Le Bistro Montage
For reals.
Everything seemed somehow backwards. It started with lunch. What should have been the best pastrami sandwich to be found in the city on a Saturday turned out to be pretty damn disappointing. The details are irrelevant, really, but with expectations that had been set (justifiably) high and then so quickly dashed, we ended up leaving the restaurant unsettled.
Something was off, down was up and vice versa. Our best instincts seemed misguided, so instead of fighting the changing tide, we went with it. Which is why at 9:00 on a Saturday night, we chose to go to what should be the worst meal possible for dinner.
We went to Montage.
Our experiences with Montage had been parallel, though off-set by a few years. For both of us, it had been a place to go when you wanted to go out and have a pretty good meal, probably the best you could get on a student/struggling budget. It was a go-to nice night out. Linen napkins, rock-star atmosphere, and enough food to take with you to live on for a couple more meals. But as salaries and tastes mature, so Montage loses its luster. What once was passable becomes unpalatable and it isn’t worth the wait, the noise, or the surly service. Neither of us had been in years.
While waiting for a table behind a gaggle of high-school kids, we took a look at the new Le Merde lounge. It actually looks like a cool place. Industrial chic with a drop-tin ceiling over the bar and a huge, blown up ‘no minors’ sign on the wall serving as art with a definite purpose. Keep the damn kids out. Drink menu looks good, and their site reveals a bar menu we didn’t see, with new, Southern-leaning bites like gator rolls, deep fried pickles and crawfish or corn cakes with a chili-lime aioli. For $5.95 for a ‘4 item bento,’ we’ll be back. Probably on Thursdays for trivia night.
So, right. Dinner. It started off not-so-hot. Bread and butter that weren’t too good, but, well did the job. It staved off burgeoning hunger pangs, but was nothing to write home about. So we won’t. Also, it’s very possible we’ve been spoiled by the great-bread trend sweeping this city. So when a loaf comes by that’s dry, sour and only made edible by copious amounts of butter, we start getting all snobby about it.
To drink? lavendersoda took on a glass of the Joseph Drouhin LaForet Pinot Noir ’03 while noneifbysea wussed out with the safe bet of a Rainer. Wouldn’t even pour it in a glass. The wine was fine (but to all you oeniphiles out there, I assure you it wasn’t up to noneifbysea’s taste. When he doesn’t venture to even offer one adjective, it’s probably crap). A little warm, sure but good to go with dinner.
On to the main course. We both went with old stand-bys: Tomato basil pesto mac and green basil pesto mac with chicken. A side of cornbread to share. With the first bite of the pesto mac, I dropped my hand that was instinctively reaching for the salt shaker. It was good! I mean, not really, amazingly good, but still good. Satisfying and creamy, good basil flavor. The chicken was tender and nearly plentiful, the pasta a tad over-cooked, but I had expected so much worse. The tomato-basil pesto mac had a good strong tomato flavor (the used of a sun-dried tomato paste was strongly suspected), but solidly tasty. The only glaring problem was that both dishes were blanketed with a cheap, gritty parmesan that stuck in your teeth but was easily pushed to the side of the plate. Here, in these two dishes, Montage had become what we always believed it had been: a cool place to go for inexpensive food that’s tasty and satisfying and ultimately makes for a nice night out.
While our generous leftovers were being furled into tin-foil sculptures (two intertwining tulips which I soon fashioned into scorpions) we considered pushing our luck into a dessert course. Good thing we did. The Mississippi Mud Pie, a Montage standard, was awesome. Dark cookie crust, chocolate ice cream and a whole mess of whipped cream and chocolate syrup. Fuck yeah!
Dinner started as it began- on a slightly down note. Like the crappy bread brought to us, the coffee was undrinkable. Burnt, over-extracted. And again, it just might be the proliferation of damn good coffee around town that’s upped the ante a bit. But really, to be able to walk out of Montage and the only complaints are about the coffee and bread? Who would have thought?
All in all:
Everything seemed somehow backwards. It started with lunch. What should have been the best pastrami sandwich to be found in the city on a Saturday turned out to be pretty damn disappointing. The details are irrelevant, really, but with expectations that had been set (justifiably) high and then so quickly dashed, we ended up leaving the restaurant unsettled.
Something was off, down was up and vice versa. Our best instincts seemed misguided, so instead of fighting the changing tide, we went with it. Which is why at 9:00 on a Saturday night, we chose to go to what should be the worst meal possible for dinner.
We went to Montage.
Our experiences with Montage had been parallel, though off-set by a few years. For both of us, it had been a place to go when you wanted to go out and have a pretty good meal, probably the best you could get on a student/struggling budget. It was a go-to nice night out. Linen napkins, rock-star atmosphere, and enough food to take with you to live on for a couple more meals. But as salaries and tastes mature, so Montage loses its luster. What once was passable becomes unpalatable and it isn’t worth the wait, the noise, or the surly service. Neither of us had been in years.
While waiting for a table behind a gaggle of high-school kids, we took a look at the new Le Merde lounge. It actually looks like a cool place. Industrial chic with a drop-tin ceiling over the bar and a huge, blown up ‘no minors’ sign on the wall serving as art with a definite purpose. Keep the damn kids out. Drink menu looks good, and their site reveals a bar menu we didn’t see, with new, Southern-leaning bites like gator rolls, deep fried pickles and crawfish or corn cakes with a chili-lime aioli. For $5.95 for a ‘4 item bento,’ we’ll be back. Probably on Thursdays for trivia night.
So, right. Dinner. It started off not-so-hot. Bread and butter that weren’t too good, but, well did the job. It staved off burgeoning hunger pangs, but was nothing to write home about. So we won’t. Also, it’s very possible we’ve been spoiled by the great-bread trend sweeping this city. So when a loaf comes by that’s dry, sour and only made edible by copious amounts of butter, we start getting all snobby about it.
To drink? lavendersoda took on a glass of the Joseph Drouhin LaForet Pinot Noir ’03 while noneifbysea wussed out with the safe bet of a Rainer. Wouldn’t even pour it in a glass. The wine was fine (but to all you oeniphiles out there, I assure you it wasn’t up to noneifbysea’s taste. When he doesn’t venture to even offer one adjective, it’s probably crap). A little warm, sure but good to go with dinner.
On to the main course. We both went with old stand-bys: Tomato basil pesto mac and green basil pesto mac with chicken. A side of cornbread to share. With the first bite of the pesto mac, I dropped my hand that was instinctively reaching for the salt shaker. It was good! I mean, not really, amazingly good, but still good. Satisfying and creamy, good basil flavor. The chicken was tender and nearly plentiful, the pasta a tad over-cooked, but I had expected so much worse. The tomato-basil pesto mac had a good strong tomato flavor (the used of a sun-dried tomato paste was strongly suspected), but solidly tasty. The only glaring problem was that both dishes were blanketed with a cheap, gritty parmesan that stuck in your teeth but was easily pushed to the side of the plate. Here, in these two dishes, Montage had become what we always believed it had been: a cool place to go for inexpensive food that’s tasty and satisfying and ultimately makes for a nice night out.
While our generous leftovers were being furled into tin-foil sculptures (two intertwining tulips which I soon fashioned into scorpions) we considered pushing our luck into a dessert course. Good thing we did. The Mississippi Mud Pie, a Montage standard, was awesome. Dark cookie crust, chocolate ice cream and a whole mess of whipped cream and chocolate syrup. Fuck yeah!
Dinner started as it began- on a slightly down note. Like the crappy bread brought to us, the coffee was undrinkable. Burnt, over-extracted. And again, it just might be the proliferation of damn good coffee around town that’s upped the ante a bit. But really, to be able to walk out of Montage and the only complaints are about the coffee and bread? Who would have thought?
All in all:
- Food: pretty good. Really.
- Drink: one hell of a wine list, a bar that boasts fresh-squeezed juices, and a trio of hipster beers.
- Atmosphere: Loud as ever. And if you’re over 25, you’re bound to feel old. Deal with it.
- Strikes: crappy bread, worse coffee.
- Tally: add one to the good list for lavendarsoda
posted by canolive at 1:13 PM
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