Tong Por St-Laurent is the second of Montréal’s current trifecta of dim sum restaurants (the other two being Xin Jing Hua and the Chinatown branch of the Kam Fung – I’ll argue later about the relative merits of the Chinatown Kam). Originally known as Le Président, the space was taken over last autumn by the owners of the original Tong Por much to the dismay of those hooked on dim sum. Why? Fear that the food would change. Why would the Tong Por want to do this? Expansion of the business empire, the strip mall has a parking lot and Chinatown doesn’t, captive Asian population in Cartierville… plenty of reasons. There were obviously some changes with the change in ownership (e.g. some of the kitchen brigade apparently bolted to Zao on Acadie), but the restaurant managed to stay on track and is still serving packed houses.

This restaurant however, has a very different feel to it and serves a different crowd than its competition: lots more mini-vans, lots fewer luxury vehicles, lots less jewelry and no Louis Vuitton. However the parking lot’s still crowded and people still park illegally, ensuring that they maximize the inconvenience factor for their fellow diners.

Since I keep missing those “special dishes” at every single place because I go just a tad too early, I decided to try the Tong Por a bit later on in the day (30 minutes later, so not exactly “late”). I got a seat next to the window and a little bit of attention as I was openly packing a camera and actively snapping away (did I ever mention that while I really enjoy shooting with a LX3, I would love to have a Leica M9 and a Noctilux-M?).

Tong Por also does the pushcart, but I immediately noticed that this is a restaurant where geography does have importance: several carts never actually made it past a couple of metres from the kitchen exit before being emptied, and there’s only so much chow fun and egg tarts one can look at for those who did.

The Meal

Well, it’s dim sum: whatever was available that looked interesting on the pushcart. Tong Por’s pushers (who speak Mandarin) offer up all of the following:

• Assorted steamed dumplings (餃, Dumpling; 餃子 gau zi, Gow gee)
• Har gau (蝦餃 shrimp dumpling)
• Siu mai (燒賣 pork dumpling) – saw it but didn’t order
• Char siu bau (叉燒包, steamed bun)
• “Phoenix talons” (鳳爪 Fung zao alias chicken feet) – atypical service; on rice rather than standalone (also didn’t order this)
• Spare ribs (排骨 paai4 gwat1, páigǔ) – saw it but didn’t order
• Tofu skin roll (腐皮捲 fu pei guen) – saw it but didn’t order
• Chive Dumplings
• Crispy fried squid (魷魚鬚 yau yu sou) – saw it but didn’t order
• Spring roll (春捲 cheun gyun) – saw it but didn’t order

Yes, there was a whack of stuff that I didn’t order, though it was primarily because I was trying to do some strategic eating. I also didn’t order any congee, dessert, eggplant, green pepper, daikon cake, chow fun, noodles or gai lan on the hopes that I could snag one of the special items. As always, no luck on that front in spite of coming later as geographic location ensured that most of the special items didn’t make it anywhere near me. I did of course spotted fried whole capelin and chili and salt-baked shrimp after I paid, but then again, the cash register is next to the kitchen exit.

Those chive dumplings? Yuck: oily and glue-y with an uninteresting minced pork and chive filling that lacked chives - I did not need to eat this. What was very good were the crab claws (very moist, full of crab and rounded off with shrimp) and the scallop dumplings. The wrappers on the latter were very thin, slightly chewy and the filling had distinct flavors of scallop, shrimp, pork and coriander.

One item that was very popular was the stew of organ meats. I usually avoid this as it’s often chock full of mou (lung), which is tasteless and chews like a sponge, but most of the surrounding tables were really into it. Maybe not the two Caucasian professors who were desperately looking for anything they could identify that wasn’t seafood or an abat, but pretty much everyone else who ordered it liked it.

Wine

Actually, Tong Por does have booze available: I spotted a bottle of Liano and a couple of DuBoeuf Beaujolais staying nice and toasty warm under halogen spotlights (sorry Karl). It was tea and ice water, though for alcohol it’s probably best to stick with beer as that’s at least kept cold and has good rotation.

Photos

[View with PicLens]

Impressions

Wow – I wouldn’t have thought that there would be such a significant difference in taste/quality depending on the time and day of the week but there is. My first time to the Tong Por was at 11:00 am on a Saturday and most everything could be summed up by ”meh”. Underseasoned, cold, generally underwhelming. This time around, 11:40 am on a Sunday. Same packed restaurant, vastly different food: savory, hot, and generally tasty. So the chive dumplings were a miss, but the seven other things I ordered weren’t, which feels like a complete reverse of the first time around where it was one hit among many, many misses.

The other thing that I noticed is that the Tong Por is significantly pricier than its local competition. Dim sum isn’t exactly “take a sledgehammer to the piggy bank because we’re having lunch at Guy Savoy” pricey, but similar items here are more expensive than at other local restaurants. Not sure why this is.

So, would I go back to Tong Por VSL? Sure, but only late morning on Sundays. I’d also make sure to avoid the waiter who’s a bit blurry in photo #3 as he’s not particularly good at his job: he was so busy sucking up to specific clients that he knocked a teapot out of a waitress’s hands, blaming her for intentionally moving into a place where he would bump into her as he was flailing his arms and walking backwards (I guess it makes sense in a surreal sort of way). Then he kicked out a foursome who had started eating because they were seated at a table he deemed too good for them. To the family who got the table afterwards – like saliva? he didn’t bus the table before he seated you there (if you remember, the foursome had already started on their meal).

Weird waiter aside, Tong Por holds up well against other Montreal offerings, but I still wonder about the night-and-day inconsistency between a Saturday and a Sunday especially in light of the higher overall cost. And I’ll have them bring me new chopsticks and dinnerware.

Popularity: 62% [?]