Meals with muscle

>> Parc newcomer Masaï makes up for its empty atmosphere with an excellent menu

by MARK SLUTSKY

Masaï is incongruous. It might be right on the periphery of Outremont, and only a block up from Milos, but a fancy-looking, loungey restaurant with bright red furniture on Parc between St-Viateur and Bernard, amongst the drug stores, Hasidic groceries and travel agencies, stands out.

Two important things about Masaï: It’s huge, and, despite the name, it’s barely African, having very little to do with the East African tribe with which it shares a name. There’s one straight-up African dish on the menu, the chicken yassa, but as that happens to be a dish most often associated with Senegal, on the other side of the continent from the Kenyan lands where the Masaï make their home, we can assume the correspondence is coincidental.

Housed in a former air conditioner store, the place is big—maybe too big. In the front, there’s an elevated area our server referred to as the “terrace” (I’m guessing they’ll open the windows in the summer). Behind that is a large bar area and a row of booths that stretches way back. Blown-up black and white photos adorn the walls behind the booths, and they were the only real hint of any specific atmosphere; the room’s immensity and the listless restaurant house music contribute to a generic ambience.

Luckily, the food is good enough that on a recent trip, the negative vibes didn’t bother us too much. I was a little surprised by the menu when I opened it—from an earlier glance at it in the restaurant’s window a few months before, I had assumed this was a multiple-shared-plates tapas-esque joint, but such was not the case. According to the waiter, the restaurant has been through a few menus since it opened in the fall, though, he assured us, the current incarnation incorporates “the best of all of them.”

We started out by sharing the fried calamari with “mayo masaï” ($9), which actually split pretty well between four people. The squid was light and crisp, and the mayo was spicy and peppery, although some debate raged at the table as to what pepper exactly was responsible for its particular taste, with some insisting on chipotle and others claiming jalapeño.

For our main courses, we ordered the chicken yassa with fried plantains ($16), the moules frites “a l’inspiration du chef” ($15), the spicy coconut shrimp ($23) and the veal burger ($18). The chicken yassa went over quite well—marinated poultry cooked in lemon juice and onions, it was a tender treat well-suited to the crisp, fried plantains that accompanied it.

The moules frites were a hit as well. There was nothing particularly special or different about them—it was your standard white wine and garlic sauce—but they were exceptionally tasty. I’m not even a particular fan of the dish myself, but I have to say these were some of the best I’ve had in this city. And the frites were nothing to sneeze at either. Perfectly crisp and soft and golden, they’re really worth trying. Incidentally, the fries come with a shot glass of mayonnaise, which is quite convenient for dipping, as long as you can get the image of doing a mayo shot at the bar out of your head. It’s really not a nice thing to think about.

Despite the excellence of the yassa and the moules, it was the shrimp that really won the show. Served with delicious spicy grilled mango, the crevettes were plump and piquant, real show-stoppers.

The same can’t be said, unfortunately, of the veal burger. Served with those same great fries, the patty was topped with a big round slice of chèvre. The cheese’s strong taste, coupled with the imposing flavour of the mustard pre-decanted on the roll, nearly drowned out the taste of the veal. It was a collision of flavours, with none of them left standing.

Still, that was the only dish we didn’t fully enjoy. If Masaï can make its atmosphere a little more inviting, it’ll find its place on Parc.

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