| The nu deal >> Verdun’s Nu Art Café is a vegetarian haven Oh joy! It’s moving day in Montreal again, that mass conspiracy on the part of landlords to have everyone change house at exactly the same time. Once again this year, a lot of people won’t be able to find or afford homes in the city core, so they’ll be moving to metro stops a little further along the line. My source in Verdun tells me that since the area has been taking in the overflow, rents have shot up around there too... just like everywhere else. Whether you’re relocating down there or not, you might want to visit an excellent little local restaurant called the Nu Art Café. It’s the comfortable, quirky kind of place that every neighbourhood should have, serving healthy food at affordable prices. The décor could be described as cute or kétaine, depending on your tolerance for that québécois brand of artiness, with brick walls set off against leopard prints and steel accents. The menu is the reverse of what you’d usually find. That is to say, there are way more vegetarian dishes than meat, by a ratio of about six to one. The dozen or so meatless meals and the two carnivorous options are priced under $10, and many items are around $7. The soup of the day, an amazing gazpacho, was well worth it for $2.50. Served chilled in a generous bowl, it was a tangy mix of freshly diced cucumbers, onions and tomatoes, with a liberal helping of garlic, vinegar and herbs thrown in. For a taste of all sorts of house specialties, the Composition ($9.95) is the way to go. It’s a mixed plate featuring a square of dense, savoury spinach terrine made with oats, and a square of veggie pâté, a homemade version with lentils, carrots and a hint of curry. There’s also a hunk of Brie, some salsa and some thick, tasty pesto to spread on the accompanying bread. It’s all held together by a salad and a scoop of Nu Art’s distinctively nutty hummus, topped with a new black olive and an edible flower. The hearty and filling Babouchka ($6.75) finds itself at the halfway point between crêpe and burrito. The roll is topped with broiled cheese and filled with a well-seasoned lentil, bell pepper and tomato mixture. Like all the dishes, it comes with a standout salad. Not just a bunch of greens used to fill up space on a plate, they seem to be crafted with care, combining fluffy lettuce with cubes of mango, cantaloupe and strawberry in a light balsamic dressing. On the side are carrot sticks, kiwi rounds, a mini-skewer of grapes, and a wedge of orange. If you want an enormous salad, try Dans le jardin, where they pull out all the stops. There’s also a bunch of sandwiches to choose from ($6.75). Served on a bagel, there’s the Chagall, with marinated eggplant, goat cheese, sun-dried tomatoes and olives, and the Renoir, with spinach terrine, tomato, cucumber, alfalfa sprouts, mayo and dijon. On baguette, L’Aznavour sounds the most delicious: pesto, feta, tomato, olives and sundried tomatoes. The rest of the menu showcases more healthy stuff like the Zen veggie burger or the Piaf ratatouille. The two meat plates-a chicken curry or a beef and cheese dish-give even more of an indication of the house bias: they’re both tacked on at the end under the heading “less vegetarian.” On
weekends, Nu Art serves breakfasts and on Friday evening, they host
Tarot readings, when you might get the answer to where all the cheap
apartments in this city went. : Feedback? restoagogo@hotmail.com |