More Montreal: Brasserie T!, Vanhorne, Le Petit Alep, Hyatt

Walleye, a freshwater fish, served over crunchy daikon radish, fiddlehead ferns and other vegetables with a spicy chimichurri sauce at Brasserie T! in Montreal, above and below.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

One of busiest and best restaurants operating during the 35th annual International Jazz Festival is Brasserie T! on the edge of the Place des Arts, a cultural complex that is Montreal's version of Lincoln Center.

Brasserie T! and the companion Taverne F are housed in long, sleek glass-and-metal boxes, with outdoor seating that allows customers to eat lunch or dinner and listen to one of the many free performances.

We made a reservation for lunch on July 1 at Taverne F, which serves Portuguese food, but found it closed in observance of Canada Day. 

We found a table at the nearby Brasserie T!, got a terrific waitress named Sophie and enjoyed a wonderful meal with wine.

At Brasserie T!, my wife ordered pork ribs with a simple salad, below, instead of french fries.

Walleye and ribs

I ordered a freshwater fish, walleye, that I never see on menus in the northeastern United States, and the skin was crisped beautifully.

The meaty fillet was served, skin-side up, over blanched but crunchy daikon radish, fiddlehead ferns, asparagus and other vegetables, all swimming in a spicy chimichurri sauce ($24). A great dish.

I started with a bowl of chilled gazpacho ($7), and sipped a glass of Spanish red wine (also $7).

My wife asked for salad instead of fries with her pork ribs, which were cooked together and served in a barbecue sauce ($21). The meat fell off the bones.

With my wife's soft drink ($4), the bill totaled $82.78 Canadian, including taxes, but not the tip.

Brasserie T!, 1425 Jeanne Mance St., Montreal, Quebec; 1-514-282-0808. Open year-round.

The vegetable of the day at Brasserie T! was baby zucchini, far tastier than their much bigger cousins. 

I started with a creamy, refreshing gazpacho.

A $7 glass of Spanish wine at Brasserie T!

An amuse-bouche was compliments of the chef at Vanhorne Restarant in Montreal -- seaweed chip, mussel and tomato puree.

Vanhorne

A year after we enjoyed a five-course tasting menu of seafood and vegetables at Vanhorne Restaurant in Montreal, we returned on July 2 to find a new chef and a new, inflexible attitude.

Yes. A five-course tasting menu was available for $60, just $2 more than in 2013. But ...

Unlike our first visit, the chef, Jens Ruoff, would not waver from the tasting menu, which included horse meat with hay cooked in butter and beef carpaccio with caramelized onions and cherries.

Yes. Hay. We were incredulous.

Sylvie, our accommodating hostess in 2013, had the day off, and the waiter kept on using the word "perfect," even when we ordered a la carte and he turned down our request for a salad to share.

The salad denial was puzzling, given Vanhorne's focus on "cuisine du marche" or "cooking from the market."

Beautifully composed

OK. We loved the food.

The plates were beautifully composed and flavors, such as the green curry with my raw mackerel appetizer, were intense.

At Vanhorne, an entree of house-made cavatelli, sumac, sage and pistachio in a rich lobster bisque ($22).

Walleye, French green beans, xeres and chanterelles with potato mousse ($28).

My starter of raw mackerel atop couscous with mustard ice cream and green curry ($13). (The mustard ice cream, left, slid off of the fish before I could take a photo.) My wife had an appetizer of lobster, watermelon, frozen yogurt, roasted bread and squid ink, below ($16).

Vanhorne has 30 seats, but only three other customers were being served during our dinner on July 2. During our visit in 2013, the restaurant was nearly full and we chatted amiably with our neighbors. A new, inflexible chef might be the reason for the change in fortune.

You'll find Vanhorne's simple storefront in Montreal's Outremont neighborhood, about 3 miles from downtown hotels.

Incidentals

I drank a glass of French red wine ($9.50), the least expensive on the list, and an espresso ($4).

Our total, including taxes of nearly 15%, was $106.36 Canadian.

Vanhorne Cuisine du Marche, 1268 Van Horne Ave., Montreal, Quebec; 1-514-508-0828. Closed Sundays and Mondays.

The Vegetarian at Le Petit Alep, a Syrian-Armenian restaurant in Montreal, and small Armenian Salad, rear.

Le Petit Alep

Alep, the French word for the city of Aleppo, Syria, is a white-tablecloth restaurant that is open only for dinner.

But next to it is the casual Le Petit Alep, where we ate a big lunch on July 3, the day before we left Montreal for home.

My wife and I shared The Vegetarian ($22), a filling platter with such classics as hummus, muhammara, rice with lentils, stuffed grape leaves and a doughy spinach pie.

We also ordered a small Armenian Salad dressed with oil, lemon juice and dried mint ($5). The food is just wonderful.

Tart, house-made lemonade was $4.25 and a small, sweetened Arab coffee was $2.25.

Our total was $38.52 Canadian, more than you'd expect for a Syrian-Armenian lunch.

A big disappointment was the bread -- mini, unheated pocket breads that were served in plastic bags. I could feel how stiff they were through the plastic.

Soft, pillowy Syrian bread is one of the great pleasures of the table. You can stuff almost any food into them or scoop up dips. 

I see wonderful pocket breads from Montreal on the shelves at Fattal's, the Syrian bakery-grocery-butcher in Paterson, N.J., about 350 miles away from the French-speaking city. 

Why aren't they being served at Le Petit Alep? 

Le Petit Alep, 191 Jean Talon St., Montreal, Quebec; 1-514-270-9361. A Metro or subway stop is about two blocks away.

Le Petit Alep makes its own lemonade.

Sweetened Arabic coffee could have been thicker.

Alep and Le Petit Alep are near Montreal's Jean Talon Market.

Smoked salmon with capers was one of the dishes laid out for dinner in the Regency Club of the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Montreal. The rate for a Regency Club room includes a light dinner buffet and a groaning-board breakfast with made-to-order omelets.

Hyatt's Regency Club

We didn't have to eat out all the time.

We booked a king-bedded Regency Club room at the Hyatt Regency Montreal, the headquarters hotel for the International Jazz Festival, and the rate included a light dinner buffet and an all-you-can-eat breakfast.

So, we could have a big breakfast, then lunch and in the evening, rely on having salad, cheese and fruit from the free dinner buffet before we went to a concert.

The Regency Club, a lounge and business center, also serves afternoon tea and desserts in the evening.

A Regency Club salad.

Cheese, fruit, bread, nuts and dessert also are included.

A bowl of shrimp. Only beer and wine are extra. A glass of wine is $4. Soft drinks, Perrier, coffee, espresso and tea are included.

Hyatt Regency Montreal, 1255 Jeanne Mance St., Montreal, Quebec; 1-514-982-1234.


Also see: 

Dining out in Montreal 2013

Two can dine out in Montreal for $18.50 to $106 and higher

Two can dine out in Montreal for $18.50 to $106 and higher

Two of us ate for under $20 at Pho Bang New York, a Vietnamese restaurant in Montreal's Chinatown. I had a filling bowl of vermicelli rice noodles topped with grilled shrimp, peanuts and fresh cilantro, above. 

We spent more than $100 for two courses each at Vanhorne, a restaurant in Montreal's Outremont neighborhood that offers cuisine du marche or "cooking from the market." My wife chose this beautifully composed appetizer of lobster, watermelon, frozen yogurt, roasted bread and squid ink.  

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

On our annual vacation in Montreal, we tried with only limited success to control how much we spent on eating out.

Dining out in the French-speaking city can be as sophisticated and as varied as it is in Manhattan -- with prices to match.

This year, we tried a couple of inexpensive ethnic restaurants for lunch as our main meal.

But we also succumbed to the convenience of pricey restaurants in or near the Place des Arts, center of the 35th annual International Jazz Festival, the reason we drove to Montreal.

And we made a special return trip to Vanhorne, a 30-seat restaurant where my wife and I had a wonderful five-course tasting menu in 2013, and spent over $200.

The food was as good as we remembered, but the chef had changed, and he was so inflexible we couldn't even order a salad with our dinner.

Think 'mains,' not 'entrees'

On Montreal menus, appetizers are listed as "entrees" and entrees are listed as "mains."

During our eight-day visit, we ate lunches and dinners for $18.50 to $106, including taxes of nearly 15%, but not the tip. 

I usually left a gratuity of 15%. In Montreal, many restaurants use a hand-held credit-card terminal that gives you the choice of adding a percentage tip or a dollar amount.

Go for the latter (a button under a dollar sign on the terminal screen) to avoid adding a percentage tip to the total of food, wine and taxes of nearly 15%.

And make sure you take a credit card, such as the Capital One Visa, that doesn't exact a foreign-currency transaction fee of 2% to 3%.

All prices are in Canadian dollars, each of which is equivalent to 95 cents U.S.

My wife complained Pho Bang New York served her pho with dense beef balls that were far from hot, above, but she said the anise-flavored broth was good.

Pho Bang New York

Pho Bang New York in Montreal's Chinatown has low prices, but don't expect good service or, if you don't use chopsticks, a clean fork.

This popular restaurant slings bowls of pho, the anise-scented Vietnamese soup filled with noodles, vegetables and your choice of meat.

My wife ordered pho with beef balls ($8.27 plus tax) and I had a filling bowl of vermicelli noodles topped with grilled shrimp and peanuts ($7.82 plus tax).

Our check totaled $18.49. You pay at the register. 

The shrimp with my noodles tasted fine, though they were about half the size of the colossal ones shown in the restaurant's photo menu.

My wife doesn't use chopsticks, but the waiter never brought her the fork she requested.

I got up twice and tried without success to find a clean fork in a receptacle on a table near the kitchen. She said both forks were dirty.

Pho Bang New York is highly rated on Yelp! and other peer-review sites.

Our experience shows how unreliable those appraisals can be. 

Back home in North Jersey, we know where to find great pho, Simply Vietnamese in Tenafly.


  

Garnish for the pho, left, and a bowl of spicy fish broth into which I dipped my vermicelli noodles.

When Pho Bang New York got crowded, a waiter seated a woman and her young son at our table for four.

The dining room ceiling at Pho Bang New York.

Pho Bang New York, 1001 Boulevard St. Laurent, Montreal, Quebec; 1-514-954-2032. Cash only.

An entree of wild-caught cod accented with fresh corn-mango salsa at Bistro Le Balmoral in Montreal.

A glass of Italian wine -- or half-glass to be more precise -- was $9 at Le Balmoral.

Bistro Le Balmoral

Le Balmoral is a non-profit bistro conveniently located on the ground floor of jazz festival headquarters on Saint Catherine Street, near the Hyatt Regency Montreal, where we stayed.

We like the food, but service can be brusque. The menu notes that many ingredients are from Quebec or Canada.

My wife had a Green Salad ($6.50) and a main dish of Chicken Supreme stuffed with mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes and smoked sausage ($22).

My pan-seared Cod Fillet was topped with fresh salsa and served over Gingered Black Rice and Vegetables, but the meaty fish could have been served hotter ($21).

With a $9 glass of wine, ginger ale ($3.50) and taxes, our check totaled $71.28.

Chicken Supreme at Bistro Le Balmoral is served with pureed sweet potatoes and a rosemary and dune-pepper sauce. Below, a Green Salad with shaved parmesan.

Bistro Le Balmoral, 305 Saint Catherine St. west, Montreal, Quebec; 1-514-288-5992.

A ceviche of squid and shrimp, with freshly ground black pepper, was my starter at 40 Northh, a steakhouse in Saint Sauveur, a town about an hour's drive north of Montreal.

My wife's pedestrian Iceberg Lettuce Salad was elevated by a rich blue-cheese dressing with pancetta.

40 Northh

Last Monday, we took a day trip into the mountains north of Montreal and stopped for lunch in Saint Sauveur.

At a steakhouse called 40 Northh, we liked the table d'hote or fixed-price lunch menu posted outside.

I started with a Ceviche of Squid and Shrimp, and finished with a grilled Wild King Salmon Fillet and simple fresh cabbage salad ($24).

My wife had an Iceberg Lettuce Salad with a sinfully rich dressing and the 40 Northh Burger with brie, arugula and french fries ($19).

We didn't notice that our lunches included a dessert course, a small chocolate souffle and ice cream, but didn't have room and sent the waiter away when he brought them.

I asked for fruit instead, but the waiter said there wasn't any available. I settled for black coffee. Our lunch check totaled $49.44.

Next year, we might try Saint-Sau, a pub with vegetarian dishes on the lunch menu, or Chez Denise.

The 40 Northh Burger.

Saint Sauveur's main street, Rue Principale, is lined with flower boxes and restaurants.

The cathedral's cool interior is painted in pastels.

40 Northh, 235 Rue Principale, Saint Sauveur, Quebec; 1-450-227-6673. Lunch served Mondays to Fridays.

To be continued with Brasserie T!, Vanhorne, Le Petit Alep and Hyatt's Regency Club.

Costco's low-quality rotisserie bird costs more in Canada

Costco Wholesale's heavily seasoned rotisserie chicken carries the Kirkland Signature label, but that doesn't guarantee high quality, as it does with wine and many other food and non-food items. At the warehouse store in Montreal, above, the antibiotic-raised bird sells for $7.99 Canadian, compared to $4.99 at the Costco Wholesale in Hackensack.

A box of California peaches sells for $11.99 Canadian in Montreal, compared to $9.99 at my Hackensack warehouse store.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Not long after we drove across the New York State-Quebec border on June 26, we saw our first Canadian Costco Wholesale.

We didn't know it at the time, but we were entering a sort of Costco heaven -- five warehouse stores within 6.5 miles of each other -- including three on the French-speaking island of Montreal, where my wife and I enjoyed the 35th annual International Jazz Festival. 

We visited the Costco on Bridge Street in Montreal twice, purchasing bottled spring water, men's briefs, unsalted mixed nuts, salad dressing and other non-perishables.

But most of the food at Costco in Canada costs more than the same or similar items in northern New Jersey, where we live and shop in the Hackensack, Wayne and Clifton warehouse stores.

For example, the low-quality Kirkland Signature Rotisserie Chicken, which is raised on antibiotics and seasoned heavily before roasting, is $7.99 Canadian, compared to $4.99 in the United States.

(A Canadian dollar is worth about 95 U.S. cents.)

Of course, that poulet de rotisserie is no bargain nutritionally in either country.

See:

Costco rotisserie chicken makes great dog food

Kirkland Signature Egg Whites or Blancs D'Oeufs.

A 32-ounce package of fresh blueberries from Georgia was $4.79 in Montreal, a lower price than the last time I bought them in Hackensack.

In Montreal, you won't find the 1-pound plastic tub of Earthbound Farms Organic Spring Mix, but there are plenty of salad greens from Mirabel, a Canadian company, though none of them appears to be organically grown. Packages are 11 ounces.

Plenty of wine

Like the Wayne Costco, the Montreal store sells wine and beer, but none of the wine bottles carry the Kirkland Signature label.

I didn't see any wine for under $10 Canadian a bottle.

In Wayne, I've purchased 1.5 liter bottles of Kirkland Signature's smooth Cabernet Sauvignon from California for the equivalent of $4.49 a bottle.

Briefs, nuts and water

I bought three packages of Stanfield's-brand Men's Briefs, which are 100% cotton and made in Canada (they are called "Calecons" in French).

Each package of five briefs was $19.99 Canadian.

I also purchased a 1.13-kilogram jar of Kirkland Signature Unsalted Mixed Nuts (Noix Melange) for $17.99 Canadian; and 35 500-milliliter bottles of Kirkland Signature Spring Water for $3.99 Canadian.

Taxes on these and other purchases totaled 14.975%, compared to 7% in New Jersey.

We stayed eight nights in Montreal, and the weather was unusually warm and humid, prompting us to shower twice a day.

Costco came through with water to keep us hydrated, unsalted mixed nuts for snacking and the extra briefs I needed -- all at great prices. 

Wild sockeye salmon fillet, above, and farmed salmon steaks and fillets, below. Prices for fish and chicken are per kilogram or 2.2 pounds. The wild salmon fillets were about $12.58 a pound, comparable to the price in the Hackensack Costco.

At the Montreal Costco, gasoline was $5.34.6 per gallon for regular and $5.68.8 for premium. Prices shown are per liter in Canadian dollars. Costco members save about 20 cents Canadian per gallon, compared to other gas stations. Before we crossed the border, I filled up in Plattsburgh, N.Y., and paid $3.92.9 for regular.

I purchased this salad dressing, which I haven't seen in the Hackensack Costco. Kirkland Signature Balsamic Vinaigrette is made with canola and extra-virgin olive oils, and fresh garlic, but also contains fancy molasses, and it has to be refrigerated after opening.

In Montreal, Costco shopping carts and members are sheltered from the elements, a great idea that would be welcomed in northern New Jersey.

Costco Wholesale, 300 Rue Bridge, Montreal, Quebec, Canada; 1-514-938-5170.



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Why I drove 350 miles to buy men's briefs at Costco

Shoppers checking out at the Costco Wholesale in Montreal last Sunday morning. The Canadian warehouse store was both familiar and different than the Costcos in North Jersey where I normally shop.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The last time I shopped at my hometown Costco Wholesale, I couldn't find a few items, including Kirkland Signature Men's Briefs.

But I found them at the Costco Wholesale in Montreal -- in three colors, no less -- after driving 350 miles to attend the Canadian city's International Jazz Festival.

Our two visits to Costco in  Montreal were both familiar and different than the North Jersey warehouse stores in Hackensack and Wayne I usually patronize.

The Montreal Costco sells wine and beer, and has a gas station, but it is the only one in the province of Quebec that doesn't have a pharmacy.

And the Canadian store's food stand serves coffee, latte and cappuccino, something I really miss in Hackensack, especially when I need a mid-afternoon pickup while shopping there.

Costco members in Montreal also can buy cartons of cigarettes at a nice discount, according to one woman I spoke with while she waited on line to do just that.

I've been enjoying the wild sockeye salmon I buy in Hackensack, but Costco members in Montreal can buy fillets or an entire wild salmon, minus the head.

Costco members in Montreal waiting to purchase cartons of cigarettes.

Made-in-Canada men's briefs

The men's briefs sold by Costco at the Montreal warehouse store are made by Stanfield's Limited in Nova Scotia.

Kirkland Signature Men's Briefs are available only in white, but Stanfield's briefs come in white, gray and black, and I bought a package of each.

A package of five 100% combed cotton briefs are $19.99 Canadian (one U.S. dollar is worth about $1.05 Canadian).

My waist measures 37-38 inches, and I bought one package of L/G briefs (38-40).

But I found they are cut small, and returned them the next day for three packages of XL/TG (42-44), which are too large for me.

I hope they shrink after they are washed.

Shopping in a Canadian Costco holds two disadvantages for a member from the United States.

In Montreal, taxes of nearly 15% are added to your bill, compared to 7% in New Jersey. 

And the American Express card is the only one accepted, meaning I'll probably see a foreign-currency transaction fee of 2.7% showing up on my statement.

That will be outweighed by total cash rebates of 3% from Costco, where I am an Executive Member, and American Express.

I travel outside the United States with a Capital One Visa card that charges no foreign-currency transaction fees.

The Montreal Costco wouldn't allow me to use it and wouldn't accept my bank debit card, which carries a MasterCard imprint.

When I returned the first package of briefs for a refund, a Costco employee said I could avoid the foreign-currency surcharge by using my Visa card to buy gift cards on Costco's Canadian Web site.

To be continued ...