We had high expectations for this place when we made our reservation, since they were promoting local Quebec Snow Crab for the season. When we got there, the servers were actually great. The disappointment came when the food arrived. We ordered a lot of fresh oysters and more than a few came not fully shucked and with a lot of small pieces of shell contaminating the meat of the oyster. Also, the oysters weren’t very juicy or flavourful. We let it go since, maybe they were having a bad day, or a trainer was doing the shucking. Whatever. ~$48/doz. The crabcake that came next was pretty good. The crust had flavour and the aioli and fresh aromatics balanced out the dish. We thought things were getting better. $24 for one piece. We jinxed it. When the crab ceviche came, it got worse. They served the shredded crab in the shell of the leg but they put the shell in a bowl full of half melted ice. The water was contaminating the ceviche so we basically had a drowned pieces of shredded crabmeat. The seasoning or marinade, if there was any, was washed away by the time we were able to fish out the crabmeat. The toppings which included salmon caviar and pickled jalapenos on top, also fell into the water even before we attempted to pick up the crab shell. For $29, this dish is not worth it. We did complain about the ceviche and the staff offered to have a new batch delivered, which we declined. There was no saving that dish. They offered another crab cake instead, which we accepted. The second crabcake was not as good as the first one. This one seemed more haphazardly put together and it seemed they may have used less breading for this one since one side barely had any. The first one was beautifully shaped and cooked evenly, but the second one was not. The aioli was still good though. Finally, we had ordered a lobster & crab poutine ($36) what we thought was a staple Montreal dish that would be hard to botch up. Wrong. The crab had an old crab fishy aftertaste and the dish came lukewarm. The gravy was not hot enough to melt even a few of the cheese curds and the fries were no longer hot. We all know how terrible fries taste when they’ve been left out to cool down. Not great. The white stuff you see in the pic is a white sauce they put on top, that’s not melted cheese. We also reported this to the staff and they gave us another one that was hotter. Overall it was a very disappointing experience and it gives the impression the Quebec Snow Crab is not a great product. We won’t be coming back.
