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| - Okay, I'll go ahead and say it directly - Sai Gwai is the best Cantonese restaurant in Montreal.
Alright, to justify my statement I would need to make several things clear:
First, there isn't much Cantonese restaurants left in Montreal.
Most Canadians probably didn't realize it, but there has been a demographic shift in most old Chinatowns in the past 20 years. The old Chinatowns are ghettos settled by the Cantonese (southies) starting the late 19th Century. Until the 1970s, most overseas Chinatowns are small and serve mostly Cantonese food. In the 80s Canadian immigration from Hong Kong (also Cantonese) took off, Toronto and Vancouver got a massive influx of English speaking Honker professionals, and Montreal got a few from Quebec firms hiring from the same pool. Then in the 2000s the Mainland Chinese economy took off and you got immigrants from the North of China (Mandarin speakers) come into Quebec with investment dollars - they don't have the home-team language advantage that Cantonese/English speaking immigrants have in their old traditional Chinatowns. They can't speak English anyways - might as well can't speak French as well. Hence - the influx of dumplings and noodle joints in Montreal for the past few years.
Thanks to the Vietnamese Chinese and the mainland influx, 70% of the cuisine in Chinatown are of the Vietnamese/Northern Chinese variety. Within that 30% that aren't, if it serves Cantonese it's either an offshoot of a Toronto firm (like the bakeries here) or it is old school, like the Dragon Beard candy shop, or Sai Gwan (which has been around for so long my dad said it looked old when he visited Montreal in the 90s).
Secondly, this is not a Canadian Chinese joint. Sure it's got the General Tso to sell to morons (the same morons who thinks ordering Chop Suey in Chinatown instead of the local casse-croute Chinois is somehow more "authentic" when it clearly isn't), but then if you really look, there are gems from the old Cantonese cookbook. For example, the double boiler medicinal soups like Underwater Coco and chicken soup, or the Shrimp Caviar noodles (made in-house) served with wontons in a seafood based broth. It's got a very decent clay pot rice casserole - the kind that features the crispy charred rice bits (pegao) that is often missing from a good casserole of this variety. Mix the ingredients in, stir in some sweet soy sauce and you're in business. Now, them being Cantonese you would have to accept a few things. The wonton will feature shrimp. Their dumplings will never be Shandong (Northern Chinese) style. They are not a dimsum palace like Kim Fung, and frankly, they will never be as cheap or serve you as fast. They will probably have weird ingredients like dried scallops and chicken feet on their menu. But other than that, they do Cantonese the old school way - which is not to say that they are the best place in Chinatown, but they are the best Cantonese place that is still thriving in Chinatown. Everyone else either went Northern Chinese or stuck to Canadian Chinese, but they are still holding on. So they are the winner by default in a race lacking participants.
Sure, the place looks old, but then, so what if it is? Restaurants in Montreal are constantly dying thanks to its insanely high turnover - a new restaurant implies that they recently opened, and unless they stick around, all that new construction will simply look good next to the "A Louer" (For Rent) sign when the starship eatery goes under. Sai Gwan has gone to the point where they attract a loyal following to keep them running (neighborhood joint), and they no longer need to put up eye candy to satisfy over-privileged millenials. Hell, I would be alarmed if they renovate - the price tag will jump up and the menu choices will go down. Who the hell would want that?
Is the food good? Hells yeah. Is the service decent? Sure. Will I come back here again and again since my first visit in 2011? Hells yeah. And so should you.
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