Jamie W and I learned from experience that one can eat only so much smoked meat on a vacation in Montreal. By our fourth evening, we thought it might be a nice change to look for a spot that served Hainanese chicken rice. We presumed a city like Montreal would have several dining options, but this was the only one we could find. Fortunately, it was just a 20-minute walk from our hotel.
As it turned out, it was a drizzly night when we went, and the place was bustling. We waited outside in the rain for a half-hour at which point I saw they were about to give away our table. Let's just say I course corrected the forgetful hostess with a verbal towel snap. With some relief finally, we were seated and ready to order immediately. We decided to share a starter, the C$15 Som Tum Thai.
It was a shredded green papaya salad mixed with shredded carrot, green beans, cherry tomatoes, fish sauce and crushed peanuts (Photo 7). They didn't disappoint with their execution. As I signaled already, about our entrees, we each ordered the C$20 Khao Mun Tai Tom, their house version of steamed Hainan chicken with ginger-infused rice and a soy ginger sauce (Photo 8). The serving was generous.
However, the preparation was somewhat off. It consisted mostly of breast meat, and the relative dryness of the chicken made us think it was left in the steamer a bit too long. The sauce helped lubricate the poultry though I longed for the Malaysian version of minced ginger-garlic sauce. We treated ourselves to the C$12 Mango Sticky Rice for dessert (Photo 9), and they prepared this quite well.
FOOD - 3 stars...the starter and dessert were fine, but the chicken rice was kind of a miss
AMBIANCE - 3.5 stars...crowded and loudish
SERVICE - 3.5 stars...better once we were seated
TOTAL - 3 stars...not quite what we were hoping for
RELATED - Exploring Montreal? Here's a collection of places I've visited and reviewed: https://yelp.to/QaNR7fZ6X- read more