A kiss of meat

Grillades Bizou serves up an
abundance of tasty skewers

by MARK SLUTSKY

The elemental pleasures of grilled protein on a stick seem everywhere these days. Rumi Grill, recently reviewed in these pages, brings the flavours and aromas of the Spice Road to the kebab, and Grillades Bizou, a recently opened place downtown, brings a Japanese interpretation of the concept to the table.

Fine dining it’s not, but that’s okay—located right by Concordia, it seems designed for students to grab a quick bite and a beer, and it’s certainly a big step above other fast-food options in the area. I might add that it’s always good to see more palatable eating options in the blasted and desolate foodscape of downtown Montreal, and recent developments have been encouraging (La Montée de Lait recently abbreviated its name and moved down the street from Bizou, for one).

Bizou is located in a half-basement a couple of steps downstairs from the sidewalk, and it has a comfortable atmosphere: all blonde wood benches and tables, Asian pop playing over the stereo. While everything on the menu can be ordered à la carte, you get the sense that this rarely happens, as there are a few specials that are such great deals that it seems pointless to do it any other way.

Lunches are $5.99, and dinners cost either $9.99 or $14.99, depending on how hungry you are. For research purposes, we went for the latter, checking off boxes on a paper menu to communicate our selections. There were a lot of boxes to check: this special hooks you up with a little (or a lot, really) of everything. I was especially impressed that among the beverage selections was beer, though only Boréale Blanche for some reason—still, it made the deal even better. You’ve also got your choice of appetizer, side dish, 10 skewers of meat (you get two choices of five skewers each) and dessert. This is a lot of food—the $9.99 combo, which gives you a little less of everything, will definitely be my jam in the future.

Of the starters, my favourite was the cucumber salad—the cukes were marinated in something spicy, and they almost seemed like pickles. The julienne salad also had a piquant edge, though it was a bit homogenous: just plenty of strips of daikon with a light dressing. A cold beef dish, with the meat sliced thinly, almost seemed like a Japanese pastrami (or smoked meat equivalent, dare I say). The marinated salmon was sticky, sweet and savoury.

We pretty much tried every skewer on the menu. Highlights included the squid, tender and not rubbery, the marinated beef with herbs, which was soft and flavourful, the yakitori-style chicken and the lamb. I also had a fascination with the sausage, which reminded me of hors d’oeuvres weiners—sort of trashy, but also juicy and flavourful and kind of awesome. Also trashy and really addictive were the chicken wings, heavily seasoned, messy and fun to eat. The tofu was so-so—deep-fried and then grilled, it was crisp on the outside and soft within, but lacking much flavour.

The sides were a mixed bag. The green onion pancake was dry and thin where it should have been crispy and light, and there was something wrong with the veggie spring rolls I couldn’t quite place. The veggie dumplings were to our liking, though they were on the oily side.

All in all, there was quite a little feast spread out on our wooden table. And we hadn’t been served dessert yet. Bizou has the usual selection of ice creams (vanilla, green tea), sesame balls and, my choice, deep-friend banana balls, which are just as great as they sound: crispy and sugared on the outside, like little donuts, molten banana on the inside. They’re a bit tricky though, as one of my dining companions pointed out: they’re too hot to eat, then they’re the perfect temperature for about three seconds, then they’re slimy. Though they were delicious, for the first time in I don’t remember how long, I was too stuffed to finish dessert.