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The New Montreal Chinatown

What is the best the new chinatown has to offer

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  1. There is a lot of info on chionatown 2 in the threads
    maybe this will help http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/6118...

    Qing Hua for soup dumplings and Maison du nord for porc sandwiches are probably the two most often mentioned places in the forum with regards to Chinatown 2. Also the picks vs buns controversy.

    It looks like you might be from nyc in which case if you want to eat chinese food in montreal you should probably bring it with you .... I dont think montreal willl satisfy your chinese cravings if you are used to nyc.

    6 Replies
    1. re: kpaxonite

      thanks alot for the response, yes i am from nyc and i realize montreal is not known for great chinese food, but I love chinese food so much its hard for me to go a few days without it. I have eaten at Beijing restaurant and I think there are some things on the menu I like.

      1. re: FrankieLymon

        You should check out a sketchy looking place in the 'real' Chinatown that isnt a restaurant -they just sell bbq'd meats. I highly recommend the bbq porc and quails (I think a quail is only about 2 or 3 dollars)..they also have duck. Its located on St Laurent just bellow Rene Levesque on the east side of the street. I dont think it has a name. Its about 2 meters wide so its pretty easy to miss. As you walk down St Laurent on the eastern side you pass a parking lot then a chinese grocery store and the place Im talking about is very close to to that ... I believe it is red.

        1. re: kpaxonite

          i never bothered learning this place's name despite being a regular. it is so good but they sell out of everything but chicken by late afternoon

          1. re: kpaxonite

            As I recall from this thread
            and passing by all the time, its called A Lam Kee Grocery BBQ.

            The new Chinatown?
            I'm told that P.M. (me thinks it stands for Pret a Manger - pretty strange for a Chinese resto, but I think we've seen stranger...) at about 1809 St. Catherine was started by the same people as Beijing in Chinatown, but is now fully separate. I've only ate there a couple of times for appetizers, so can't vouch on how good they actually are.
            Not Chinese, but worthy of a stop would be Kazu. Japanese brasserie type resto at 1862 St. Catherine.

            1. re: porker

              IMHO PM is far better than Beijing (or at least was as of our last visit, a few months ago). Beijing has seemed pretty tired and boring for a few years now, possibly coinciding with the departure of the PM folks.

          2. re: FrankieLymon

            I hear you.
            When we're away, we always find a neighborhood Chinese joint. It may be in Mexico or Spain, or anywhere inbetween, may not be the greatest, but its a fix.
            We were in Belize a few years ago. Theres a few Chinese restos about, but they mainly sell wok deep-fried chicken (probably 80% of their business). We ordered egg rolls, dumplings, and soup. It took about 5 beers (maybe an hour) for the lone, woman cook to crank that out as EVERYTHING was made to order:
            Egg roll wrapper was handmade as well as shredding cabbage for the filling.
            Dough for dumplings were made from scratch and the pork filling was made by finely chopping a pork chop with a cleaver.
            She did have a stock pot going for our soup's broth.

        2. Cuisine Szechuan -- http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/5803... -- is the only local Chinese restaurant I'd recommend unreservedly to a New Yorker.

          That said, La Maison du Nord often scratches an itch of mine in a way few other restaurants do these days. I'd suggest giving the pork sandwich a pass and opting for noodles or dumplings and that knockout cucumber salad. Golden Stone's another itch-scratcher.

          Qing Hua's dumplings aren't what most people think of as soup dumplings, Shanghai-style xiaolongbao. These are northeastern-style and the restaurant rightly refers to them as juicy dumplings.

          Don't forget Pâtisserie Harmonie in the underground mini-mall at the Guy Street entrance to the Guy-Concordia metro station.

          7 Replies
          1. re: carswell

            I'd add Sorgho Rouge to Carswell's short list. Their Yu-Hsiang eggplant is one of my favourite dishes anywhere.

            1. re: cherylmtl

              How does Sorgho Rouge compare to its previous incarnation, Oui & Oui? I had not been impressed at the time. Is it time to give them another try?

              1. re: TheSnowpea

                I haven't noticed any difference. The menu and staff are the same. While they may have had the odd off night long ago, they haven't in recent memory - and we're there at least once every 2 weeks (we'd be there every week, but we alternate with Cuisine Szechuan...). I personally think it's worth giving them another try.

                1. re: cherylmtl

                  Update - had dinner at Sorgho Rouge tonight, and was sadly disappointed. One of the two regular cooks wasn't there, and the food quality definitely suffered as a result. Yu Hsiang eggplant was oily and not very garlicky, the beef with black bean -which we'd never tried before, but it sounded promising as it was supposed to be spicy - was not only not spicy at all, but instead was very salty. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this was a one-time occurrence...

                  1. re: cherylmtl

                    Did you say anything to the Sorgho Rouge people working there(that the food was very disappointing this time)? You are regulars there. I would say something under those circumstances.

                    1. re: BLM

                      Normally, I would - but after noticing that one of the two usual cooks wasn't there, and the waitress who normally works there wasn't in either, I didn't really see the point. If it were the waitress we usually see (who knows what we usually order without even asking us...) then we would definitely have said something, but in this case, I am hoping it was just one of those off evenings. If it happened again, then I would definitely bring it to their attention. I didn't think much of it at the time, but in retrospect, while we were there early-ish (just past 6), there was no one else eating in the restaurant, even by the time we left well after 7, which isn't a good sign...perhaps others knew it was the good chef's night off?

            2. re: carswell

              I had an amazing bowl of noodles at MDN the other day. "Noodles with vegetable and hot scallion oil". I'd always skipped over this dish because usually I prefer dishes with meat in them, but boy was I sorry I hadn't tried it earlier. It has perfectly sauteed cabbage and shredded carrot, chopped green onion, chillis, and hot fragrant scallion oil. Unfortunately they only had machine-made noodles that day, but I cannot wait to order it again with hand-pulled ones.

            3. Would any of you have an approximate psychic map of this new Chinatown? A friend was hesitating to move nearby, but I told him there were a lot of Chinese and other East and Southeast Asian food businesses thereabouts, but was unable to be more specific.

              And are there any Asian greengrocers or grocery stores?

              7 Replies
              1. re: lagatta

                Yes just east of the Fort and St catherine intersection there is an asian grocery store on the north side of the street. On the block west of that there is a small grocery store that Ive never been inside but they appear to sell a lot of spices.

                Just about 3/4 of restaurants in that area are asian.

                1. re: kpaxonite

                  The grocery store across from PA Supermarche is great for spices and hard to find ingredients (sichuan pepper corns, fermented beans, etc.). They also have a fresh section (including fresh duck and quail eggs) that is somewhat hidden downstairs. And a large freezer section with some local-made dumplings.

                  The place around the corner, called Bonjour Supermarche, however, is my preferred choice--mostly because the staff is friendlier, they have somewhat better prices, and a better fresh section. However, they do not have many of the really hard to find ingredients (but they have most of them).

                2. re: lagatta

                  I lost my psychic map years ago, but the thread pointed to by kpaxonite above contains a google map.

                  1. re: lagatta

                    Atwater to Guy
                    Lincoln to Ste-Catherine

                    don't go to Ichiban and the all you can eat sushi

                    1. re: marblebag

                      marblebag - you've tried Ichiban? Is it that bad?

                      1. re: tibetanpeachpie

                        I went to Ichiban and maybe I expected more but the food is no better than Sumo Ramen in Chinatown (#1). It's not terrible but it not as good as any japanese joint in NYC. The slices of pork were cold. At least at Kazu they re-roast them before serving.

                        1. re: marblebag

                          ichiban's ramen was terrible when i had it. Broth was obviously from a powder, noodles are bland and soft. Their gyoza are frozen and flavorless.

                  2. Why not skip the Chinese food and go for Japanese at Kazu on Ste. Catherine @ St. Mark Street in Chinatown 2 - the food is amazing (try the shimp pancake salad and the 48h pork bowl).

                    @lagatta : a great grocer is the Japanese/Korean deli shop on Ste. Catherine @ Lambert-Closse