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| - This review is for the Crêperie St. Paul, on the 2nd floor. All interaction was in French and translated here, except where noted.
1) No tap water: $2.50/bottle of 500 mL
As others here have noted, the first thing that irked us was no tap water. When the young, seemingly inexperienced waitress (whom I'm going to call Waitress #1) asked if we wanted to start with something to drink, I asked for water. She came back, plopped three bottles of Eska water on the table and proceeded to walk away without a word. I quickly called out, "Oh, you don't have . . .?" and she replied quietly, "No, only bottled water. We don't have tap water." I told her to take them back. I noticed a man sitting opposite us with a glass of beer and also an unopened bottle of Eska water. No doubt he was too shy to say anything, but I wasn't going to pay for water if the waitress wasn't even going to mention no other option. She would have let us open up the three bottles (which I found out from the menu was $2.50 each), without saying a word. Strike one: putting down bottled water without saying a word about the cost, or the non-availability of free water, is a lack of customer service. Interestingly, I heard Waitress #2 serving another table in English, and when the customer asked to start with water, Waitress #2 said, "We only have bottled water. Is that okay?" So I guess Waitress #1 just didn't care or feel it was part of her job to mention it.
(And really--$2.50 for a 500 mL bottle? That's the price I'd expect to pay at an outdoor festival or a concert, where I'd have few other options, so being ripped off is part of the experience. We're not even talking about imported water--it's a locally-sourced Quebec spring. This is just a blatant cash grab at a tourist trap restaurant that obviously has a sink and tap to prepare foods, but just doesn't want to give its customers drinking water.)
2) Want maple syrup? Shell out an extra $2
Most good crêperies will offer maple syrup. Whether it's real maple syrup or even the cheap imitation stuff, it accompanies the crêpes because it's an expected way to eat crêpes. When I asked the waitress after she had set the plates down and walked away, if she would bring maple syrup, she replied (again, mumbling), "Yes, but it's extra." How much extra, I asked. $2. $12 per crêpe, + $2 for maple syrup? Strike two.
3) Dry, bad crêpes and ingredients
We ordered two of the ham-asparagus crêpes, and one of the chicken-Brie-asparagus ($12 each). As a comparison, a crêperie up the street on Place Jacques-Cartier had these same offerings in the $8.75-$10.00 range, but unfortunately, they were closed when we passed by. So for this price, these would surely be fantastic crêpes, right? Wrong. The crêpes were on the dry side (if you've ever made crêpes, you'll know when you've let them sit too long before flipping); the asparagus had several woodsy tips where the food preparer had obviously not properly docked them; and worst of all, the chicken was dry and chewy, like plastic. It's not that hard to prepare good chicken, unless your food has been sitting around for far too long (it was 2:00 pm, still roughly lunch time). I left a few pieces of the inedible chicken and asparagus on the plate so the waitress would know. Strike three.
So by the end of the meal, my experience was:
- cheap restaurant that didn't offer tap water
- overcharging $2.50 for a 500 mL bottle of water
- poor service from waitress who didn't know how to properly communicate these charges, or mumbled under her breath when addressed
- (over)charging $2.00 for maple syrup
- dry, inedible food
My total bill came to $41.22. As a first in my life, I decided I wasn't going to add a tip for an evidently terrible restaurant experience. Ten seconds later, Waitress #2 ran down the stairs after me. What followed was a 5-minute argument about why I *had* to tip for bad food, bad service, and that none of it was their fault. (Even though she conceded that tip is not mandatory or indicated on the menu as added, she said, "Here in Montreal, you *have* to tip, 15% minimum.")
So don't go here unless you're ready for a tourist trap that gouges you, and argumentative, tip-demanding, no-service servers.
See longer review at:
http://www.tripadvisor.ca/ShowUserReviews-g155032-d2213491-r217620036-Montreal_Poutine-Montreal_Quebec.html#REVIEWS
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