Racines, Musgrave's Musts and More

Gildas Meneu files a fresh - and very enthusiastic - review of Racines this past week: "Une cuisine structurée, finement exécutée et délicate. La carte des vins regorge de découvertes." [Voir]

Fresh off Lesley Chesterman's choice plates of 2013, Sarah Musgrave submits her best of the past 12 months. The casual restaurant critic for the Gazette doles praise on the likes of La Petite Mangue, Tuk Tuk, Sen Vang, Ruby Burma and Micro Resto La Famille. The birds at Ma Poule Mouillée, however, get a star turn: "The grill at Ma Poule Mouillée can handle 32 chickens in under an hour, and the meat is juicy with a hint of charcoal cooking on the surface. The hot sauce is tops, a recipe containing piri piri peppers, porto, whisky, white wine and orange juice that was inspired by [owner Tony] Alves's parents' restaurant in northern Portugal." [Gazette]

Musgrave also manages to file a review for Mei Yuan, a Downtown Chinese restaurant with emphasis on Henan cuisine: "A lamb soup with broad noodles also looked appealing, as did Chinese crêpes and calzones. But as it was, there were swaths of menu I didn't explore, including almost two dozen types of skewers echoing what you'd find at Kaifeng's legendary night market." [Gazette]

Le Devoir was full of holiday fare from the likes of Tapeo chef Marie-Fleur Saint-Pierre, pastry chef Patrice Demers and Jérôme Ferrer of Europea over the weekend. And, despite some hiccups, a strong endorsement of Pastaga from critic Jean-Philippe Tastet: "Pastaga offre une cuisine correspondant à ce qu'on s'attend à trouver chez Martin Juneau, qui trouve toujours le moyen de préparer des plats étonnants." [Devoir]

Tastet is also a fan of a new Old Montreal lunch spot and café, La Récréation: "Quand vous aurez mangé et bu ce que préparent les gens de La Récréation, vous voudrez vraiment rester des heures ici." [Tastet]

Over at La Presse, Marie-Claude Lortie enumerates five mainstays of 2013: Ferreira Café, Le Filet, KanBai, Brasserie T!, and Olive + Gourmando: "O+G, c'est ma cantine. Ce n'est pas donné, mais je n'ai pas encore trouvé un restaurant dans le monde qui fasse à la fois d'aussi bons sandwichs, d'aussi bonnes soupes, d'aussi bonnes salades et d'aussi bonnes viennoiseries, avec atmosphère bruyante et parfois bousculée mais toujours sympathique." [La Presse]