Did Anthony Bourdain eat the Rat Turd in Point St-Charles?
We all know Anthony Bourdain did an episode of the Layover in Montreal. But just in case you did not know he is tight with the Pied de Cochon and Joe Beef dudes. The gang took Bourdain to the Capri Tavern and guess what folks? The St-Patrick Street, Point Saint-Charles, eatery was featured in the updated list of Montreal’s Dirty restos.
This week marks the one year anniversary of our blog. We started posting when we noticed the Montreal Gazette website featured a video of Caroline Dumas, from Soup Soup, doing a cooking demo. We thought this was somewhat amusing because she was also featured in Montreal’s Dirty Resto List which also happens to be some of our favorite local food reading. Is it us or does the list seem to read like your last few dining experiences?
Video: Bourdain: Rat Turds and Roaches? (Go to the 7 minute mark)
Today’s Gazette, (January 19, 2012) featured an interesting article about citizens concerned with our city’s food inspection practices. The article states that Montreal is “a mecca of gastronomy, [but] information on restaurant cleanliness is incomplete, late and not very helpful.” This is in comparison to other Canadian culinary capitals like Toronto and Vancouver where information is published on a daily basis. We have a suggestion if you want our city to be more like no-fun Vancouver and Toronto why don’t you go live there? Seriously, kidding aside, they make a good point. Didn’t the Gazette used to publish the offenders in its print edition? Are you still not allowed to stand up in a bar in Vancouver while you are holding a drink? As Montreal flexes its culinary arms in the Tourism battle should we be re-evaluating our restaurant inspection policies? We always thought that the website was not updated this time of year was because the workers were on Christmas holidays. Doesn't everyone else in the hospitality and restaurant industry have to work on weekends and holidays?
We must confess to somewhat agreeing with the article. We have been waiting for the latest update of our city’s website for months. We have worked in places where the food inspector comes in. We also seemed to always get the inspector with the bad B.O. which really makes you think because this person is authorized to fine you in the hygiene department. During one of our research sessions we were lucky enough to eat the lunch time buffet at Allo Inde during an obvious food inspection. We were not sure if it was relief or disappointment in not seeing the restaurant in the dirty list for so many months but we think we deserve a Facebook badge from the city for eating in a fined restaurant during an inspection. Did we get sick? No. Did we eat too much? Yes. The inspectors also failed to run out of the kitchen screaming "shut it down," like they do on television. At least we had a Montreal culinary experience that was similar to Anthony Bourdain.
You can click to the link of Montreal’s dirty restos here.
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