On Montreal Restaurant Le Cartet Chef Deck says,

If you’re hip, emo, wear vintage sunglasses, have a faux hawk, bleach our skin, or use a vice grip to enter your jeans, Montreal Restaurant Le Cartet is the place for you! This place is almost as hip as Cary Tobin, and serves mimosa with breakfast. I’ve been going here since day one, and have witnessed its great social climb. The food is very tasty (though the portions are small for a fat man), and the food market up front is quality. They now have sit down breakfast (very tasty), lunch, and dinner along with a great take out selection. For lunch on this day we ate a tasty duck confit salad, and a well presented fish of the day, all served with choice of soup (minestrone, gazpacho, or cream of corn). Personally I would rather go to Beniamino & Co.or Café Titanic for lunch when I’m in the area, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles. All and all Le Cartet is still a quality Montreal Restaurant, and I’ll never pass up a chance to go, because it is amongst the best people watching places in our great city!

Tastiness: 8.13434235/10
Ambiance: Fellini movie/10
Price: $15-$25 person/10

Chef Deck signing out!

Le Cartet Montreal Information

106, rue McGill, Montreal, QC
Metro: Square Victoria
Phone: 514-871-8887
Hours: Mon – Fri: 7:00 am – 8:00 pm, Sat- Sun: 9:00 am -5:00 pm
Payment: Interac, MasterCard, American Express, Visa

On Montreal Restaurant Griffintown Chef Deck says,

You know how when you play broken telephone the phrase “I want to eat a banana” becomes something like “is your sister eating a lama?”? Well Chef Deck has a feeling that somehow the phrase “Café Griffintown is so so” turned into “Café Griffintown is the bomb yo”. After many recommendations I had great expectations for this Montreal resto, and though I was excited by their menu, the food was relatively bland (needless to say it was no Liverpool House). We started with Buffalo Mozzarella and ham cheese sticks which were just wrong. This is not a cheese you deep fry because it releases the water, and the ham they used just overpowered this fine delicacy. We also started with gravlax on toast that was decent but nothing to tell mommy about. For the mains we ate a duck, lamb, and beef Burger which was good, and pasta which supposedly had duck confit in it (I could barely find a piece though) and truffle oil. I think they also forgot to salt the water for the pasta (big no no) because it was bland, and they really went cheap on the truffle oil. So don’t let my message get convoluted, because this Montreal Restaurant is just not worth the hype!

Tastiness: 6.23412847128 / 10
Ambiance: Bleh / 10
Price: mains $15-$25 / 10

Chef Deck signing out!

Griffintown Restaurant Information

1378, Notre Dame West
Montreal, Québec, H3C1K8
Metro: Lucien-L’Allier
Hours: Tues – Sat: 10 am – 10 pm, Sat – Sun brunch 10 am – 4 pm
Payment: Interac, Visa, MasterCard
Telephone: 514-931-JAZZ (5299)
Email: info@cafegriffintown.com
Web: Cafe Griffintown Website
Features: live music Tuesday, Thursday and Friday

My sister choose the restaurant this time and she chose restaurant Le Valois, in the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve neighbourhood. (If you want to look cool, just say HoMa.) I love to try restaurants that aren’t downtown, they know that they have to do their best for you to come back… they aren’t full of chicks in stilettos and businessmen who look very, very, busy talking on their Blackberries … the kind of place you feel bad if you’re not dressed up because Ken and Barbie are sitting next to you. Anyway, I went to Le Valois with my family and was pleasantly surprised by this Montreal restaurant. The space is very cozy, full of wood and coloured glass (reminded me of a church). Outside there is a beautiful large terrace in the summer just besides Place Valois, (where there is a William J. Walter Saucissier location…sorry, can’t help it, I love the William Suisse sausages …I even bought some after my meal). The list of wine is quite extensive (2 pages!), and the service is great (cute guy and my sister is single), discreet but always right.

Now, about the FOOD, the cold vichyssoise and the cream of green vegetable was just o.k, the tomatoes were not really “confites” in the puff pastry on confit tomatoes they were just broiled. The herring tartar with green apples was too salty for my taste, and tasted like a dill pickle ( my father loved it). The goat cheese with honey and thyme was good but oily. I also did not like the fact that it was in a phyllo pastry and they put a whole stem of thyme (I had to perform an operation to get it out). Overall, I was not extremely impressed by the appetizers, but my palate liked it, so it couldn’t have been too bad. For the mains, the beef “bavette” was good and the fries came with a homemade mayonnaise. The chicken with mango salsa was good but gave me a sense of déjà vu. The confit duck leg was succulent and I personally liked it the most; it was served on a bed of hot slices of green apples and an outstanding aragula salad. For dessert, I suggest you try the pound cake served with a shot of Bailey’s, the cake was very scrumptious, (I normally hate cake but I do like alcohol).

WHAT’S HOT:
The restaurant is an intimate and fun to place be in. They made an effort on the presentation (decor, food, everything), and it was worth it. A definite plus, parking meters are free on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays! The bathrooms are clean (although downstairs and a long walk).

WHAT’S NOT:
Everything is good, but not great. There is no sparkle, nothing special … they could do a little bit better. I think I am going to try it 2 or 3 times before I can really say if I like it or not. But, on the whole, it’s okay, and like I said, the waiter was cute … so I don’t mind going back!

HOW MUCH?
For two: 50$-60$, wine and tax included, tip not.

WHEN?
7 days a week, 8 am to 11 pm.

WHERE?
25 Place Simon-Valois (near 3809 Ontario)
Phone: 514.528.0202
Email: levalois@gmail.com

On Beautys Restaurant Montreal guest reviewer Andrea says:

Alright, Say what you will: Overpriced orange juice (delicious), deceitful waiting time estimates (irritating) and the extra six bucks for your tuna scoop on that oh-so addictive Greek salad (sorry, it’s worth it)– but there’s still a reason why our Beauty’s continues to rake in the business after 50 years. Although the retro Jewish-deli-meets-the-50’s-décor is charming enough, the food happens to be good. Damn good. Scarf down the “Mish-Mash”, an artery-choking omelette peppered with salami and hot-dog (be sure to position yourself next to a bathroom), the Beauty’s Special, a Montreal staple that includes lox (glorified smoked salmon), onions, tomatoes, cream cheese and those bagels we fight with New Yorkers about, or sip from the massive Cookies ‘n Cream smoothie. Don’t forget to stop and listen to what’s going on around you as entertainment abounds in that adjoining booth to the right of you.

While the funky-friendly servers bring breakfast all day, lunch offers a wide array of fresh salads, (enough to feed half the restaurant and no, they CANNOT be ordered in halves) including the grilled veggie, crab meat, chopped egg or tuna. You can also go for the gold and plunge into the club salad: the regular ingredients topped off with cooked chicken or turkey, cheddar cheese, bacon and mayo. Savour the chopped liver sandwich, share the tuna-egg club and finish yourself off with the killer chocolate cake and you’re all good. We can spend some time on the phenomenal burgers, the toasted banana bread, the home-made soup (check out the red lentil and green pea) or the Super Beautys 2 (complete with 2 pancakes, 2 waffles an overload of saturated fats like bacon, sausage and home-fries) or, you can just pick yourself up from that hangover, mix in with the Plateau hipsters, the hockey moms and the legendary owner Hymie “the-wait-is-only-5-minutes” Skulnick and get into line. It’s worth it just to hear the regulars complain about the wait.

Restaurant Beauty’s

93 Mont-Royal Ouest, Montreal, QC
Metro: Mont-Royal
Phone: 514-849-88837
Hours: Mon – Fri 7 am – 4 pm, Sat 7 am-5 pm, Sun 8 am – 5 pm
Payment: Cash & Credit
Food: Breakfast, Brunch, Lunch

On Montreal Restaurant Tiffanys Bistro and Grill Chef Deck says:

It was a late night of drinking last night and I’m not sure if I was at Tiffany’s or Baton Rouge. Someone come wake me out of this inebriated dream because I feel like the red stick has morphed into a Kosher style bourgeois IHOP. OK, enough banter because you’re all going start to think that I had a bad experience at Tiffanys Bistro and Grill, when in fact it was quite delicious. Finally there’s a breakfast joint in the city that serves corned beef hash which make my belly sing like the late Pavarotti. The Restaurant features a huge American style menu with a large breakfast selection, sandwiches, salads, burgers, pastas and steaks. I’m yet to try the meatier stuff but last week I had the grilled chicken sandwich, which was fresh and tasty. The breakfast menu is a nice change from the more traditional Montreal Restaurants. Now onto the creepy stuff….#1 they asked us if we want our toast before the meal, #2 they over serve in that sneaky, sneaky kinda way, #3 the waiters have very groomed facial hair (ie: chine straps, soul patches and line beards), and #4 of course that whole baton rouge vibe. The last thing that annoyed me was the fact that I asked for my potatoes, corned beef, and sausage to be well done which they weren’t. If you tell me you can do it then do it bitches!

Tastiness: 7.783221/10
Waiters: Steve Buscemi/10
Ambiance: prefab franchise fabulous/10

Chef Deck signing out!

Restaurant Tiffanys Bistro and Grill
7977 Decarie, Montreal
Tel: 514-737-7977
Website: tiffanysrestaurant.ca
Hours: 5:00 am – 6:00 pm
Payment: MC, Visa, Interac

On Montreal Restaurant Cosmos Chef Deck Says (with a raspy voice, Greek ascent, while smocking a cigarette, and yelling at his children):

Cosmos Snack Bar and I, have been down since day one. I still go there with hopes of collecting enough evidence for my lawsuit against them for contributing to my future sextuple bypass. G-d forbid on the bypass and sorry guys for the whole fattening innuendo but my cousins cholesterol did go back down to normal after he stopped eating two creations and a mish mash (lots of eggs, bacon, sausage, ham, salami, tomato, onion, cheese and toast.) a week. You are so forbiddingly delicious and I can’t help but crave your two eggs over with butterflied sausage burnt, patates burnt, and a bagel on the grill. There are also days that I sweat thinking about biting into a creation (BLT with a fried egg and salami $4.75), greasy bacon cheeseburger, or feeding myself for two days with a mishmash. The thing that I appreciate most about Cosmos though is the secret ash in my food, the family feuds, and of course good old Tony. For all of you who are confused by my banter Cosmos is a Breakfast restaurant counter, they have some of the the best potatoes in the city, it is tinny and you only can sit at the bar (11 stools) except for in the summer when you can sit outside, and there is a documentary that you can catch on the owner (Tony Koulakis) called “Man of Grease”.

Food: sticks to your bones/10
Service: screw you for asking/10
Size: Tokyo hotel room/10

Chef Deck signing out!

Cosmos Restaurant Information

5843 Sherbrooke West, Notre Dame de Grace (NDG), Montreal
Metro: Vendome
Phone: 514-486-3814
Hours: Tues – Sun breakfast 6 am – 5 pm
Pay: Cash only
Price: Cheap

Enjoyable breakfast, fun games, nice to see a breakfast joint that butterflies their sausage. The olive omelet is the bomb.

Café Joe Montreal Information

3068 Saint-Antoine W, Montreal; 514-906-1233
METRO: Lionel-Groulx
Hours: 8 am – 3 pm, 4 pm weekends
Payment: Cash Only