Restaurant Sesame - Montreal, Quebec

RETURN? No thanks!

This seems to be a local lunch hot-spot for people who work in the Vieux Port area of Montreal. I would describe it as upscale Asian lunch-line food, with Chinese-Thai-Vietnamese inspired fare. In other words, confused. Don't expect experimental cuisine, but hopefully you can expect a decent meal for your unsophisticated Western palette.

I went here on two occasions, the first being for Poutine Week. I ordered their advertised Shaolin Poutine two weeks ago for the fair price of $10. What I got were crispy fries, a whole lot of delicious vegetables (peppers, onions, button mushrooms, some green onion slivers), panko-encrusted golden pork globules, cheese curds, and Asian-inspired gravy. While the gravy wasn't the best tasting thing I've ever had (something about sesame oil or peanut sauce and cheese just don't mix) I do have to admit that the dish was deliciously light. Whenever you eat poutine, your stomach usually ends up feeling likes it's carrying a ton of bricks because the dish is so fatty. After I ate the Shaolin, though, I felt great. For this reason alone I would order it again rather than a traditional poutine in order to satisfy my craving for that heavenly dish. Unfortunately, the Shaolin didn't make it to the regular menu.

The second time I went to Sesame, I ordered the Peanut Chicken. Bleh. Never again. First of all, the dish was more full of rice than anything else. The sauce was indeed tasty, peanut-y and rich, but the chicken tasted weird. In fact, it tasted like those Maple Leaf chicken breasts you used to buy from the grocery store, and once you got to cooking it you'd realize that all you paid for was water weight because it would all gush out of the breasts and into the pan. The weirdest part, though, was that it would have this greyish tint, and you'd feel like Maple Leaf gypped you by injecting the meat with water just to make the meat heavier and you would have to pay more, but for less! So much less! I mean, I know many chicken manufacturers do that, but they kind of know their limits. Not Maple Leaf. Leafie thought it knew better. The chicken would take old and flavourless, the grey watery broth was vomit-inducing, and you just wanted to cry yourself to sleep in the kitchen corner out of hopeless surrender. No thank you, Maple Leaf, no thank you.

Didn't Maple Leaf go bankrupt??

Did I say "Maple Leaf" enough times in this post?

ADDRESS: 380 St Jacques St W, Montreal, QC

Boccacino's - Montreal, Quebec

RETURN? Yes

Okay, rant time. Normally, Boccacino's is alright. It's that same type of chain that provides typical North-American-take-on-Italian fare for lunch and dinner, with seriously KILLER breakfasts. Seriously, I love their breakfasts. The price is right and the quality is spot-on. If you're feeling nasty, order the Bocca Skillet OMG.

But dang gurl. I went the other day to have lunch with friends and I wanted a light salad, but I also wanted to have some of my weakness AKA fried chicken. So I opted for the best of both worlds and ordered the Asian slaw with panko-breaded chicken breast on top.

What a mess. First of all, the chicken was either pounded so thin or so overcooked that it was flaking at the touch of my fork. I had to resort to scooping it up like a spoon. What the frig?! Why?! It was so weird!

But more important, the "slaw" was nothing more than a few slivers of red cabbage and a boatload of minced green onion! What an outrage. The flavour was so raw I couldn't even eat it. I have provided a photo for your viewing pleasure (or disgust). Please never ever ever order this unless you love raw spring onion. But honestly, who does this these days? No one, that's who.

ADDRESS: 1251 Avenue McGill College, Montreal, QC, H3B 2Y4

i-Ching Cafe - Montreal, Quebec

RETURN? Yes, but only if I am in the area

This vegetarian Chinese/Vietnamese place was pretty interesting. With its white tablecloths and clean, modern interior, this place was no hole-in-the-wall, but the low prices found on the menu indicated that there was no fine dining to be had. Why were my friend and I here? Because he had purchased an online coupon for a generous discount on the final tab. Neither of us had ever heard of the place, and a google/urbanspoon/yelp search yielded no results. Basically, we were venturing into undiscovered territory. Call us Indiana Jones. No, I'll be Indiana Jones, and my friend can be his hat - personified.

We started our meal with the basic (and pretty obvious) selection of one spring roll, to share, and one egg roll, also to share. First came the spring roll. The roll itself was decent (pretty hard to screw up a non-cooked, roll-only item), but as you can see in the photo, it was way too full of lettuce, such that it was hard to eat. I think I almost dislocated my jaw trying to open for a bite. Annoying? Entirely. Special mention, however, must be given to the peanut sauce. Nutty, sweet, spicy, deep... simply delicious. The only comment I made to my friend was "I want this stuff in a  glass." - So I can drink it! Get it?

Next came the hot egg roll. I just didn't get the chef's interpretation of this dish. The inside was entirely mushy rather than soft but still with a bite. Further, it was swimming in some watered down plum sauce, which made the otherwise crispy outer shell quite soggy. Unfortunate, because my favourite part about an egg roll is the crisp factor, which I dunk into the thick, sweet plum sauce. All in all, I wouldn't order this appetizer again. And WTF is up with that lonely sprig of parsley? You know how I feel about edible garnishes.

Thankfully, the main dishes were the stars (and saviours) of this meal. I had ordered pan-fried noodles with vegetables, and my friend had ordered the spicy soup with dumplings and buckwheat noodles.

First, my noodles. Usually, everyone knows that a fried noodle dish is coated with a nasty layer of grease, which when ordering you forget about, but once the dish arrives you are reminded and go "Uggghh I forgot again!? Dagnabbit!" This dish, however, was the lightest that I have ever had: no oil left over on my plate! The flavours were clean, crisp, and replete with delicious fish sauce. The vegetables were fresh and crispy, and the noodles light and chewy. It was a joy to eat.

I wasn't really able to ask my friend if he liked his dish or not because his senses were so immersed in it that he couldn't tear himself away for a single moment. I take that as a good sign. The sauce was spicy, the broth clear with sharp umami flavours, the dumplings homemade and delicious, and the buckwheat noodles a delightful addition to slurp up.

Here's the thing...while our main dishes were great, they didn't inspire great love. Great like, yes, but no love. Neither of us live particularly close to this restaurant. Is it worth a long venture out? No. If I'm in the area, though, I would definitely consider passing by.


ADDRESS: 4242, Decarie, Montreal, Quebec