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| - I'm always looking for a French Bistro that will blow me away and lo and behold there's one just on Ste-Catherine's street. Sadly, didn't blow me away.
This restaurant in its younger says may have passed as a Bistro from Paris teleported to Montreal but the decor has aged badly and looks like duct-tape holds it together, it's in tatters, it's patchy and is in great need of renovations. I could see the kitchen through a wall.
The menu is terribly old school, but I can't complain it's what I was looking for. Rillette, French Onion soup, Deviled Eggs, Tartares, Boeuf Bourgignon... they're all there. But they don't feel updated to today's expectations. The Rillette de Lapin was good but lacked some seasoning, the spices overwhelmed the Tartare. The French onion soup was underwhelming and very ordinary. The bavette, one of my favourites, was a disappointment; little flavour, little seasoning and the vedge were flat. The Ile Flottante (floating Island) desert was pretty good though it was the first time I tried this classic desert no other restaurants serve.
The service though was seemingly teleported from Paris though as it was polite but cold and unresponsive to small-talk. But call me old-school, I miss the level of professionalism the wait staff displayed, even in a small restaurant setting. There's no reason not to get proper service in any restaurant, it's well part of the experience.
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