Asian adventure

Taste Cambodian food and stock up your
East Asian pantry in Ville St. Laurent

by BARTEK KOMOROWSKI

Stricken with gustatory depression after a disappointing meal, I needed a pick-me-up. My friend Gita, who changed my life for the better by introducing me to Dobe and Andy in Chinatown, suggested that I take a trip out to Ville St. Laurent to try a Cambodian/Thai restaurant called Asie Moderne. Needless to say Ville St. Laurent, a suburban borough north of Côte-des-Neiges, is not usually my first destination for eating out and it probably isn’t yours either. I will argue that it’s worth the trip.

For the 45-minute bicycle ride from Villeray to Ville St. Laurent, I joined forces with my musically gifted friend Charlotte. She serenaded me with adlib arias as we cruised down the elegant, diagonal avenues of Town of Mount Royal (the lesser Westmount) on a balmy June Sunday afternoon, making the long ride quite painless.

With a name like Asie Moderne, I feared this restaurant would have the kind of wannabe-sophisticated halogen lamp, bamboo and lotus flower decor that a lot of lame Asian restaurants seem to have. I was charmed to discover a 1970s decor, complete with kitschy oil paintings of tropical landscapes. After Charlotte and I settled into these pleasingly off-beat surroundings, we examined the sprawling, fully photo-illustrated menu. There were so many choices, some familiar, but most novel to us both. Overwhelmed, we deferred to some recommendations that Gita had given me: beef lok lak and grilled pork chops. We topped this up with an order of something called noodles with tamarind sauce and something else called stir-fried watercress.

The first item, the beef lok lak, was the real standout: a pile of cubed beef, cooked rare, sprinkled with black pepper and served with sliced onions and a bowl of limejuice dipping. So simple and so delicious. The grilled pork chops were slightly sweet and soy flavoured—satisfying but not terribly original. The noodle dish turned out to be none other than the familiar pad thai—a very good one, I must say. The last dish was a pile of large, leafy greens on thick, hollow, straw-like stems—nothing like the delicate peppery greens that I associate with the word watercress.

We both washed our food down with some freshly made fruit drinks, a fairly wide array of which was available on the menu. Charlotte got a baby coconut punch, which was pleasantly subtle, just slightly sweet and extremely refreshing after our long ride.

For my own drink, I asked the waiter for a recommendation. He pointed to a picture of a large, green, spiny fruit with white flesh but was unable to tell me its name. I got a thick, fluffy milkshake-like concoction with an unusual taste. At first, I didn’t like it. The smell reminded me of a kitchen cloth left at the bottom of the sink. The taste was good but took a bit of getting used to. Though not an instant hit, there was something about this drink that compelled me to continue sipping. The more I had, the more I liked it. I wish I knew what it was.

Just a block away from Asie Moderne is the pan-East-Asian superstore Hawaï (1999 Marcel-Laurin). This place is the Adonis of East Asian food, for those familiar with this Middle Eastern hypermarket. If you enjoy practicing any kind of east-Asian cuisine at home—be it Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese, Korean, Malaysian etc.—you are likely to find all the ingredients you need here. For your convenience, the aisles are labelled by country (!!!). The range of dry, fresh and frozen products available is dizzying.

I wouldn’t go out of my way just to go to Asie Moderne. Nonetheless, I was sufficiently pleased with my experience to stop by the next time I head to Hawaï. I look forward to trying other items on the menu, including other strange fruit shakes.

If you aren’t motorized and can’t find a diva to provide soundtracks for a bicycle ride over to Asie Moderne and Hawaï, you can always take public transit. The two can be reached by bus or even by foot from Côte-Vertu metro.