After reading a restaurant review about a Chinese chain of restaurants called “Little Sheep” specializing in Mongolian hot pot, I decided to check out the first Montreal location . We arrived at the Chinatown eatery smack dab at the corner of de La Gauchetiere and Clark streets around 1:30 and the place was packed with the weekend lunchtime crowd. The upstairs locale appears to be completely renovated. It’s spacious, bright, and modern with plenty of comfortable seating. The difference from other restaurants is that set in the center of each table is a flat glass cook top with digital controls. All around the restaurant are nice touches of mongolian type decorations including a line of little sheep across the top of the refrigerated buffet. The staff appear to be all mandarin speaking and so do many of the customers but it is afterall, a global chain from China. We waited a bit for our table and soon we were seated and ready to get down to the hot potting.

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I finally got out to the West Island for a taste of Taco Bell. The only Taco Bell in Montreal is quite a trek, way out in Pierrefonds, at the corner of Boulevard des Sources and Pierrefonds. We arrived right when they opened at 11am as I had heard it gets quite crowded. The menu is rather limited but includes tacos and burritos. I requested a bean burrito which wasn’t on the menu, “No meat?” the clerk asked. I should have taken it with meat as the beans were funny tasting. Even spouse admitted that they had a “drôle” taste. The taco supremes were good, but it was served with a kind of Mexican take on poutine. French-fries with melted cheese sauce, a dab of taco meat, tomatoes and sour cream. It was pretty tasty actually, although I’m not a big fan of the cheese sauce. Another funny thing I noticed was that the hot sauce was carefully divvied out to customers. In most taco bells I’ve been to, the hot sauce packets are out on the counter, where customers can grab handfuls. Not here. Two per customer. I’m glad I went, but I’m in no hurry to go back.

Community Supported Agriculture is an excellent way to get to know your food both in the context of receiving tasty food baskets as well as being able to help out on the farm itself or stopping in to hang out and dig in the soil.

With roughly 77 farms that sell their organic veggies and meats to consumers, roughly 7,500 applications for weekly food baskets resulting in over 20,000 happy fully bellies here in Quebec.

For more information, check out this link

According to The Economist, Germany is running out of land to make eiswein (ice wine) — not because of overdevelopment but because of climate change. The German vinyards aren’t getting cold enough for the grapes to freeze on the vine, which is what concentrates the sugars and makes ice wine so scrumptious.

Bad news for the future of the planet, but a boon to the Canadian wine industry. (Note to growers: please stop trying to make Cabernet north of 40. We won’t have a proper Mediterranean climate for, well, at least a few years.)

Biscuit Vio (link is gone) got the ball rolling while others like Pierre-Leon and Philippe are making sure that this story gets ample coverage.

A classic case of blogger plagiarism by a big company. Assuming you can read French, check out this recipe (sorry, link gone) from Mitaine ecarlate. Now saunter over to an identical recipe (third link gone) from the Metro web page.

Professsion: Epicier Copieur

[update] I have just been informed that the offending page has been taken down. Unfortunately for them, I had also saved it as a PDF file.

[update 2] It appears that the situation has been somehow resolved which includes removing all traces that it ever existed.

A lot of restaurants in my Old Montreal neighborhood are touristy, with a maitre d’ who stands outside urging you to eat there. But some of the neighborhood’s best eateries don’t even have a sign.

A couple of insider-ish places worth splurging on in Vieux Montreal are Chasse et Peche (423 rue St. Claude) and the wine bar/restaurant Aszu (212 rue Notre Dame est). Both have the dainty-morsel-on-a-big-white-plate aesthetic (i.e. you might want a snack before or after), but are adventurous in their cuisine.

If you’re not into nouvelle cuisine, go to Aszu just for the wine bar, where you can buy tasting portions from the vast wine collection. (Aszu imports wine privately, so they have things you won’t find at the SAQ).

Any other out-of-the way restaurants you know about? Places without signs, where you just have to know where you’re going? (And yes, I know they’re all listed in the various restaurant guides, but that’s cheating.)

Martin Picard, chef at Montreal’s Au Pied de Cochon and his staff released a smart and irreverent little book which is gaining much buzz.

Readers can choose to purchase the book in either French or English, however the French version features a little novella on the history of pork whereas the forward of the English copy is written by uber-gonzo-chef-journalist Anthony Bourdain.

Visit http://www.restaurantaupieddecochon.ca for more information or to get yourself a copy.

As a thrifty kind of guy, I either bring my lunch to work or seek out a meal that can be had for under five bucks, including tax. I give English courses at various places around downtown and have found lunch time to be a pricy proposition when on a budget. Of course making lunch and bringing it from home is always the cheapest, but if you’re like me, you sometimes leave the lunch you prepared on the counter at home. Anyway, my favorite cheap lunch downtown is the Pizza Doré combo with 2 slices of pizza and a soft drink for four bucks, tax included. This is a bargain and fills you up. There is something fine about that crust, I just love it. I adore both the mushroom and mexican pizza. There is a Pizza Doré (maybe it’s d’oré) in the Berri Uqam and Longueuil metro stations as well as in the tunnel between Eaton Center and Place Ville Marie.

Yes, the value menu at mickey dees is $4.60, but I’m always on the hunt for something new, good and under five bucks. Anybody have a secret cheapie lunch place?

So I’ve heard that the first Taco Bell in Quebec has opened up on Sources Blvd in Pierrefonds. I must confess that I have never ever been in a Taco Bell restaurant or eaten anything from Taco Bell or even seen a Taco Bell tv commercial. For real. What I know about Taco Bell has always been second hand. Apparently they have a chihuahua as a mascot, but he died. Their food is so good that people will drive across the border just to satisfy a craving. What is this magical food substance that I have been so blissfully unaware of? So has anyone gone to the new Taco Bell out on the West Island yet? Any comments, recommendations, rant, raves, or warnings? I’m curious and tempted, but not sure I’m motivated enough to make the trek to the boonies.

Olive & Gourmando, beloved cafe of downtown hipsters, may be trying too hard. They’ve replaced their coffee supplier, Illy, with a new one. Why? Apparently too many other [non-hipster] cafes were starting to sell Illy coffee too, and O&G wants to keep its cachet as a place for new foodie trends. I hope they don’t cut off my pastry supply for saying this, but somehow, the idea of choosing your coffee brand based on who else drinks it sounds more fashion slave than trend setter. And they chose to tell their clientele in the nerdiest possible way: by writing a memo explaining that they were changing the coffee so that they would still seem cool.