ItalianFoodJunkie

My mistake, they called it new wave tuna. It is in their tapas section of the menu. It was a nice piece of grilled tuna, perfectly cooked, with little seasoning. Served on a type of ratatouille, can't remember exactly what veggies were inside, but 2 weeks later, i still remember that perfect harmony of flavours in my mouth. I tried many dishes at nizza and I would definetly say that their mains are much more impressive than their appetizers. Mains being "outstanding" and appetizers being "good". I also think this restaurant needs a couple of months to work out some service issues. I loved my meal but took long to get the food, my calamari weren't cleaned properly and the tuna dish i loved was the second one they brought me. When they brought me the first tuna dish i gave the waiter a comical look of disapproval and he understood that the tuna was overcooked and quickly ordered me a new one. I am sure they will have this all worked out very soon.

filet mignon was great, I also enjoyed the new style tuna and the lamb was my favourite. Nice white lamb. No stinky new zealand or australian lamb! They serve a shank with a chop. Really good

Hey Lesley, I don't remember Delfino having more than 15-20 wines, but I remember them all being a steal. On one visit, I was with the maitre d' of a well known Italian restaurant, whose jaw dropped when they were offereing a 1997 I Sodi di San Nicolo for a mere 80$ . Most restaurants who were lucky enough to carry that wine on their list at the time were selling it at 150$ and more. You're right though, a small wine list makes it difficult to make all palates happy. I think places that carry only Italian or French wines can get have great lists since in Italy and France you have so many grape varieties that you can match with all types of cuisine. Having a small quantity of only Italian or French wines, on the other hand, makes it difficult to please all patrons.

I forgot Delfino is Outremont, haven't been there in over a year, but the price / quality rapport of their wines blew me away

Express wine list is the one that really blew my mind,> when i saw they had a dolcetto d 'alba from sandrone it made my year. I would disagree abrout au pied du cochon's wine list. It s one of my fav restaurants but I find their wine list is made up of private imports that, are original, but price quality don't offer much. Da Vinci as well as piccola Italia have nice Italian Wine Lists And i love le meac's selection by the glass.

It's nice to hear that you had a good time at Picard's. I have never been to APDC for their special events nor have I ever sat at the bar but service was never good on any of the occassions and I maintain my earlier comments on the food. However, two reports (yours included) suggest things may be picking up. ← Good Service is like good beer, we all have our favourite brand. Some like ; their waiters to be very very polite others like; their waiters to be fun and exiting others; waiters with a lot of experience others; waiters with product knowledge who talk alot others; waiters that are very fast and don t talk alot Myself, I enjoy a waiter that has the product knowledge to suyggest me something that I will enjoy. At APDC , it always took long to get my food and I have got some heavy duty bills after waier's suggestions, but I really enjoy the staff their for the fact that they have passion for the food and know their stuff. So when I ask a question they answer me , no BS , and help me choose the dishes and wines i am in the mood for. For me that, is great service, buy everyone is different. Others would be annoyed of the fact they have to wait longer for their food or that they don't speak english very well. I don't care about that stuff, just bring me good food

It's about time they ban smoking in restaurants. As a restaurant manager, non-smokers are starting to get very aggressive when they walk into my restaurant and smell smoke. Many patrons look at me as I am the culprit. As I explain to them, I can't wait till they ban smoking, however it is not my call to ban smoking in my restaurant only. That would give my competitors and edge. And in my opinion be very undemocratic, if the government (the people) say we can smoke, who am I to tell people they can't. What do you guys think; Is it right or wrong for restauranters to take the law in their own hands and banning smoking before the law comes into effect? With the size of my restaurant it would be fair to say i need those smoker dollars to survive. But I have worked in smaller restaurants, where smokers would smoke up the whole place, a no smoking rule would not have effected us.

The renowed Da Emma restaurant in old montreal, has a family member in the west island. Da Armando (emma's brother) is located on gouing boul. just south of St-Charles. It is the best Italian food in the west island, (or i should say the only authentic Italian food in the west-island) , avoid taking a la carte menu as some dishes are made for the quebec market, if you choose the chefs suggestions you will eat as if you were in Rome. Abbacchio, cervella ai capperi , polpettoni etc

Thanks for the link, IFJ. After hauling out my Collins-Sansoni and plodding through half the page, I noticed there's a link at the top to an English-language version... http://www.stellafoods.com/e/set.html As I read it, the site indicates that stoccafissa is only cod (which, by the way, jibes with what Norweigans mean by stokkfisk): The herring seems to be a separate product. Have to admit this is the first time I've ever heard of herring in connection with Italian food. Any ideas about how Italians use it? ← Sorry i noticed now that you were inquiring about herring and not stoccafisso. Herring I hae never seen in Italy , except in the super market in the section where the sell smoked salmon, you may sometimes find norwegian smoked herring. In Tirrenian you will find a lot of family memebers of cod (Merlluzzo) my favourites being rosamarina and merluzzetti. Rosamarina is a school of baby whiting, fried in egg batter, or preserved in chillies and olive oil. i believe merluzzetti are whiting in english, we eat them fried, like greeks and andalucians.

Thanks for the link, IFJ. After hauling out my Collins-Sansoni and plodding through half the page, I noticed there's a link at the top to an English-language version... http://www.stellafoods.com/e/set.html As I read it, the site indicates that stoccafissa is only cod (which, by the way, jibes with what Norweigans mean by stokkfisk): The herring seems to be a separate product. Have to admit this is the first time I've ever heard of herring in connection with Italian food. Any ideas about how Italians use it? ← The first time I ate stoccafisso was in Calabria, boiled, cooled and served on a cracker with mint, parsley (very little) olive oil THe link you showed me earler mentionned stoccafisso alla ligure, which means ligurian style, meaning olives and pine nuts. i have had it baked and fried with chilli oil as well, but i find stoccafisso is the best on a cracker with olive oil, and nothing else. When I ate stoccafisso in montreal, it was served to me on a toast with olive oil, and was herring stoccafisso.... but i am starting to have doubts about whether it was really herring. When it comes to salted cod i have tonnes of recipies. My favorite, with salt dried black olives( Calabria), orange zests, pine nuts and fresh chillies baked in the oven. Or shredded in a tomato sauce (NO ONIONS!) with basil, parsley and the non perfumy type of olive oil (like the greek or calabria, molise.) I think i am gonna eat now~!!!!

While I'm only an Italian food lover, not an authority (and as I recently complained on the Italy board, there's no Larousse gastronomico we can check), my impression is that stoccafisso is always air-dried unsalted cod. See here for example. Are you sure about the herring? If so, it must be some kind of new wave stoccafisso. ← I was quite confident with the fact that stoccafisso is most commonly herring and least commonly cod fish, but after your comment i took a deeper look and it seems cod is as common as herring. unfortunately i couldn t find an English website explaining this, but here is one in Italian that explains the different ways herring and cod are air dried and smoked in Norway. http://www.stellafoods.com/i/info/conf.html

You re right to suggest that montreal Sushi is "Blah", the problem is in simple supply and demand. The price of fish is very high because of the global popularity of Tuna among other fish. Because Montrealers eat out so frequently, their budgets per meal are quite low, causing a price war between restaurants. THat is to say, that the top quality fish and seafood products don't come to Montreal because not enough people will pay. I find Maiko does a good job given the margins (prices they are charging) If you want to see sushi bar doing exiting new things, go see the Chef at Japon sushi in ville- St- Laurent, make sure you talk to the chef and tell him what you like.

I am by no means an espresso expert, but i have had coffe all around Italy, including the famous caffe' sant-eustachio in Rome and Jamaican blue mountain from Tazza d'oro in Rome. My Montreal favourite's are Olympico (a class apart) Latini Fashion Bistro (Chabbannel) Beniamino & Co in old port.

Hey, If you're a sucker for preserved fish, in my opinion the ultimate delicacy is the Italian "Stocco Fisso" . It is Air Dried Herring or in some cases Cod from Norway, (worked in Italy.) The air drying cases the flavoures of the fish to become more concentrated. It is served as a spread on toast (cracker) with a drop of olive oil, preferably less perfumy. It has a similar textured to boiled baccala' (salted cod salad) but has little or no salt, preserving much more the taste of the fish. I don't know where you can buy it. The only place I have eaten it in Canada, was Latini, but Moreno, doesn't give information on his pushers very easily.