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| - Our first stop in Montreal. After driving for 6 hours from Toronto we were ravenous and on spotting the on-street tables and chairs from a block away we were immediately drawn to the continental ambience like moths to a flame and plopped ourselves down in a sunny spot to have some lunch.
First impressions - this place takes up some serious pavement real estate - they occupy five shop units and the outdoor tables extend along all that area as well as spilling into the first lane of the road. There are big parasols to enhance the continental feeling, and the doors to inside are all open to the street.
Inside, it's more like an American diner, and as the name suggests it's clearly geared to sports fans and selling beer of an evening. There are television screens everywhere - they're in every booth, they line the walls, there are even screens in the restrooms. Not really my sort of scene, but if you don't want to be bombarded with televisual porn, you can sit outside in the street or in their equally large outdoor area in the back.
The menu du jour was pretty reasonable and involved trout, so we both ordered that with some fries. The server was friendly and chatty once we decided what language we were going to communicate in (English won), and although the service was a little laid back it was OK, as was the food. It was a fixed-price menu but we weren't impressed with the poor choice of dessert (rice pudding or carrot cake? Where's the tarte aux pommes or tarte citron?). However, the server offered us a free coffee in lieu of dessert so that worked out OK (although the coffee was pretty bad to be honest).
It's cheap and cheery, and the outdoor street seating is great for watching the world go by while you eat.
We visited a second time for breakfast the next day, and were very impressed with the range of French-style options, including crepes and omelettes...mmmmm.
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