" is)
The restaurant is tiny, but manages to squeeze quite a few tables into the place; I'm guessing there's seating for about 40. It's loud, both from customers and music.
When we arrived we were informed a table wasn't ready yet and were eventually seated at one of two bars, this one facing the kitchen. After ordering cocktails and sipping on them for about 5 minutes, the hostess came to deliver us to.... the other bar. After we looked at her rather funny and asked why we were being moved to the other bar, she sat us at a table. (Never did get an explanation there.)
Our friendly waiter went through the specials of the day, and we settled on the soup for my friend and the salad for me for starters. Neither one were anything worth writing home about. While I wasn't expecting much from the salad (it's a salad, after all), the soup could have been better. For our mains my friend went with one of the fish of the day dishes, which was a cod that he loved. I went for the braised lamb & gnocchi - the gnocchi was outstanding and soaked up all the love, while the lamb was so tender I was afraid the loud music was going to cause it to fall apart. Unfortunately after all that we had no room left for dessert.
The service on the whole was good, but we did have to fight to flag our waiter down after dinner. We also are still trying to figure out the move from one bar to another. That not withstanding, this is definitely a place worth tracking down.
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