Does anyone else remember 49 cent pizza on Saint-Mathieu and de Maisoneuve? Many Fridays of my youth were spent taking the 165 bus down Cote des Neiges to cop the best deal on pizza in the city. For $2, you got two slices of the shadiest pizza and a drink. The food was questionable at best but the risk was part of the experience. It was one of the few places you can go eat fully knowing you’d probably get sick…and you were ok with that. There was a time where you could get a slice almost anywhere in Montreal until these slice shops slowly dried up. Recently, there has been a literal boom in by-the-slice shops, but not just ordinary pizza; New York-style pizza to be exact. I checked out the newest spot slinging slices, Pizza Toni.
mile-end
I read somewhere that if on weekends you brunch harder than you party… then, YOU OLD. Hi there! I’m Jason, but you can call me old. Brunching and partying is pretty similar if you think about it. You make an effort to get somewhere early to avoid a lineup (but end up lining up anyways) and instead of bottle service and pounding shots to ease the pain of school, you’re hoping the shitty drip coffee comes with free refills and that you can get out in time to run your errands before the afternoon rush at Provigo. I recently hit up Butterblume in the Mile-End and brunched harder than my CEGEP self at Jet Club in the middle of mid-terms.
If there’s one thing I hold dear to my heart, it would definitely be dumplings; anything and everything dumplings… pork and shrimp dumplings, lamb and coriander dumplings, cheese and potato dumplings, dumpling toast, dumpling cereal, dumpling kebab, coffee and dumplings. I think that in every culture and in every type of cuisine there is a version of dumplings; stuff wrapped in dough and boiled, steamed, fried… cooked. Before getting all Bubba over dumplings, let me tell you about this new dumpling spot in the Mile-End called Harbin Dumpling.