By Matt
Doesn’t look like much, does it? Little would one know that the dumpling deal of the century is just beyond that bamboo blind in the doorway. This recent, and welcome, addition to The Pointe’s restaurant scene, located at the corner of Laprairie and Chateauguay streets does mainly your average Chinese-American stuff (fried rice, General Tao, etc.) but hidden down at the bottom of their brief menu are dumplings. Fried dumplings. Six for $2!
I may be wrong, but I don’t think that there’s another place in town that does pork and vegetable dumplings this cheap. There was no choice in how to have them done but I wonder if maybe they would consider boiling or steaming them if requested. As far as the dumplings themselves they were actually pretty good. Nice pork and cabbage flavour with carrot and onion among, I’m sure, other things that I couldn’t pick out. And for $2? Ridiculous. If you live in The Pointe you’ve got a new, ultra-cheap dinner or lunch option.
Thank you for your post.
OK, that looks awesome and I’ve walked past there a few times a week since I moved into the neighbourhood. So far I haven’t had the nerve to go in… figured it was either a fantastic gem, or a complete nightmare and wasn’t willing to take my chances.
I’ve only been here less than 2 months… people tell me that asian restaurants are not montreal’s strength. Do you think this is true? I love it here so far, but I’ve moved from Toronto where – really – there are tons of really excellent chinese/korean/thai/japanese/vietnamese/cambodian/etc restaurants (maybe Toronto’s only saving grace?). Any recommendations?
I haven’t tried anything but their dumplings so I can’t vouch for their other food, looks pretty stock (General Tao, Tom Yum, etc.), but the dumplings are a great deal. For Chinese food, and keep in mind I’m no expert, I would recommend Lotus Bleu and Cuisine Xiang in Verdun. You can;t go wrong with either of those. We do have a bunch of really good Vietnamese places and I think that’s the only area of Asian food that we could beat Toronto in a blind taste-test. The pho that I’ve had in Toronto, even the stuff that was supposedly very good by T.O.’s standards was not on the level that I’ve had here. I’d say for Vietnamese food check out Pho Bac 97 in Chinatown, Pho Tay Ho on St. Denis and Beaubien, Pho Nam Do on St. Denis and Jean Talon and Banh Xeo Minh on Belanger in Rosemont. For Cambodian try Phnom Phen on Cote Des Neiges and Jean Talon.
And since you’re living in the Pointe you have to go to Paul Patates on Charlevoix for poutine and spruce beer (which they make on-site) and Charcuterie Wayne on Centre near Shearer, an amazing Polish deli. Get their handmade peirogies and kielbasa with some of their cheesecake for dessert. Wayne’s is one of the reasons we moved back to Pointe St. Charles and it must surely be one of, if not the best of it’s kind in all of Montreal.
Thanks for the advice! I really appreciate it. I’ve been slow to try new places, just money-wise. But very excited to give a few of these a try – I haven’t explored Verdun yet. Usually walking between here and downtown, and along Notre Dame.
I’m just down the street from Waynes, so I will give that a shot next. I’ve stopped into the other Polish place (across from the church) – their strudel is pretty good, and they sell Polish cream fudge candy (krowki), which, if you’ve never had it, you’re missing out.
What’s the deal with Cafe Mesa Latina?