With a Living Social voucher in hand for a
three-course dinner for two, my dining partner and I headed out on a cool
Tuesday evening. We had a feeling something was up when the latest version of
"front-door bouncer" unclipped the maroon velvet rope and greeted us with
cigarette smoke and a blank stare, probably wishing he were the DJ on a "getting
colder by the puff" December night.
The red-haired hostess blended perfectly into the
"red everything" décor. I had a feeling that as the night went on it would get
even redder. Besides what seemed to be a couple of office Christmas parties,
the restaurant was empty and the thumping music was on autopilot.
The Living Social menu had a limited choice so we
decided to spring for meatballs as an entree, which were recommended by Yelp
and Urbanspoon food critics. They were right on; they were absolutely delicious
with a "as good as it gets" red sauce, sprinkled with eggplant caviar and
covered with ricotta cheese. We could have had three servings and it would have
been worth the displacement all on their own. Chef Giancarlo Martino must have
watched his mom attentively on Sunday mornings because as good as the meatballs
were the plate of gnocchi that followed was just as good. Not sticky or munched
up in a dough ball, with the meatballs, they made a perfect pair.
Unfortunately, the pictures I took don't do the dishes justice. The lights were
too low and too red.
The crème brûlée that
followed was a bit of a disappointment not showing anything new and tasting, as
crème brûlée should taste, nothing more and nothing less. This didn't leave us
with a bad taste on the evening but the price of the tasteless coffee certainly
did.
Service wise, we had no
complaint except maybe they should have the waitress take some weight training
classes after having a hell of a time trying to open the wine bottle, which I
might add was our third choice on an elaborate "just for show" list. The blue
plaid shirt busboys running around like a broken football play were maybe a
little too fast and obsequious standing and waiting too close to our table.
As we got ready to leave the
DJ made his way to the booth and the lights got lower as the restaurant was now
almost full. The red-haired hostess was too busy to get our coats, which gave
us ample time to be in the maître D 's way and the regular patrons. We
certainly would have stayed to watch the parade of "too big for life" posers and "not short enough" skirts but after
all it was a Tuesday night in December sur le Main de St. Laurent.
Chow for now. Antonio B
Price: $20 to $45 (alcohol
not include)
Cuisine: Italian, Grill,
and Fusion
Metro: St. Laurent, 24 Bus
Wood35
350 blvd. St Laurent
Montreal, QC
H2X 2V1
www.wood35.ca
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