"2012-02-08T00:00:00"^^ . "1"^^ . . "0"^^ . "Spent the MLK day weekend in Montreal. Worst idea ever. Montreal is a great city....in the summer time. It must have been 0 or possibly negative degrees the entire long weekend. We ended up ducking into bars and restaurants just to get out of the cold. After a bit of walking around St. Catherine, we spotted Les 3 Brasseurs. Looked like a decent place, but it was packed to the gills. No luck there, not even at the bar. Decided to stop in the next available place. Enter Guido & Angelina.\n\nThis questionably named restaurant seems like your average, contemporary Italian restaurant. It was pretty empty, which normally would have been enough for me to look elsewhere, but it was cold and I was hungry. Despite being pretty empty, they had at least 5 employees gathered at the corner of the bar looking at a laptop. One of them noticed us standing by the hostess table after a few minutes and walked over. She had a half beleaguered, half confused look on her face, as if we had come to the front door of her home, looking to get seated. To the hostess: I apologize for pulling you away from your group facebook/youtube/shopping session. We exchanged a few uncomfortable pleasantries found our way to the bar. The menu was pretty expansive, but with typical Italian fair. Nothing exotic, but all the classics were represented. I decided to get the bruschetta and crab cakes for our appetizer. After ordering, we were pleasantly surprised that the food was prepared on the fast side. I guess that is to be expected, considering there were maybe three other tables of people in the place. Unfortunately, the speedy preparation of the food did not compensate for the total lack of flavor and authenticity. The bruschetta was covered in a tomato salsa type topping with absolutely no seasoning. It tasted like raw tomatoes on toast. The crab cakes were a little undercooked, being somewhat gooey on the inside. They too lacked any discernable flavor outside of the bland breading on the outside. If I had my eyes closed, I would have guessed them to be fried oatmeal balls. These oatmeal balls were accompanying by a \"salad\", the likes of which could only be described as rediscovered scraps that had spent time on the floor behind the refrigerator. The vegetables were dried out and dirty. We each had a taste of both dishes, but left good portions of each on the plate. I really should have stopped right there, but the prospect of heading back out into the frozen tundra of downtown Montr\u00E9al to find a new place to eat was the deciding factor to tuff it out. Being as cold as it was, I was thinking heavy, rich food to warm me up. I noticed they were serving carbonara. That seems like something basic enough that it would be passable anywhere. I was wrong. First and most importantly, the noodles were the worst noodles I've ever had. I'm no aficionado about pasta, but I do care a great deal about how it is cooked. They served the carbonara with spaghetti that was unusually white in color. It was either really overcooked or was of such low quality that it lacked both texture and any wheat flavor. It reminded me of Vietnamese rice sticks, which are great for their application, but shouldn't ever touch Italian sauces. The sauce was cream based, and as far as I could tell, did not have any egg in it. It lacked cohesion with the rest of the ingredients, where one bite I'd get a raw garlic taste, another I would get a raw parsley taste--all within a very soupy, bland sauce. It was almost as if someone microwaved cream with pancetta, garlic, parsley, and pepper in a bowl and poured it over the pasta. This was not carbonara. I struggled through about a quarter of the dish, repeating in my mind that I didn't in fact order carbonara--that this was a Canadian dish that I've never had before. It got me through enough to not feel starving anymore. \n\nOn the plus side, the bar tender who was serving us was very pleasant, albeit a little distracted with restocking. She mixed quite a few drinks for us."^^ . . "0"^^ . . "0"^^ .