Dining

A Vegetarian Journey Through Montreal

vegitarianism

By Michael Minorgan for Curtains Up

www.globalgourmets.ca

It is my view that the vegetarian manner of living, by its purely physical effect on the human temperament, would most beneficially influence the lot of mankind.”
Albert Einstein

Montreal is known worldwide as the Paris of North America and is rightly praised for the quality and diversity of  its food.

Included amongst its many global cuisines are a number of excellent vegetarian restaurants all operated by talented chefs. Due to their somewhat limited appeal and perhaps inherent lack of flourish they don’t get the attention they deserve. So periodically over the following weeks and months I have made it my duty to try and correct this omission and visit some of our city’s purported best vegetarian restaurants I will sample their food and humbly offer my opinions here on Curtains Up. I have chosen restaurants that offer “primarily” vegetarian choices on their menus, not restaurants that have just added a couple of supposed vegetarian dishes to their menus just to appease diners.

burritoville

My first visit was to Burritoville on Bishop. It came recommended to me by a friend who told me they not only offer an exclusive vegetarian menu, but have a higher purpose of respecting the environment and supporting similarly minded local community groups, as well as periodically featuring live music by local musicians.

So with all this in mind I had high hopes for my meal here. We decided on a late night snack after a movie and arrived at around 9:30pm. The restaurant is housed in one the many red brick houses right next to Concordia University whose students I imagine frequent it during the day. The ambiance is a bit sparse and ‘thrift storeish’ and not entirely representative of the Mexican cuisine offered. Everything is entirely self serve. You place your order in the back cafeteria style from a small chalkboard menu offering three basic choices of tacos, quesadillas or burritos…They all come with a choice of three fillings, sweet potato, chilli or something called “spicy” and are available as solo, combo or trio, the combo or trio coming with your choice of side dishes which I am guessing  change daily.  When we arrived there were only two side dishes to choose from plus a small assortment of juices and lemonades, a bit unusual since it was only 9:30 on a busy Friday night downtown!

I ordered the chilli burrito combo ($11) and my companion the “spicy” burrito combo ($11) and we had the last two side dishes available, salsa and chips and a quinoa salad. Both burritos were uninspired. The chilli burrito was filled with what appeared to be a pureed black bean mixture with cooked rice not the texture of a chilli at all, but rather that of refried beans and the “spicy” burrito was I believe filled with exactly the same filling, perhaps this why they left out the ingredients of this burrito on the chalkboard menu. Both burritos came wrapped in what can only be described as store bought whole wheat tortillas with the chalky taste and texture of cardboard. The sides of store bought nacho chips and a somewhat watery salsa that had obviously seen better days having been left in the frig all night and a quinoa salad that was bland and completely devoid of any other vegetables save a few chunks of onion to liven up its taste and appearance, very unappealing and flavourless.

It all very well to have “a higher purpose” and I applaud their convictions, but if you are operating a restaurant you are also going to be judged on the food you sell. Perhaps we arrived late and thus the reason for the compromising and limited choices, but 9: 30 on a Friday night is hardly late in my opinion and as such much more attention should have been paid to those menu choices that were still left.

Burritoville is hardly an auspicious beginning to my tour of Montreal’s vegetarian restaurants and I am optimistic that this will not be representative of my future forays!

Burritoville

2055 Bishop St

Tel: 514 286-2776

www.burritoville.ca

 

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