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| - VALLIER
Terroire cuisine with a comfort food approach? Does that make sense? Well that was my experience anyway. The restaurant is modern but not overly chi-chi to be hip and it's welcoming with all the warm wood, the art and its general warmth. The service itself, I was divided. Our server was being nice but it felt so forced and somewhat pretentious, however all our other servers who visited our table were very nice so I'll chalk it up to that guy. There's also the issue of the chairs. Lots of different chairs of different heights and I had to move some around in order to have a chair low enough to no longer having the table leaning on my legs.
We started out with a cheese platter. It was for one, but we had more starters in mind as well. There was a firm and soft cheese as well as a blue cheese. Some nutty breads and a delicious fig jelly. All very delicious however we would have appreciated an explanation of what cheeses we were being presented with but no such luck.
Our secondary starter was the foie gras served with apple liquor infused mousse. Really delicious. However I found myself salting the foie gras, was a step forgotten? And it was sitting on a mini-baguette that was so hard it was not permitting me to cut into the delicate foie gras. I had to remove it from the equation. I suppose pain perdu or a buttery pastry like a croissant is out of the question? Unseasoned foie gras and tough chewy baguette was unfortunate. But the mousse was its savior and its foie gras... unless you torch it, you can barely mess it up.
I had the meatloaf made of venison and duck if I remember correctly. It was unremarkable but it wasn't bad either. Maybe I'm just not a big meatloaf fan but I followed the waiter's suggestion. I forgot that when a waiter pushes dishes it's because they need to move the product fast. I should have gone with my initial choice which my friend took, a delicious... I mean insanely delicious pulled lamb shoulder topped with a sweet potato purée with homemade cream corn, that's what I was looking for.
Cheesecake, again?
Now as a foodie and I use that term loosely, I run through restaurants like Charlie Sheen goes through kilos of cocaine. If there's one thing that have become so ubiquitous that they have lost their relevance its cheesecake (and Crème Brulée). Every frakkin' restaurant has them on their menus, much like Cesar salad in the 90s - if you serve it I won't come - and Tortellini Cardinale in the 80s - now relegated to cafeteria food. I'm seriously fed up with them and are usually manufactured and not made on the premises. But the menu at Vallier calls it the best cheese cake in Montreal and all I could think was "Challenge Accepted". I am defeated. It was by far the absolute best Cheese Cake I've had in years and years. Smooth, creamy cake seemingly collapsing under its own weight, covered with cream and salted caramel, it was the best Cheese Cake experience of my life, any more pleasurable and the cake and I were getting a room.
In short, its great place to get a very good meal. There are a few faux-pas; such as a full bar not being able to make the original drink, the Tom Collins. The funky chair assortment. And a pretentious waiter. But all those things are overshadowed by really good grub with really good presentation in a warm welcoming setting in the heart of the gorgeous Old Montreal - truly my city is the greatest city. Please go for it.
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