Les Enfants Terribles Montreal

Posted By Jennifer Ho Dec 23 2011 · 0 comments · Dining Out

Norwegian Omelette Flambeed With Navan

After hearing so much hype and buzz around Les Enfants Terribles, we finally made it over last week. Excited and ready to be impressed by the culinary prowess we’d heard so much about, it was unfortunate that after so much build up and positive expectations, we were let down. To start off, we made reservations for 9:30 pm only to be seated forty-five minutes later. That in itself is unacceptable. I understand that the restaurant is busy and it is a Friday night, but so are most other restaurants in the city and from my experience, this has only ever happened one other time. Don’t restaurants have a system through which they organize the amount of seating they have available, the timing of those coming and going so that there aren’t these kinds of frustrating waits? Right off the bat, it was just a bad start to the evening. Most people I’ve spoken to about their tolerance for wait time averages around 20-30 minutes, and 30 minutes is reserved for restaurants that they really, really want to go to. This made the rest of the evening difficult to enjoy despite pleasant company of my dining counterpart. Note that I’ve tried my best to judge the food impartially.

Looking at the cocktail list, the classic selection caught my eye. They all sounded pretty good but I ended up getting the delicious Sweetea cocktail which was made with brown rum, blackcurrant liquor, red berry tea, fresh orange juice and passion fruit syrup. A pint of Sapporo was ordered as well.

To start we had each got one of the tartares: classic beef and salmon. Both were quite good. I liked the quail egg and mushroom combination – definitely something that I haven’t seen in beef tartares before and it worked nicely. Portions were smaller than we had anticipated but thankfully the mains were large enough to fill us up. We had an order of fish and chips and fried salmon with quinao, edamame, kale and chimichurri sauce. The fish and chips are generally hard to mess up but the chefs managed to do something a little extra with the dish. My dining counterpart mentioned that it was one of the better pieces of fried and battered fish he’d had in a while – extra crispy on the outside and perfectly flaky on the inside. Kudos. The fish came in a hearty quantity laid on top of a bed of extra healthy veggies. Had a little trouble finishing the fish off as it got a little drier towards the end.

As we got ready to pay the bill and get out of the place an hour later than we had meant to, we were offered complimentary dessert. So we got the two specials: the Norwegian omelette flambéed with Navan and the homemade lemon meringue pie with Nutella ice cream. The omelette had a beautiful presentation as evidenced by the featured photo – the flames licking the sides of the pistachio ice cream and raspberries sprinkled below was captivating. The taste was forgettable though. The lemon meringue was classic and we had no complaints there. The nutella ice cream was a bit of strange pairing but tasted great nonetheless.

Overall, to be completely true to my experience, I do not foresee a repeat visit for the near future. While the food ended up being relatively good – the service at the start and the long wait in spite of having reserved several weeks in advance was just a huge turn off for me. It’s too bad – I really wanted to like this place.