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| - For our only night of dinner in Montreal, one of my friends called long in advance to reserve a table here, based on its fame for preparing duck (and foie gras in particular) really well. Funny, because she was the vegetarian in our party...with the reservation, getting seated was a cinch. The restaurant comes off as a lot more casual than one might think; it's about as loud as a bar is, and you have music playing in the background, adding to what comes off as a much more casual atmosphere. The menu is unfortunately a bit lacking in description (I think it's that way in French and English, so you're out of luck no matter what), which didn't help too much when we were trying to figure out what to order. Our service was pretty solid in bringing out our food and making sure our beer mugs were kept full.
As for the food itself, we started out with the tarragon bison tongue, which was really good. It's lightly cooked, but not overly done, giving it a texture that falls apart when you bite into it. The goodness of tarragon, mixed in with a cream sauce, really makes this a flavorful keeper as far as appetizers go. The onion soup is also really good here - it's got much more depth and flavor than most American versions of French onion soup have, and the cheese is present enough to give it flavor, but not dominate the dish when you take a bite. The maple-glazed fried chicken wings (which were a daily special) were also really good as far as wings go, but they're also incredibly sticky (you're provided a hot washcloth to wipe yourself off afterward). As for the main courses - well, we went all-out and had virtually a sampling of every meat dish there was. The house cut of pork was very succulent, although a big chunk of it was just fat and bone - which maybe explains why it weighed as much as it did. The terrine was phenomenally done here - one of the best I've had, and it worked really well with the apricot jam that was served alongside of it. The guinea hen (and yes, it's a full hen, complete with feet!) was pretty much what I'd expect from a chicken dish, although I did like the mashed potatoes combined with the gravy/broth that was left in the bottom of the pot. The duck magret was not terribly memorable (I would pass), while the duck in a can was very good. In particular, the foie has a texture that is somewhere between the kind that just melts as soon as you take a bite, and terrine. It works to add a substantive fattiness to the duck meat. Although we were absolutely stuffed at the end, we had to go for dessert, and I'm glad we did. The milkshake is not heavy at all, and it's got a nice hint of maple that really makes it a sweetly perfect way to finish off dinner. The ganache is also really good - with a bunch of crunchy nuts on top - but it's hard to beat the milkshake.
In all, we had a really solid dinner here. I wouldn't say it's necessarily the best of any of the meats I've ever had, but they do a really solid job with it. The food's a bit on the heavy side, and the portions are not small - so plan appropriately when ordering! I'd love to come back and try some of the other foie dishes, just to taste how many different ways it can be utilized.
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