T not toqué!

A meal at Brasserie T!, a new midrange
spinoff of Toqué, peaked during the first course

by BARTEK KOMOROWSKI

Upon learning that the legendary local chef Normand Laprise of Toqué! had opened a new restaurant that a Mirror writer could actually afford, I promptly hatched a mission to investigate. To assess Laprise’s more humble offerings at Brasserie T!, I turned to my roommate Einar and his discerning palate. We convened at a rather busy Brasserie T! on a Monday night. Had I not made a reservation, we may have needed to wait for a table. After being led through the aseptic indoor part of the restaurant, we settled into the relatively large outdoor seating area. Our table had a nice view onto the very animated Place des Festivals. Unfortunately, it also had a view onto a mop and some dirty buckets inside the restaurant.

For starters, Einar ordered the smoked herring with whipped cream ($11). The fish was cut into small dice, mixed with the cream, and served with flat croutons. As men of Northern European birth, we both have a great affinity for this strong-tasting, oily fish. Neither of us had ever tasted herring in sweet cream, only in sour cream. It complemented the subtly smoky fish and helped cut its saltiness. Very enjoyable. I ordered an appetizer called pineapple ham ($12), suspecting that there would be more to this dish than the name suggested. Indeed there was! I was presented with a generous pile of thinly sliced smoked ham, drizzled with fiery yellow dressing and sprinkled with a few croutons. This was a real delight! The freshly sliced ham was of excellent quality, with a nice outer layer of delicious creamy white fat. The intensely aromatic and sweet pineapple dressing was a wonderful counterpoint to the salty smokiness of the ham.

After such a good start, we looked forward to our mains. Einar chose the cod brandade ($12), with which he requested the vegetable of the day—in this case, roasted new beets ($7). The brandade—boiled salt cod mixed with potato, garlic and olive oil—had a nice, coarse texture and was served atop two large slices of crusty bread. We both found the taste to be a little flat. We hailed our waiter to bring lemon, a small sprinkle of which breathed life into the dish. I’m surprised it hadn’t been served with a lemon wedge by default. The accompanying beets, dressed with butter, garlic and parsley, were initially similarly dull tasting. In my opinion, beets always need a little bit of acid—be it vinegar or lemon—to bring out their subtle, earthy flavour. Luckily, we had the lemon that the waiter had brought us on hand and quickly proceeded to correct the problem, to pleasing results.

For my main, I ordered the pork ribs with fries ($20), which were highly recommended by our waiter. I love ribs and I was curious to see Laprise’s take on them. Not so great, I am afraid. The half rack of ribs I received was a desiccated, almost flavourless disappointment. It had a thick almost solid glaze, unappealingly caked onto the surface. The glaze was bland, cloying and lacking even the faintest vinegary tang. The meat underneath was properly soft and falling off the bone but too dry. The accompanying fries were nothing special and the coleslaw was a very plain affair, no better than anything you would get at a greasy spoon.

Both feeling let down, we looked to the dessert menu in hope of finding succour—a strategy that backfired. Aside from waiting a good 20 minutes to receive two desserts requiring absolutely no preparation, they both turned out to be total duds. The frozen nougat ($5), while having a pleasantly dense and creamy texture, was overpowered by chunks of orange zest. The other dessert, a trottoir aux fruits ($6), was—forgive the pun—quite pedestrian. This large, flat piece of flaky pastry basically covered with a strawberry jam, looked and tasted like it had been under a hot lamp for several hours.

If Brasserie T! is supposed to be a business card for big Toqué!, it might need to be sent back to the printers