When it comes to Quebec restaurants, I really tend to stick to Montreal proper. This is mostly due to my living downtown and the abundant options all around me that don't involve me crossing a bridge. Now, as someone who grew up off-island, I am very familiar and used to the idea of crossing our "beloved" bridges to get to places - restaurants for the most part don't happen to be one of those "worthwhile' reasons anymore.
Recently I had an event on the South Shore which brought me to a restaurant in Boucherville which I had never heard of before - Le BarBÙ. The restaurant is located in a strip mall just off the highway in Boucherville. It doesn't make much of a first impression that way but that changes once inside. A nice modern decor punctuated with faux stone walls and art prints, it also has an exposed wine cellar and a nice bar area with a unique apparatus where the bottles hang from the ceiling. The restaurant clearly aims for the 5-7 crowd as well as dining. So the setting is nice but for me, the food is the most important. For this particular dinner I was apart of, it was a table d'hôte composed of regular items for the menu so my choices were limited somewhat.
First up, a combination of soup and salad. The soup was a rice and vegetable soup and the salad was a standard chef's salad. Both were solid but unspectacular - the soup had the right consistency and was not stingy on the rice or vegetables. The chef's salad was exactly what you have expected from a chef's salad - a good mix of lettuce and fresh vegetables which thankfully was not completely covered in a thick ranch dressing. On their regular menu, there were definitely more interesting options for starters but my hands were tied sadly.
I got to try two different mains - the first was an Angus beef skirt steak with shallot sauce, vegetables and house fries. A pretty classic French bistro dish and well executed throughout. The steak was cooked properly with a nice sear on the outside and the shallot based sauce added some nice flavour. The house fries were thankfully cooked well - crispy on the outside but still soft enough on the inside. The cut of the fries was also perfect for me - not quite matchstick but not the thick wedges either. Overall a solid dish.
The second main I got to try was butternut squash ravioli with goat cheese and a Portneuf sauce. Compared to the previous main dish, this was a much more creative endeavour. Loved the combination of the squash with the richness of the goat cheese. The Porfneuf sauce added nice creaminess to the mix - this was definitely not a light pasta dish. Very well done overall.
Finally, for dessert, we got a piece of chocolate cake. A chocolate mousse on top of a chocolate cookie layer topped with a chocolate ganache. If you don't like chocolate, this probably isn't for you but for the rest of us, this works rather well.
Le BarBÙ turned out to be a pleasantly solid surprise for me. I had no expectations going in but the food was solid, the wine list was interesting and the cocktails were well done. South Shore dining is not a regular thing for me but le BarBÙ definitely becomes a place to revisit. I'm still not prepared to cross a bridge to the South Shore too often for a meal but this is a good start to get me thinking about it.
Cheers!