Though it often appears that I constantly pick on him for cheap entertainment, I must state that my butter-averse pal is not my personal chew-toy. He is in all seriousness an honest, hardworking, pious (in the non-religious sense) individual who’s very dedicated to his family. I am however, pretty darn sure that there are many, many, many times when he does wonder what he must have done in a previous incarnation to deserve the roller-coaster ride-sharing with the Devil (that would be me - I do sand down the horns).

On what should have been a normally quiet Tuesday where he would have spent his evening wait patiently for macarons from Paris, I suggested that we go for dinner. I guess I could have simply stuffed him into the trunk and driven to a place like Chez Valmont in Saint-Alphonse-de-Granby, but I put away the evil and asked him to select the choice of venue, even Indian was okay if that’s what he was in the mood for (how’s that for me being magnanimous?).

On a selfish note, in light of trying to generate this content, Chez Valmont wouldn’t have been feasible as it isn’t the kind of establishment that I can take photos in (for free anyway). I also have concerns over what might accidentally drip fall into the “food” and I would have had to plan ahead to have lead time to get latex surgical gloves in case donations of loonies were required. And this isn’t that kind of blog in spite of what some automated feed aggregators might be programmed to think.

Digression aside, we adhered to his choice: #10 on En Route’s list of best new Canadian restaurants for 2009… La Salle à Manger.

It’s in the heart of the Plateau Mont-Royal! my favorite neighborhood!

Anyway… La Salle à Manger (which translates into “The Dining Room”) sits on the corner of Mont-Royal est and Chambord with its windowfront overlooking Mont-Royal and the constant migration of its indigenous wildlife. The location is right across from Vrac en folie and is indeed a couple of blocks from where I had that adventure with the Billboquet vanilla ice cream.

Surprisingly, parking on the Plateau was not problematic: we managed to find a spot across the street from the restaurant in spite of belated snow clearing efforts and late recycling pick-up (don’t look at me, I didn’t vote for their current borough council). Strange place: big room with lots of industrial elements, large chalkboards on several walls, open kitchen, a nice bar, and an Applebee’s-style hostess deck at the entrance. They kept some of the original tiles on the ceilings and walls (with a bit of whitewash) but the ceramic tile on the floor reminded me of institutional bathroom flooring and the banquette seating reminded me of my elementary school cafeteria in Fort Collins (but that cafeteria had good burritos).

We got one of the tables at the windowfront so I could watch the progress of snow removal. Service was handled handled first by the head of FOH, who then switched us over to a very competent young woman once our orders were in.

Dinner

The restaurant’s mandate is “use local products… support local farmers… follow the cycle of seasons… cook with friends… make you enjoy foie gras.” My control-freak character flaw trait makes it difficult to cook with friends (no problems with cook for) but we were there for eating and the rest of it sounded pretty good. Staff strengths and passions include butchery (of proteins), charcuterie, hunting, fishing and mechanics.

The menu is definitely seasonal and locavore-oriented and comes printed on a sheet of paper, the back of which lists non-wine drinking options. Half of the menu are starters divided into raw/marinated, cold and hot categories. For the mains, there are a couple of vegetarian options, in addition to meats, poultry and fish. To supplement the menu, daily options listing plates to share (blah-blah with blah for 2 etc) were written on the chalkboard and an extra 50 g of foie gras (seared or as torchon) could also be ordered for a reasonable $10 supplement.

La Salle à Manger also offers a whole cochonnet (piglet), but that requires 12 eaters, $500 and probably some advance notice as well as time to eat. Maybe something to suggest for the next mass gathering.

I went with the following:

Charcuteries maison, marinades, pain grillé: this got the nod because they’ve harped on the strength of their charcuterie so it was time to see if they were able to put up. They should have warned me about the portion size since the “plate” was a metre-long wooden plank with the individual components:

• toasted bread (toasted on their grill and slightly burnt),
• a mound of mixed pickles glued to the board by two different mustards (all good except for the turnip pickle, which was too squishy),
• one which I couldn’t get the name for (looked like micro-capicollo, but very bright, porky and peppery),
• pickled pork tongue,
• rillettes de porc (shredded slow-cooked pork mixed with fat), a tasty brick which was somewhat too smooth for a rillette,
• tête fromagée de cochon, aka pork headcheese,
• jambon persillé (parsleyed ham),
• duck prosciutto

Anyway, if I had known about the quantity on this starter, I would have had this as my main course and gone with the grilled octopus for some cephalopod deliciousness to kick off the night. The best offering was the duck prosciutto followed by the headcheese with both showing deep meaty flavors, while the weakest was the pork tongue, whose delicate flavor was overwhelmed by the strong pickling liquid.

I did like this enough to order charcuterie “to go”.

Tarter de cerf, salade de roquette, pain grillé: this also arrived on a wooden plank, albeit a smaller one. Same slightly burnt toast, house potato chips, a tangy arugula salad, and a squiggle of balsamic vinegar reduction to counterpoint the tartar. The deer looked like it was hand-chopped and was mixed with capers and onions. Pretty tasty and straightforward tartar, though I thought the meat was just a little too cold to allow the full flavor to come through.

Cheese: an entirely-Québec cheese list. They had already run out of two cheeses (Sauvagine from Portneuf and Tomme des Joyeux Fromagers from St-Ludger) but I could choose either a solo, two cheeses or four cheeses from the remaining selection. I went with Tomme de Grosse-Ile (a firm raw-milk cow cheese from Ile-aux-Grues) and Brise de Vignerons (a soft bloomy raw-milk cow cheese from Farnham). This was served on yet another plank with toasted bread, apple syrup, apple sauce, and walnuts. Both nice cheeses with good accompaniments but both too cold.

And Butter Boy? He was hesitating over the foie gras (with apple tatin and cheddar) or ris de veau (sweetbreads, with escargots à la bourguignonne) as a starter and the duck or the cod as a main. I suggested the ris de veau as a starter and the duck as the main since it also included seared foie gras (which I also suggested he supplement with an extra 50 g of foie gras). He ultimately decided on the foie gras as a starter and pan-seared cod with topinambour risotto as a main. No supplements.

The foie gras looked very interesting with the nicely grilled foie plated on the tatin and cheese and covered in slivers of apple. Unfortunately, the cheese fought with the foie so it was a case of interesting concept and so-so experience. The cod was served with a topinambour (Jerusalem artichoke) risotto (white risotto, topinambour cream) and roasted topinambour to enhance the nuttiness and provide counterpoint to the cod. I didn’t photograph either plate as I figured he may have wanted to oh, eat while his food was still hot.

Wine

La Salle à Manger’s list is relatively small, as in both sides of a sheet of paper with one side listing whites and one listing reds. They are further grouped into light, medium and full-bodies wines in each color and primarily focus on lesser-known appélations of France with Italy, Spain and parts of the New World mixed in (no Teutonic offerings of Riesling or Grüner Veltliner). I’m not sure exactly how frequent the list is updated, but it feels like they likely stock a case at a time, as there’s really nothing that’s exceptionally old and many bottles from a recent “sample list” were no longer available.

The day’s available wines by the glass are scribbled onto the giant chalkboard next to the sharing plates, and there was a second chalkboard list advertising the list of xérès (!) by the glass.

I did spot both the white and red from Domaine Arretxea but settled on a bottle of the 2006 Mas Jullien Coteaux du Languedoc (a rassemblage of syrah, carignan and mourvèdre). It had a slightly funky sulfurous edge on the nose that eventually blew off in the glass and continued to evolve berry jam and earthy tones. Probably not the greatest match for cod, but I originally thought he’d go for the duck with foie gras. It did stand up nicely against the charcuterie and the cerf tartar.

Photos

[View with PicLens]

Impressions

First of all, for all you wags, I didn’t stuff my pal into the trunk: he sat more-or-less comfortably in the front passenger seat.

As for La Salle à Manger, it’s noisy! It was full! Good thing I actually made a reservation but I suspect that the full Tuesday booking is due to the holiday period. Still, in spite of the press, service remained very good though. The kitchen was was being overwhelmed by the en masse orders but our plates were only a little late as I think we placed our orders just before the rest of the crush. Though I was a little concerned from others reporting a certain inconsistency with the brigade, I did like the food. The only consistent fault is with the toasted bread, everything else seemed to be competently handled.

Being the Plateau, the odd thing was that people kept coming in off the street and going to chat with their friends who were dining, which strikes me as uncouth odd. However, though we saw these incidents, they weren’t close enough to significantly disrupt our meal.

As for the wildlife that actually sat down to eat, it was an eclectic mix of Plateau-ites, professionals and people who like to drink. For a locavore destination trying to showcase house-made charcuterie, there were quite a few people who were pretty squeamish and ordered very conservatively. Around our table, the two different pairs who sat next to the walls were friends doing standard chit-chat. On the other side of us, there was a trio that ordered one of the sharing plates (which gave us a look at what those options were like), and this one couple where the young woman had a meal of raw meat. Duck tartar as her starter, deer tartar (like mine) as her main, left all the starch and vegetable accompaniments. Could have given me a run for my money. Never thought I’d run into a primal carnivore on the Plateau but it was interesting to watch as her date seemed to be vegetarian.

I would come back to this place, especially if I could find 11 others willing to join me in eating some nose-to-tail oinkiness. And did Butter Boy enjoy himself? For the most part, yes. His only comment was that he liked our waitress up until the end (bill time and she ignored his entreaties to let him pay). Also blurbling something about not respecting her elders but you know, the room was noisy.

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