| rev:text
| - It is a well known fact that we in Montreal love food. It is also well known that we suffer from being a secondary hub for Asian cuisine, as compared to, let's say, Toronto or Vancouver. That being said, great Asian cuisine can be found in our Chinatown, in our recently named "new Chinatown" (the Ste-Catherine st. strip between the old Forum and St-Matthieu st.), and even in some of the local "ethnic" areas around town (Cote-des-Neiges, etc.).
My go-to places in old Chinatown are Ruby Rouge for dim-sum and VIP for a late night treat. Wanting to discover something new in Chinatown, I searched several sites, including this one, looking for some good food at a respectable price. Looking through the listings, one name kept coming up close to the top of the list, Chez Maxim Oriental. I noticed that most of the reviews were quite positive, with the word "authentic" being thrown about liberally. So I decided that I would take a chance on a restaurant that I often pass when walking around the area, but didn't pay much attention to.
My experience was very different from what I had read from other diners, many of their reviews being quite recent. My wife and I started with a hot and sour soup, which was rather standard, not great but not bad either. It was followed by dumplings in peanut sauce. We liked it, but we had had much better in other restaurants (here VIP stands out).
Here is where everything fell apart. When the General Tso's chicken was placed on the table, we tried it and looked at each other with a knowing look of disappointment. The pieces were small, quite bready and just sweet, with no spicy kick to them, although we had asked for very spicy. We also ordered a pork and tofu dish which was also supposed to be spicy, but rather had a bland and slighty "off" taste.
I realized that everything came to our table at around the same time, after about 10 minutes. This leads me to think that all our dishes were sitting in the kitchen, waiting to be ordered.
I had also ordered a half roasted duck and a Coca-Cola. Having half finished our dishes, we reminded our waiter that we had not been served the duck (I decided to forgo the Coke). When the duck came (2 minutes later), it was slightly warm and all dried out. It was very disappointing. When a Chinese roasted duck is prepared properly and kept moist and hot, it's a beautiful thing. After taking one bite from the plate, I called over our waiter and explained that I could not eat it. He was very nice about the situation, but I got the impression he had seen this scenario before.
All around, despite the very pleasant service, the very modest prices and the fact that the plates were at the table in the blink of an eye, everything served left the impression of a restaurant that doesn't try very hard because they know that they are one of the only restaurants still open in the area at 11pm. You would be much better served at VIP for late night Asian.
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