Buffet Vichy

Location: B

7205, Boul, Newman
LaSalle, QC H8N 1X3
Tel: (514) 367-1731

Located on the main street of the town of LaSalle, the parking was already super packed when we came at around 1PM, but we barely managed to find a spot. At least the parking was free. Also the snow accumulation of the past few weeks did not help with the parking space availability.

Food: C-

The buffet did offered lots of choices, but most dish were disappointing in terms of taste and execution. Anyway, this comment is typical of most buffet places anyway. The most popular dish was the pork souvlaki brochettes. After several attempts going back and forth to the buffet station, we were able to score mulitple brochettes at last since they always ran out. To our disappointment, they were over hyped and super dry. I guess it's the dish that takes the longest to cook since they have to grill and turn over the brochettes on all four sides so the replenish rate was longer than most other dishes. The mango and orange ice cream was the best.

Service: B+

The waitresses replenish the water quite frequently and clear up the dishes on a very timely fashion. Although, they did not change our utensils. The plates were quite hot to handle probably they just came out from the dishwasher machine. The meat cutter always made some comments. Probably, the buffet was fined for not having someone cut the pieces of meat due to sanitation reasons.

Atmosphere: C

They were a lot of people, the tables were quite close to each other and super noisy. Also, there were a lot of people at the buffet station, especially the ice cream station. Lost of tip toeing around and traffic jams.

Cost: A+ and Value for the money: A+

For $9.99 brunch on the weekend, what more can you ask for an all you can eat buffet at this price?

Overall rating: C+

Greasy Spoon

Location: B-

160 Laurier Avenue West,
Montreal, QC H2T 2N4
TEL: (514) 495-7666

Located on a corner unit and on a quite busy street near St-Laurent Boulevard (The Main), No reserved parking, only on the street and obviously metered parking. There is a 51 bus from Laurier Metro Station which comes quite often for public transit users.

Food: Appetizer = B Main Course = B- Dessert = A-

Tuna tartar, avocado, wasabi lime vinaigrette and sweet potato chips 100g for $16

The tartar as appetizer was quite tasty, albeit a bit too much lime juice was used. The sweet potato chips were quite disappointing, not crispy at all and quite oily, not surprising as the name of the restaurant already implied it will be greasy. The seaweed wrapper was a quite nice touch and clever use in the dish.

1855 black angus grilled bavette with chimichurri and fries for $24

The highlight of this main course was  the chimichurri sauce, but again a bit too oily, too much even. The bavette, is really skirt steak, a cheap but flavourful type of beef cut, but must be cooked right otherwise it will be chewy. Anything above medium rare will be quite chewy. The bavette we received was unevenly cut, whereby the tail end was over cooked, only the thicker part of the cut was medium rare to our liking. The serving of fries were quite generous with the homemade mayonnaise sauce often used Quebec as opposed to regular ketchup.

Half-baked raspberry and white chocolate chip cookie with ice cream  for $9

The dessert round was quite interesting, but portion sized were a bit disappointing compared to a similar dessert at M:BRGR - Deep dish chocolate chip cookie with vanilla ice cream for $11.50. The raspberry portion didn't really taste like rasberry, but we did taste the pits, but all in all delicious.

Service: A-

The service speed was quite reasonable. The refilling of water came in a relatively timely fashion. They changed the napkins and utensils after each course.

Atmosphere: C+

The restaurant is in fact quite tiny, very tight and quite noisy. The high chair were quire uncomfortable. It's your typical sports bar for hockey games on quite small screen tv. The tables are uniques in themselves, but I believe they were made by amateurs with two protuding metal bars on each side, which probably marking where the napkins, utensils and glass of water should be placed.

Cost: C-

The prices in general are on the steep side for what's the actual ingredients are worth and the technical skills involved. We did not order any other beverages or alcoholic drinks, even that is not really worth it as most restaurants highest margin are the drinks themselves.

Value for the money: C-

Without the Tuango deal where we paid $46 for $102 value, overall regular prices are quite steep for what we are getting in return.

Overall Rating: B