New Montreal Restaurant Thread

[EagerBeaver]

Can someone tell me what the peking duck experience is like and where I can get a good peking duck.

Peking is now known as Beijing and the restaurant where you can get this dish is Beijing in Chinatown which specializes in the cuisine of Beijing. Photos:

http://www.restaurantbeijing.net/

Zagat reviews:

http://www.zagat.com/Verticals/PropertyDetails.aspx?VID=8&R=103231

More on the dish here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peking_Duck

I am not sure if it is on the regular menu or appears as a special. From what I am told there are special chefs who cook this dish. Beijing is the most likely and most obvious place where you will get this dish made properly. There may be other places in Chinatown but I would start here. I am pretty sure I have seen it on the regular or specials menus there.

 

[rumpleforeskiin]

Peking is now known as Beijing and the restaurant where you can get this dish is Beijing in Chinatown which specializes in the cuisine of Beijing.

The city may be called Beijing, but I have never seen it offered on a menu as anything but Peking Duck.

As for this restaurant, I would never trust any Chinese restaurant that has Chop Suey on the menu. Chop Suey is primarily an American dish and would never be served in any self-respecting Chinese restaurant.

 

[rumpleforeskiin]

calling it peking or beijing is a matter of dialect.

I don't think either of us is referring to how it's pronounced, but rather how it's spelled in the western alphabet. When I was a kid, it was always Peiping.

 

[EagerBeaver]

As for this restaurant, I would never trust any Chinese restaurant that has Chop Suey on the menu. Chop Suey is primarily an American dish and would never be served in any self-respecting Chinese restaurant.

They are serving a menu that has many authentic dishes. I could not find any link to the current menu. Most of their specials are 100% authentic dishes and their shrimp with lobster sauce is prepared with black bean sauce which is never prepared that way anywhere else I have had it. In my mind that is their signature dish. There are many Asians eating here as this resto is located in the heart of Chinatown. That is most of their customer base. So they have to keep them happy too. I posted the Zagat reviews and they speak for themselves.

 

[rumpleforeskiin]

They are serving a menu that has many authentic dishes. I could not find any link to the current menu. Most of their specials are 100% authentic dishes and their shrimp with lobster sauce is prepared with black bean sauce which is never prepared that way anywhere else I have had it. In my mind that is their signature dish. There are many Asians eating here as this resto is located in the heart of Chinatown. That is most of their customer base. So they have to keep them happy too. I posted the Zagat reviews and they speak for themselves.

Their menu is located here: http://www.restaurantbeijing.net/?page_id=17

It appears to be primarily a Cantonese place. Cantonese cooking was pretty much all that was available in the US and Canada prior to 1970 and is basically boring. Whilel I haven't eaten here, the menu would scare me off as I wouldn't frequent a restaurant that has a large selection of Chow Mein and Chop Suey. While they do offer a wide selection of the most common Mandarin-Szechuan-Shanghai-and-Hunan dishes, they don't offer anything out of the ordinary, nor do they have anything that appears to be their own.

I did notice, however, when looking at the reviews on urbanspoon.com, that a friend of mine wrote a very positive review.

 

[EagerBeaver]

Their menu is located here: http://www.restaurantbeijing.net/?page_id=17

I already posted that and as I said earlier it is dated and inaccurate. The menu they have now is far more extensive and they have a specials menu on the wall when you enter (to the left after you enter) that is largely if not 100% authentic dishes you would never see on any prototypical Cantonese menu. It is the same kind of chalkboard type specials menu that Niu Kee has with the same kinds of dishes except there are a few rather than one chalkboard or magic marker board.

 

[rumpleforeskiin]

Beav, some of the best Asian cooking in Montreal is served right in my dining room. I'll have to have you over some time and treat you to a little feast. Special K and Sapman can each testify to my well-developed skills.

 

[Octagon]

calling it peking or beijing is a matter of dialect.

Peking or Beijing, it is the same place, Peking is the anglicized pronunciation of Beijing. Just like Bombay is the anglicized pronunciation of Mumbai. India.

 

[EagerBeaver]

beware of rump hoi-cim sauce. bwahahahhaa!!

I think I will pass on that.

Regarding Peking Duck, I think from what you told me I will leave that to the ultra expert chefs. It should be prepared properly or not at all from what I have been told. My father once ordered Peking Duck in a high end Chinese restaurant in London and he said he had never had a duck cooked like that before or since. There is a lot of preparation that goes into making that duck. You want someone who knows what they are doing, not a wannabe chef.

 

[lgna69xxx]

bwhahahahaahahahaahah...now thats funny!... but i think i will not be eating chinese food for a long long time now, thanks but thanks alot johnmbot!

beware of rump hoi-cim sauce. bwahahahhaa!!

 

[pinkworm]

Can someone tell me what the peking duck experience is like and where I can get a good peking duck.

I don't think you can really get a "true" Peking Duck in Montreal. Air is blown under the skin to separate it from the fat of the duck. Most if not all Peking Duck in Montreal is roast duck.

 

[pinkworm]

...the menu would scare me off as I wouldn't frequent a restaurant that has a large selection of Chow Mein and Chop Suey.

Are you some sort of food purist? Immigrants adapt to their new country, and that can include food. So you would dismiss a Chinese restaurant because it served Chop Suey and General Tso because it doesn't exist in the "old" country? Would you dismiss Chicken Tikka Masala or pizza with pepperoni on it? Because Chicken Tikka Masala doesn't exist in India nor does pepperoni exist in Italy.

Where would Italian food be without the tomato or asian food without the chili pepper? Because both of those plants originated from the Americas.

 

[James St-John Smyth]

that sounds so... gay.

"not that there's anything wrong with that..."

beware of rump's hoi-cim sauce. bwahahahhaa!!

I think you may be referring to hoisin sauce.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoisin_sauce

 

[EagerBeaver]

Incident At Outback Steakhouse In Tarrytown, NY

I am posting this story about an incident experienced by a friend of mine mainly for comic value, because I am not sure there are any Outback Steakhouses in Montreal or even Canada. However this may serve as a warning to American posters and consumers who eat at and patronize Outback Steakhouse. I am curious about whether any of you have ever seen or experienced anything like this in a commercial eating establishment.

My friend and his wife went to dinner a few weeks ago at the Outback Steakhouse in Tarrytown, NY which is not far from the New York-Connecticut border. My friend is kind of a squeamish and high strung guy, so if you knew him it would make the story even funnier.

Evidently his wife treated him to dinner at Outback Steakhouse at my friend's request, after he had begged off the chance to eat at a much higher end restaurant which I have eaten at (Equus at the Castle on the Hudson, which is ranked the #26 restaurant in the USA by Zagat). They arrived at Outback at peak hour on a Saturday night and the place was packed. After they ordered dinner, my friend and his wife heard a commotion from another part of the restaurant. It was a kid who worked at Outback, whom my buddy described as "some zit faced 18 year old punk" that was running after someone or something. The kid yelled "I got him" as he ran in the direction of my friend's table. As my friend and his wife looked up, they saw that the kid was running after a mouse scurrying on the floor towards their table. With my friend and his wife looking on in horror, the kid caught up with the mouse, then furiously stomped his foot down on it, crushing the mouse, and splattering blood and mouse guts everywhere on the floor near their table, with mouse blood and guts just missing my friend's shoes. Both my friend and his wife were mortified! My friend told me he thought it was extremely cruel to kill the mouse in this manner, and he was disgusted by the sight of a crushed rodent near his dinner table. He and his wife eventually left the restaurant. Before they left, they were not offered an apology, a free dinner or even an explanation or acknowledgment of the grisly incident that unfolded right next to their dinner table.

I told another friend this story and he had a different take. He said that Outback should have done everything within its power to kill a mouse scurrying around the dining room for all customers to see, and disagreed with my friend that it was "cruel and unusual" punishment to have killed the mouse in this manner.

What is your take on this? Has anyone had anything like this happen to them in a resto in Montreal?

 

[Possum Trot]

Well that was some extra, if unexpected, entertainment.

I'm not sure if there are any Outbacks left in Canada. There was one in Toronto (North York) that went bankrupt. As fas rodents are concerned, health officials shut down a Chinese restaurant in downtown Toronto last year for a month when a rodent was spotted in it, although to be fair I believe it was was a rat.

 

[MTL Expos]

When I was in high school, I knew this guy that use to sabotage the food because he was an angry lowly paid kitchen help. On the matter of the lid killing the mouse, I would have fired him.

 

[JLB]

the restaurant least likely to be visited by merb members

I have found the restaurant least likely to be visited by patrons of merb

http://www.yourwestvalley.com/diningout/article_e7a934ac-3eb3-11e0-83d5-001cc4c002e0.html

 

[rumpleforeskiin]

I have found the restaurant least likely to be visited by patrons of merb

http://www.yourwestvalley.com/diningout/article_e7a934ac-3eb3-11e0-83d5-001cc4c002e0.html

Other than the fact that this place is 3000 km away, your post makes no sense. Please explain.

 

[JLB]

Other than the fact that this place is 3000 km away, your post makes no sense. Please explain.

did you catch the name ?

 

[rumpleforeskiin]

did you catch the name ?

Duh. Thanks. They did a pretty good job of making it hard to find, though.