My first restaurant of this year’s Taste MTL (aka MTL à Table or Montreal Restaurant Week) was Taverne F. I generally don’t dine at 10 p.m. but when the deal is this good… $19 for two courses. From the handful of options, I chose: Sardines with vegetable escabèche, and Grilled octopus with grelot potatoes, olives and red onions What a deal. First you get olives and salty yellow beans to snack on, and then comes the little tin of grilled sardine, still warm, perched on a bed of thinly sliced peppers and sundried tomatoes in a sweet vinegar sauce. If you request bread to soak it all up, you’ll be in heaven. I was on about Cloud 7 without the bread. That was the fun part of Taverne F that I wasn’t expecting. I knew the meal itself would be gluten-free, but I didn’t know that the restaurant stated that one the menu. So I felt very safe in its hands. And because you have to request bread to receive it (though it’s free), the servers probably aren’t handling as much of it, leading to less cross-contamination. The two gluten-free main options were the pork and clams and the grilled octopus. I was thinking of breaking my no-pork rule to try the traditional clams dish, but the server said the octopus was a little more special. He was right. It was so tender, and the thick coating of olive oil on the bottom of the cast-iron skillet almost turned the red onions to savoury, silken confit. The olives salted the leaf of something green that soaked up the octopus juices, and the hot skillet charred the potatoes just enough. Crunchy on the outside and sweet and smooth on the inside. It was the kind of dish where you savour every bite. The serving was generous and I sat back feeling as though I’d gotten my money’s worth. Great way to start the fest. MTL à Table is on until this Sunday, Nov. 9, so book your tables now if you want to get a seat. Note: Some restaurants are closed on Sunday, so the fest finishes for them on Saturday.
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